Hello readers of The Infinite Thread. We reached the limit of 500 comments in the previous chapter, and now the thread has automatically rolled over to begin again at comment number 1.
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A Texas couple including a man who in 2022 ran a failed campaign for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives have been found guilty of several felony and misdemeanor crimes for their part in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, according to a news release from the Department of Justice.
Mark Middleton, 55, and Jalise Middleton, 54, both of Forestburg, Texas, were found guilty by a federal jury of two counts of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers; civil disorder; and obstruction of an official proceeding., according to the release. All of those charges were felonies…
I would like to take this opportunity to remind people that the 14th amendment is not exclusive to the orange one.
Smirnov, 43, was indicted on charges of making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record. No attorney was immediately listed for him in court records. He was expected to make a first court appearance in Las Vegas, where he was arrested Wednesday after arriving from overseas, prosecutors said.
If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison.
The charges were filed by Justice Department special counsel David Wiess, who has separately charged Hunter Biden with firearm and tax violations.
Republicans’ favorite Biden conspiracy theory has now totally collapsed.
On Wednesday, ABC News reported on texts House ethics probe investigators had discovered between Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and an unnamed woman. Those texts purported to show the Florida congressman propositioning the woman to come on a three-day weekend trip to the Florida Keys. A Gaetz spokesperson told ABC News, “Rep. Gaetz does not know anything about the woman you’re referencing, though he takes thousands of selfies each year.”
Selfies? The Daily Beast is now reporting that they have obtained at least some of the texts and spoke with the woman’s attorney about her previous testimony to investigators, and that story doesn’t jibe with the “does not know anything about the woman you’re referencing” response. […] he woman, in fact, received payments in connection with multiple sex parties with people in Gaetz’s circle. Her lawyer said that, in response to a subpoena, she testified about her experiences to the U.S. Attorneys investigating Gaetz. And she turned over text messages, photos, and other evidence to the Justice Department as part of its child sex trafficking inquiry into the Florida congressman, the lawyer said. […]
larparsays
From tomh in previous thread, #498
“Quote of the day:
“My father built the skyline of New York City: And this is the thanks he gets….
Eric Trump on Fox News.”
Even if he did (he didn’t), he (and you) did it fraudulently. That’s the point.
[…] Anyway, $364 million dollars, a three-year ban on running any business entities in New York, a ban on borrowing money from any bank licensed to do business in New York […], and the Trump Organization has to be overseen by a permanent and independent compliance director for as long as it exists. There’s also some interest already due on that puppy, which is estimated to put the fine north of $450 million. US.
But Donald Trump can still be president of the United States, somehow. Hell, after this and being banned from running charities or “schools” like Trump University, POTUS might be the only job he can have. And even then, he’ll be criming before his hand is even off the Bible.
Alexei Navalny’s team confirmed the Russian opposition figure’s death Saturday, a day after Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service announced that he had fallen unconscious and died following a walk in the Arctic prison where he was being held.
“Alexey Navalny was murdered. His death occurred on February 16 at 2:17 p.m. local time, according to the official message to Alexey’s mother,” his spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said on X Saturday.
“An employee of the colony said that the body of Navalny is now in Salekhard. It was picked up by investigators from the IC. Now they are conducting ‘investigations’ with him,” she added.
“We demand that Alexey Navalny’s body be handed over to his family immediately,” she said. […]
Navalny’s family awaited independent confirmation on the news of his death following the announcement by Russian authorities yesterday, with Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, saying, “We cannot believe Putin and his government. They are lying constantly,” during a speech at the Munich Security Conference.
“But if it is the truth, I would like Putin and all his staff, everybody around him — his government, his friends — I want them to know that they will be punished for what they have done with our country, with my family and with my husband,” she said. “They will be brought to justice, and this day will come soon.”
On Saturday, Vice President Kamala Harris told press that she had met with Navalnaya, describing her husband as “a brave leader who stood up against corruption and autocracy, and he stood up for the truth.”
His death served as “further proof of Putin’s brutality,” she added, and “reminds us why our fight for Ukraine is so important.”
[…] Navalny, an outspoken critic of Putin, has been the largest thorn in the Kremlin’s side for years.
In 2020, he was poisoned with a military nerve agent — an attempt on his life that he blamed directly on Putin — and had been given multiple successive prison sentences with the aim that he would not pose a political threat to Putin for the remainder of the Russian president’s life.
Responding to Navalny’s death on Friday, President Joe Biden said “there is no doubt” that his death “was the consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did,” following it with a call to increase funding from Congress to help Ukraine fight Russia’s invasion.
It marks the most high-profile retreat for Kyiv’s forces since Russia’s capture of Bakhmut. A lack of military aid has forced Ukrainian commanders to ration ammunition.
[…] Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the withdrawal was necessary to spare soldiers’ lives.
“We are just waiting for more weapons,” Zelenskyy said in Munich, Germany, during a high-profile security conference. “We don’t have long-range weapons, so our main weapon today is our soldiers, our people.”
[…] an artillery sergeant fighting in the town for several months told NBC News that his unit had faced severe restrictions on how many rounds it could fire daily amid shortages compounded by dwindling human resources.
[…] The nearly ruined town had a prewar population of 32,000. Its seizure by Russian forces would expand Moscow’s control of the eastern Donetsk region, but Ukraine is still far from losing the remainder of the region, at least for now.
HOUSTON — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s criminal trial appears poised to begin in two months after a judge on Friday denied his request to dismiss charges.
Paxton’s long-awaited trial is set to begin April 15 in Houston on nearly 9-year-old charges of felony securities fraud. He has pleaded not guilty.
Paxton was indicted in 2015 on two counts of securities fraud related to allegations that he solicited investors in a Collin County company without disclosing that he was being paid for the work.
The first-degree fraud charges carry up to 99 years in prison if Paxton is convicted.
[…]
The securities fraud case is the most severe pending legal matter for Paxton, who is one of the highest-profile state attorneys general in the country and is widely supported by the Republican base for his work to further conservative causes through the courts.
Paxton also is facing an ethics complaint for his legal challenge to results in the 2020 presidential election, a whistleblower lawsuit that could cost taxpayers millions and an ongoing FBI investigation into allegations that he misused his office to help a friend and political donor.
[…]
For months, Fox hosts and congressional Republicans have relentlessly pushed the incredibly dubious and unproven claim that then-Vice President Joe Biden was bribed by Ukrainians during the Obama administration. The informant who is the sole origin of those claims was just indicted for lying to the FBI. After news broke earlier in the day, none of Fox’s prime-time hosts even mentioned the indictment.
Fox News spent years spreading allegations that Biden was involved in corrupt practices in Ukraine in a baseless smear campaign against the president and his family. The resulting investigations led by House Republicans have all been futile, despite the constant promise of a smoking gun. (Trump’s personal attempt to get involved led to his first impeachment. Fox News’ research arm, the so-called “brain room,” at the time made clear that this was a right-wing disinformation campaign.)
The latest Republican theory to collapse centers on a partial copy of an “FD-1023,” a summary document of an FBI interview, with a confidential informant, which Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) circulated in 2023. The document says the informant claimed Biden accepted bribes from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma while his son, Hunter Biden, was serving on the board of the company.
On February 15, authorities arrested that same informant, Alexander Smirnov, in Las Vegas and charged him with lying to the bureau about Hunter and Joe Biden. The indictment alleges that Smirnov falsely told the FBI that Burisma officials told him they hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.” Smirnov also allegedly lied to the FBI that Burisma officials had confirmed Joe Biden accepted $5 million in bribes from the company.
The contents of the FD-1023 form were never verified, but that did not stop Fox News from whipping up hysteria around the baseless allegations and decrying the alleged scandal. Host Sean Hannity alone aired 85 segments promoting the claim, including 28 monologues. The Washington Post’s Philip Bump estimates that Fox News mentioned the claim about 2,600 times in the last 12 months.
Here are a few examples to show just how far Fox personalities went with the unsubstantiated claim (which was also not limited to Fox News, spreading throughout MAGA media):
Fox News’ Jesse Watters cited an “allegation that Joe Biden accepted a “$5 million bribe … from a foreign national” to justify his claim that as vice president, Biden was working as “an intelligence op” for the FBI. Watters then claimed the FBI was “caught in a cover-up.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 6/5/23]
[…]
Many video segments, and more details are available at the link.
In addition to Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Martha MacCallum, Ainsley Earhardt, Rachel Campos-Duffy, all of the Fox & Friends hosts, Will Cain, and Jesse Watters promoted the lies dozens of times on a daily basis for months. None of the Fox hosts have aired corrections. In other words, Fox News viewers may not know that the foundation of the House Republican’s investigation has crumbled.
SEAN HANNITY (HOST): I’m mad at the FBI that they got it wrong on the Christopher Steele dossier and he was a “credible informant” to them that was paid by them and paid by Hillary Clinton. I’m mad that the FBI informant, the 1023 form in this case, that now this guy has been charged. It appears that Alexander Smirnov was not to be trusted. […]
“See! Hannity didn’t tell the truth about the FBI informant!” I guess I was stupid. I should’ve learned from Christopher Steele. They have a bad taste in picking out FBI informants. That’s on the FBI. That’s on the FBI. What we reported on the FBI was factual, until they told us this week that it wasn’t factual. It doesn’t negate any part of the Biden family syndicate. Oh, I’m going to have fun with this when we have more time.
France, Germany and Luxembourg have seized properties and frozen assets worth 120 million euros ($130m) in an operation linked to money laundering in Lebanon, according to the EU’s justice agency.
“Five properties in Germany and France were seized as well as several bank accounts [were frozen],” Eurojust said in a statement on Monday.
The Hague-based Eurojust said the operation on Friday was directed against five people who were suspected of embezzling public funds in Lebanon of more than $330m between 2002 and 2021…
The agency did not give any details on the suspects, saying, “They are assumed to be innocent until proven guilty”…
From the brief of Alabama and 21 other states (full text)
The sudden urgency has invited public speculation that this case has an improper purpose—to influence the 2024 election. Amici States represent millions of Americans, many of whom worry that the timing of this prosecution was calculated to silence or to imprison President Biden’s political rival.
True or not, such fears are deeply corrosive. And by acquiescing in the rush to trial, the courts below have only amplified the perception of impropriety. Denying the stay would greenlight the prosecution to proceed at breakneck speed and to put the apparent frontrunner for the presidency on trial in the lead up to the election. Granting a stay would calm the fervor, reassure the public, and permit the normal and orderly review of these weighty issues. Properly understood, the public interest demands a stay.
The brief asks for the Supreme Court to impose a “semblance of normalcy.” Indeed.
In New Hampshire, Biden was polling at 56, but actually got 64 as a write in candidate. In South Carolina, the one poll had him at 69, with a 64 point lead — but he actually got 96! In Nevada, again, only 1 poll, with him at 78, with a 76 point lead, but he actually got 90 (though to Williamson’s credit, she too smashed her 2% polling by getting 3%).
In other words, it’s not just Dems generically, but Uncle Joe specifically who seems to be performing better — much better — than he’s polling.
And on the Trump side, it’s the inverse. Leaving aside Nevada (which given the caucus/primary mess is basically impossible to disentangle), we’ve got:
Iowa, in which the polling had Trump at 53, and a combined Haley and DeSantis at 34. On caucus night, it was Trump 51, H+D=40. Not a huge underperformance, but an underperformance nevertheless. (And mind you, this was during a huge snowstorm, and a caucus, in which Trump’s zealots were expected to come out in relatively greater force).
New Hampshire, in which the polling had Trump at 54, Haley at 36, an 18 point margin. But while Trump got actually did get 54, his margin over Haley was only 9.
Look, I don’t know what November will bring, but I think it’s foolish to think that today’s result in New York is just a blip. We’ve been seeing months and months of Dems (and more specifically Biden) significantly overperforming polls, and Republicans (and more specifically Trump) underperforming theirs.
To date, over 50,000 infrastructure and clean energy projects have now been announced thanks to Bidenomics and President Biden’s Investing in America agenda.
[…] and mobilized over $640 billion in private sector clean energy and manufacturing investments.
It is the first time the U.S. will transfer funds to a foreign ally for the explicit purpose of assisting Ukraine and comes as foreign aid for the embattled nation has stalled in Congress.
The U.S. will transfer confiscated Russian funds to Estonia to be used in support of Ukraine, the Justice Department announced Saturday.
The nearly $500,000 sum was secured from “an illegal procurement network attempting to import into Russia a high-precision, U.S.-origin machine tool with uses in the defense and nuclear proliferation sectors,” according to a DOJ press release.
It is the first time the U.S. will transfer funds to a foreign ally for the explicit purpose of assisting Ukraine and comes as foreign aid for the embattled nation has stalled in Congress.
The funds are being transferred to Estonia because current authorities do not allow for a direct transfer to Ukraine. According to deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco, the funds will be used for a project designed to streamline damage assessments of Ukraine’s electrical transmission and distribution systems.
“This is an incremental step toward justice and restoration. But it is a necessary step. And it blazes a new trail towards combatting Russia’s ongoing brutality,” said Monaco in remarks prepared for delivery at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
“The Department of Justice will continue pursuing creative solutions to ensure the Ukrainian people can respond and rebuild. Dollar by dollar. House by house. Town by town,” Monaco added, noting that the administration would not wait for Congress, but rather would use existing authorities to provide assistance to Ukraine.
President Putin is Furious about an Arms Swap Deal brokered by the USA under which Ecuador has agreed to Swap all of its Russian manufactured Military equipment for $200 Million worth of USA Arms and the Russian Arms will be sent directly to Ukraine to assist with the war against Russia. Ecuador is the world’s largest exporter of BANANAS and Russia buys around 20% of its total exports however as a result of this Arms Swap Russia issued a Health & Safety Notice against these bananas. In this video I provide more details of the Arms Swap deal, the trade between Ecuador and Russia and discuss the new ECONOMIC COLD WAR.
Former Congressman George Santos (R-N.Y.) sued Jimmy Kimmel on Saturday over alleged misuse of Cameo videos the lawmaker has been making since being expelled from the House.
The former New York congressman filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, suing the late-night television host for fraud, breach of contract, unjust enrichment and copyright infringement. ABC and Disney were both also named as defendants in the lawsuit.
Kimmel requested at least 14 videos from Santos on Cameo, a video-sharing website where celebrities sell personalized videos.
Kimmel submitted requests by giving “phony names and narratives.” Those requests were sent from “fake User profiles” made by Kimmel as part of a “fraud,” according to the lawsuit.
The late-night show “falsely represented” himself as multiple users when requesting Santos’ Cameos, according to the lawsuit which was first reported by The New York Post. Santos is seeking at least $750,000 in damages…
The federal Act […] affirms that Indigenous peoples have an inherent right to jurisdiction of child and family services
[…]
“Canada” has jurisdiction to delegate the force of federal law to Indigenous governments. […] Friday’s Supreme Court decision dismisses Quebec’s appeal and upholds that Indigenous laws will prevail over any conflicting provincial laws.
[…]
The decision also points—several times—to its dedication towards UNDRIP [Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples]. […] As it stands, there’s no obligation within the Act for the federal government or provincial governments to fund the implementation of Indigenous laws. But […] the Supreme Court’s decision will help put the pressure on Canada.
As he closes in on the Republican presidential nomination, former President Donald Trump made a highly unusual stop Saturday, hawking new Trump-branded sneakers at “Sneaker Con,” a gathering that bills itself as the “The Greatest Sneaker Show on Earth.”
Trump was met with loud boos as well as cheers at the Philadelphia Convention Center as he introduced what he called the first official Trump footwear.
The shoes, gold lame high tops with an American flag detail on the back, are being sold as “Never Surrender High-Tops” for $399 on a new website that also sells Trump-branded “Victory47” cologne and perfume for $99 a bottle. He’d be the 47th president if elected again…
Lawsuits seeking to hold Donald Trump personally accountable for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol can move forward after the former president chose not to take his broad immunity claim to the Supreme Court.
Trump had a Thursday deadline to file a petition at the Supreme Court contesting an appeals court decision from December that rejected his immunity arguments, but he did not do so.
The appeals court made it clear that Trump could still claim immunity later in the proceedings in three cases brought by Capitol Police officers and members of Congress…
Nearly 80 years after the end of World War II, a site in Colorado that once held thousands of Japanese Americans opened its doors this week as the country’s newest national park.
The Department of the Interior reopened what was Camp Amache on Thursday, nearly two years after President Joe Biden signed the park into law following a multiyear bipartisan effort by Colorado lawmakers.
“As a nation, we must face the wrongs of our past in order to build a more just and equitable future. The Interior Department has the tremendous honor of stewarding America’s public lands and natural and cultural resources to tell a complete and honest story of our nation’s history,” Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement…
birgerjohanssonsays
Farron Cousins at ‘Farron Balanced’ at Youtube has an idea why the polls are skewed. The polls start off by checking the wossname, when you count all people living in USA. Then they check how many registered Democrats and Republicans that live in those states, before they start polling.
But the last… wossname, I am not an English speaker goddammit, was before the pandemic. Since then, a disproportionate number of Republicans have died, för reasons we all know (they still keep dying, because COVID is still here, and even the ‘mild’ variants are twice as deadly as the flu).
Farron Cousins is saying, the way the polls are designed they have not corrected for the demographic shift and are acting on obsolete data.
I do not know the nuts and bolts of how polls are designed (and it is 41 years since I took a course in statistics) so I have to trust Cousins is processing the numbers right.
But this could help explaining the discrepancy between polls and election results.
Reginald Selkirksays
@23 “census”
johnson catmansays
re Reginald Selkirk @20: Sneaker CON indeed!! I bet the sneakers are almost as good as tRump Steaks or tRrump University. And I wonder if the “Victory47” cologne has the stink that reportedly surrounds the former president?
birgerjohanssonsays
Reginald Selkirk @ 24 Thanks.
birgerjohanssonsays
You deserve some ‘good vibes’
This Youtube video is 48 minutes long. It is more upbeat than most ‘SCP Foundation’ tales.
Flanked by armed National Guard members, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced on Friday plans to build a base housing up to 1,800 troops in Eagle Pass, close to the riverfront area where state leaders have been at loggerheads with the Biden administration over immigration enforcement.
The base, planned to house an initial 300 troops by April, is the latest effort by Abbott to curb border crossings into Texas under a mission dubbed Operation Lone Star that he began less than two months after President Biden was inaugurated….
The base “will amass a large army at a very strategic area. It will increase the speed and flexibility of the Texas National Guard to be able to respond to crossings,” Abbott said Friday during a news conference in Eagle Pass. “This will organize substantial forces also to expand the razor-wire barriers that are going up.”
The 80-acre “forward operating base” — a phrase the U.S. military used to label many of its camps dotting Iraq and Afghanistan — will sit near the Rio Grande. It will also include command posts, weapons storage rooms, vehicle maintenance bays and a helicopter pad, according to Maj. Gen. Thomas Suelzer, the head of the Texas Military Department.
[…]
A contract, awarded Feb. 9 to the New Braunfels, Tex., company Team Housing Solutions, lists a completion date of Sept. 7 and a price of $131 million for the construction of the base, the military newspaper Stars and Stripes reported.
The base will be about 6 miles south of Shelby Park — the battleground between Texas and the federal government that has been the site of thousands of unauthorized border crossings from Mexico.
Abbott seized control of Shelby Park, located in Eagle Pass along the banks of the Rio Grande, in January. He blocked Border Patrol agents from the park, which they have long used as a staging point….
In January, the Biden administration sued Texas over its immigration policies. Later that month, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that Abbott let the Border Patrol remove the razor-wire barriers that prevented agents from reaching the river to help migrants in distress. Instead, Abbott installed more razor wire — a move encouraged by 25 Republican governors who signed a letter of support.
Abbott said Friday that the new base allows National Guard members to more efficiently install that razor wire. “Our goal is to make sure we expand the effectiveness of that razor wire to more areas along this border,” he said.
Mike Johnson’s campaign donations have come back to haunt him as scrutiny of Russians donating to his coffers before he became Speaker, and after he and his caucus refused the needed 60 billion USD funding for Ukraine to defend themselves from the war crimes of Vladimir Putin.
[…] American Ethane is a United States-based company headquartered in Houston, TX. It is building an export facility on the Neches River in Beaumont, Texas. American Ethane sounds as American as apple pie, but it is not. The company helped fund Johnson’s election in 2018 with donations from some of Putin’s favorite vicious oligarchs. […]
Newsweek:
In 2018, a group of Russians were able to donate to Johnson’s bid for the Louisiana seat he eventually won as the money was funneled through the Texas-based American Ethane company.
While American Ethane was co-founded by American John Houghtaling, at the time it was 88 percent owned by three Russian nationals—Konstantin Nikolaev, Mikhail Yuriev, and Andrey Kunatbaev. Nikolaev is known to be a top ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A spokesperson for Johnson previously assured in 2018 that the campaign returned the money that was given to them by American Ethane once it was “made aware of the situation.” [I want to see proof of that claim.] There was no indication that Johnson’s campaign team willfully broke federal law, which makes it illegal for a campaign to knowingly accept donations from a foreign-owned corporation, a foreign national, or any company owned or controlled by foreign nationals.
A number of social media users have now brought up the campaign money amid Johnson’s opposition to the long-debated foreign aid bill, which would send $60 billion to Ukraine as the country continues to fight off Russia’s invasion.
According to reporting by the Daily Beast, Mike Johnson has had no checking or savings account for at least eight years.
At least, that’s what Johnson reports on years of personal financial disclosures, which date back to 2016 and reveal a financial life that, in the context of his role as a congressman and now speaker, appears extraordinarily precarious.
Over the course of seven years, Johnson has never reported a checking or savings account in his name, nor in the name of his wife or any of his children, disclosures show. In fact, he doesn’t appear to have money stashed in any investments, with his latest filing—covering 2022—showing no assets whatsoever.
Of course, it’s unlikely Johnson doesn’t actually have a bank account. What’s more likely is Johnson lives paycheck to paycheck—so much so that he doesn’t have enough money in his bank account to trigger the checking account disclosure rules for members of Congress. […]
But Johnson’s household income puts him in the top 12 percent of earners in the United States. And it’s extraordinarily rare for members of Congress to not list a qualifying bank account—let alone zero assets whatsoever.
In 2018, E&E News wrote on the Russian connection to American Ethane. It’s a shady group linked to the National Rifle Association, Russian spy Maria Butina, Donald Trump, Sander Resources, and Barbour Griffith & Rogers (Former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour–Mississippi Lobbyists, Associates in Thick of Trump’s Ukraine-Russia Web).
Houston-based American Ethane Co. touts itself as a “U.S.-based energy company.” But a newly revised lobbying disclosure shows three Russian businessmen own nearly 90 percent of the company.
The company’s lobbyist revised its filings with Congress last month as it was being linked to an unfolding spy scandal that has drawn in the Kremlin and the National Rifle Association.
The filings now show that Konstantin Nikolaev, Mikhail Yuriev and Andrey Kunatbaev together own 88 percent of the fuel-export company. On previous disclosures dating back to 2014, company representatives had indicated there was no substantial foreign control.
Nikolaev has been linked in news reports to Maria Butina, the Russian woman accused of acting as an unregistered agent of her government. In a July 22 story, The Washington Post quoted a source as saying Butina had told the Senate Intelligence Committee she’d received financial support from Nikolaev.
American Ethane played a prominent role in a trade ceremony during President Trump’s November trip to Beijing. […] The Guardian in the same story reported that Voloshin is part of a consortium of Russian investors that at one point included the oligarch and billionaire Roman Abramovich.
Will the press ask about the Russians who helped put Johnson in office? […]
That article leaves too many questions unanswered, and not enough proof of Mike Johnson’s connections to funding from Russians is provided. Still, it does look like a worthy target for investigation.
Propelled by the jet stream, at least two flights departing from hubs in the Mid-Atlantic reached speeds over 800 mph.
Winds roared to speeds of 265 mph high over Washington late Saturday — at about 35,000 feet above ground, cruising altitude for airplanes — as a powerful jet stream swept over the region.
The National Weather Service office serving the Washington-Baltimore region said the 265-mph wind speed was the second-highest measured since records began in the 1950s. The only higher wind speed recorded at a comparable altitude was 267 mph on Dec. 6, 2002.
“For those flying eastbound in this jet [stream], there will be quite a tailwind,” the Weather Service wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Virgin Atlantic Flight 22, from Washington Dulles International Airport to London, took off at 10:45 p.m. Saturday and landed 45 minutes ahead of schedule.
Boosted by the extreme tailwind, the Virgin Atlantic jet reached a peak speed of 802 mph at 11:20 p.m. Saturday, data from the online tracker Flight Aware indicated. It attained that velocity over the Atlantic Ocean just east of Long Island as it was gaining altitude and entering the jet stream’s fast flow.
But after it exited that stream farther north, its speed leveled off to between 600 and 700 mph, which is still a bit faster than typical cruising speed.
While the flight’s peak speed of 802 mph was higher than the speed of sound (767 mph), the aircraft did not break the sound barrier. Although its ground speed — a measure that combines the plane’s actual speed and the additional push from the wind — was greater than the speed of sound, it was still moving through the surrounding air at its ordinary cruise speed. It just so happened that the surrounding air was moving unusually fast.
United Airlines Flight 64 from Newark to Lisbon, which departed at 8:35 p.m. Saturday, reached a ground speed of 835 mph just off the East Coast, according to Flight Aware, which would rank among the highest on record. The flight reached Lisbon 20 minutes early. It comes less than a month after a China Airlines flight reached a speed of 826 mph over the Pacific Ocean. It was also propelled by a tailwind over 250 mph.
Saturday night’s powerful winds in the Mid-Atlantic were detected by a weather balloon launched from the Weather Service’s office in Sterling, Va. The office releases weather balloons every 12 hours, and the data from the balloons feeds computer models that aid prediction. […]
Wind and weather charts are available at the link.
[…] The Alexei I knew was extremely charming. I remember our first meeting at the White House in 2009 when I worked at the National Security Council. My boss at the time, Barack Obama, was known for his charisma. Navalny had Obama-caliber presence. I understood that day why Putin feared him. In a free and fair election, Navalny would have destroyed Putin. Remember that the next time you read a poll in the media about Putin’s popularity.
[…] When I once called Russia a “wild country” after a group of paid Putin agitators accosted me on the street, it felt like the whole world, including many in the United States, berated me for my “undiplomatic” outburst. Not Alexei. He asked on Twitter why I did not just belt them, since I had diplomatic immunity.
[…] The Alexei I knew was a fierce family man. He was so proud of his daughter, Dasha, when she got into Stanford, where I teach. He and his wife, Yuliya, were just like all the other excited Stanford parents when they dropped Dasha off on campus her first year. And they have watched her grow into a strong, principled, charismatic leader, just like her dad and mom. Of course, Alexei had to watch from afar.
In fact, well before he decided to go back to Russia, it seemed to me his deepest anxiety was not about enduring torture in Putin’s gulag or even facing death, but about being an absentee father and husband. By doing what he thought was right for his country, he knew that he was asking his family to sacrifice a lot, too. And today, that sacrifice has grown so much larger.
Navalny dreamed of a free Russia. Barbaric dictators such as Putin can kill men, but they cannot kill ideas. I do not know when, but I am confident that Navalny’s ideas of freedom will outlive Putin’s ideas of tyranny.
Hundreds of people across Russian cities streamed to makeshift memorials and vigils for victims of political repression, following news of Navalny’s death in an Arctic penal colony.
Over 400 people were detained in Russia while paying tribute to opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died at a remote Arctic penal colony, a prominent rights group reported.
The sudden death of Navalny, 47, was a crushing blow to many Russians, who had pinned their hopes for the future on President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe. Navalny remained vocal in his unrelenting criticism of the Kremlin even after surviving a nerve agent poisoning and receiving multiple prison terms.
The news reverberated across the globe, and hundreds of people in dozens of Russian cities streamed to ad-hoc memorials and monuments to victims of political repressions with flowers and candles on Friday and Saturday to pay a tribute to the politician. In over a dozen cities, police detained 401 people by Saturday night, according to the OVD-Info rights group that tracks political arrests and provides legal aid.
More than 200 arrests were made in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second largest city, the group said. Among those detained there was Grigory Mikhnov-Voitenko, a priest of the Apostolic Orthodox Church — a religious group independent of the Russian Orthodox Church — who announced plans on social media to hold a memorial service for Navalny and was arrested on Saturday morning outside his home. He was charged with organizing a rally and placed in a holding cell in a police precinct, but was later hospitalized with a stroke, OVD-Info reported.
[Video of Kamala Harris talking about Navalny’s death.]
Questions about the cause of death lingered on Sunday, and it remained unclear when the authorities would release his body to his family.
Navalny’s team said Saturday that the politician was “murdered” and accused the authorities of deliberately stalling the release of the body, with Navalny’s mother and lawyers getting contradicting information from various institutions where they went in their quest to retrieve the body. “They’re driving us around in circles and covering their tracks,” Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said on Saturday.
A note handed to Navalny’s mother stated that he died at 2:17 p.m. Friday, according to Yarmysh. Prison officials told his mother when she arrived at the penal colony Saturday that her son had perished from “sudden death syndrome,” Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
[…] After the last verdict that handed him a 19-year term, Navalny said he understood he was “serving a life sentence, which is measured by the length of my life or the length of life of this regime.”
Hours after Navalny’s death was reported, his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, made a dramatic appearance at the Munich Security Conference. […]
Ordinary canned air products shoot out jets of gas with a surprising amount of vigor. A precision engineering and machining YouTuber, Cylo’s Garage, noticed telltale ‘shock diamonds’ in the stream emitted by his Staples-branded canned air and felt compelled to investigate further. Using a Schlieren imaging setup, the YouTuber managed to confirm that the humble air duster was pushing out a supersonic flow of gas (h/t Hackaday)…
[…] On Friday, Judge Arthur Engoron put an exclamation point at the end of Donald Trump’s New York civil fraud case, ordering him to pay $355 million, plus interest payments that could bump the bill up to $450 mill or more.
So the obvious question now is, “How the fuck is he going to pay that?” His devotees’ GoFundMes—that’s not a joke; there are at least two—have so far barely raised enough to cover ketchup stain removal. And he’d need to come up with all that cash before he can appeal the verdict, it’s unclear whether he has it, or whom he might convince to give it to him. […]
In the final weeks of his 2020 presidential campaign, Trump claimed a Joe Biden victory would “unleash an economic disaster of epic proportions” and cause a severe depression. Hardly anyone took him seriously at the time, but for once his prediction was spot-on. What our fave unseemly solipsist neglected to mention, of course, was that the crash would be narrowly focused, affecting only Trump’s businesses and the MAGA fools who send him money.
The correct answer to the “how will he pay” question is, of course, “Who the fuck cares? I have my own problems, like paroxysms of uproarious laughter brought on by acute episodes of schadenfreude, for which there is no known cure.”
But several experts have somehow been able to think this through […]
On Friday, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins interviewed Forbes senior editor Dan Alexander, who bluntly assessed Trump’s predicament.
“He doesn’t have the cash right now, especially if you add on that penalty with that interest and the E. Jean Carroll penalty, which comes to—with the two rulings on that comes to $88 million. Altogether you’re looking at over half a billion dollars.”
Alexander noted that the $400 million in cash reserves Trump claims to have still wouldn’t be enough, and even so, “You can’t just empty out your coffers and say, ‘Okay, I’m now down to zero. I’m still going to operate a major real estate company.’ He needs to have some cushion here.”
As a result, Trump’s options seem to be limited. He could try to refinance, sell his assets, or fall back on that old Trumpian standby: open corruption and graft.
“As you guys have talked about, the banks are going to have issues with being able to lend to him,” said Alexander. “He can’t even apply for a loan with many of these banks. But there are, for example, plenty of rich guys who might be interested in lending him $100 million, $200 million and may have good interest in wanting to do that for somebody who might become the president of the United States here in about a year. Another option is that he could sell assets, but Donald Trump has always been reluctant to sell things for what they’re actually worth, not to mention much less than they’re actually worth. He could be forced into a fire sale here and get really desperate.”
It’s actually rather astounding how matter-of-factly Alexander mentioned the “rich guys” loan option, considering that those rich guys could very well want something in return for their help—like, say, all of Ukraine. But you just know Trump would sell out his country before he’d ever consider selling one of his golf courses, so that’s almost certainly the option he’ll go with.
[…] Meanwhile, if Trump can’t pay, things could go cattywampus pretty quickly.
POLITICO:
In the civil fraud case, which is in New York state court, if Trump can’t post the funds or get a bond, then the judgment would take effect immediately and a sheriff could begin seizing Trump’s assets.
The rules are slightly different in federal court, which is the venue for the $83.3 million judgment that Trump owes for defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of raping her. (He also owes Carroll an additional $5 million from a separate verdict last year.) Carroll could pursue post-judgment discovery under the jurisdiction of the judge who oversaw the trial. Through that process, the judge could order Trump to produce his bank account records, place liens or garnish his wages. […]
If Trump truly can’t afford the judgments, he would have to declare bankruptcy.
Really? Again? While it’s doubtful Trump has ever gotten to chapter 11 in any book, it’s no secret that he’s seen—and lived—the movie half a dozen times.
Seeking a bond to cover the judgment while he appeals the case is also an option, but it comes with its own costs, including hefty fees and interest. And as POLITICO notes, it “would require Trump to find a third party willing to take on the risk of loaning him money.”
Could he grift his campaign donors or plunder his PACs for the cash? That might be tough. POLITICO spoke with Richard Pildes, a professor of constitutional law at the New York University School of Law, who stated, “Campaign funds cannot be used for that purpose regardless of whether the PAC is the decision-maker.”
And, regardless, those PAC funds are shrinking fast.
Meanwhile, Trump’s sole remaining primary opponent, Nikki Haley, is hoping the RNC will resist funneling money to Trump to cover his legal bills, even though the organization has now been entirely coopted by MAGA.
POLITICO:
“My biggest issue is I don’t want the RNC to become his legal defense fund. I don’t want the RNC to become his piggy bank for his personal court cases. We’ve already seen him spend $50 million worth of campaign contributions toward his personal court cases,” Haley told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Friday.
“Now we see him trying to get control of the RNC, so he can continue not to have to pay his own legal fees,” Haley continued. […]
[video and text messages from Trump's woebegone sons]
Meanwhile, Fox News spoke with several “experts”—one of whom was George W. Bush’s ex-press secretary Ari Fleischer—who are convinced this is terrible news for New York. For one thing, it may prompt Trump to move his flaming husk of a business empire to Florida. […]
Good luck with your personal Great Depression, Donny. Though I hope you won’t mind if the rest of us enjoy this roaring Biden economy.
Incredibly thin, hollow wires made from gallium and nitrogen can produce laser beams that are hollow with a ring-shaped cross-section, and that could be used to create optical fibres out of thin air…
Michael Cohen — who long served as former President Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer — warned Sunday of the potential risk of sending Trump back to the White House with mounting legal fees and financial liabilities.
“We need to be very careful about him as a potential president because he is for sale,” Cohen, now an outspoken critic of the former president, said in an interview on MSNBC’s “The Weekend” on Sunday.
“He needs to figure out where he is going to raise $500-plus million over a short period of time,” Cohen continued.
When MSNBC host Symone Sanders-Townsend suggested Trump “is open to the highest bidder at this point because the tab keeps being run up,” floating “the Saudis, the Russians,” as options, Cohen agreed.
A Republican opponent of new U.S. funding for Ukraine argued at an international security conference Sunday that the package stuck in Congress wouldn’t “fundamentally change the reality” on the ground and that Russia has an incentive to negotiate peace.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and others have advocated passage of the $60 billion in aid at the Munich Security Conference, which coincided with Ukraine withdrawing troops from the eastern city of Avdiivka after months of intense combat.
But Sen. JD Vance, an Ohio Republican and ally of Donald Trump, said “the problem in Ukraine … is that there’s no clear end point” and that the U.S. doesn’t make enough weapons to support wars in eastern Europe, the Middle East and “potentially a contingency in East Asia.” …
Denmark has decided to deliver all the artillery rounds from its stockpiles to Ukraine, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told the Ukrainian Lunch at the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 17…
Czechia identified around 800,000 artillery shells abroad that could be sent to Ukraine within weeks if provided funding from other partners, Czech President Petr Pavel said on Feb. 17.
Artillery shells are among the most crucial military supplies for Kyiv, as they are used daily in high numbers on the Ukrainian battlefields.
The EU conceded that it would be able to deliver only half of the promised 1 million shells by the March deadline, while defense assistance from the U.S., including artillery support, is held up by domestic political disputes.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, recently said that the EU aims to deliver more than 1 million shells to Ukraine by the end of 2024…
On Saturday, the Commander of the Air Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk, wrote on Telegram that “units of the Air Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed three enemy aircraft at once – two Su-34 fighter-bombers and one Su-35 fighter.”
Another Russian Su-34 fighter bomber was destroyed on Sunday morning, said Oleshchuk…
An Indian Hindu nationalist organisation has launched a court petition to stop two lions named after a Hindu deity and a 16th-century Muslim emperor from sharing a zoo enclosure.
Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a prominent rightwing Hindu organisation, went to court in the state of West Bengal after reports a lioness named Sita had been put with a lion called Akbar.
Akbar was a Mughal emperor who extended Muslim rule over much of the Indian subcontinent, a time Hindu nationalist groups consider to have been a period of slavery.
“Sita cannot stay with the Mughal emperor Akbar,” the VHP official Anup Mondal said on Sunday, suggesting it would offend religious sentiments in the Hindu-majority country.
“Such an act amounts to blasphemy and is a direct assault on the religious belief of all Hindus,” the VHP said , after having lodged a plea on Friday calling for a name change.
“Sita cannot stay with the Mughal emperor Akbar,” […] it would offend religious sentiments
The Hindu epic Ramayana’s plot involves Sita getting abducted by a foreign ruler and imprisoned in a garden until her partner Rama rescues her. Sita’s faithful chastity was a central element. Mating would be a hangup.
Later in the article:
the lion called Akbar had previously been named after the Hindu deity Rama
Oh come on!
StevoRsays
“Excuse me, miss?” “How can I help you, ma’am?” “And what would the lady like?” I hear phrases like these every day, and as someone who is not a miss, ma’am, or a lady, they make my intestines curl. I’m non-binary. I came to terms with this recently, after living socially as a woman for many years — but I think I knew from a very young age. I just didn’t have the right words for it. ..(Snip).. Nowadays, I use they/them pronouns, and I try to let people know that upfront — but a funny thing tends to happen when people look at me.
You see, their eyes always trend downwards, scoping out what you might call the ‘traditionally feminine’ body I live in. You might also call it my ‘massive boobs’. When this elevator-eye assessment is complete, I like to think that a little switch flips over in the cis person’s brain to a ‘SHE/HER’ setting. When this switch is flipped, it takes a gargantuan effort to reset it to neutral. I am misgendered constantly, and it’s all thanks to a part of my body I can’t control. Being misgendered is incredibly uncomfortable, and can make me sad and anxious for many hours afterward.
As they note in this good article, they don’t owe anyone androgyny.
StevoRsays
Aopologies if already posted but via Aussie ABC :
Alexei Navalny, who was found dead in prison on Friday, got under the skin of Vladimir Putin like no-one else. The 47-year-old exposed the so-called “strongman” of Russian politics for what he really was — an authoritarian president fearful of free elections, free speech and a free press. An insecure man who is terrified of the truth and of justice, who crushes any form of dissent through violence and incarceration.
“He’s never participated in any debates or campaigned in an election,” Navalny said of Putin during his fateful court hearing in February 2021 that led his long-term imprisonment. “Murder is the only way he knows how to fight. He’ll go down in history as nothing but a poisoner.” Knowing Putin’s obsession with his own skewed version of history, Navalny pushed it further in his speech to the court, mocking the president’s place in the bastion of great leaders. “We all remember Alexander the Liberator and Yaroslav the Wise. Well, now we’ll have Vladimir the Underpants Poisoner.”
A new poll of experts on the American presidency reveals several intriguing new findings, including a shakeup among the top-ranked presidents and an early assessment of where President Joe Biden stands.
This is the third survey conducted by co-directors of the Presidential Greatness Project, University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus and Coastal Carolina University political science professor Justin Vaughn. Results are based on nearly 200 responses from scholars across multiple disciplines whose work engages presidential politics.
The survey shows that while presidential scholars continue to consider Abraham Lincoln the nation’s greatest president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt has passed George Washington as the second-greatest president. President Biden enters the rankings at #14, behind recent Democrats Barack Obama (#7) and Bill Clinton (#12), but ahead of recent Republicans Ronald Reagan (#16), George H.W. Bush (#19), George W. Bush (#32) and Donald Trump (#45)…
And the occasional reminder:
My new hobby is taking graphs of economic data over time and indicating the year that Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, in case people find that helpful or informative. The Ward on Christmas
Imagine an entirely barren world. Before you is a volcanic landscape, devoid of flora and fauna. Scattered throughout this gray and black expanse are shallow bodies of water. In each of these natural pools brews a precise blend of chemicals and physical conditions that could serve as the source of life on our planet.
Some scientists have theorized the scene might have looked much like this, rather than an ocean setting, when life first emerged on Earth roughly 4 billion years ago, and a study centered around a present-day lake in the Canadian province of British Columbia offers new support for that idea.
The shallow, salty body of water situated on volcanic rock — known as Last Chance Lake — holds clues that carbonate-rich lakes in ancient Earth could have been a “cradle of life,” according to study coauthor David Catling, a University of Washington professor of geosciences. The finding, published in the journal Nature on January 9, could advance scientific understanding of how life began.
“We were able to look for the specific conditions that people use to synthesize the building blocks of life in nature,” Catling said. “We think that we have a very promising place for the origin of life.” …
The U.S. military says it struck an underwater vessel in the Red Sea on Saturday that was deployed by Houthi rebels in Yemen.
It was the first time U.S. forces observed the Iranian-backed rebel group using what the military called an “unmanned underwater vessel” — or UUV — since beginning a spate of attacks in the region on Oct. 23, officials added…
Three couples whose frozen embryos were destroyed when a wandering Mobile hospital patient dropped the specimens can sue for wrongful death because the embryos were “children,” the Alabama Supreme Court ruled Friday in reversing a judge’s decision to throw out the case.
In summary, the theologically based view of the sanctity of life adopted by the People of Alabama encompasses the following: […] human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself. [Alabama’s constitution] Section 36.06 recognizes that this is true of unborn human life
Kaitlyn Anderson was nearly six months pregnant and an employee for the Missouri Department of Transportation when a vehicle struck and killed her at a worksite.
MoDOT has attempted to claim Anderson’s unborn child, Jaxx, as an employee […] Workers’ compensation laws in the state of Missouri shield employers from wrongful death lawsuits when an employee dies on the job.
“I think that if an unborn fetus is an employee, then every pregnant MoDOT employee should be paid double,”
[…]
“That baby didn’t have a driver’s license or Social Security ID, how on earth can he be claimed as an employee?”
[…]
Anderson had requested a safer position when she found out she was pregnant. MoDOT did move her out of buffer trucks where she had been hit three times.
[…]
A Missouri Supreme Court trial is set for March.
Reginald Selkirksays
@55: Conservatives’ efforts to bring back child labor set a new mark.
Theories have swirled for the better part of two centuries regarding whether some U.S. presidents – including Founding Fathers – had some surreptitious Black ancestry while running a country that, during their eras, didn’t even have to pretend that they found us subhuman.
Many of these allegations fall in the realm of conspiracy theory and have been debunked by historians. However, DNA testing is a relatively recent science but Black people “jumping the fence” in order to pass for white has been successfully done for centuries. Could it be possible that some of these presidents were “passing” or their parents or grandparents had passed for white during the height of racial viciousness?
The topic is salacious enough that there exist books, essays, New York Times articles and NPR discussions on whether America already had a Black president before Obama. In the 1990s, pamphlets entitled “The Five Negro Presidents” and “The Six Black Presidents” were passed around and read by Black high school and college students everywhere.
So, strap on your tinfoil hat and consider this crop of dead presidents who just might’ve successfully dodged the one-drop Rule to run the free world…
This cherry tomato, simply named the Purple Tomato, is a genetically modified organism (GMO)…
NPR reports that the Purple Tomato, created by a company called Norfolk Plant Sciences, was deliberately designed to carry purple color genes from a snapdragon flower. The purple coloration doesn’t just provide a royal color, but it also has high levels of anthocyanins, which are are antioxidants that have promising health effects like anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties. Plus, hey, the tomatoes just look cool.
There’s also a marketing purpose to the Purple Tomato: to shift the public’s perceptions of GMOs…
Ukraine said it destroyed two more Russian fighter jets on Monday, bringing its claimed tally to six jets shot down in just three days.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, said in a statement that Ukraine’s air force destroyed two Russian aircraft on Monday: A Su-34 fighter-bomber and a Su-35S fighter jet…
John Oliver says he will give Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas a million bucks a year if he quits the Supreme Court immediately.
“This is not a joke,” he said on the latest episode of “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” which aired Sunday. “This is real. A million dollars a year until you or I die.”
Besides offering Thomas money, Oliver said he would also throw in a $2.4 million motor coach. The offer, he said, would be valid only for the next 30 days…
Akira MacKenziesays
Sita’s faithful chastity was a central element. Mating would be a hangup.
For fuck sake… WHAT THE HELL IS WITH RELGION AND THE GLORIFICATION OF VIRGINITY!? How did sex, a pleasurable act that perpetuates the species, become something dirty, filthy, and otherwise “unholy” to the magical beings that supposedly rule our universe?
redwoodsays
And why do religious men like watching pron so much? Methinks the Xians doth protest too much.
Prince Rama had married Sita at the beginning and was about to be crowned. Someone called in a favor to exile him for 14 years. Rama and Sita had been married 13 years living in wilderness by the time she was abducted. She was utterly devoted to Rama and refused the captor’s “one year to marry me or I’ll eat you (literally)” proposal for nearly the whole year. Rama kills the captor and rescues her.
On meeting Sītā, Rāma says; “The dishonour meted out to him and the wrong done to her by [the foreign ruler] have been wiped off, by his victory over the enemy […] However, upon criticism from people in his kingdom about the chastity of Sītā, Rāma gets extremely disheartened. So Sītā, in order to prove the citizens wrong and wipe the false blame on her, [sets herself on fire] in order to prove her conjugal fidelity. [The Hindu god of fire] restores her to Rāma, testifying to her purity.
[…]
The return of Rāma [from exile] was celebrated with his coronation.
Rama was crowned as the king with Sita by his side. While Rama’s trust and affection for Sita never wavered, it soon became evident that some people in [the kingdom] could not accept Sita’s long captivity […] an intemperate washerman, while berating his wayward wife, declared that he was “no pusillanimous Rama who would take his wife back after she had lived in the house of another man”. The common folk started gossiping about Sita […] as a king, he had to make his citizens pleased and the purity of the queen […] has to be above any gossip
[…]
Thus Sita was forced into exile a second time. […] pregnant […] Sita raised her sons alone, as a single mother. […] Once she had witnessed the acceptance of her children by Rama, Sita sought final refuge […] from an unjust world and from a life that had rarely been happy, the Earth dramatically split open […] and took Sita away.
Some campaign news tidbits, as summarized by Steve Benen:
* In Wisconsin, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has now signed into law new legislative maps that will end the state Republican Party’s gerrymandered lock on power.
* During her latest Fox News event, Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley had plenty of criticisms for Donald Trump, but the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations nevertheless vowed to pardon the former president if elected.
* TPM reports that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is positioning herself, either for a statewide campaign or for a possible position in Trump’s cabinet. In a statement to TPM, the Georgia Republican confirmed that she has “big plans for the future of this country.” [Oh dear. Please, no. Just no.]
* Ahead of Michigan’s March 27 presidential primaries, Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib is publicly urging her allies in Dearborn to vote against President Joe Biden and instead cast a ballot for “uncommitted.” The point would be to protest the administration’s policies in the war between Israel and Hamas. [Bad idea, I think. Protest, but don’t urge people to vote against Biden. In the long run, that will only help Trump because people remember that instruction and then apply it even in the general election in November.]
* Speaking of presidential primaries, Rep. Dean Phillips is apparently still challenging Biden, the Minnesota Democrat announced late last week that he’s laying off a significant portion of his campaign staff.
* In Colorado, where Rep. Lauren Boebert has represented the western part of the state in recent years, the Republican congresswoman is now trying to win over the eastern part of the state. The Wall Street Journal reported that Boebert is part of a crowded GOP primary field, and she’s facing a “chilly reception” from local groups.
* Remember Herschel Walker’s failed U.S. Senate campaign in Georgia? The Republican’s campaign account is apparently still sitting on millions of dollars, and no one’s sure what, if anything, he intends to do with the money.
In other news, love those tomatoes pictured at the link in comment 60.
Quoted in comment 55:
[…] human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself.
So, God can righteously destroy human life. And God may have arranged for the destruction of frozen embryos in Alabama?
“I think that we have to take Donald Trump very seriously. We have to take seriously the extent to which you have now got a Putin wing of the Republican Party. I believe the issue this election cycle is making sure the Putin wing of the Republican Party does not take over the West Wing of the White House.”
The Hill:
Senate Republicans who voted to advance aid for Ukraine last week are taking heavy incoming from allies of former President Trump, who are calling them out publicly and threatening primary challenges after they defied Trump’s calls to oppose the package.
Pew Research Center:
Two years on from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, 74% of Americans view the war there as important to U.S. national interests — with 43% describing it as very important. … When asked how important each conflict is to them personally, 59% of Americans say the war between Russia and Ukraine is important to them.
Commentary:
[…] Not surprisingly given the larger context, there’s a partisan gap, and Democratic voters are more likely than GOP voters to see the Russia-Ukraine war as important to U.S. national interests. But the split wasn’t overwhelming: 81% of Democrats vs. 69% of Republicans.
With this in mind, to the extent that the Republican Party has a “Putin wing,” it’s succeeding in blocking bipartisan legislation on Capitol Hill, but it’s finding less success in convincing the American mainstream.
Vice President Kamala Harris appeared at this year’s Munich Security Conference, which included a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Not surprisingly, the Democrat praised his resolve and successes in the fight against Russia.
But a Reuters report highlighted a statistic that seemed especially notable.
Russia, meanwhile, has suffered more than 300,000 casualties in the Ukraine war and depleted its military’s stockpile, [Harris] said, calling it an “utter failure for Russia.”
That was, to be sure, a striking figure. Vladimir Putin invaded a neighboring country, launched an avoidable war, and two years later, his country has suffered more than 300,000 casualties.
It’s also a statistic that’s easy to believe. NBC News published this report a couple of months ago:
In the past 22 months, 315,000 Russian troops have been killed and wounded, according to the assessment provided to lawmakers. Prior to the invasion, Russia had a ground force strength of about 360,000. Russia has also sustained huge losses in equipment, with 2,200 tanks destroyed out of a force of 3,500 and one-third of its armored vehicles knocked out of action, the assessment said.
The report added that Moscow’s military resources were depleted to such an extent that Russia was forced to “draw on Soviet-era hardware to replace the lost equipment, even bringing 50-year-old T-62 tanks onto the battlefield.”
Around the same time, a New York Times report added, after Russia’s army lost 315,000 out of 360,000 troops, Putin’s government was forced to “recruit and mobilize new recruits and convicts from their prison system.”
I’m trying to think of these developments from the perspective of an American policymaker. The Ukrainian military, thanks in large part to support from the United States, has been able to inflict devastating losses on the Russian military. After two years of an avoidable war, Putin has seen his army shrink, his tanks destroyed, his armored vehicles knocked out of action, his economy weakened, and his international reputation left in ruins.
All of this has unfolded without sending U.S. troops into battle, and without the death of any U.S. soldiers.
I’m also trying to imagine why some American policymakers in one political party would see this assessment and think, “Let’s stop helping our allies defend themselves against a foreign invasion and stop weakening an adversary that’s suffered brutal casualties as a consequence of a war they didn’t have to launch.”
Republican lawmakers do not deal in logic, good judgement, or facts. They listen to their cult leader, Hair Orange Furor the Demented One. And he has a personal beef with Ukraine.
“Ultimately, these things do start to seem like a pattern,” Rachel Maddow observes, after running through the growing list of legal catastrophes Donald Trump has suffered. Maddow joins Lawrence O’Donnell and Alex Wagner in discussing the political fallout for Trump in the wake of a nearly half billion dollar civil fraud trial loss in New York.
On Sunday’s edition of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” host John Oliver made a direct offer to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. After showcasing a new, luxury RV valued at $2.4 million, Oliver offered to give the RV to Thomas, along with $1 million a year in cash, if the justice would sign a contract promising “to get the fuck off the Supreme Court.”
He isn’t the first to think of such an offer. Former crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, who is awaiting sentencing on seven criminal counts, reportedly attempted to negotiate with representatives for Donald Trump over how much money it would take to keep Trump from running again in 2024. They reportedly settled on $5 billion, and Bankman-Fried was reportedly willing to pay, but he got arrested before he could cut the check.
Both of these offers seem like they should be illegal. Because they should be illegal. But they’re just the flip side of what’s already happening—wealthy patrons buying figureheads who will do exactly what they want in office.
Thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision and other egregious decisions on campaign financing, political candidates are absolutely awash in funds from those with business before the government. Dark-money groups, billionaire donors, and massive super PACS have the kind of leverage over candidates that makes the idea of buying a vote seem old hat. Now they buy candidates by the dozen, with the knowledge that in a system where running for Senate can top a quarter of a billion dollars, their favor is necessary for most candidates to remain competitive.
In the Supreme Court, there are essentially no rules other than don’t get impeached—despite a recently announced but utterly toothless code of conduct. Conservative super-patron Harlan Crow has showered gifts on Thomas. That includes globe-spanning superyacht cruises, more pricey vacations and retreats, school tuition for one of Thomas’ relatives, and a house where Thomas’ mother lives. In return, Crow has gotten reliable rulings from Thomas that have more than paid him back.
Besides, this is all peanuts for Crow. Forbes estimates his and his brothers’ net worth around $2.5 billion. That’s nearly 13,000 times the median net worth of American families. Picking up the tab on a quarter-million-dollar gift means about as much to Crow as it would for most people to give a waiter a $20 tip. And Crow is a piker compared to the wealth of the folks at the top of Forbes’ list.
From state legislatures to the Supreme Court, politicians can be rewarded with essentially anything to run for office, and even more is available to reward them for votes once they are elected. This is exactly what opponents of Citizens United and advocates for campaign finance reform have warned about for decades.
The issues always existed, but it’s grown massively worse since former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell demonstrated that a government based on tradition and respect for the nation was like a house built on sand. Any jackass could smash it. All it took was a total lack of decency.
Paying Thomas to step down may seem like a ridiculous step. But he’s already being paid handsomely to stay. Providing a counteroffer may be the simplest solution—and even if it’s not successful, it does highlight the flaws in a deeply broken system.
If $5 billion would actually keep Trump from running, the money could probably be raised in an afternoon. Unfortunately, at this point, Trump seems more interested in smiting his seemingly endless enemies and protecting himself from the consequences of his crimes. Which are also endless. Besides, even if he made the deal, he’d just take the money and run (for office) anyway.
[…] in the meantime … Dear Clarence, that motorhome looks really sweet. Take it. Please take it.
[…] The person who sent the email, who hoped to entice Joe Biden to take a stake in a planned venture, merely posed a question, which was promptly answered in writing with a definitive NO. Which is why we know with mathematical certainty that the multitudes who invoke the phrase, “10[%] for the big guy,” to impugn Joe Biden are indefensibly trafficking in lies.
We also know with mathematical certainty that Bobulinski [Biden Accuser Tony Bobulinski] never “discussed business” with Joe Biden in 2017, because there was never any business to discuss, only his hopes and dreams, which went nowhere.
Bobulinski’s planned venture was never launched because the deep pocket that was supposed to fund everything, a multibillion dollar conglomerate called CEFC China Energy, proved to be a house of cards that collapsed in early 2018. So we know with mathematical certainty that it was physically impossible for the Bidens to peddle influence on behalf of CEFC during and after the Trump Administration. […]
And we know with mathematical certainty that Bobulinski never observed the Bidens doing business with anyone, which is why we know that Fox traffics in lies when it reports, “Joe Biden ‘enabled’ family to sell access to ‘dangerous adversaries,’ Tony Bobulinski testifies.”
Bobulinski’s incessant lying, and his difficulty in distinguishing fantasy from reality, became painfully apparent during his interview with the House Oversight Committee. But for three years he proved to be the useful idiot for Trump allies who opened a Firehose of Falsehoods to fabricate a nonexistent Biden scandal, first by alleging that Joe Biden’s denial of involvement was false, second by claiming that anyone who refuted or ignored Bobulinski’s transparent lies was engaged in a coverup, and third by providing fodder for other dishonest “whistleblowers” like Gary Shapley and Gal Luft, who peddled other bogus accusations that crumble under basic fact checking.
From the date of his first “no questions” press event, arranged by the Trump Campaign on October 22, 2020, up until now, Bobulinski’s handlers have limited his public availability, for obvious reasons. He’s clearly in over his head. He first presented himself as an “institutional investor,” which is obviously untrue. He also struggled with basic concepts, like the distinction between consulting on business acquisitions and investing in new businesses. The moniker useful idiot is no exaggeration in this instance.
And for a guy who claims to be an astute and seasoned businessman, Bobulinski showed an inability to focus and remain levelheaded during an episode-long interview on Tucker Carlson on October 27, 2020. He kept dwelling on superfluous details like an overexcited teenager, going on and on about being escorted to the VIP table at the Milken Conference where Joe Biden spoke on cancer research, while recounting nothing substantive about his discussion with the former Vice President. But members of the House Oversight Committee, who questioned him for six hours recently, missed an opportunity to ask him to fill in the huge gaps in his background, which you can drive a truck through.
[…] No one, aside from Bobulinski, ever imagined that Joe Biden was involved in the transaction.
But in 2020 Bobulinski fantasized that Gilliar’s [one prospective partner, an Englishman named James Gilliar] hopes had somehow morphed into reality. He learned that Hunter and Jim Biden had signed a side deal to start a CEFC venture without him, and seemed bent on revenge. But no one else would care about Bobulinski’s story unless he pulled in the father. So he perversely cites inconsequential communications–Gilliar’s messages advising him to not mention Joe Biden, Gilliar’s email question (“10 for the big guy?”), and Hunter’s admonition to not mention business when he met Joe Biden–as proof that Joe was involved in their never-started enterprise.
[…] He seems to have a childlike view of how the business world operates, imagining that reality occurs through some kind of secret code, instead of legal documentation. Which is why we should wonder about Bobulinski’s murky background, and how he became a business colleague of Gilliar. Here’s one fantasy-laden passage of his House testimony:
The [Democratic] minority seems to want to, like, bifurcate it and differentiate between relationship development and actual business. The relationship development is business. Joe Biden walking into a room and shaking Chairman Ye’s hand is business, in the world I live in. You don’t have to take my word. Call, you know, Jamie Dimon, you know, the chairman of J.P. Morgan. He doesn’t sit down at meetings and say, okay, I’m going to sit for this 2-hour meeting. He comes in and shakes three hands and walks out of the room. And that handshake is business. That’s why he’s the chairman of J.P. Morgan and has, you know, made himself a billionaire.
Actually, in the world Jamie Dimon lives in, nobody rises to the top because they’re good at handshakes, and J.P. Morgan doesn’t execute any deals based on a handshake, even Jamie Dimon’s. Every transaction, large and small, is based on heavily negotiated legal documentation, and the commercial deals require detailed memoranda prepared by analysts and overseen by executives.
Bobulinski’s lawyer should have prepared him for moments when his fantasy might be punctured by the text of a three-year-old article in The Wall Street Journal, which triggered one of his many unhinged rants:
[Rep. Dan] Goldman. The next paragraph in the Wall Street Journal article, it says, “Mr. Gilliar told the Journal: I would like to clear up any speculation that former Vice President Biden was involved with the 2017 discussions about our potential business structure. I am unaware of any involvement at anytime of the former Vice President. The activity in question never delivered any project revenue.'”
[…]Mr. Bobulinski. It’s a lie. It’s a lie.
Mr. Goldman. So what is —
Mr. Bobulinski. The Wall Street Journal printed a lie —
Mr. Goldman. Okay.
Mr. Bobulinski. — a blatant lie.
Mr. Goldman. What is the lie? What is the lie?
Mr. Bobulinski. They had documents that proved otherwise. The exhibits that you reference where James Gilliar says to me, “Don’t mention Joe being involved,” I know The Wall Street Journal had that screenshot.
Mr. Goldman. Yup.
Mr. Bobulinski. They knew Joe was involved. And this is James Gilliar lying to The Wall Street Journal however many days this is before the election, because his opinion —
Mr. Goldman. Well, let me just ask you about that, because —
Mr. Bobulinski.- because his opinion was he —
Mr. Goldman. Sir, let me ask you —
Mr. Bobulinski. – did not want us to come out to the public and correct the record and educate the American people.
Mr. Goldman. Do you agree –
Mr. Bobulinski. He is not an American.
Mr. Goldman. Sir, do you agree with me –
Mr. Bobulinski. And I have recordings —
Mr. Goldman. Sir —
Mr. Bobulinski. – where he was —
Mr. Goldman. You have recordings?
Mr. Bobulinski.- arguing with me, trying to keep me from going public and talking about the facts to the American people.
Mr. Goldman. You have recordings? Did you turn those over?
Mr. Bobulinski. I have not.
Mr. Goldman. Hm. Let’s just be very clear here that the text messages that you are referring to are conversations between James Gilliar and you about whether or not Joe Biden was involved or what his involvement was. They do not – do not – dispute his statement that he is unaware of any involvement at any time of the former Vice President. I want to move on, just because that took longer than I expected.
Later when an unnamed lawyer tried to reconcile the names on the legal documents with Bobulinski’s fantasy, he became unhinged again, so Goldman attempted to tally up the dozen people he accused of lying:
Mr. . The Biden family — the Biden family — exhibit 6, your partners are — called Bidens — are James Biden and Hunter Biden, right?
Mr. Bobulinski. Why did I meet with Joe Biden? You are obfuscating the fact of what transpired by talking —
Mr. Goldman. Sir, he’s asking you a simple question.
Mr. Bobulinski. It isn’t a simple question, Congressman Goldman.
Mr. Goldman. It’s not a simple question?
Mr. Bobulinski. No, it’s not a simple question.
Mr. Goldman. Who are the partners from the LLC?
Mr. Bobulinski. You continue to lie and obfuscate the facts to the American people. That’s why my voice is raised —
Mr. Goldman. Good. So now we’re back —
Mr. Bobulinski. — because he’s about to do it.
Mr. Goldman. So the FBI, The Wall Street Journal, Cassidy Hutchinson, all of us — there was another one. Who else lied? Yeah, the FBI agents. We’ve got that. […]
That’s six FBI agents who interviewed him on October 23, 2020, the four other partners in the stillborn joint venture, reporters at The Wall Street Journal, Cassidy Hutchinson, and anyone else who doesn’t indulge his wild fantasies.
[…] But the bigger story, which deserves deeper coverage, is not that Bobulinski is a delusional crackpot. There were obvious signs of that on Tucker Carlson back on October 27, 2020. It’s that the credibility of rightwing enablers who turned him into a meme is punctured as well. Which is why Bobulinski’s counsel Stefan Passantino, who pimps out his law license for Trump, flooded the zone with more lies on Fox. “Mr. Bobulinski has the facts and the receipts, and no amount of character assassination will change that,” he wrote, plus, “it is categorically false to assert that Mr. Bobulinski failed to “provide any evidence at all that President Biden was involved in his family’s business dealings” or that he did not testify that ‘Joe Biden was not part of [the Biden family’s] business structure’”. Passantino couldn’t substantiate those claims if threatened with a firing squad.
Which is why the New York Post’s Miranda Devine, who devoted her career to parroting and amplifying Bobulinski’s nonsense, doubled down and let loose, tweeting that Dan Goldman was “trying recover his manhood after Bobulinski destroyed him yesterday.”
Bobblehead Bobulinski is charging that six FBI agents lied. Maybe they, and Hunter Biden, could file a defamation case against him, and name some of his enablers as well. It’s time to stop letting these people get away with lies and defamation.
—————————-
Lies don’t become truths just by your shouting them over your questioners.
——————————
many other countries have stricter laws about reporting, in the guise of news, “facts” that can be verified to be untrue (with consequences like stiff fines, or loss of licenses).
—————————
Rambling incoherent bs. Bobulinski reflects the GOP’s entire existence of rambling incoherent bs.
——————————
The recordings are among the partners telling Bobulinski not to talk to the press, because his claims of Joe Biden’s involvement were false. And his personal grievance against Hunter and Jim Biden is irrelevant.
——————————–
“He seems to have a childlike view of how the business world operates, imagining that reality occurs through some kind of secret code, instead of legal documentation.”
This is how mob functionaries behave. It’s so obvious that these guys are “might makes right” operators and have no clue how legitimate business is conducted.
——————————–
Another day, another Bobulinski, dare say the hunt is on for yet another “whistle blower” and another idiotic claim.
MADISON – Wisconsin Republicans lost their more than decade-long grip on control of the state Legislature Monday after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed into law new electoral maps that reshape down-ballot races in this battleground state.
Evers signed a bill put forward by GOP lawmakers last week implementing new legislative maps the Democratic governor drew himself that dramatically weaken the advantages Republicans have enjoyed each election cycle since 2011….
The new map gives Democrats a chance to compete with Republicans for control of the Legislature for the first time in more than a decade. Even so, the vast majority of Democratic lawmakers voted against the plan, arguing the state Supeme Court should pick new boundaries instead. State Sen. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, voted against the maps but stood behind Evers on Monday to celebrate signing them into law. He was one of just four Democratic lawmakers to join Evers at the bill signing ceremony.
“My vote was never about the map itself. It was about the process. It was about making sure we looked at all the legal angles to make sure there wasn’t a Republican trick here to avoid fair maps. And I trust the Gov. Evers has done that,” Spreitzer said Monday.
The move by Republicans to diminish their own power comes two months after the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down the GOP-drawn legislative maps as unconstitutional and ordered lawmakers to come up with a new plan or allow the court to create a new set of legislative boundaries.
The 99 Assembly districts proposed by Evers are about evenly split between Republican and Democratic-leaning districts. Forty-five districts are more Democratic than Republican, and 46 districts are more Republican than Democratic.
That leaves eight districts that are more likely to be a toss-up between Democrats and Republicans.
Under the current gerrymandered maps, Republicans hold 64 of 99 Assembly seats and 22 of 33 Senate seats.
The state’s most powerful figure, Tim Dunn, isn’t an elected official. But behind the scenes, the West Texas oilman is lavishly financing what he regards as a holy war against public education, renewable energy, and non-Christians…
Bad idea, I think. Protest, but don’t urge people to vote against Biden.
So don’t protest. Rally to Genocide Joe no matter how high the piles of human skulls are. Got it.
If this is your strategy for responding to horrific Biden policies you deserve a thrashing in November.
birgerjohanssonsays
Never Before Seen Viral Organisms Found Inside Our Bodies – “Obelisks”
(Anton Petrov shares my taste for trying to keep up with a lot of sciences)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=oFxomyt4oDA
Winthrop University has embarked on a groundbreaking journey in the realm of college sports, signing Gavin Hamann and Jaxson Remmick, two high school players from Denver, Colorado, to its inaugural cornhole team. The duo, notable for their adept skills, are two-time American Cornhole League high school national champions and are esteemed as five-star recruits by Winthrop’s experienced cornhole coach, Dusty Thompson, a former pro player himself.
Winthrop University is pioneering an initiative that could revolutionize the face of college sports. The scholarships offered to Hamann and Remmick are partial at present, but the university has opened the door to the possibility of increasing these as the sport gains traction. Thompson envisions cornhole evolving into a full scholarship sport, much like the university’s successful Esports program. This program, too, started small but rapidly expanded, now boasting a large team and offering scholarships…
[…] The good news is that the expensive gold sneakers have reportedly sold out. The bad news is that even without subtracting manufacturing costs, that won’t make a dent in his debts. He will still need to sell (sans manufacturing costs) about 2,721,613 ugly sneakers. Trump owes roughly $542 million in recent legal judgments: his civil fraud judgment and two judgments in cases with E. Jean Carroll. Fortune Magazine reports that while Trump claims to be worth around $10 billion, most estimates of his fortune settle in around $2 billion.
In 2022, Digital World Acquisition Corp., the special purpose acquisition company trying to take Trump’s “Truth Social” media platform public, was required to file a public listing of Trump’s failures as a businessman and brand before selling stock in the company. Here are some noteworthy highlights:
“The Trump Taj Mahal, which was built and owned by President Trump, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1991.”
“The Trump Plaza, the Trump Castle, and the Plaza Hotel, all owned by President Trump at the time, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1992.”
“THCR, which was founded by President Trump in 1995, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2004.”
“Trump Entertainment Resorts, Inc., the new name given to Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts after its 2004 bankruptcy, declared bankruptcy in 2009.”
“Trump Shuttle, Inc., launched by President Trump in 1989, defaulted on its loans in 1990 and ceased to exist by 1992.”
“Trump University, founded by President Trump in 2005, ceased operations in 2011 amid lawsuits and investigations regarding the company’s business practices.”
“Trump Vodka, a brand of vodka produced by Drinks Americas under license from the Trump Organization, was introduced in 2005 and discontinued in 2011.”
“Trump Mortgage, LLC, a financial services company founded by President Trump in 2006, ceased operations in 2007.”
“GoTrump.com, a travel site founded by President Trump in 2006, ceased operations in 2007.”
“Trump Steaks, a brand of steak and other meats founded by President Trump in 2007, discontinued sales two months after its launch.”
Trump has a long history of really classing up hucksterism. Who could forget 2016, when instead of using a press conference to crow about primary victories, he hawked newly Trump-branded steaks, water, and wine? Branding has been Trump’s main source of revenue for some time, which is why he (and his daughter Ivanka) used his position as president to get dozens of trademarks approved in markets like China at record speeds.
There is a positive takeaway for the conman: Russian CEO Roman Sharf placed a winning $9,000 bid for an autographed pair of Trump’s gold sneakers. So Trump can either find himself 60,000 more Russian CEOs to buy autographed pairs of tacky gold sneakers, or he can just ingratiate himself to a single wealthy authoritarian Russian leader.
The American muslims have realised they have leverage, and are using it. They want real changes in the middle east policies and are holding Joe Biden over a barrel to get it.
From their point of view Democratic presidents have proven disappointing again and again.
Yes I know Trump is much, much worse but the genocide in Gaza is happening right now and the election is in November. From the point of the muslims their reaction is rational, after decades of disappointments. Good luck telling them otherwise, this revolt has been long time coming.
Lots of screen grabs from the video are available at the link, so you can see for yourself.
So there’s this episode of “30 Rock” where Jack tells Kenneth the Page that he wishes he could see the world through his eyes — and it turns out that in the world, through Kenneth’s eyes, is a world in which everyone is a singing puppet. Like on “Sesame Street.”
Now, we all know that we see the world through our own lenses, and we can assume that the world we see is very different from the world that Trumpists see. Though just how different, I admit, was not entirely clear to me until I saw this absolutely batshit pro-Trump AI cartoon that some guy made for Presidents’ Day. It was always going to have to be a cartoon, you see, because the world as they see it does not exist in real life.
The video was made by Joseph Youngbluth, a man who describes himself as an “AI Artist.” and Jason Coursey, whose Twitter profile specifies that USA’s pronouns are USA, which we will certainly respect.
“In honor of Presidents Day,” Youngbluth wrote, introducing the video, “and to support the greatest president of our lifetime, President Donald J. Trump, we are presenting ‘America Lives,’ possibly the first AI-animated video of its kind.” And oh boy, is Team MAGA ever going bananas over it, both because it gives them “hope” and because it shows the world as they see it.
According to the description, “America Lives” is “a patriotic AI-animated video that captures the essence of Donald Trump’s vision.”
“The idea of America lives in each of every one of us,” says the narrator in the traditional action movie trailer voiceover voice. “But a storm has gathered at our shores, a tempest that seeks to tear apart the fabric of our nation. It seeks nothing less than the wanton destruction of this great nation of men and women.”
We are then treated to the very fiery visual representation of the world these people think they are currently living in.
It’s got a whole lot of coastal erosion that of course has nothing to do with climate change!
It’s got blue-haired Black Bloc anarchists running through fiery protests!
A self-immolating constitution!
Exploding heterosexuals!
Guys in suits doing a jigsaw puzzle … of doom.
Satanists hanging out in cloaks on a bloody floor — just as voice-over guy says, “they have existed throughout time!”
It’s got scary-looking drag queens that look like more like scary clowns coming for your children! In classrooms where they are taught that Trump is bad, white people are evil and their parents are liars!
A dark scary city with trash everywhere! And trash bins on fire! Because basically everything is on fire all the time.
Art installations downtown!
People being barred from getting on the subway because their “social credit score” is low! (I think?)
Those people from that one “Twilight Zone” episode taking absolute power over everything and probably also planning to force all of the good Americans to get plastic surgery so they can have weird pig faces!
An exploding Capitol! It, well … it’s a lot!
Don’t worry though, because Donald Trump is here to come to the rescue and stare solemnly at all of our nation’s most famous monuments! [I see that the managed to make Trump look thinner, even from the back.]
But he can’t do it alone! He needs you to get your 1920s cosplay on and … start hauling some bags out of the ocean?
So, so, so many bags.
And then you have to stand on the bags and plant an American flag on top of them.
And look! The heterosexual couple is not exploding anymore! You saved them! You saved everyone! With all the bag moving!
And then there are fields of wheat!
Fields and fields and fields of wheat! Maybe that’s what was in the bags?
And there are very few people, because all of the bad non-MAGA people spontaneously combusted as soon as Trump was re-elected.
People are going absolutely wild over this, how it gives them hope for a future in which they will, I guess, haul some heavy bags from the ocean and stand in fields of wheat that will eventually rot due to that 72 percent population reduction that just came out of nowhere (74 million people voted for Trump in the last election and there are 258 million adults over 18 in the US). It’s not clear what else will happen, but there will be bag-hauling and wheat for sure.
“This literally moved me to tears, not just from what we have endured but because there is still hope to Save America. Do not sit idle but stand and fight for America and for President [Trump] 2024,” wrote one.
Others said “Powerful Video. WOW!” or that it gave them “chills and goosebumps.”
This just shows, I think, that as hard as we may try to Lee Strasberg ourselves into knowing what the hell is going on inside these people’s heads (and I do!), it’s never going to be enough. We will never be able to fully grasp what it is they are on about, because the world they live in is based less in reality than one in which we are all singing puppets, and that is that.
Sinclair’s local network of 185 stations across the country makes it an influential player in shaping the views of millions of Americans, especially at a time when local newspapers are rapidly being gutted — or closed altogether. As Sinclair increasingly fills the void, it offers its viewers a perspective that aligns with Trump’s oft-stated opinion that America’s cities, especially those run by Democratic politicians, are dangerous and dysfunctional. […]
birgerjohanssonsays
Large administrative regions.
Russia never disappoints🫡
.https://youtube.com/shorts/hQwlbpOGDD
The Kiruna municipality they mention mostly consists of alpine tundra with nearly all people living in a mining town. The good part is, they have a rocket launch site because there is zero risk of the spent rockets hitting anyone.
Western Australia is so far from the more populated states in the east it practically functions as its own country.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@birgerjohansson #77:
(43:09): biggest backfire to happen in the Soviet Union, at least until the first flight of the Tu-22
That history only mentions it in passing then stops short of the 1960s when it flew.
the first supersonic bomber to enter production in the Soviet Union—even after both prototypes were destroyed in testing […] Design issues included wings that would deform and partially melt at high speeds […] an astronomical failure rate [23% of units were lost.] Pilots were not very excited to fly this death trap. However it was an extremely sought-after assignment for crews.
[…]
The cockpit had an overheating problem […] coolant was a mixture of 60% distilled water and 40% ethanol. […] It ran on vodka, yes. Naturally there were numerous reports of crews drinking the plane’s coolant […] the coolant was utilized with a shocking efficiency […] 100% of it was used during flights.
Florida health officials on Sunday announced an investigation into a cluster of measles cases at an elementary school in the Fort Lauderdale area with a low vaccination rate, a scenario health experts fear will become more and more common amid slipping vaccination rates nationwide.
On Friday, Broward County Public School reported a confirmed case of measles in a student at Manatee Bay Elementary School in the city of Weston. A local CBS affiliate reported that the case was in a third-grade student who had not recently traveled. On Saturday, the school system announced that three additional cases at the same school had been reported, bringing the current reported total to four cases.
On Sunday, the Florida Department of Health in Broward County (DOH-Broward) released a health advisory about the cases and announced it was opening an investigation to track contacts at risk of infection…
Astronomers have discovered what may be the brightest object in the universe, a quasar with a black hole at its heart growing so fast that it swallows the equivalent of a sun a day.
The record-breaking quasar shines 500 trillion times brighter than our sun. The black hole powering this distant quasar is more than 17 billion times more immense than our sun, an Australian-led team reported Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy…
I adduce it because in his preamble he clarifies a concept that eludes many people and I think it’s an important one, so I’ve put the work in.
Here’s my slightly summarised transcribed excerpt of that concept. I have taken the liberty to add punctuation and adjust it for readability, since Vlad is one of those YouTubers who speaks extemporaneously though rather slowly, and what he says is quite dense in meaning but somewhat stream-of-consciousness.
… because if anything is true of our current political predicament it’s that in fact the Gap in sophistication and in particular in ethical Integrity between the average citizen and their political representative has shrunk you know indeed we’re getting increasingly political Representatives who have less Integrity than just the average citizen so that’s important [to] know but we are sometimes inclined to forget it or inclined to [not] face it properly and waking up to that makes all the difference when it comes to understanding the pathologies of our politicians so I’m going to say a few things
[…] the first thing I want to say: liar politicians deceive their citizens; PTPs (posttruth populist politicians) enter into a co-conspiracy with citizens in which both parties agree the truth doesn’t matter or doesn’t matter much; deceiving, leaving you versus entering a co-conspiracy with you (with some of you) in which both you and your political representative agrees the truth doesn’t matter so we’re talking about a social “Dynamic of Liberation” through the denial of truth: the truth puts me in chains, engaging in the co-conspiracy in which I throw it off liberates me. It’s a social phenomena of our age.
The second thing I want to say is that liar politicians misrepresent the difference between particular truths and particular lies; post-truth populist politicians misrepresent the difference between truth and lies in general, undermine the difference between truth and lies in general.
So these two things we’ve put on the table clearly suggest that something is going wrong with the internal coherence of statements that some of our political representatives make and that this degeneration in internal coherence is not simply imposed upon the citizenry, but the citizenry in part engages in a co-conspiracy with its political representatives to deny the stability of the difference between
truth and lies which wasn’t denied let us say only 10 years ago in Western politics, and […]
An Oregon man who allegedly broke a Speaker of the House sign during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has been arrested, authorities say.
David Medina, 34, was arrested on felony and misdemeanor charges, the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington announced Friday. He is charged with multiple misdemeanor charges, including destruction of government property, entering or remaining in a restricted area without authority and disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted area, among others.
According to court documents, Medina was identified in open-source images and video footage as slamming the wooden sign above the Speaker’s office, which read, “Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi” in an attempt to break it. He was then seen next to other rioters who were holding pieces of the broken sign, according to the documents…
Seventy-two hours following the death of Alexei Navalny, Donald Trump made his first comments on the death of the Russian opposition leader Monday but stopped short of condemning anyone or offering sympathy.
Instead, the former president related his own legal woes to the death of Navalny, who died in prison on Friday at the age of 47. Trump on Friday was ordered to pay a $354.8 million penalty payment as part of civil fraud trial decision.
“The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country,” Trump posted to Truth Social on Monday. “It is a slow, steady progression, with CROOKED, Radical Left Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges leading us down a path to destruction. Open Borders, Rigged Elections, and Grossly Unfair Courtroom Decisions are DESTROYING AMERICA. WE ARE A NATION IN DECLINE, A FAILING NATION! MAGA2024.” …
A judge investigating the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse issued a final report on Monday that indicts his widow, Martine Moïse, ex-prime minister Claude Joseph and the former chief of Haiti’s National Police, Léon Charles, among others…
According to Air Canada, Moffatt never should have trusted the chatbot and the airline should not be liable […] “the chatbot is a separate legal entity that is responsible for its own actions,” […] the first time a Canadian company tried to argue that
[…]
Tribunal member […] who decided the case in favor of Moffatt, called Air Canada’s defense “remarkable.” “Air Canada argues it cannot be held liable for information provided by one of its agents, servants, or representatives—including a chatbot […] It does not explain why it believes that is the case”
[…]
Air Canada has disabled the chatbot. Air Canada did not respond to Ars’ request to confirm
Reginald @92, that’s a rather simplistic take; cf. my #90 — the reference is later on in the video, where Vlad talks about an algorithmic jump (linkage) in political utterances.
[…] Trump wrote nothing about Navalny’s life or cause. He wrote nothing about Putin or the authoritarian government responsible for Navalny’s life. Instead, the presumptive GOP nominee took the opportunity to briefly reference Navalny before listing some of the things he doesn’t like about the United States.
Indeed, Trump’s condemnation of his own country wasn’t much different from what one might expect from a foreign opponent of the United States, disparaging American institutions from afar.
Soon after, House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi sat down with MSNBC’s Jen Psaki and said Trump’s statement was “beneath the dignity of a human being.” The California Democrat added, “It is so horrible you think, ‘No, somebody must have made this up. Not even Donald Trump could go this far.’ … This statement should disqualify him from running for anything, much less President of the United States.”
[…] as part of the same comments, Pelosi also raised a related question:
“You wonder, what does Putin have on Donald Trump that he always has to be beholden to him, his buddy in vileness? … I don’t know what [Putin] has on [Trump], but I think it’s probably financial.”
[…] Former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, who also served as a Republican senator before joining Trump’s team, had similar concerns. […] Trump’s handpicked director of National Intelligence reportedly suspected that Trump had been compromised by Russia — and the longer Coats served alongside the GOP president, the more he feared his suspicions were true.
I wonder what Coats is thinking now after Trump used the occasion of Navalny’s death to criticize the United States.
This is worth watching if you haven’t yet. Subtitled in English.
“Putin not only killed the man called Alexei Navalny, he also wanted to kill our hopes, our freedom, and our future. He wanted to destroy and erase the best proof that Russia can be different…
That we are strong, that we are courageous, that we believe and fight desperately. And that we want to live differently.”
[…] So, let’s put this all together: Trump implies he is like Navalny because both men were the victims of “CROOKED” prosecutors and judges—even though unlike Navalny, whose crimes were never proven outside of a small room in a maximum security prison, the evidence against Trump has been widely available for the public to see. Also, the Russian dictator who orchestrated Navalny’s imprisonment and suspected murder is someone Trump has repeatedly spoken of with great admiration.
Having taken a little break from fulminating, Trump returned one last time to offer a new complaint: His criminal and civil prosecutions should have happened years ago! Not after evidence and testimony was methodically collected. […]
Here’s hoping you enjoyed your Presidents Day more than Donald did!
The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal from Sidney Powell and other lawyers allied with former President Donald Trump over $150,000 in sanctions they were ordered to pay for abusing the court system with a sham lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results in Michigan.
The justices did not comment in leaving in place the sanctions against seven lawyers […]
A few questions for engineers:
-would standardised nuclear powerplants be significantly cheaper than the unique snowflake powerplants or is this wishful thinking?
Also, if huge battery parks really become affordable around 2030, can this solve most of the problems with the intermittent solar and wind power production? (I am making the assumption that legacy coal/oil powerplants are kept in reserve for extreme shortfall events)
[…] note the guy taking the video you’re watching, he’s the guy screaming “Show me your faces!” repeatedly at this phalanx of Neo-Nazis, who according to Frank Figliuzzi, national security analyst for MSNBC and former Asst Dir. of Counterintelligence at the FBI, call themselves ‘Blood Tribe’, and are led by a former Marine named Christopher Pohlhaus. The group dispersed fairly quickly after this minor confrontation.
[…] these ‘tough guys’, considered the fringe of the fringe, are insecure enough to hide their identities, just like the KKK found it was necessary to do because their ‘ideas’ have no legitimate purchase in majorities of mainstream America, who consider their activities as irresponsibly provocative.
Second, that it didn’t take much to scare them off, in Nashville, Tennessee, no less. It doesn’t appear from the video there was much public affinity by passersby to the spectacle of uniformed — but masked — Blood Tribe neo Nazis. In fact, the last part of the clip with Blood Tribe marchers passes by a bystander watching the videographer, and also shouting “Cowards!” at the group, for hiding under their masks.
[…] So far, the provocation methods of groups like this are designed to invite a confrontational overreach that would justify a violent response. Which they don’t usually get. Just bigger crowds that can yell just as loudly […] Luckily, Americans are used to people getting in their faces for one thing or another, while honoring the right to speak your mind.
[…] We’re capable of distinguishing between free speech and hate speech. If we persevere, if we keep up the pressure, while Trump keeps faith with his pathological belief that his flamethrower of lawlessness and chaos is something Silent Majority America is pining for, Trumpism is going down.
We’re a long way from beating this thing, but the signs are looking good that Good People are not willing to make the same allowances to political intimidation that occurred in the 1930’s, that their grandfathers lost their lives to defeat militarily in Europe and Asia in defense of democracy. […]
the passage of the 13, 14, and 15th Amendments, providing suffrage for all free [p]ersons and the protection of the Law, for the purpose of political representation as citizens of the United States […]
While plenty of mistakes were made in the name of that ‘Cold War’, some good things came about domestically that held Americans to their better natures, in order to demonstrate a reasonable fidelity to the words written on pieces of paper. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, once again guaranteeing political suffrage to structurally-disenfranchised peoples in America, was one of those things.
Nearly 60 years later, it’s evident that Jim Crow is not coming back to town […]
We are gonna beat this thing. Election 2024 is just the start of something Big. […] Once again, citizens stepping up, in ways large and small, to defend Democracy and make it their own. Let’s continue to ‘show our faces’ and confront this narcissistic Menace to our society. […]
Photo of Mike and Trump available at the link. Two insufferable, smug assholes sharing a moment at Mar-a-Lago.
Why is Traitor Mike Johnson in Palm Beach kissing Traitor Trump’s behind as an updated IAEA warning on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (Europe’s largest) in Ukraine is increasingly in danger from bloodthirsty Putin’s war machine?
According to the IAEA, the contamination from Zaporizhzhia would leave Ukraine, Turkey, and large swathes of Europe uninhabitable.
As far as I can tell, only annieli has reported on the looming disaster. Rachel Maddow reported on the situation last night. That is where I saw the video.
A title on a possible nuclear power plant meltdown in Ukraine deserves some credibility. From Richard Engle’s reporting: [video at the link, important]
Let’s review the criminal activity that occurs at Mar-A-Lago below.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk was in Mar-a-Lago on his knees, kissing the ring.
[Tweets and images at the link]
Pro-Putin Elon Musk visited Mar-A-lago. Of course, reporting will be minimal because Donald Trump expects loyalty. But blocking Twitter accounts always draws scrutiny. Holy Canolli!
[Tweet showing that Elon Musk suspended Yulia Navalnaya’s account!]
Musk reverses course just now. It’s likely due to furious backlash; he banned her one day after stating she was going to carry on her murdered husband’s work. [More tweets at the link]
The list includes a 9/11 truther and election denialists.
A songwriter who produces rap songs with conspiracy theories about Covid; an academic who has championed debunked and bizarre notions about 9/11, the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, the 2020 election, and other public events; a polygraph examiner who wrote a novel tying Russian mobsters and sexual predators who exploit disabled children to a government plot to cover up the tie between vaccines and childhood autism; and the head of an autism activists group who believes pharmaceutical companies, Big Tech, the media, and the government are scheming to acquire total control of humanity—these are some of the people hired as consultants by American Values 2024, the super PAC that’s supporting the independent presidential campaign of Robert Kennedy Jr.
American Values 2024, which spent $7 million to air a controversial pro-RFK Jr. ad during the recent Super Bowl, was co-founded by Mark Gorton, the chair of a computerized trading firm, and Tony Lyons, the head of Skyhorse Publishing, which has published books by Kennedy that promote conspiracy theories and debunked notions about vaccines and Covid. […]
More details about the doofuses and dunderheads the Super PAC hired are available at the link.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to revive a lawsuit from three House Republicans after their pay was docked for not complying with a pandemic-era mask requirement on the chamber floor.
In a brief order without any noted dissents, the court let stand a lower ruling that tossed the constitutional challenge filed by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.).
The three conservative lawmakers were fined $500 in May 2021 after flouting the House floor mask mandate that was put in place amid the COVID-19 pandemic, kicking off a years-long attempt by the trio of lawmakers to get the penalties lifted.
House rules fined lawmakers $500 for their first infraction with the mask mandate, and $2,500 for subsequent breaches. It would be withdrawn from their yearly pay. Greene racked up more than $100,000 in fines, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. […]
[…] They claim Navalny actually died from complications related to the COVID vaccine, because of how he took the “bad” MRNA vaccine and not the “good” Russian vaccine.
As you may recall, unless you’ve blocked it out, anti-vaxxers believe that “sudden death,” “died suddenly,” or any death related to a heart issue or a blood clot is secret code for “they died from the vaccine but we won’t tell you because want more people to die from the vaccine!
One blue-checked user, who apparently falsely claims to be an ER nurse at Eastern New Mexico Medical Center, claimed that she heard “doctors suspect it was caused by the Pfizer vaccine.” [Tweet at the link]
I do hope for her next act she claims to be the real Anastasia.
“Alexei Navalny died from the COVID vaccine and the fact that nobody wants to admit it is shameful,” wrote whoever is in charge of the account for the Bruin Republicans of UCLA. “Why would you blame Putin for something Navalny did to himself by taking an experimental mRNA vaccine?” [Tweets at the link restating vaccine conspiracy. Looks like Russian bots to me.]
[…] Again, these doctors who “suspect it was caused by vaccination” do not exist. Also, there has not been an autopsy yet and we will likely not get any results for a while. These people are all just repeating the same nonsense they read in other people’s tweets.
Now, some state-run media outlets like RT have reported that Navalny died from a blood clot, but they have not provided any sources for that assertion. Additionally, the New York Times reports that “Anna Karetnikova, who oversaw pretrial detention centers in the Moscow region, said in her experience ‘blood clotting’ was a common shorthand for lethal cases that prison authorities had no intention of investigating.”
[…] The thing that breaks my mind here is that someone had to come up with this to begin with. […] It is a statement of “facts.” it is nonexistent doctors saying things no one ever said. […] That lady who doesn’t work at the hospital she says she’s working at should know she’s lying about at least that.
[…] This is far from the only conspiracy going around about Navalny’s death and we can surely expect more in the coming days, weeks, months, years, etc. The fact is, it is highly unlikely that we’re ever really going to know for sure what actually killed him — though we can be pretty darn sure that that it wasn’t the Covid vaccine.
A man’s corpse, found riddled with bullets and run over by a vehicle in Spain last week, was identified as that of Russian military pilot Maksim Kuzminov, who flew his Mi-8 helicopter to Ukraine in a dramatic defection last August, Ukrainian officials said.
His apparent murder — after a very public threat to his life last year on Russian state television — has raised questions about whether this was a Russian-ordered assassination carried out on European soil.
The spokesman for Ukraine’s intelligence service, Andriy Yusov, confirmed to The Washington Post on Tuesday that the body found at the entrance to a residential complex in Villajoyosa, in Alicante, was Kuzminov’s.
Russian officials have not claimed responsibility for the killing. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the case Tuesday, saying it was “not on the Kremlin’s agenda.”
But Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, spoke to Russian journalists Tuesday, saying that Kuzminov was dead the moment he started planning his defection.
“In Russia, it is common to speak well of the dead or say nothing at all. This traitor and criminal already became a moral corpse at the moment when he was planning his dirty and terrible crime,” Naryshkin said, according to reports in Russian state news agencies Tass and Ria.
Last October, Dmitry Kiselyov, host of the state television news program Vesti Nedeli, aired a segment on Kuzminov’s defection. The report ended by quoting three masked men in camouflage, identified as special forces members of Russian military intelligence, stating that they had been given the order to eliminate Kuzminov.
“We will find the man and punish him to the full extent of the law of our state for treason,” said one. “We have long arms.” […]
One of my parents came to me once a long time ago wanting to challenge the theory of evolution. I don’t remember precisely what the challenge was but within about 20 seconds they had dashed off with a “stop attacking my faith!”.
Re: Lynna, OM @ #108…
Grumble… All these people who think it was GRANDparents who were involved in WW2. My FATHER was in the Maritime Service training ships engineers on the new power systems being installed in ships, and my late wife’s father was in the Army training pilot cadets on aircraft recognition.
If it comes that, my late wife had an UNCLE who was a pilot in the Lafayette Escadrille in WW1.
If you get back to great-grandparents, we’re talking US Civil War.
Pierce R. Butlersays
Lynna… @ # 103 quoting Benen quoting Pelosi: … what does Putin have on Donald Trump that he always has to be beholden to him, his buddy in vileness? … I don’t know what [Putin] has on [Trump], but I think it’s probably financial.
I often wonder why politicians and “pundits” across the board so frequently speculate about that but so rarely mention what seems to me the most obvious scenario. Before they collapsed, Trump’s chain of casinos earned the largest fine then imposed by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement for failing to use the bookkeeping methods required to detect money laundering, with the foremost unquestioned and never-found “person of interest” in that case bearing the name of “Ivanov”.
We should also note that many sources report considerable overlap between Russian intelligence services and Russian organized crime – and that the former in particular, unlike the Trump Org, have a reputation for thorough and meticulous record-keeping. (Cue Dragnet theme music.)
birgerjohanssonsays
Some lighter drama.
“LNSM Turns 10: Seth Meyer’s Baby Was Delivered in His Lobby”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=W7qHP5tmb6U
I post this because -despite the stereotypes about New Yorkers- his neighbors were very helpful. 😊
President Joe Biden said that the sanctions package will be announced on Friday, the day before the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@Brony #115:
Same story as just before the thread rolled over. Linked here at #2. Similar text.
The rest of your comment was novel ofc. Good delivery.
[…] Last week, after the shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl celebration, the Tennessee Republican published a social media message that read, “One of the Kansas City Chiefs victory parade shooters has been identified as an illegal Alien.”
Part of the problem with the message, of course, was the underlying effort to tie the deadly shooting to an anti-immigrant agenda. But more importantly, the congressman was simply wrong: The shooter wasn’t an undocumented immigrant, and the man in the photograph accompanying Burchett’s tweet wasn’t a gunman. [!!!]
As The Daily Beast reported, it took a while, but the GOP lawmaker is now backpedaling.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) backtracked on Monday afternoon and deleted a tweet that wrongly identified a local resident as being an “illegal alien” and one of the gunmen in the Kansas City Super Bowl parade shooting. According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, Burchett only deleted the post after the outlet contacted him on Monday and asked about the tweet, which falsely claimed Kansas native Denton Loudermill was one of the suspected shooters.
In Burchett’s latest message, published roughly 24 hours ago, the Tennessean wrote, “It has come to my attention that in one of my previous posts, one of the shooters was identified as an illegal alien. This was based on multiple, incorrect news reports stating that. I have removed the post.”
That was a step in the right direction, though the congressman’s explanation wasn’t quite right, either: Reports from independent local media showed the man in question being briefly detained, but they did not identify him as either the shooter or an undocumented immigrant.
Or put another way, after Burchett made a claim that wasn’t true, he offered an explanation based on details that were also not true.
The local football fan who was falsely accused is now scrambling to clear his name — he’s reportedly received death threats — and it’s not yet clear whether the Republican congressman intends to issue an apology to the innocent man he featured online.
But complicating matters further, Burchett didn’t have credibility to spare. Ron Filipkowski did a nice job summarizing some of the GOP lawmaker’s greatest hits, and it’s not a record the congressman should be proud of.
Excerpt from Ron Filipkowski’s summary:
[…] Last June, Tim Burchett who is obsessed with UFOs, said that he has never seen one but he knows that they are real because they are in the Bible.
[…] Burchett also said that Speaker Johnson should send the House Sgt. at Arms out to find and arrest Hunter Biden if he isn’t prosecuted by DOJ for Contempt of Congress, even before any vote had been held to refer the matter to DOJ.
[…] After the huge J6 hearing in the House in 2022 that had over 20 million people watching it live, Burchett claimed that more people were watching the Cartoon Network that day. […]
Ah, an excellent example of an elected Republican official.
“President Biden’s reelection campaign hammered former President Trump on Monday for coming in last among presidents in a new survey,” The Hill reports.
“Trump found himself at the very bottom of the list, while Biden was ranked the 14th-best president in the 2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey, which was conducted from Nov. 15 to Dec. 31 by a panel of experts specializing in the American presidency.”
From a Biden email: “Happy Presidents’ Day! … Unless You’re Donald Trump.”
[…] some solid political reporting has been done on what to expect in a Trump II. I’ll credit some of our own coverage in that regard, too, including our January story on the plan to target the independence of independent agencies and our December story on how Trump is laying the groundwork to co-opt the military.
This morning Politico has a new piece out on the effort to infuse Trump II with the fervor of Christian nationalism. It serves as a good reminder that while Trump himself remains dangerous he also serves in an additional role as a conduit for all sorts of bad actors, conspiracists, grifters, ne’er-do-wells, hangers-on, con artists, extremists, and ideological wackadoodles.
Some of the names coming in to a second Trump administration under the Christian nationalism rubric are familiar: former Trump OMB director Russell Vought, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, and former Trump official William Wolfe.
As Politico notes:
Freedom of religion would remain a protected right, but Vought and his ideological brethren would not shy from using their administration positions to promote Christian doctrine and imbue public policy with it, according to both people familiar with the matter, granted anonymity to avoid retaliation. He makes clear reference to human rights being defined by God, not man.
The range of policy matters implicated by Christian nationalist precepts is as vast as the array of hot button social issues that the GOP draws from to drum up “culture wars” of one kind or another. But for Christian nationalists, it really is warfare. […]
Spearheading the effort is Russell Vought, president of The Center for Renewing America, part of a conservative consortium preparing for Trump’s return to power.
In an 85-12 vote, the West Virginia House of Delegates passed a bill that would amend its 1931 obscenity code to authorize felony charges and $25,000 fines for librarians, museum curators and teachers who intentionally display “obscene matter” to minors.
What is “obscene matter”? Why, anything an average person believes “depicts or describes sexually explicit conduct, nudity, sex or certain bodily functions.” Sound vague? That’s the point!
Would a diagram of lady parts in a textbook count? A graphic novel about fully clothed and accessorized vampires who are lesbians in love? Twilight? A cartoon spokesbear attending to the hygiene of his bodily functions in the woods? And would you wanna risk jail to find out […]
Christian Nationalists trying to hide their agenda … and failing.
[…] Vought has publicly said he wants tough immigration restrictions that would limit it to people who have “accept[ed] Israel’s God, laws and understanding of history,” and they don’t mean Israel in its modern incarnation as a Jewish state. Which seems as if it would be bad news for, say, Muslims or Hindus or atheists or Rastafarians or anyone in Korea still clinging to Cheondoism or … eh, you get the idea.
Vought is also affiliated with one William Wolfe, who also worked in the Trump administration at both the State and Defense departments:
In a December post, he called for ending sex education in schools, surrogacy and no-fault divorce throughout the country, as well as forcing men “to provide for their children as soon as it’s determined the child is theirs” — a clear incursion by the government into Americans’ private lives.
This is hilarious because elsewhere, Politico quotes Vought has having once written that his form of Christian Nationalism allows for “institutional separation of church and state,” which, if you can square that with Christian Nationalist policies that would make significant changes to the institutions of marriage and public schools in America, you are smarter than we are.
[…] For its part, the Trump campaign is very indignant at the idea that anyone but Trump is responsible for making staffing and policy decisions for a new Trump term:
In response to various news articles about how conservatives are preparing for a second Trump term, campaign advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said in a memo late last year: “Despite our being crystal clear, some ‘allies’ haven’t gotten the hint, and the media, in their anti-Trump zeal, has been all-too-willing to continue using anonymous sourcing and speculation about a second Trump administration in an effort to prevent a second Trump administration.”
Of course no one in the media is denying that the Trump campaign is in charge of staffing and policy decisions. Reporters are just looking at policies and staffers like this from the first Trump administration:
In 2019, Trump’s then-secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, set up a federal commission to define human rights based on the precepts Vought describes, specifically “natural law and natural rights.” Natural law is the belief that there are universal rules derived from God that can’t be superseded by government or judges.
Why yes, we do remember that.
And yes, if this is ringing your bells, Vought advises that Heritage Foundation Project 2025 thing we’ve written about previously, which comprises 75 some-odd think tanks full of people who can’t wait to create an authoritarian Christian nationalist second Trump term, completely untethered from American values. Heritage Foundation also denies that its project is about any of that though, heaven forfend, why would you suggest?
So reporters are looking at all these people and the policies they have been promoting and wondering, at least in Russ Vought’s case, “Hm, I wonder if this guy who worked in the first Trump administration and still reportedly talks to Trump at least once a month and who espouses all these Christian nationalist-based policies is going to get hired in the next Trump administration, and if literally everything he’s said and done for the last few years would in any way influence his work there.”
We can’t help it if the conclusion is something besides, “Nah, probably not.”
[…] Beyoncé is now the first Black female artist to top the Hot Country Songs chart.
[…] the artist’s venture into country hasn’t been without controversy already. Although Black artists have a long influence in country music, fans of the genre have tended to skew white and conservative in recent decades — and many Black artists have found their country music sidelined by country fans and radio.
[…] Which brings us back around to today, where, as Forbes reports, though Beyoncé has indeed charted in country, it’s no small feat that this happened at all. As of last Tuesday, only eight of the 150 stations that report to Billboard’s Country Airplay chart said they had played “Texas Hold ‘Em” in its first day. Meanwhile, none reported playing “16 Carriages.”
[…] Given this week’s chart placement, it would appear many stations have started putting Beyoncé in the rotation after all.
Meanwhile, Oklahoma radio station KYKC, which originally responded to fan requests for the song saying that it “did not play Beyoncé as we are a country music station” reversed course after pushback. The station later elaborated that they hadn’t known Beyoncé had even released music classified as country and had sent a standard reply. […]
Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg has bought a website address referencing former president Donald Trump’s new sneaker brand and turned it into an anti-gun violence website with the ability to call lawmakers to advocate for legislation.
Mr Hogg, who is now the president of Leaders We Deserve, an organisation dedicated to electing young candidates to Congress, made the announcement on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday.
“I just bought shoptrumpsneakers.com” the activist wrote. “I have redirected you to a page to call your member of Congress. The twist is the person who makes the call is a victim of gun violence whose voice has been re-created with AI to call for gun safety.” …
President Biden’s reelection campaign said Tuesday that a second term for former President Trump would be “straight out of the Handmaid’s Tale.”
The criticism toward the former president comes in light of a Politico report detailing how Trump allies are working on infusing “Christian nationalist ideas” into a potential second term.
“This is straight out of the Handmaid’s Tale. Nationwide abortion bans, attacks on same-sex marriage, and restrictions on contraception — this is the horrifying reality being openly discussed by Team Trump and the likely architects of his second term agenda,” said Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt.
The Biden campaign outlined that Trump has said he would be dictator for a day at the start of a new administration and pointed to a Rolling Stone report that the former president would embrace recommendations from the conservative Heritage Foundation in a second term.
“Every day Donald Trump openly supports an agenda of restricting Americans’ freedoms, dividing our country, and attacking our rights. That’s what he will do as president. It’s not who we are as Americans,” Hitt said. “Like they’ve done election after election, Americans will reject Donald Trump and his out-of-touch extremism again this November.”
The campaign also pointed to a New York Times report that said Trump told advisers and allies that he favors a 16-week ban on abortion, a story that the Trump campaign pushed back on but didn’t contradict. […]
Being from Europe I do not think of Beyoncé as ‘black’, she could easily be from Southern Asia like KIA. Merican society -having been obsessed with race since goddamn Cotton Mather- just has to pigeonhole everyone to race as well as musical category.
.
Aaargh, time for a review of another of those films.
“GAM444 Messiah – Netflix Episodes 3 & 4 ”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=4xxcFrE82Uk
The christians behind the film had good intentions – they wanted to criticize the cruel border policies of Trump, but they screwed up big, as becomes evident if you listen to this podcast.
Previously two minors had been charged in the deadly violence the officials have said started as a dispute between several people.
Two men have been charged with murder in the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade shooting that killed one woman and injured more than 20 people last week.
The defendants were named by prosecutors as Dominic M. Miller of Kansas City and Lyndell Mays of Raytown. They each face charges of second-degree murder, armed criminal action, and unlawful use of a weapon, according to a statement from the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office.
“The defendants attended a Super Bowl parade and rally on Feb. 14, 2024, and were armed with firearms,” the office said. “A verbal altercation occurred and gunfire broke out with no regard for thousands of other individuals in the area.”
Previously, two juveniles were charged in the Feb. 14 shooting in downtown Kanas City, Mo. Baker would not clarify if those minors had any connection to the adults who have been charged.
The charged adults, who were injured in the shooting and remain hospitalized, are being held on $1 million bond
The prosecutor said preliminary evidence indicates the deadly shooting started after one of them got into a verbal argument with someone he had no prior connection to.
“That argument very quickly escalated,” Baker said. “Almost immediately, others pulled their firearms.”
According to court documents in the case, the altercation started with a remark about whether one person was looking at another.
“Four males approached Lyndell Mays and one of the males asked Lyndell Mays what he was looking at, because they didn’t know him,” the charging documents allege.
“They began arguing about why they were staring at each other,” Det. Grand Spiking wrote in the documents of Mays and a group of men involved in the confrontation.
Guns were drawn, some from backpacks, on both sides, prosecutors said.
Miller allegedly opened fire, along with at least one other person, and it was his gunfire that struck Lisa Lopez-Galvan, there to celebrate the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl win, prosecutors alleged at the news conference, according to KSHB.
Lopez-Galvan, a mother of two and local radio DJ, was killed, and 22 other people, ranging from 8 to 47 years old, were injured.
The shooting is under investigation, and more charges may be filed against others, Baker said.
“We seek to hold every shooter accountable for their actions on that day. Every single one,” Baker said. “So, while we’re not there yet on every single individual, we’re gonna get there.”
Baker is asking anyone with information on the shooting, specifically those who were injured during the incident, to come forward.
LockBit, a notorious cybercrime gang that holds its victims’ data to ransom, has been disrupted in a rare international law enforcement operation by Britain’s National Crime Agency, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Europol and Canadian authorities, according to a post on the gang’s extortion website on Monday.
“This site is now under the control of the National Crime Agency of the U.K., working in close co-operation with the FBI and the international law enforcement task force, ‘Operation Cronos,'” the post said.
An NCA spokesperson confirmed that the agency had disrupted the gang and said the operation was “ongoing and developing.”
The post named other international police organizations from France, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland and Germany…
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @133: So staring is now a reason to shoot people?!! MURRICA!!!
The top-notch trolling came after authorities from the US, UK, and Europol took down most of the infrastructure belonging to Lockbit, a ransomware syndicate that has extorted more than $120 million from thousands of victims around the world. On Tuesday, most of the sites Lockbit uses to shame its victims for being hacked, pressure them into paying, and brag of their hacking prowess began displaying content announcing the takedown. The seized infrastructure also hosted decryptors victims could use to recover their data…
The razzing didn’t stop there. File names of the images had titles including: “this_is_really_bad.png,” “oh dear.png,” and “doesnt_look_good.png.” The seized page also teased the upcoming doxing of LockbitSupp, the moniker of the main Lockbit figure. It read: “Who is LockbitSupp? The $10m question” and displayed images of cash wrapped in chains with padlocks. Copying a common practice of Lockbit and competing ransomware groups, the seized site displayed a clock counting down the seconds until the identifying information will be posted…
In all, authorities said they seized control of 14,000 accounts and 34 servers located in the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, France, Switzerland, Australia, the US, and the UK. Two Lockbit suspects have been arrested in Poland and Ukraine, and five indictments and three arrest warrants have been issued. Authorities also froze 200 cryptocurrency accounts linked to the ransomware operation.
“At present, a vast amount of data gathered throughout the investigation is now in the possession of law enforcement,” Europol officials said. “This data will be used to support ongoing international operational activities focused on targeting the leaders of this group, as well as developers, affiliates, infrastructure, and criminal assets linked to these criminal activities.” …
johnson @135, yeah that “he’s looking at me” excuse for shooting someone really struck me too. Petty, childish. Except they had guns. They killed or injured many people.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, thoroughly spanked on the public stage by Donald Trump (and Gov. Gavin Newsom), is back in his home state trying to clean up some of the mess he made. On Thursday, DeSantis and his team released an announcement that he will continue “to debunk the false narrative that the state of Florida bans books,” [LOL] calling on the state legislature to “make necessary adjustments so that we can prevent abuses in the objection process and ensure that districts aren’t overwhelmed by frivolous challenges.”
Unable to admit that HB 1069, which he signed into law in May 2023, has led to Nazi-esque book bans, DeSantis’s announcement instead blamed “people [who] have abused this process in an effort to score cheap political points.” It is a rich sentiment coming from the guy who appointed the co-founder of the far-right Moms for Liberty to the state ethics commission last fall in an attempt to drum up excitement for his flailing presidential campaign.
The announcement came with a bizarre video uploaded to the right-wing and libertarian-catering Rumble platform. The video claims that any reports from “the media” concerning books like “The Diary of Anne Frank” being banned is false. In fact, it was one of those Moms for Liberty that DeSantis likes so much who got the book banned from her local high school.
In an attempt to revise very recent history, DeSantis’ announcement claims, “No district in Florida has removed any dictionaries or thesauruses,” calling that assertion “ridiculous.” They have as recently as last month.
DeSantis also forgot to cover how editions of books like “Sleeping Beauty” and Jon J. Muth’s acclaimed series of illustrated children’s books “Zen Shorts” found their way onto his state’s banned book lists.
The book bans are just some of the more glaring results of DeSantis and Florida Republicans’ authoritarian, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-education, anti-Black history policies. The Parental Rights in Education Bill along with the Stop Woke Act (the latter led a textbook company to strip out the mention of race in the section about Rosa Parks) are also a part of the culture war policies the Florida governor has overseen. DeSantis’ announcement wasn’t interested in addressing those concerns.
Florida Republicans tend to really lean into the lying and hypocrisy once their bad and frequently unconstitutional policies are exposed. So in that way, DeSantis is just doing what Republicans in his state have been doing for years: Lying and revising the history of their terrible decision making.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels shot down a U.S. drone and damaged a Belize-flagged, British cargo ship in their latest assault against commercial vessels, their spokesperson claimed Monday. The Iranian-backed group, which has been targeting commercial shipping since the outbreak of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, said they hit the cargo ship Rubymar in the Gulf of Aden.
Three Republicans who had their pay docked in 2021 for flouting a mask mandate on the floor of the House of Representatives during the COVID pandemic got no help from the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
The justices, without comment, declined an appeal from Reps. Tom Massie, Ralph Norman and Marjorie Taylor Greene in their suit against former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Lower courts had said Pelosi could not be sued because courts don’t have jurisdiction over Congress’ internal rules…
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito attempted an “I told you so” on Tuesday when he criticized a judge’s dismissal of potential jurors in a workplace discrimination case because they believed homosexuality is a sin.
Alito said that’s exactly the type of outcome he warned against when, against his objections, the Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage.
Alito said he’d anticipated that Americans would be labeled as bigots unless they hid their traditional religious beliefs about “homosexual conduct.” …
Yes, and…? What exactly is his objection to calling bigots bigots? Does he think that is worse than being denied basic human rights?
johnson catmansays
re Reginald Selkirk @141: Doncha know that the REAL bigots are the people who call bigots bigots?
Kayakers and nature lovers are flocking to Death Valley National Park in California to enjoy something exceedingly rare at one of the driest places in the United States: Water.
A temporary lake has bubbled up in the park’s Badwater Basin, which lies 282 feet below sea level. What is typically a dry salt flat at the bottom of Death Valley has for months been teeming with water after record rains and flooding have battered eastern California since August…
Republican John Deaton, a former U.S. Marine and cryptocurrency attorney, announced Monday that he is challenging Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren as she runs for her third term in office…
Deaton cast himself as a fighter for the working and middle classes…
Good luck with that, crypto-bro.
tomhsays
Re: #140
According to The Hill Marjorie Taylor Greene racked up over $100,000 in fines for refusing to wear a mask on the floor of Congress during the pandemic. She had this to say: “Even though I was fined over $100,000 by Pelosi, I wouldn’t change a thing,” she said. Genius.
An interesting new attack on biometric security has been outlined by a group of researchers from China and the US. PrintListener: Uncovering the Vulnerability of Fingerprint Authentication via the Finger Friction Sound [PDF] proposes a side-channel attack on the sophisticated Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS). The attack leverages the sound characteristics of a user’s finger swiping on a touchscreen to extract fingerprint pattern features. Following tests, the researchers assert that they can successfully attack “up to 27.9% of partial fingerprints and 9.3% of complete fingerprints within five attempts at the highest security FAR [False Acceptance Rate] setting of 0.01%.” This is claimed to be the first work that leverages swiping sounds to infer fingerprint information…
This is really stretching my ability to believe. I will keep my eyes out for debunking articles.
Reginald Selkirk @ 151: I Don’t know. I’ve been to some of those towns, and didn’t find them creepy at all. But I’m an old white guy who no longer has long hippie hair. I live in a similar town now, population less than 2000, and have for 20 years. I won’t go to the local all night gas station, since it’s the local hangout of the MAGA and MAGA adjacent. They don’t creep me out; I just worry I’ll get into a pointless, heated argument when I overhear one of them say something nasty and stupid, which is almost a guaranteed occurrence. But right across the square from this place is The Common Market, a small grocery store with a co-op vibe, owned and run by our friend Joyce, a life-long resident who recently turned 70, who’s openly gay. Everyone in town knows and likes her, including most of those bigots at the BP. We have a neighbor right across the street who has a confederate flag next to a Trump flag hanging in her yard, and we have a BLM and Rainbow flag hanging in ours. I think, like the country as a whole, even in our little town, the majority of folks live in the kind, reality-based universe, but the significant minority is loud and out.
ardipithecussays
@141 Reginald Selkirk
“Does he think that is worse than being denied basic human rights?”
He thinks it is a denial of his basic human rights. To Alito and his ilk, the most fundamental human right is the right to deny rights to those less powerful.
Besides the regular matter and energy we know and love, the universe is also composed of two big mysteries: dark energy and dark matter. Theoretical astrophysicists aim to tackle these unknowns by mathematically dreaming up objects that could address the gaps in our knowledge. Thus, in research published in Classical and Quantum Gravity, a team of astrophysicists propose an exotic type of object called a “nestar” as a solution to a blind spot of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
A nestar is similar to a gravastar, which is short for gravitational vacuum condensate star. The gravastar is a theoretical object proposed in the early 2000s that has an exterior of super-thin matter and a core made up of dark energy.
Like the gravastar, the nestar is an extreme theoretical object, but with a twist. In their work, researchers Daniel Jampolski and Luciano Rezzolla propose that gravastars could be nested—hence, “nestars—and “extended to an arbitrarily large number of shells,” they write, yielding an object that offers “a new solution of the Einstein equations.”
“The nestar is like a matryoshka doll,” said Jampolski, a researcher at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Frankfurt, in a Goethe University Frankfurt am Main release. “Our solution to the field equations allows for a whole series of nested gravastars.” …
birgerjohanssonsays
GODDAMMIT! 🤯
The roof of Umeå fire station just collapsed!
There has been a lot of snow, but that is not unusual, just this morning I saw people showelling snow from the roof of another big building, people know how to deal with snow. When building anything over here, the strength of roofs are calculated to stand up to bad winters. I can only speculate that the contractor screwed up badly.
birgerjohanssonsays
I expect Alito might be upset that people using the n word are called bigots.
Not that long ago, people were oppressed just for opposing being ‘replaced’ by Jews. Where will this anti-bigot bigotry end? Soon, a patriot may no longer be able to fly the Confederate battle flag without ni…minorities whining.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 141
“Does he think that is worse than being denied basic human rights?”
That’s just the trouble, Alito doesn’t think sexual freedom is a “human right” at all. He believes that his deity wrote sexual ethics in stone: No polyamory (unless you are a man, until we change our mind in the New Testament), no butt-or-mouth-stuff, no loving anyone with the same genitals, and no women on top. He thinks his god will send your magical ghost to Hell for doing or even thinking otherwise. To him, LGBTQ people are either deluded or evil and efforts to legitimatize their existence and the sex acts involved will lead humanity to bedlam and barbarism.
Therefore, anyone who oppose this “threat” is good and deserves the protection of the law. Trying to make them obey the same rules that the rest of society is expected to play be, thus aiding and abiding perversion and blasphemy, is therefore “persecution.”
That’s what you are dealing with. Now, act accordingly.
There may be a lot more than we thought to the belt of icy debris that circles the outer Solar System.
Data from the New Horizons probe as it sails serenely through the Kuiper Belt hints at unexpected levels of particles where dust ought to be thinning out, suggesting the donut-shaped field extends significantly farther from the Sun than previous estimates suggest…
New Horizons is the NASA probe launched to explore the outer Solar System. It visited Pluto, which orbits the Sun at an average distance of 39 astronomical units, in 2015, and kept going. In January 2019, it flew by a strange object named Arrokoth, which orbits the Sun at an average distance of 44.6 astronomical units.
Since then, between distances of 45 and 55 astronomical units, New Horizons kept collecting data, assiduously beaming it back home to Earth. And guess what? Its Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter (SDC) is detecting way more dust than scientists expected there to be at that distance…
The astronomical unit (symbol: au or AU) is a unit of length, roughly the distance from Earth to the Sun and approximately equal to 150 billion metres (93 million miles) or 8.3 light-minutes…
Estonia has thwarted a Russian-directed influence operation on its territory, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has told CNN.
The operation, extending back to last year, involved a series of attacks, including vandalizing the cars of the interior minister and several monuments. The Estonian Internal Security Service arrested 10 individuals, including both Russian and Estonian nationals. Estonian officials say more attacks were planned.
“There’s a shadow war going on against our societies,” Prime Minister Kallas told CNN. “The aim of Russia’s influence operations is to influence our democratic decision making. By making these events public, we raise awareness so that these operations would not have the effect Russia is hoping for.” …
Opposing factions of the Michigan Republican Party are now planning competing conventions at opposite ends of the state.
Former ambassador and congressman Pete Hoekstra, who was elected by one block of state committee members Jan. 20 to replace Kristina Karamo, announced Tuesday he has scheduled a convention to select GOP presidential delegates for March 2 at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids. Hoekstra is endorsed by former President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee.
But Karamo, who has refused to step aside and still controls the state party website and its bank accounts, earlier scheduled a March 2 convention at Huntington Place in Detroit, for the same purpose…
There’s a common thread tying together several Republican U.S. Senate candidates this year: They have suspect ties to the states they’re running in.
[…] as NBC News reported, the party seemed especially interested in an unexpected part of the Republican candidate’s background: where he lives.
Wasting no time in continuing that strategy, the Wisconsin Democratic Party criticized Hovde within moments of his launch, dubbing him as “California Hovde,” because he owns a $7 million property in Laguna Beach and has lived in the state on-and-off since 2012.
[…] The pushback comes nearly a year after The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published a column with a memorable headline: “Eric Hovde may run for Senate in Wisconsin, but he’s living large in Laguna Beach, California.” The same piece added, “Hovde was named by the Orange County Business Journal as one of its 500 most influential people in Orange County in 2020.”
Orange County, of course, is roughly 2,000 miles away from Wisconsin.
Time will tell whether voters in the Badger State are concerned about the “California Hovde” criticisms, but stepping back, it’s hard not to notice the familiarity of the circumstances.
– In Pennsylvania, Republican Senate hopeful David McCormick has been credibly accused of living in Connecticut.
– In Montana, Democrats have been eager to remind locals that Republican Senate hopeful Tim Sheehy is relatively new to the state, having moved there from Minnesota.
– In Nevada, Democrats have been eager to remind locals that Republican Senate hopeful Sam Brown ran for office in Texas.
– In Michigan, Republican Senate hopeful Mike Rogers lived in Michigan, then moved to Florida, then moved back for the campaign.
In early January, The Washington Post reported that Christie Roberts, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said she was watching the “amount of GOP Senate candidates who are just rich guys with tenuous connections to the states they are running in.”
Evidently, she has plenty of candidates to choose from.
[…] In 2022, for example, Dr. Mehmet Oz’s Senate campaign in Pennsylvania struggled with the fact that he apparently lived in New Jersey, but in the same cycle, Ohioans didn’t much seem to care about J.D. Vance having lived in California.
That said, Politico, looking ahead to the 2024 cycle, wrote last year, “A number of 2024 Senate candidates in competitive races have a carpetbagger problem,” and there’s ample evidence to bolster the point.
[…] after Trump’s 2020 defeat he started describing his own country as “evil,” “crooked,” “failing,” and “in decline.”
[…] When Trump is in a position of power, he thinks the United States is the greatest country in the history of the world. When he’s not in office, and he’s facing accountability for his alleged crimes, Trump can barely contain his disgust.
But that’s not how patriotism is supposed to work. As President Joe Biden has argued, “Democracy cannot survive when one side believes there are only two outcomes to an election: either they win or they were cheated. And that’s where MAGA Republicans are today. They don’t understand what every patriotic American knows: You can’t love your country only when you win.”
Trump, evidently, disagrees. When the Republican wins, he claims the moral high ground on patriotism. When he loses, he denigrates his own country in ways no former president has ever done.
The result is a patriotism gap that probably deserves more attention as the 2024 cycle progresses.
As President Joe Biden pushes House Republicans to pass needed aid, he wants voters to understand that nearly two-thirds — or nearly $40 billion — of the money for Ukraine would actually go to U.S. factories spread out across the country including plants in Lima, Ohio and Scranton, Pennsylvania as well as Mesquite.
Mesquite, Texas is a Dallas suburb.
Excerpts from Biden’s speech:
I want to be clear about something, because I know it’s important to the American people. While this bill sends military equipment to Ukraine, it spends the money right here in the United States of America — in places like Arizona, where the Patriot missiles are built; and Alabama, where the Javelin missiles are built; and Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas, where artillery shells are made.
And the way it works is we supply Ukraine with military equipment from our stockpiles, and then we spend our money replenishing those stockpiles so our military has access to them — stockpiles that are made right here in America by American workers. That not only supports American jobs and American communities, it allows us to invest in maintaining and strengthening our own defense manufacturing capacity.
The former FBI informant charged with fabricating the Burisma bribery story about President Biden and his son Hunter had “extensive and extremely recent” contacts with foreign intel services, prosecutors alleged Tuesday.
Yes, including Russian intel.
[…] The implications of this Russian operation are staggering, especially for the willing Republicans and right-wing media stooges who were the useful idiots propagating the disinformation for years. The James Comers, Chuck Grassleys, Jim Jordans of the world have been trafficking in this stuff as the purported basis for a Biden impeachment, which is itself tightly yoked to Trump’s campaign for re-election. Right-wing outlets, most notably Fox News, have been amplifying the claims not dozens or hundreds but thousands of times over the past several months.
Everywhere you turn, it’s Russia either helping Trump directly or indirectly by damaging Trump’s foes. The pattern is clear and persistent but also so sweeping and far-reaching that it really requires taking a step back to grasp the full scope of it all. It has dominated right-wing media, become an accepted “fact” among MAGA adherents, and allowed elected Republicans to play mainstream media like a cheap fiddle. All those breathless Biden impeachment process stories? They’re an outgrowth of this disinformation campaign.
[…] We’re nearly a decade into Putin’s sustained, unrelenting attack on American democracy through misinformation and mischief. Among other things, the Republican Party and its standard bearer have been successfully enmeshed in it and thoroughly compromised. When this all began, Putin in his wildest imagination could not have conceived of this level of success. […]
Asha Rangappa (former FBI special agent, lawyer):
For real, can we recap: Sitting members of Congress initiated IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS against a U.S. President based on information passed to them by an agent of Russian intelligence. Same members refuse to pass aid to Ukraine. Same members defend Trump.
A Denali-area clothing store has been fined over $50,000 after claiming to sell products made from Yakutat alpaca, which don’t exist. KCAW’s Meredith Redick spoke with Alaska Beacon’s James Brooks about the mythical mammal that raised red flags for state investigators, and the broader trend of fake souvenirs that claim to be made in Alaska.
KCAW: Give us a basic summary of what happened here.
BROOKS: One of the things that’s in state law is something that says something that’s labeled as “Made in Alaska” actually has to be made in Alaska. And in this case, investigators got a tip that a shop outside Denali National Park was selling products that were made in Alaska, or at least that’s what the owners said. And in some of the cases, they were saying that their wool products were made from alpaca wool from Yakutat. And as anybody who lives in Yakutat knows, there’s just not any alpacas there.
KCAW: Okay, so Yakutat alpacas. Can you give us more detail about what exactly was happening in this shop?
BROOKS: So in the case of this store, outside Denali National Park, the folks were apparently importing things from Asia, importing things from Nepal, wool products, and taking off the labels and then putting on “Made in Alaska” labels…
A few new details have emerged about Tucker Carlson’s recent visit to Russia:
[…] Among the video clips The Daily Show played was little Tucker visiting what he represented as a Russian grocery store. He marveled at the carts that require a coin (or, as it turns out, any similarly sized disk) to be released from their storage area. He marveled at the cart escalator that allows one to bring their cart up one or more levels within, or at the entrance to, the store. He marveled at the bread he assessed to be “fresh” that was for sale.
And his entire presentation was how sweet and innovative these Russian stores were and (by implication) why aren’t American stores so nice or innovative?
One thing he didn’t mention is that the store he entered, pictured at the head of this diary, isn’t Russian, though it’s located in Russia.
It’s French.
Everything about the store he highlighted — the cart escalator, the carts that require a coin or something similar to use, the bread selection — was French. Not Russian. Such stores and such features commonly appear in France (and I presume most other European nations) under various names such as Carrefour, Casino, E. Leclerc, Cora, and Auchan.
But beyond my wife and me chuckling at Tucker pretending to marvel at commonplace aspects such as locked carts and a cart escalator, the thing that really drove it home for us was the logo of the store he entered. Here it is, compared to the logo for French hypermarket chain (like a Fred Meyer or Meijer super store in the U.S.) Auchan: [images at the link]
It seems that, in Russian, Auchan is Awah. [Same font, same style of presentation with the little red bird in the “A.”]
I do not in any way condone Auchan’s decision to continue operating in Russia. They should be condemned for it. But it’s comical that what little Tucker chose to highlight about how wonderful things are in Russia was actually highlighting a rather routine hypermarket chain from France.
Re: Lynna, OM @ #164…
And don’t forget that Sen. Tuberville–officially a senator from Alabama–apparently spends most of his “home” time living in Florida.
whheydtsays
Re: Lynna, OM @ #170…
I know of a store in Albany, CA that has a cart escalator…and has had for at least the last 15 years.
[…] Day 5 since the New York civil case decision from Judge Engeron came down like a stone blizzard on the Trump organization. And you know what THAT means to Trump’s wallet, right? One of our Daily Kos readers of the accounting profession took the judgment of $363 million, AND the New York law (that Engeron applied) that imposes INTEREST of 9%/annum upon any outstanding judgment. Judge Engeron had his own accounting pros figure out that since the penalty started ticking from 2019 (!) that there is over $98 million in INTEREST also owing and added to the judgment.
But our intrepid accountant (an adjective RARELY applied to such a profession) calculated that the INTEREST clock is STILL TICKING…..at about $100,000 more EACH DAY. So, since Friday, the total amount owed has gone UP $500,000…..another half-a-million…..and counting. […]
whheydt @172, yep. Lots of people trolled Tucker Carlson with facts about their local stores having cart escalators. Tucker was/is ignorant. His “I’m amazed and delighted” face in the video was just asking for a brutal debunking.
In other news about people saying crazy shit and then being called on it:
President Joe Biden is tired. Not tired in the way that the media wants to claim, but tired of how that same media is letting Donald Trump skate away from claims that are ludicrous, riddled with lies, and simply nonsensical.
Media outlets seem to realize that they do a poor job with Trump, allowing him to lead them around by the nose while rarely mentioning his frequent mistakes, rambling asides, and statements that have little connection to reality. They don’t seem inclined to hold Trump to any standard at all. If Biden were to put out a single social media post with the kind of ALL CAPS logical, grammatical, and factual errors of a typical Trump tirade, the level of pearl-clutching among the media would drive the oyster population to extinction.
So, as CNN reports, Biden has asked his campaign staff to turn up the heat on Trump. He’s calling on his team to significantly increase the attention that it gives to the “crazy shit” Trump says in public. If the media won’t do its job, Biden will have to do it for them.
The media routinely pays little attention to the outrageous, rambling, and just plain wild statements that Donald Trump makes at his rallies and on social media. Meanwhile, every word uttered by President Joe Biden is so combed over that mixing up a single name becomes the subject of multiple articles.
There’s a frequent refrain, even in comments on Daily Kos, that people don’t want to hear about Trump. They’re tired of seeing his face. Tired of hearing his threats. The New York Times insists that there is an “anti-Trump burnout” with progressive voters all crisised out. It’s a perfect excuse to go even harder on … going softer on Trump. [Too true, unfortunately.]
And the only possible response is: Too f**king bad.
Because this is important. Trump is out there planning to end democracy, abandon America’s allies, and create a fascist regime that draws from the worst of North Korea meets “Handmaid’s Tale.” Yes, it would be very nice to talk about something else. All of us would rather the government go back to something that hums along in the background, only coming to our attention on the rare occasions when it intersects with our lives.
But we can’t go back there yet. No one can.
The audience that hears Trump’s lies rarely hears them challenged. That’s especially true because Trump supporters listen only to a handful of outlets. Meanwhile, handwringing over Biden’s slightest mistake goes on everywhere, even at outlets that are supposedly more progressive. To break through those barriers takes a lot of effort. And a lot of voices.
There have been instances when attention from outside sources has made the media sit up and pay attention to Trump’s rants. For example, Trump’s recent statements about betraying NATO allies got little attention until responses from European leaders made major media realize that this was something important. Which is good. Even if The New York Times used it as an excuse to make another mention of Biden’s age.
Biden’s instruction to his campaign staff went out even before the ridiculous hit job from Robert Hur gave the press an excuse to drop everything and just run pages of Biden so old. Forcing the media to notice Trump’s most outlandish claims is critical, and the best way to do that is to pay attention.
Keep responding to Trump’s claims. Keep making comments. Keep making links to rebuttals. Keep making statements on social media.
Biden is concerned that voters are seeing Trump through “rose-colored glasses” since the media is routinely ignoring Trump’s remarks and failing to correct statements about the economy under Trump. Ignoring Trump may be comforting, and The New York Times may be willing to look away. But it’s essential for to continue to stay focused on Trump’s threats and to spread the word about the critical nature of the upcoming election.
Qui tacet consentire videtur still holds true. Stay alert. Stay loud.
Be like Joe. Don’t put up with Trump’s crazy shit. Don’t give the media any excuse to give Trump more rope than the miles of it they already extend.
Russian dissident Alexei Navalny was pursued and harassed and tortured by his nation’s government for many years. He was jailed on trumped-up charges, he was the target of assassination attempts, he was poisoned so badly once that he had to be airlifted to Germany for emergency treatment. And then he finally died mysteriously of what the Russians laughably called “sudden death syndrome” in a remote prison colony above the Arctic Circle.
Only one man in the world understands what Navalny suffered, because he has gone through similar long years of persecution and indignity. And naturally, that man is Donald Trump, as he was happy to tell Laura Ingraham during a town hall on Tuesday night that was broadcast live on Fox.
Ingraham had brought up the enormous civil judgement that a New York court leveled against Trump last week, fining him somewhere in the neighborhood of $440 million (with interest) for his decades of fraudulently misrepresenting his net worth and lying about it on bank loan applications. To which the former president, his puffed-up head the approximate size and color of a regulation NBA basketball, responded:
“It is a form of Navalny. It is a form of communism or fascism. The guy’s a nut job. I’ve known this for a long time and I’ve said it openly. No jury, no anything. [Ed. Note – There was no jury because Trump hired a lawyer who was hot but also an idiot.] Letitia James is a horrible attorney general in New York. Campaigned on ‘I will get Trump, I will get Trump.’ We went through a trial. It turned out we were totally innocent on everything, and he fined me $355 million plus interest.”
Oh sure, just like Alexei Navalny, except for the imprisonment, the poisoning with a deadly nerve agent, the attack that left him mostly blind in one eye, and the mysterious death in a Siberian prison. Otherwise the difference between the two is indistinguishable.
[…] The town hall was about the millionth time in nine years that Fox News turned its airwaves over to Donald Trump so he could spend an hour playing down his unmatched criminality in the company of a friendly host trying to steer him into something resembling a coherent defense. And for the millionth time in nine years, Trump ran roughshod over the sucker designated to be the fresh roadkill splayed out across the potholed dark backcountry blacktop of what passes for his mind.
Ingraham drew the short straw for this assignment […] And she tried — oh did she try — to keep him from shooting himself […] But being Donald Trump, he kept firing until the entire magazine was empty […]
Here was a brief exchange where he returned to the subject of the criminal fraud case:
TRUMP: And even he [Judge Arthur Engoron] in his statement said I did nothing wrong.
INGRAHAM: He said you didn’t have any contrition. But Mr. President, Shandra in the audience has a question.
Ha ha, imagine one of Trump’s aides reading the passage in the decision where Engoron said Trump and his sons still had “a complete lack of contrition and remorse [that] borders on pathological” to him, and Trump saying, That’s good, right? And then his aide nods like one of the adults in “It’s a Good Life” and says Yes, Mr. President, it’s very, very good.
Then Ingraham, who is an asshole but at least knows what the word “contrition” means, had to save him by throwing it to an audience member for some hagiography.
But it wasn’t just the civil law arena where Trump ran right through every caution sign that Ingraham threw him. He also gave his criminal prosecution for stealing classified documents some more ammo:
Ingraham asked Trump why he hadn’t simply returned the material when the government asked him to do so.
“First of all, I didn’t have to hand them over,” Trump said bluntly. “But second of all, I would have done that. We were talking, and then all of a sudden they raided Mar-a-Lago.”
Let’s try to sum up Trump’s defense from the last year and a half: the documents were classified and Trump had the right to take them to Florida when he left office. (He did not have the right.) But also, he had declassified them anyway through the magic of his mind. But also also, the FBI planted the classified documents he had the right to take and had declassified anyway.
At this point, there is more video of Trump admitting to both taking the records and not understanding the Presidential Records Act then there is of the Kennedy assassination. […]
Ingraham extended Trump one more lifeline, this one on the subject of the nonexistent voter fraud that he has convinced his followers kept him from winning the 2020 election:
INGRAHAM: How are you going to make sure that mail-in ballots and voter fraud, which we heard from a lot of people in line was an issue front and center, they’re very concerned about mail-in voting. So forget the past, what are you going to do about making sure we don’t have problems going forward?
TRUMP: If you have mail-in voting, you automatically have fraud.
INGRAHAM: Okay, but there’s mail-in voting in Florida and you won huge.
TRUMP: If you have it you’re going to have fraud.
INGRAHAM: But you won.
Ha ha, nice try, Laura Ingraham. There is only enough fraud to beat Donald Trump when it’s a state that he lost. If it’s a state he won, there is no fraud, ipso facto, QED […]
There was a lot more about drilling for oil and the new category of “migrant crime” that Trump proudly notes he invented (the category, not crime, but with him we can understand the confusion). […].
The fallout from voters’ rejection in November of rightwing culture-war scolds who’d taken over a Pennsylvania school board continues this week, as two of the remaining three far right members of the Central Bucks County School Board tendered their resignations. Apparently they decided it just wasn’t worth staying on the job if they had to be in the minority on the board, because if they couldn’t ban books and make life miserable for LGBTQ+ kids anymore, what’s even the point?
[…] Last fall, the good people of the community got sick of it and Democratic candidates swept all five of the open seats, giving the board a 6-3 noncrazy majority. As you may also recall, the lame-duck rightwing board members then voted to throw an obscenely generous $700,000 severance package at the outgoing superintendent, who resigned right after the election. That’s now being litigated to see if any of it can be clawed back. Yeesh!
OK, one more callback and we’ll get to the new news. As you may also ALSO recall, Bucks County is also home to Clarice Schillinger, the fun rightwing mom who advocated for “parents’ rights” and held a drunken 17th-birthday party for her daughter, where she allegedly gave teenagers booze and punched a high school boy in the face. It’s a hoppin’ kind of place.
Now, the latest fuckbungle: At the most recent school board meeting on February 13, two of the remaining righties on the Central Bucks board, Lisa Sciscio and Debra Cannon, said they were “resigning” from their duties, although technically you can’t just say you’re quitting and then you’re gone. They followed that up with resignation letters, and the board will hold a special meeting this Friday to make it official.
As a local politics newsletter explains, Ms. Sciscio, as chair of the board’s policy committee, had been a central player in pushing the craziest rightwing policies, including
a policy that allows district residents to remove books from libraries that contain “sexualized content” and another that aims to prevent teachers from “indoctrinating” students.
At the board meeting last week, Sciscio complained that the rightwing minority on the board had been “kept in the dark” about the ongoing litigation over the former superintendent’s platinum parachute, and accused the majority on the board of trying to force out the three Republican members. A classic “you can’t force me out, I quit!” tantrum.
[Reasonable board members who used to be in the minority] empathized with Sciscio’s feeling of not being heard at all, noting
After two years on the board I never got a straight answer about anything, not briefed on important legal issues, I couldn’t even get an item on an agenda. I could not even get my colleagues to answer a simple question about who wrote the library policy.
They refused to answer.
We later found out they were working behind the scenes with the right-wing Christian Independence Law Center, secretly drafting policies and administrative regulations.
[…] she didn’t throw up her hands and quit, unlike certain people, because going so would have betrayed the folks who voted for her:
If I quit, I would be allowing uninformed and sometimes bigoted ideas to be amplified with one less person to ask questions or to offer an alternate viewpoint – isn’t that what we want after all – diversity of opinions? […]
I was also surprised to hear Mrs. Cannon say the minority was not allowed to speak. “They don’t want to hear what I have to say.” This came as a particular surprise to me since I was on the dais one night when she yelled at Mrs. Smith, “What makes you think, or gives you the right to be told anything at all?” Or another night when Mrs. Sciscio tried to cut school board member Dr. Mariam Mahmoud off saying, “you’ve had your two minutes.”
[…] It’s a fine reminder that we all need to pay attention, more than ever, to the down-ballot races that we used to think we had the luxury of ignoring.
The Alabama court’s recent ruling raised concerns among doctors and patients that classifying embryos as children could restrict in-vitro fertilization.
[…] “Embryos, to me, are babies,” Haley told NBC News in an interview, adding that she used artificial insemination to have her son, a different process than IVF that doesn’t present the same complexities around creating embryos in a lab. “When you talk about an embryo, you are talking about, to me, that’s a life. And so I do see where that’s coming from when they talk about that.”
[…] Asked if legislation and rulings like the one in Alabama could have a chilling effect on families using IVF to become parents, Haley said, “This is one where we need to be incredibly respectful and sensitive about it.”
“I know that when my doctor came in, we knew what was possible and what wasn’t,” Haley continued, adding: “Every woman needs to know, with her partner, what she’s looking at. And then when you look at that, then you make the decision that’s best for your family.”
Haley has sought to find a rhetorical middle ground on reproductive health policy as a 2024 presidential candidate. She has repeatedly calling for national “consensus” on abortion in debates instead of the bans and restrictions favored by some of her primary opponents.[…]
[…] Mavka, who did not want her name released because of her role in the military, is a sniper and drone operator. She also joined the armed forces in the first days of the war and has been involved in some of the most intense fighting, including near Bakhmut, a town Russia seized last year after a brutal monthslong battle.
Many other Ukrainian women have made the same choice.
More than 43,000 women are serving in Ukraine’s armed forces, according to figures released last November by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. That number has grown by 40% since 2021, it said. More than 18,000 of the women serving have children, according to the numbers, including more than 2,500 single mothers.
Women are also taking on more traditionally male roles in the military, according to the ministry, such as drivers, machine gunners, snipers and commanders. The age for those who can sign up has also been raised from 40 to 60. And with a dire shortage of soldiers, there are efforts underway to draw more women into those ranks.
Liutikova and Mavka were both volunteers, as are most women serving in the army, but a new draft law is in the works and it’s possible that women may soon be conscripted like the country’s men.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the country’s top command often make a point of using a female derivative of the Ukrainian word for “defender,” acknowledging both the men and the women who are defending the country.
Still, both women told NBC News they occasionally experience what Mavka, who was a bartender in prewar Kyiv, called “kind sexism” from their male counterparts.
Some soldiers question why the women are on the front lines in the first place, instead of staying at home and raising children, she said. “I think they are doing it with love and pity maybe,” Mavka, 24, added. “But I feel upset when I hear that.”
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said it’s taking many measures to make women feel more comfortable while serving, including special accommodation and restrooms, as well as female-tailored uniforms and protective equipment. Earlier this month, it said female soldiers had for the first time received custom-made summer field suits designed for women.
Ukraine’s personnel shortages are compounded by the delay in new military aid from Washington.
Both women said they were closely following the developments and disagreements in Congress.
“It feels sad. It makes me feel sad. It’s not only our war,” Liutikova said. “I don’t understand why we even have this conversation. Yeah, I know, because it’s money. Because it’s politics and everything. And what do you think they will stop in Ukraine? And that’s all? I don’t think so.”
The women fear the war will turn into a frozen conflict, like the yearslong fight against Russian-backed separatists in the east.
To stop that from happening, U.S. aid is crucial, they said.
“Russia is the evil right now,” Mavka added. “I think it’s unfair that we have such a neighbor. And we need your help, guys. We need your help.”
Chief Justice Tom Parker’s recent concurring opinion in a case granting rights to embryos drew criticism for invoking religious language.
During a recent interview on the program of self-proclaimed “prophet” and QAnon conspiracy theorist Johnny Enlow, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker indicated that he is a proponent of the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” a theological approach that calls on Christians to impose fundamentalist values on all aspects of American life.
Enlow is a pro-Trump “prophet” and leading proponent of the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” a “quasi-biblical blueprint for theocracy” that asserts that Christians must impose fundamentalist values on American society by conquering the “seven mountains” of cultural influence in U.S. life: government, education, media, religion, family, business, and entertainment.
Enlow has also repeatedly pushed the QAnon conspiracy theory, sometimes even connecting it to the Seven Mountain Mandate. Per Right Wing Watch, Enlow has claimed that world leaders are “satanic” pedophiles who “steal blood” and “do sacrifices” and that “there is presently no real democracy on the planet” because over 90 percent of world leaders are involved in pedophilia and are being blackmailed.
On February 16, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are people, with the same rights as living children, and that a person can be held liable for destroying them, imperiling in vitro fertilization treatment in the state. In a concurring opinion, Parker quoted the Bible, suggested that Alabama had adopted a “theologically based view of the sanctity of life,” and said that “human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.”
In the interview on Enlow’s program […] Parker claimed that “God created government” and said it’s “heartbreaking” that “we have let it go into the possession of others.” Parker then invoked the Seven Mountain Mandate, saying, “And that’s why he is calling and equipping people to step back into these mountains right now.” […]
Parker also claimed that God “is equipping me with something for the very specific situation that I’m facing,” and responded affirmatively when Enlow asked if “the holy spirit is there” when he’s “arbitrating a session” and performing his job as chief justice.
Parker’s ties to extreme right-wing Christian and “prophetic” media figures extends beyond the interview with Enlow. […]
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 170
The right will just reply “Deep state deception! It’s all photoshopped and deep fakes designed to impugn the credentials of the world’s only TRUE journalist!” As far as they’re concerned Tucker can tell no lies
Campaign news tidbits, as summarized by Steve Benen:
* Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley delivered a closely watched speech in her home state of South Carolina yesterday, vowing to continue her campaign, no matter what happens in Saturday’s primary. “I feel no need to kiss the ring,” the former governor said. “And I have no fear of Trump’s retribution. I’m not looking for anything from him.”
* On a related note, Donald Trump’s campaign spokesperson responded to Haley’s speech with a social media message that read, “She’s going to drop down to kiss ass when she quits, like she always does.”
[Sheesh. Team Trump … always classy.]
* Speaking of the Republican Party’s 2024 primaries, the Haley campaign launched a new television ad in Michigan this week, ahead of the state’s nominating contest, which is scheduled for Tuesday. It’s the first ad buy Team Haley has made for a post-South Carolina race.
* Those who sent money to Trump’s leadership PAC in January should probably know that it spent another $2.9 million on legal expenses last month. […]
* Though Trump previously said he wouldn’t pick a running mate from his party’s 2024 field, the former president told Fox News last night that his vice presidential short-list includes South Sen. Tim Scott, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Also included were former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem. […]
The union Workers United has organized roughly 400 stores, but is locked in a bitter bargaining fight with the coffee chain.
[…] “Through this mass filing we hope, and I certainly do, that Starbucks treats us like we’re advertised to be, as well-supported and respected partners,” Taylor said.
Growing the campaign is critical to any success the union hopes to have at the bargaining table. Starbucks has insisted that each store must bargain its own contract, just as each store has unionized on its own, but the larger the campaign gets, the easier it will be for the union to bend the company toward a nationwide agreement.
The Starbucks effort is part of a wave of new organizing at big-name companies like Amazon, Trader Joe’s, Apple and REI, all of which were previously union-free. Those campaigns have all notched big organizing wins but have struggled to secure contractual gains at the bargaining table. […]
On Wednesday, the Republican-led House of Representatives impeachment inquiry will question James Biden behind closed doors on the very critical matter of how he repaid a loan to his brother. Banking records have already revealed that there is absolutely nothing to find in this investigation. Joe Biden loaned his brother James $200,000. Two months later, James paid him back. Neither did one thing wrong.
This hearing is a perfect example of why everyone called before this inquiry should demand to testify publicly. Not only has House Oversight Committee Rep. James Comer accused both the president and Democrats in Congress of lying about the loan, even though Comer already had all the evidence in hand to show everything was accurate and above board, but Democrats are being denied their rightful opportunity to rub Republican noses in the ugly collapse of every piece of “evidence” behind this so-called investigation.
In the last few days, the FBI form that Republicans demanded to see, then released themselves after threatening to hold the FBI director in contempt, turns out to be the product of a Russian mole who was fed false information by Russian agents.
Meanwhile, a picture of “cocaine” that was included in a court filing in charges against Hunter Biden turns out to be an image of sawdust.
The only real questions that remain in this investigation are: How much did James Comer, Jim Jordan, and Chuck Grassley know, and when did they know it?
[Details, including timeline beginning in 2019, are available at the link]
So, Republicans have not only spent the last year pressing an investigation of the president’s son largely instigated by a document that turns out to have been tailor-made for them by Russian intelligence, they opened an impeachment inquiry with a Russian agent as the “heart” of their investigation. […]
More at the link, including the sawdust photo. The sawdust is tan in color and sitting on a table saw. Nevertheless, Sean Hannity of Fox News was convinced it was cocaine. JFC.
President Joe Biden is slated to announce Wednesday during his fundraising trip to Los Angeles that his administration will cancel another $1.2 billion in student loan debt — this time for about 153,000 borrowers. All of them have been approved for the shortened repayment period benefit under the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan.
These borrowers will start getting emails from the Biden administration as early as Wednesday informing them that they will receive debt forgiveness. They don’t need to take any further action to get their relief. As loan servicers process their forgiveness, they will see their debts discharged from their accounts.
To qualify for the reduced time to forgiveness benefit, borrowers must have signed up for the SAVE Plan, made at least a decade of payments and taken out initial student loan balances of $12,000 or less. The Department of Education noted that for every $1,000 taken out over $12,000, borrowers can obtain relief after an additional year of payments. […]
Reginald Selkirksays
@175: His “I’m amazed and delighted” face
Is that somehow different from his “I’m confused and constipated” face? That’s the only one I’ve seen.
John Moralessays
Reginals, seek and you shall find: https://medium.com/indian-thoughts/tucker-carlsons-4-most-terrifying-facial-expressions-a3f3e7b12ca3
“On his popular evening opinion show, Tucker Carlson Tonight, I’ve noticed that he is able to cycle through only 5 facial expressions: anger, indignation, satisfaction, glee, and concern (all pictured above in the title image). He uses all of them effectively, at various intervals, to further his slippery arguments.1 Nov 2021”
birgerjohanssonsays
“The IVF ruling means, in Alabama, life begins when a man notices his first cousin is hot.”
Canada has signalled it’s prepared to get behind a Czech Republic initiative to ship tens of thousands of artillery shells from different countries to Ukraine on an urgent basis.
Although the details are still being finalized, defence sources say the federal government could contribute as much as $30 million to the plan, which was proposed at the opening of the Munich Security conference by Czech Republic President Petr Pavel…
Jazzletsays
birgerjohansson @176
That study makes the unwarranted assumption that subsequent COVID infections will be milder than the first, we already have plenty of evidence that is not so. It also completely ignores the long term damage that is caused by micro clots all over the body, we don’t know what effect repeated infections will have, but it is not at all unreasonable to suggest that repeated infections may lead to cumulative damage. We already know that even mild infections increases the rate of new diagnoses of heart disease, kidney disease and diabetes.
Dr. Nitzan Gonen is familiar with the jibes about her work, but she is cautiously optimistic that artificial testicles will be able to help infertile men…
There’s good news if you’re running out of space on your Google account. Researchers from Scientists from the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology just figured out how to fit up to a petabit of data onto an optical disk by storing information in 3D. In other words, that’s 125,000 gigabytes on a single DVD-sized disk, or what experts refer to as a “big boy.” …
North Carolina Lt. Governor Mark Robinson has an unconventional proposal to end the reparations debate once and for all. What if instead of Black Americans being compensated for the atrocities of slavery — Black people paid reparations?
Robinson, who is Black, is currently running for North Carolina governor.“If you want to tell the truth about it, it is you who owes,” said Robinson during the 2021 North Carolina Republican Party Convention, seemingly referring to Black Americans. “Why do you owe? Because somebody in those fields took strikes for you. After those fields were ended and slavery was ended, somebody had to walk through Jim Crow for you. Somebody fought wars and died for you. Somebody lived less than because they didn’t have what you have, and they did it for you. There are people in their graves right now, and they are there because they were willing to stand up and fight for you.” …
I see. Why did they need to stand up and fight, and whom did they stand up against?
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Folow-up to #55:
The Alabama SC ruling also referred to frozen embryos as “extrauterine children”.
Redefined “child” so thoroughly, they added a qualifier for children NOT in a uterus!
whheydtsays
Re: Sky Captain @ #197…
Now if they’d just decide that “postuterine children” must get state help where needed….
A Michigan man whose two-year-old daughter shot herself in the head with his revolver last week pleaded not guilty after becoming the first person charged under the state’s new law requiring safe storage of guns.
Michael Tolbert, 44, of Flint, was arraigned on nine felony charges including single counts of first-degree child abuse and violation of Michigan’s gun storage law, said John Potbury, Genesee county’s deputy chief assistant prosecuting attorney.
Tolbert’s daughter remained hospitalized Wednesday in critical condition from the 14 February shooting, Potbury said. The child shot herself the day after Michigan’s new safe storage gun law took effect.
A not guilty plea was entered Monday on behalf of Tolbert, who also faces one count each of being a felon in possession of a firearm, being a felon in possession of ammunition, lying to a peace officer in a violent crime investigation and four counts of felony firearm, Potbury said.
Fact checking Trump once again. This factchecking is all recent. It is in response to Trump’s town hall on Fox News yesterday:
On U.S. aid to Ukraine vs aid from the E.U.:
Trump: We’re in for over $200 billion. They’re in for $35 billion.
Dale: Those numbers appear pulled out of thin air. They’re not even close to true. According to one reputable tracker of aid to Ukraine, the Kiel Institute, which is based in Germany, is actually E.U. countries and E.U. institutions that are far outpacing the U.S. when it comes to aid commitments to Ukraine, $156 billion for the E.U. starting in 2022 around when the war began, to $73 billion to the U.S.
On allegedly stopping the Nord Stream 2 pipeline:
Trump: I stopped it. I told Germany you’re not having it. I told all of Europe you’re not having it…I ended it.
Dale: What Trump actually did was approve sanctions on some of the companies working on the project. But here’s the critical thing. He only did that about three years into his presidency, when the pipeline was already about 90 percent completed. And even after he imposed those sanctions, the Russian state-owned company behind the pipeline said, okay, fine, we’ll just complete it ourselves.
On his illegal possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago:
Trump: Everybody took them out. It only became a big subject when I took things out…The difference is I had what’s called the Presidential Records Act. I was allowed to do what I did.
Dale: Reagan and Bush did not take classified documents home. In fact, the National Archives debunked this claim last year when Trump made it then. He was not allowed to take these documents. It is in black and white in the Presidential Records Act that all official records belong to the government after a president leaves office.
On the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago:
Trump: We were talking, and then all of a sudden they raided Mar-a-Lago.
Dale: In fact, the FBI search in Mar-a-Lago came more than a year after the National Archives started its polite asking to try to get these documents back.
And that was just for starters. Some of the other lies and ludicrous claims that Trump unleashed, but that Dale didn’t have time to cover, included…
“If you have mail-in voting you automatically have fraud.”
Not only is there no evidence of that, but Trump routinely votes by mail. [Cases of voter fraud are extremely low, for example three Republican voters in Florida turned in fraudulent votes for Trump. Mostly it was casting ballots for deceased relatives.]
First thing he’ll do on the border if reelected: “Drill baby, drill”
That, of course, has nothing to do with the border, Also, The U.S. is currently producing more oil than ever, and more than any other country.
“We have a new category of crime called migrant crime.”
Another crisis that Trump has made up. What’s more, crime is down nationally during the Biden administration.
On his $355 million judgment: “It’s a form of Navalny” (and communism and fascism).
This hardly requires a response. However… Alexey Navalny was a courageous advocate of democracy. Trump is a notorious coward and crybaby. and he clearly doesn’t know what the words communism or fascism mean.
It’s too bad that Trump’s cult followers aren’t going to hear the truth about his incessant lies. Although, even when they do they don’t believe it. That’s the nature of a cult. But it is still necessary to have honest rebuttals to the falsehoods spread by Trump, Fox News, and most of the MAGA-infected Republican Party. We can’t allow them to control the narrative in the media.
Should bigots be able to serve on juries for cases involving discrimination against gay people? Professional whiner and humble fisherman Samuel A. Alito says yes!
That Sam! He calls himself a “practical originalist,” which we guess means it wouldn’t be practical for him to report the origins of gifts from billionaires on his annual Financial Disclosure form, and nobody can make him! He’s a Princetonite, a Bushie, a Yalie, an opera fan, who believes that single-celled fertilized eggs are people, corporations are people, and rights are for traditional conservative heterosexual men […]
While the Supreme Court has declined to hear a whole lot of stuff recently, like Sidney Powell and L. Lin Wood vs. Governor Whitmer and the State of Michigan, and Marge and her House mask fines, when they declined to take up a workplace-discrimination case, Missouri Department of Corrections v. Jean Finney, it was such an Alito-bummer that he pounded out a five-page warning/comment/I TOLD YOU SO ABOUT THE GAYS anyway, because what happened to the bigot’s proper place at the head of society?!
The that which has him “concerned” is about a lady, Jean Finney, who was discriminated against at her job at the Missouri Department of Corrections when she began dating a male co-worker’s ex-wife, who was also a lady. So they were two ladies dating, in a lesbianly kind of way. Co-workers who did not like the lady-dating made her work environment hostile, and it must have been pretty damn hostile for them to award her $275,000, given that everyone already worked in a literal prison.
The part that rustled Alito’s jimmies so intensely was that during voir dire Finney’s lawyers asked the jury pool: “How many of you went to a religious organization growing up where it was taught that people that are homosexuals shouldn’t have the same rights as everyone else because it was a sin with what they did?”
Three jurors who raised their hands insisted they could be impartial anyway, but the judge decided to dismiss them. The eventual jury found for Finney, the Department of Corrections appealed and they lost, and the appeal made it to the open arms of Alito, who apparently only read the “Christian” part of the question and saw a chance to talk about getting the God Squad back together to take on Obergefell, which he is still mad about:
“In this case, the court below reasoned that a person who still holds traditional religious views on questions of sexual morality is presumptively unfit to serve on a jury in a case involving a party who is a lesbian. That holding exemplifies the danger that I anticipated in Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U. S. 644 (2015), namely, that Americans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct will be “labeled as bigots and treated as such” by the government. Id., at 741 (dissenting opinion). The opinion of the Court in that case made it clear that the decision should not be used in that way, but I am afraid that this admonition is not being heeded by our society.”
Oh yeah, Obergefell v. Hodges, that was the one where Alito warned us in his dissent,
“those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes, but if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots, and treated as such by governments, employers and schools.”
Welp, it’s been nine years since Obergefell, Alito’s been out of the recesses of his home plenty. Like to write the Dobbs decision, and to defend himself against taking gifts from billionaires and not reporting them.
The gaypocalypse of everyone being forced-gay-married, or forced to work in a gay wedding cake factory, and go to gay school to study the gay gay gay as Conservatives predicted has not come to pass. Straight people are still getting married to each other, and it’s fine.
But an Alito can dream!
Posted by a reader of the article:
I never understand the logic of these cases. When did the right to serve on a jury become enshrined? Isn’t the most important thing that both sides have jurors who aren’t predisposed to one side or the other? If the plaintiffs were black, would Alito insist that the jury include members of the KKK?
[…] If everything in Weiss’s latest filing is true — it seems pretty thorough! — then it is exactly what every sentient person thought, these imaginary Biden “scandals” were cooked up in Russian intelligence labs and fed to absolute fucking morons, by which we mean Putin’s loyal Republicans, who have been all too willing to hoover them up.
The filing in question requests pretrial detention for Smirnov, whose lies to the FBI about Ukrainian Biden bribes made up the FD-1023 form Comer and Jim Jordan and Chuck Grassley have considered their smoking gun, and for which he was indicted and arrested last week. This is the long debunked malarkey tale that figured heavily in Donald Trump’s first impeachment, when it was brought back to America by Rudy Giuliani, which alleged that the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had hired Hunter Biden for those sweet, sweet Joe Biden goodies, had bribed them each $5 million, and that Joe Biden had gotten the Ukrainian prosecutor general fired to protect Burisma.
The biggest part in the new filing people are seizing on is that oh yeah, Smirnov confirmed he got his fake lie stories about the Bidens from Russian intelligence.
It says, “During his custodial interview on February 14, Smirnov admitted that officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story about Businessperson 1,” AKA Hunter Biden. Is that bad?
[…] “Smirnov’s contacts with Russian officials who are affiliated with Russian intelligence services are not benign,” the filing explains. And in September 2023, he was really starting to bring the FBI things that sure sound like the beginnings of a new Russian influence operation on this year’s election. A story about how Russian intelligence had recorded Businessperson 1 (Hunter) at the Premier Palace hotel in Kyiv, which they allegedly had totally wired, and it could be used as kompromat.
Smirnov said four different Russians had told him about this.
Y’all, Hunter Biden has never actually been to Ukraine, and the filing explains that investigators were well aware of this. […]
What this shows is that the misinformation he is spreading is not confined to 2020. He is actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections after meeting with Russian intelligence officials in November.
[…] Another thing: this filing sure does carefully write down every single Russian interaction the feds know Smirnov has had, with identifying characteristics of specific Russians. They’re just burning this informant to death, and they also seem like they’re making sure that if he’s not in their tender loving care, he’ll get murdered like a common Navalny or a common journalist or a common Putin critic or a common Russian who thought an independent thought. […]
Politico:
“Obviously there’s a case that’ll have to play out here,” said a person close to Biden. “But based on the indictment and filing, it lays bare how unscrupulous the entire GOP and their enablers in right wing media have become. …Republicans in Congress ought to be facing the crushing burden of a massive scandal of their own making right now: An impeachment based on what might be a Russian intelligence operation. If nothing else, a criminal lie, based on the indictment.”
[…] Jesse Watters of course is still trying to make his little feetsies fit the shoes Tucker left behind, so he told his viewers that with this indictment, Joe Biden “took out a hit on this informant, Smirnov. They have now disabled him, and now the public is going to believe, well, this guy is a liar.” Last night he continued […] That’s also how rage muppet Maria Bartiromo, whose brain appears to never be more than five minutes recovered from being smacked by an anvil, has handled it on her Fox Business program, where they talk about business.
[…] Now, as everything they believe continues to evaporate before their eyes, how will they handle the revelation that this Smirnov dude was being literally puppeted by Russian intelligence while James Comer clapped his hands and squealed? […]
A sixth student at Florida’s Manatee Bay Elementary School outside of Fort Lauderdale has a confirmed case of measles, health officials announced late Tuesday. However, health officials are not telling unvaccinated students who were potentially exposed to quarantine.
The school has a low vaccination rate, suggesting that the extremely contagious virus could spark a yet larger outbreak. But in a letter sent to parents late Tuesday, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo (1) —known for spreading anti-vaccine rhetoric and vaccine misinformation—indicated that unvaccinated students can skip the normally recommended quarantine period.
The letter, signed by Ladapo, noted that people with measles can be contagious from four days before the rash develops through four days after the rash appears. And while symptoms often develop between 8 to 14 days after exposure, the disease can take 21 days to appear. As such, the normal quarantine period for exposed and unvaccinated people, who are highly susceptible to measles, is 21 days.
“Because of the high likelihood of infection, it is normally recommended that children stay home until the end of the infectious period, which is currently March 7, 2024,” Ladapo’s letter states, adding that the date could change as the situation develops. “However, due to the high immunity rate in the community (2), as well as the burden on families and educational costs (3) of healthy children missing school, [the health department] is deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance.” …
Highlighting by me for effect.
1) Yes, this asshole again.
2) An idiotic thing to say when you have a low vaccination rate and an active outbreak.
3) Let’s save money by causing a wider measles outbreak? Apparently he knows as much about economics as he does about medicine.
[…] Hunter Biden’s lawyers are now claiming, as part of their effort to force new disclosures by Weiss’s office, that it was new or newly specific accusations from Smirnov which scuttled the plea deal which blew up as it was being agreed to in a federal court room.
That point about the plea deal remains an accusation and obviously an interested one from Biden’s attorneys. But given what we’ve learned over the last week from the prosecution side — the folks who were repeatedly duped and took actions on the basis of disinformation directly from Russian intelligence — it seems to me highly likely that it’s true. […]
The man suspected in the beating and strangulation death of a Queens woman inside a New York City hotel earlier this month is under arrest in Arizona, where he is charged in two stabbings, according to police — and a fight over the alleged killer’s extradition is already shaping up…
The Manhattan district attorney’s office sent prosecutors to Maricopa County, Arizona, to seek Almansoori’s extradition.
However, Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell indicated Wednesday that she will not agree to send him to New York, saying if he’s convicted for the stabbing in Arizona, he’ll face a mandatory prison sentence. Mitchell criticized Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, saying, “It’s safer to keep him here.” …
A Toms River resident and business owner was arrested and charged after being identified as a participant in the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riots when authorities allege he wore his name and contact information on his jacket during the incident.
Robert Coppotelli – who is registered at the same address as Coppotelli Heavy Equipment Sales & Services, Inc., in Toms River – was identified by FBI Newark as a suspect, according to court documents…
“they’re not sending their best. […] They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us.” – D.J. Trump
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@birgerjohansson #178:
That maglev train, the Hyperloop, is a Musk project, which makes it a death trap and doomed stunt to disrupt near-term investment in public services.
birgerjohanssonsays
The Scathing Atheist just shared: “ScathingAtheist 575: Hovering Jesus Rules Edition” to pateron members, and it should be available for non-members at Youtube in a day or two.
birgerjohanssonsays
John Morales @ 204 Sky Captain @ 209
A Musk project? OK, waste of money. His one acconplishment – and it is a big one- is investing enough money in reusable rockets to prove the concept. If he had been content with that, he would have been remembered fondly.
Now he is more like a late-age Henry Ford, complaining about the Jews and thinking that Hitler feller is not too bad.
birgerjohanssonsays
After 34 years the Japanese stock market finally reached a new record high.
This means breaking an important psychological barrier after three decades of the economy in the doldrums.
They even had negative inflation, which is worse than it sounds.
birgerjohanssonsays
This is a big discovery!
“New class of ‘intramolecular bivalent glue’ could transform cancer drug discovery”
More at the link, including the sawdust photo. The sawdust is tan in color and sitting on a table saw. Nevertheless, Sean Hannity of Fox News was convinced it was cocaine. JFC. – Lynna, OM@187
Well yeah, but if Hunter Biden was getting high by huffing sawdust, wouldn’t that be even more nefarious?
birgerjohanssonsays
Kooks meet at CPAC: Former British PM, Steve Bannon, Farage
The FBI has launched a probe into a secretive Christian church that was the focus of a recent BBC investigation.
The church has no official name but is often referred to as The Truth or the Two by Twos.
The sect has recently been rocked by a sexual abuse scandal, with the names of hundreds of alleged perpetrators given to a hotline set up for survivors…
U.S. healthcare technology giant Change Healthcare has confirmed a cyberattack on its systems. In a brief statement Wednesday, the company said it was “experiencing a network interruption related to a cyber security issue.”
“Once we became aware of the outside threat, in the interest of protecting our partners and patients, we took immediate action to disconnect our systems to prevent further impact,” Change Healthcare wrote on its status page. “The disruption is expected to last at least through the day.”
The incident began early on Wednesday morning on the U.S. East Coast, according to the incident tracker.
The specific nature of the cybersecurity incident was not disclosed. Most of the login pages for Change Healthcare were inaccessible or offline when TechCrunch checked at the time of writing…
My Pillow owner and right-wing conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell will have to pay $5 million because of a contest he initiated at one of his “cyber symposium” events after the 2020 election, a federal judge confirmed Wednesday.
Robert Zeidman, a software developer, took Lindell up on a so-called “Prove Mike Wrong” challenge at an event the election-denier hosted. Participants in the challenge could win $5 million if they proved data Lindell provided about the 2020 election wasn’t real election data, according to rules the participants agreed to. The contest allowed participants to arbitrate if needed.
Zeidman responded in the challenge with a 15-page report saying that the data Lindell put forth wasn’t complete or representative of possible data that had been captured in real time from the internet, according to a federal court decision Wednesday.
Zeidman lost the challenge initially, but then took Lindell to arbitration, and won.
Lindell had hoped a federal judge would wipe out the $5 million award to Zeidman. But the judge, John Tunheim of the US District Court in Minnesota, refused to do so on Wednesday.
“The panel was tasked with the difficult job of interpreting a poorly written contract,” Tunheim wrote, about the prior decision to award Zeidman the $5 million. “The Court fails to identify evidence that the panel exceeded its authority,” he added.
“The data was just so obviously bogus,” Zeidman previously told CNN. “It surprised me.”
What a marvelous day of watching Republicans and their media enablers react in dramatic fashion to the explosive revelation that a key source – their main source, no less – of the bogus Biden bribery allegations underlying their impeachment push made it all up and was in bed with foreign intel services, including the Russians.
The bumbling response from the primary traffickers of the Biden misinformation campaign stretched from morning into late in the evening. The indictment of Alexander Smirnov last week on charges he fabricated the Biden claims was turbocharged by government filings this week that alleged Smirnov had “extensive and extremely recent” contacts with foreign intel services, including Russia.
The day started with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) claiming “it doesn’t change the … fundamental facts.” Like hell it doesn’t. [sputter, LOL, eyeball] By last evening Rep. James Comer (R-KY) was crawfishing hard:
Comer on the 1023
– 2023: This is very crucial piece of our investigation
– 2024: At the end of the day, he wasn’t an important part of our investigation
As committee chairs – Oversight and Judiciary, no less! – Comer and Jordan were the dynamic duo who spearheaded dissemination of the Smirnov disinformation, but they were hardly alone. Aaron Blake identifies 10 Republicans who treated the Biden bribery claim like gospel. […]
[…] a carpenter suffering from addiction was indicating to his doctor that he had chosen to pour himself into his woodwork, his art. And Ablow [psychiatrist-slash-media-personality Keith Ablow] appears to have sent that to Hunter Biden, suggesting that he hoped Biden would do the same. Biden’s art was painting, something he refers to as an aspiration in his memoir — and that has triggered its own controversies in the years since.
All of that aside, the context suggested in the apparent message from Ablow makes sense. It is a photo of a framed photo, something that it doesn’t make much sense for Hunter Biden to have on his own. And the orange thing embedded in the table? It appears to also house a circular-saw blade. The yellowish powder next to it would then naturally be sawdust. […]
Enter Hannity.
In a segment focused on elevating questions about the alleged corruption and illegality of the Biden family, he put the image of the cocaine/sawdust lines on-screen.
“Lawyers for [President Biden’s] son, Hunter, just had to explain in court, a filing, that this photo — take a look at this photo right here. Look at that photo, from his phone, that the government, prosecutors claimed show lines of cocaine. That’s what the government prosecutors are saying,” Hannity said. “They’re saying” — that is, Hunter’s legal team — “that’s sawdust. Take a good look at sawdust lined up in perfect little lines. Take a close look. Does that look like sawdust to you? We’ll let you decide that.”
This is all jumbled, but the intent is obvious: Hannity is casting doubt on the idea that the image is actually of sawdust.
It’s fascinating that this is Hannity’s approach. First of all, he’s basing everything on the filing from Hunter Biden’s legal team — in which the Ablow [the doctor] text is prominent! (It’s worth noting that Ablow was, for a long time, a contributor to Fox News.) But, second, in the battle between Hunter Biden and the federal prosecutors whom he has lambasted generally (and, in Weiss’s case, specifically) for years, Hannity’s impulse is to side with the feds. It is more useful to him to reinforce Hunter Biden’s addiction than to highlight the prosecutors’ apparent mistake.
All of this is admittedly tangential to the Hunter Biden criminal case. But Hannity offers a useful lens into how all of this is deployed politically. Sure, defending Trump from the purported overreach of the federal government is important to the Fox News host. But not as important, it seems, as disparaging the Biden family.
That was not a photo of cocaine. That was not a photo taken by Hunter Biden.
“This one in my office is of lines of sawdust sent to me by a master carpenter who was a coke addict,” the message Ablow reads. The message is labeled as coming from “keith ablow.” “I told him that, ultimately, he would have to choose between his art and his drug,” the message continues. “He sent me the photo and a message that said, ‘Made my choice.’”
Followup to comment 173, a slight correction: Trump is racking up $87,502 per day in post-judgment interest until he pays the judgment, ABC News calculated.
More news about grifters and con artists having to pay up:
My Pillow Guy Mike Lindell must cough up $5 million to the guy who won the “Prove Mike Wrong” challenge by debunking Lindell’s claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. Washington Post link
[…] you might forgive House Republicans for being flabbergasted that House Speaker Mike Johnson’s recent presentation on keeping the House majority degenerated into little more than a church sermon.
“Johnson, a devout Christian, attempted to rally the group by discussing moral decline in America—focusing on declining church membership and the nation’s shrinking religious identity, according to both people in the room,” reported Politico, about the retreat hosted this past weekend in which Johnson attempted to buck up caucus morale by invoking God and the Bible.
It is a sign of Johnson’s myopic fundamentalism that he thought a Biblical sermon would rally a group of politicians sweating their endangered majority. While Republicans mostly profess their Christian fealty when prompted, their typical behaviors betray the cynicism of their religiosity. No one doubts Johnson’s creepy faith, but he’s not the norm, and this wasn’t church. Religion and faith aren’t a plan to hold on to power, which House Republicans could’ve considered before selecting an unknown backbencher to speaker. […]
“The speaker contended that when one doesn’t have God in their life, the government or ‘state’ will become their guide, referring back to Bible verses, both [sources] said,” Politico reported regarding the Republican retreat. “They added that the approach fell flat among some in the room. ‘I’m not at church,’ one of the people said, describing Johnson’s presentation as ‘horrible.’”
Johnson is weird and creepy, and that’s what Republicans get for failing to do any due diligence on their speaker vote. They traded in a prolific fundraiser who at least knew how to work his chamber’s levers of power, for a religious demagogue who thinks his job is to save America from the heathens while letting his caucus run wild. And then they wonder why they’re in such bad shape heading to November.
Republicans want to know how they can keep power this November? What makes them think they’re worthy of keeping power?
Nothing, of course. And Johnson will soon find out that even his all-powerful God can’t save his gavel.
Last night’s “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” had an amazing A block monologue by Lawrence O’Donnell. In my view, Lawrence laid to rest a lot of the furor over the issue of Joe Biden’s age, and a number of other things as well. This is well worth the watch.
A second fertility clinic in Alabama has halted part of its IVF treatment programs following the state Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos are children.
Alabama Fertility’s clinic in Birmingham has “paused transfers of embryos for at least a day or two,” according to Penny Monella, the chief operating officer at Alabama Fertility Specialists.
This marks the second known fertility clinic to at least temporarily stop treatments. On Wednesday, The University of Alabama at Birmingham health system became the first organization in the state to confirm that it is pausing IVF treatment out of legal concerns in wake of the court’s ruling. […]
Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) on Wednesday criticized his Republican colleagues for using a former FBI informant’s claims in their impeachment inquiry even though the statements hadn’t been verified.
“We were warned at the time that we received the document outlining this witness’s testimony. … We were warned that the credibility of this statement was not known,” Buck said on CNN’s “The Source.”
“And yet, people, my colleagues went out and talk to the public about how this was credible and how it was damning and how it proved President Biden’s — at the time Vice President Biden’s — complicity in receiving bribes,” he added.
The informant, Alexander Smirnov, was arrested and charged last week with making false statements to the FBI. […]
“It appears to absolutely be false, and to really undercut the nature of the charges. We’ve always been looking for a link between what Hunter Biden received in terms of money and Joe Biden’s activities or Joe Biden receiving money,” Buck explained. “This clearly is not a credible link at this point.”
On Wednesday, CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins then asked the Colorado Republican if House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) used the information “to fuel these investigations, regardless” of them knowing the information was not corroborated.
“That’s what it appears,” Buck responded. “I certainly didn’t have any evidence outside the statement itself that it was credible. And as a prosecutor for 25 years, Kaitlan, I never went to the public until I could prove the reliability of a statement.” […]
We might be soon on the verge of having a super snake antivenom. In new research, a team of scientists says they’ve created a lab-made antibody geared to counteract toxic bites from a wide variety of snakes. In early tests with mice, the uber-antivenom appeared to work as intended…
Happy CPAC! Did you even realize it’s that time of the year again? […] it’s happening, ready or not!
Guess reports of its death were premature, because this year’s lineup are a who’s who of deplorables, including Vivek Ramaswamy, Jim Jordan, JD Vance, Elise Stefanik, Ken Paxton, Steve Bannon, Argentinian President Javier Milei, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, and former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss (famous for serving only 50 days until the Deep State took her down). And Donald Trump himself, who will carve out time in between court dates and hawking shoes. The theme for this year is “Where Globalism Goes To Die.” Sounds like a good-time jamboree!
Also there is CPAC’s chairman and head of the American Conservative Union Matt Schlapp, big family values conservative guy, married to a woman, who along with his wife Mercedes and the American Conservative Union (ACU) are being sued for NINE POINT FOUR MILLION DOLLARS in the sexual battery and defamation suit brought by former Herschel Walker campaign staffer Carlton Huffman. Two other alleged victims of Schlapp’s unwanted “advances” have not joined the suit, but their allegations were reportedly found during the discovery process. Schlapp still hasn’t stepped down, so this year everyone’s just going about their usual business of whining, moaning and playing victim like nothing ever happened.
[…] Of course you remember this story. Carlton Huffman, a mid-level staffer with Herschel Walker’s Senate campaign, had been given the plum assignment of driving Schlapp around Georgia, and Schlapp invited Huffman out for drinks, an honor since Schlapp knows absolutely everyone in Conservative World. He also allegedly kept getting in Huffman’s personal space (Huffman has since publicly identified himself, but is referred to as “Mr. Doe” in court documents):
At Manuel’s Tavern, Mr. Schlapp sat unusually close to Mr. Doe, such that his leg repeatedly contacted and was in almost constant contact with Mr. Doe’s leg. Mr. Schlapp was so close to Mr. Doe that he bumped into Mr. Doe’s torso where Mr. Doe had a Sig Sauer handgun holstered, asked about it, and professed an unfamiliarity with this weapon and firearms generally. Mr. Schlapp also encouraged Mr. Doe to have more drinks, despite the fact that Mr. Doe was driving. Mr. Schlapp’s behavior made Mr. Doe uncomfortable, and Mr. Doe sought to create distance between he and Mr. Schlapp.
“It was a public space, and I was thinking that he got the hint. I did not want to embarrass him,” Huffman later said. “But it escalated.” After they left the bar, Schlapp was all hands, Huffman says, putting a hand on his leg and fondling his “junk.”
“From the bar to the Hilton Garden Inn, he has his hands on me. And I feel so fucking dirty. I feel so fucking dirty,” Huffman texted a friend.
At some point, the fondling turned to … something else. Huffman reported that Schlapp “grabbed my junk and pummeled it at length.”
“He’s pissed I didn’t follow him to his hotel room,” he texted a friend.
“I’m so sorry man,” the acquaintance responded. “What a f**king creep.”
The staffer later texted, “I just don’t know how to say it to my superiors thst heir [sic] surrogate fondled my junk without my consent.”
But you can’t shame the shameless, and Schlapp allegedly called Huffman again that night, as if nothing had happened, just to make sure Huffman was still going to be picking him up in the morning.
Reported the Daily Beast,
At 7: 26 a.m., Schlapp sent a text saying, “I’m in the lobby.” One minute later, the staffer called his supervisor, followed by a call with a senior official with the Walker campaign. The staffer said the senior official was “immediately horrified” and pulled him off the driving duty, and told Huffman to tell Schlapp in writing that he’d made him uncomfortable.
Right after that call, the staffer sent Schlapp a text.
“I did want to say I was uncomfortable with what happened last night. The campaign does have a driver who is available to get you to Macon and back to the airport,” he texted, sending the name and phone number of the driver.
Weirdly, Schlapp never asked Huffman what made him so uncomfortable!
“Pls give me a call,” Schlapp replied, followed by, “Thx.” Schlapp then called him three times over the next 20 minutes, according to phone records reviewed by The Daily Beast.
When the staffer did not answer or return the calls, Schlapp sent another text, asking him to look “in your heart” and call back.
“If you could see it in your heart to call me at the end of day. I would appreciate it,” Schlapp texted desperately at 12: 12 p.m. “If not I wish you luck on the campaign and hope you keep up the good work.”
As Herschel Walker’s son Christian commented, “Typical predator. Don’t get your schlong schlapped by Matt Schlapp!!”
Anyway, Huffman could not see it in his heart, and did not call. And again, Huffman was not the only guy Schlapp allegedly harassed. Those two new accusations were amended to the complaint last December. Because like cockroaches, whenever you see one sexual abuse complaint, there’s always more in the walls. Reported WaPo:
In one alleged incident, during a fundraising trip to South Florida in early 2022, Schlapp was accused of stripping to his underwear and rubbing against another person without his consent, according to the filing. In 2017, at a CPAC after-party, Schlapp attempted to kiss an employee against his wishes, the lawsuit claims.
In both cases, according to the suit, the alleged victims reported the unwanted advances to staffers at CPAC’s parent organization, the American Conservative Union, but no action was taken against Schlapp.
Schlapp denied it all and went on a campaign to claim the Daily Beast was an agent of Satan, for reporting the news.
Wife Mercedes is also named in the suit, for publicly posting defamatory statements such as:
“We have learned that the accuser is a troubled individual. He has been fired from multiple jobs including one firing for lying and lying on his resume. We are sticking to our lawyer’s statement. With God’s help, we have stayed strong and the girls are amazingly strong.”
FWIW Huffman was issued a restraining order in North Carolina after he was accused of performing unwanted sexual acts with his housemate and another woman, when Carlton was 39, and the women were 19 and 22. Ironic! So maybe he is troubled, but he has not been “fired from multiple jobs,” that’s a lie!
He is also suing Caroline Wren, who chaired Kari Lake’s run for governor, for $500,000, for repeating that he had “been fired from multiple jobs.”
For its part, the ACU is accused of helping Schlapp cover it all up, ponying up more than a million bucks in legal fees from its coffers to defend its chairman. Three of the eight board members were all, “Hey, hardworking conservatives donate to us to make America 1930s Germany again, not defend a guy who can’t stop getting sued for groping, grinding and stripping down naked to his underwear, so also this is kind of a big legal liability for us, and by the way, the Feds are already sniffing around” — obvious paraphrase of what we imagine their thought process sounded like! — Schlapp and his board told them to get fucked, and they resigned.
What’s sad is that they actually thought they did this to begin with.
Earlier this week, there was a false report going around Infowars and other “news sources” where they kind of just make things up, claiming that the Red Cross wouldn’t accept blood from people who had been vaccinated against COVID.
My God, they were overjoyed. Just absolutely deliriously thrilled, thinking that the medical establishment had finally confirmed what they knew to be true in their guts all along. [video at the link]
[…] They based this on the fact that the Red Cross asks if you’ve been recently vaccinated on their questionnaire to determine if you’re qualified to donate blood. This is, of course, not because the blood is “tainted,” but because many people get sick for a few days after taking the vaccine. The Red Cross won’t take your blood if you have a fever or are otherwise ill. Most of us already know that. They also won’t take your blood if you are anemic, if you are on certain other medications or if you are taking antibiotics.
Alas, the celebration was short-lived. On Wednesday, woman-abusing creep Steven Crowder shared a clip of an “undercover journalist” talking to the Red Cross and finding out that they don’t even separate vaccinated and unvaccinated blood.
“BREAKING!” he announced on social media. “[A Red Cross] official tells undercover journalist they DO NOT SEPARATE donated blood based on COVID-19 vaccination status; ADMITS unvaccinated recipients can UNWITTINGLY RECEIVE blood from vaccinated donors.”
It’s a real nice touch, I think, to have an “undercover journalist” call in to find out what the Red Cross has been saying publicly for years. That way people will think it’s something they’ve been hiding. [Screengrab of American Red Cross announcement in 2022: “We don’t label blood products as containing vaccinated or unvaccinated blood as the COVID-19 vaccine does not enter the bloodstream & poses no safety risks to the recipient […]”]
The “undercover journalist” pretended to be a doctor with no familiarity with blood transfusion protocols and called up the Red Cross to ask if her “patients” would be able to only get unvaccinated blood if they need a transfusion.
The person on the other end of the call explained that of course they don’t separate vaccinated and unvaccinated blood and that if her “patients” want only “unvaccinated blood” they have to use their own blood that they’d previously taken and had set aside or blood from a family member.
[…] Janna M., whose profile states that she is a nurse, wrote, “This is exactly why my chart says no transfusions,” and then further explained that she would prefer death over getting a blood transfusion with vaccinated blood. [snipped many more stupid statements]
So, these people are going to refuse blood transfusions and possibly die, because they don’t want to accidentally get vaccinated blood, because they believe it will kill them. Take a moment to really absorb that one. […]
[…] The Guardian has a piece on Wednesday revealing Chris Rufo’s relationship with a magazine called IM-1776, a journal of the “dissident right” with quite a few anonymous contributors (almost universally not a good sign when talking about right-wing publications).
IM-1776 is the sort of magazine that publishes sentences like this with a straight face:
The public schools in [Los Angeles] were essentially ghetto daycares, but without having the good sense to segregate by ethnicity.
That’s from a piece praising Nayib Bukele, the right-wing president of El Salvador who has, among other things, sent armed troops into his nation’s legislature to intimidate legislators into approving a $100 million loan from the United States that would have gone towards his controversial gang crackdown program that involved the suspension of civil liberties so authorities could round up alleged gang members. […]
On Charles Haywood, a right-wing nutter who is openly making plans to be the “warlord” of an “armed patronage network” after America’s inevitable collapse:
Waller, the political analyst, included Haywood as one of three case studies in a working paper on writers providing “advocacy in favor of genuine authoritarian regimes – ones which outright reject the basic structural and constitutional premises of modern electoral democracy”.
In conversation he said that he included Haywood in the paper as one of the writers who “ … think democracy is bad, and that actually an authoritarian regime is good … it’s rare in the contemporary period for someone to be that open about these sorts of things.”
Oh, we dunno. We think Rufo and his ilk have been very, very, very, very open about what they are trying to do here.
A federal appeals court panel on Thursday moved to stay a district judge’s order that cleared the release of an alleged leader of a white supremacist organization who had previously fled the U.S. to evade prosecution.
Robert Rundo, the alleged leader of the white supremacist ‘Rise Above Movement,’ was released from prison in Orange County Wednesday, before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued their temporary stay. It was not immediately clear as of Wednesday afternoon if he had been located by authorities, or placed under arrest.
U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney dismissed charges against Rundo and a co-defendant, Robert Boman, both of whom were charged in 2018 with conspiracy to violate the Anti-Riot Act, and rioting, for their role in alleged attacks on counter-protesters at political rallies in 2017.
In an extraordinary ruling Wednesday, Carney argued that Rundo and Boman had shown they were “selectively prosecuted” in comparison with members of far-left groups like Antifa, who also physically assaulted supporters of former President Trump at some of the rallies but were not charged with the same crimes…
Carney noted in his opinion that others had argued that the far-left groups “engaged in worse conduct and instigated much of the violence.” …
Prosecutors had rushed to reverse Carney’s order and in the meantime filed an emergency request with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that Rundo was likely to flee the U.S…
In their emergency application with the 9th Circuit, prosecutors noted that Rundo fled the U.S. the last time Judge Carney ordered his case dismissed in 2019 on First Amendment grounds. The 9th Circuit later reversed that decision, and the FBI was able to locate Rundo in Romania and secure his extradition in August of 2023.
President Joe Biden met with the widow of Alexei Navalny, Yulia Navalnaya, and their daughter, Dasha, in California on Thursday afternoon, less than a week after her husband died in a Russian prison.
“The President expressed his admiration for Aleksey Navalny’s extraordinary courage and his legacy of fighting against corruption and for a free and democratic Russia in which the rule of law applies equally to everyone,” the White House said in a readout of the meeting.
The readout said that Biden emphasized that Navalny’s “legacy will carry on through people across Russia and around the world mourning his loss and fighting for freedom, democracy, and human rights.” The statement added that Biden “affirmed that his Administration will announce major new sanctions against Russia tomorrow in response to Aleksey’s death, Russia’s repression and aggression, and its brutal and illegal war in Ukraine.”
[…] Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnya, said in a video statement Thursday that she was allowed access to her son’s body in a morgue but that her lawyer had not been able to come with her. She added that investigators claimed to know the cause of her son’s death but were “blackmailing” her by telling her that if she didn’t agree to a secret funeral, they would “do something with the body.”
[…] Let’s see, the Republicans have a two-seat majority in the House after losing yet another special election, Congress has seven days to pass a stopgap funding bill to avoid a partial government shutdown and the House is in recess for five of them, the Flying Monkey caucus is threatening to force out yet another speaker if they don’t get their way this time, their big investigation into President Biden just saw its main witness indicted for lying about everything and is now sputtering to a premature and unsatisfying finish […] the party’s leading presidential candidate is trying to wiggle out of paying half a billion dollars in civil fines because he committed all the fraud (and the rape), Ukraine is literally begging our legislature to give them some weapons so they won’t be slaughtered by a fascist authoritarian […], the anti-abortion wing of the party keeps overstepping on abortion even though a blind naked mole rat could tell them it’s a drag on the GOP’s electoral prospects, all while Mike Johnson is trying to rally the troops by telling them to read Two Corinthians or whatever instead of presenting anything resembling a plan to address any of the insanity threatening the party like the plague.
We do not know much about leadership, […] But we know enough to understand that Mike Johnson really, really sucks at it.
[…] The retreat was in Miami, which gave Johnson a chance to scoot over to Mar-a-Lago so he could get his marching orders in person from the giant tangelo that roams the grounds while [complaining] about polls or Marxist prosecutors or whatever nutty thought the TV put in his head that morning. We wonder if they also talked about America’s declining moral character and rejection of masculine values, right before the tangelo reiterated his demand that Johnson’s party pay his numerous legal bills.
The annual Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC, kicked off Thursday outside Washington, D.C. Here is a sampling of the many speakers on tap at this year’s gathering of right-wing operatives and officials:
Embarrassment to brain surgeons everywhere Ben Carson will be there.
Willfully ignorant Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio.
Right-wing troll Tulsi Gabbard.
The transparently corrupt former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.
MyPillow guy Mike Lindell is still hanging around.
Ethical nightmare Rep. Matt Gaetz will be speaking.
And Republican Party standard-bearer Donald Trump will close out the festivities on Saturday.
Whether it’s giving the GOP faithful access to far-right nationalist Hungarian leader Viktor Orban and his race-purity politics or right-wingers telling audiences that Democrats threatened to steal their grandparents’ insulin, CPAC has always been a safe space for extremists. Even before the official events began Thursday, a very unsurprising video of Jan. 6 insurrection deniers chanting about “J6” political prisoners inside the conference halls circulated on social media. [JFC]
How unsurprising is this tomfoolery? Here’s a Jan 6.-themed pinball machine on display at the conference this year. [Tweet and image at the link]
[snipped Matt Schlapp details] The conference is set to wrap up shortly before South Carolina primary voters head to the polls on Saturday. While Trump’s primary opponent Nikki Haley has been invited to the event, whether or not she will attend remains unknown.
What is known is that Donald Trump will say bad things about Haley, make many of his fellow Republicans at CPAC uncomfortable, and then they will swallow that bile and vote for him anyway.
Finally, here’s a brief moment from the opening of the gates of hell. [video at the link]
“The difference is Richard Nixon had respect for norms and the United States of America,” he explained. “Joe Biden is the capo of a criminal organization, The Biden Family. He doesn’t care about the country. All he cares about is himself. […]”
Schlichter is the guy that was recruited by Andrew Breitbart to write conservative commentary. “Town Hall” in an online forum/website. Schlichter is featured as a speaker at some CPAC panels.
Scientists have uncovered compelling evidence for abnormalities in the brain and immune systems of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).
The findings, in one of the most rigorous investigations to date, begin to illuminate the biological basis for the illness that can cause disabling fatigue. The study is the first to demonstrate a link between imbalances in brain activity and feelings of fatigue, and suggests that these changes could be triggered by abnormalities in the immune system.
“People with ME/CFS have very real and disabling symptoms, but uncovering their biological basis has been extremely difficult,” said Walter Koroshetz, director of NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) in the US. “This in-depth study of a small group of people found a number of factors that likely contribute to their ME/CFS.” …
Today, in 2024 in America, women are being turned away from emergency rooms and forced to travel hundreds of miles for health care, while doctors fear prosecution for providing an abortion. And now, a court in Alabama put access to some fertility treatments at risk for families who are desperately trying to get pregnant. The disregard for women’s ability to make these decisions for themselves and their families is outrageous and unacceptable.
Vice President Kamala Harris:
On the one hand, the proponents are saying that an individual doesn’t have a right to end an unwanted pregnancy and on the other hand, the individual does not have a right to start a family.
Ask who’s to blame. And I’ll answer that question: When you look at the fact that the previous president of the United States was clear in his intention to hand-pick three Supreme Court justices who would overturn the protections of Roe v. Wade. And he did it. And that’s what got us to this point today.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley:
Embryos, to me, are babies. When you talk about an embryo, you are talking about, to me, that’s a life. And so I do see where that’s coming from when they talk about that.
[Later she backpedaled] I didn’t say that I agreed with the Alabama ruling. [Yeah, you did]
[…] any physician that is in control of those embryos, they owe it to those people to make sure they protect that embryo and that they do with that embryo what those parents want done with that embryo.
Just as Donald Trump’s 30-day window to appeal the ruling in the New York attorney general’s civil fraud trial is about to begin — and with it, his time to post an appeal bond of 100% to 120% of the $450 million-plus judgment (including interest) — the opening of his next trial looms just over 30 days from now.
That case — brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and revolving around Trump’s alleged fake business records to conceal interference with the 2016 presidential election — is set to open with jury selection on March 25. But by the time testimony is underway, you might feel an eerie sense of déjà vu.
Why? Because as with much of Trump’s pre-presidential activities and his early White House behavior, the two people best equipped to say what Trump knew and intended with his allegedly criminal conduct are once again his former lawyer turned sworn enemy, Michael Cohen, and the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer turned favorite fall guy, Allen Weisselberg.
Team Trump repeatedly crowed that Cohen was the AG’s star witness in the civil fraud trial — and a disappointing, lying one at that. But as my MSNBC colleague Jordan Rubin wrote this week, Judge Arthur Engoron concluded that Cohen, despite his own criminal history, was a comfortable, credible witness who told the truth.
Meanwhile, the judge characterized Weisselberg, who was both witness and defendant, as evasive and strangely forgetful — and his testimony as “highly unreliable,” due to a $2 million severance agreement with the Trump Organization signed on the eve of his sentencing in yet another Trump fraud case. Under that agreement, as Engoron noted, “he was not permitted to cooperate voluntarily with any law enforcement agency adverse to the Trump Organization, including the Attorney General’s Office.”
And both assessments bode well for the Manhattan DA. Because as much as Trump’s lawyers tried to inflate Cohen’s role in the civil fraud trial, his testimony will be far more central in Bragg’s upcoming criminal prosecution. After all, the statement of facts that accompanied Bragg’s indictment not only details how Trump allegedly directed Cohen’s payoff of adult film star Stormy Daniels, but it also describes alleged conversations involving Cohen, Trump and Weisselberg in which they devised — and Trump agreed to — the repayment arrangement and the false classification of those payments as “legal expenses” in Trump Organization records.
Now, with Judge Engoron’s endorsement of his credibility, Cohen is poised to provide significant testimony for the DA in the trial starting next month. Weisselberg, on the other hand, seems increasingly unlikely to get anywhere near the witness stand. Not only was he found liable on all seven claims in the AG’s civil fraud case, but The New York Times has reported that Weisselberg has been in plea negotiations with the DA’s office over his alleged perjury during that trial. That could mean we’d see Weisselberg plead guilty for the second time in two years to a felony prosecuted by the Manhattan DA — and earn a perjury conviction — near the beginning of Trump’s trial.
More importantly, however, all of those developments are likely weighing on Trump’s defense team. Could they really call Weisselberg as a witness after two convictions and a massive liability finding, all of which stem from his association with the former president? But if they don’t call him, would Cohen’s testimony about his conversations with Trump and/or Weisselberg stand unrebutted […] Or could it potentially be countered only by America’s most undisciplined, unpredictable witness, Trump himself?
The one-two punch of Cohen’s successful testimony in the civil fraud trial and Weisselberg’s mounting misfortunes present some tough choices for Team Trump. What will they do? Watch this space.
birgerjohanssonsays
A Swedish team has processed data from the James Webb Space Telescope and found the first evidence of the neutron star in the Large Magellanic Cloud from the supernova four decades ago.
JWST found infrared radiation of ionised argon that is heated up by the nearby neutron star.
OK, Joe, Kamala, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO STOP THIS? Right now, all your’ doing is talking. and if the your precious constitution won’t let you step in and punish these states, then maybe it’s time to throw out that outdated piece of James Madison’s TP.
Or, maybe it’s time we got ourselves a new leader and a new government that WILL take on the right-wingers.
Former Vice President Mike Pence’s political advocacy group plans to invest $20 million this year to shape the conservative agenda, an effort to directly counter what Pence had previously described as populism “unmoored to conservative principles.”
Advancing American Freedom, which Pence launched in 2021, announced Wednesday the creation of the American Solutions Project, a three-prong effort to push more traditional conservative policy priorities during an election year likely to be dominated by former President Trump.
“Our nation was founded on conservative principles that have stood the test of time. The Constitution and this great American experiment must not be swayed by movements or personalities, but must hold fast to the time-honored principles that have made America strong and prosperous and free,” Pence said in a statement to RealClearPolitics, which first reported on the new effort…
I was led to believe that the founding of this nation was a rather radical endeavor. Did my teachers mislead me?
the headline [does not say] “I own the sandworm Fleshlight.”
[…]
I reflexively asked to buy one Dune popcorn bucket “for a friend.” The teenage staffer at the concessions stand chortled, “For a friend. Right.” […] my devastatingly perceptive teenage accuser asked if I wanted the popcorn that comes with the bucket.
[…]
one must be a trained medical professional to eat out of this thing […] What good is a popcorn bucket if you can’t, shouldn’t, and don’t put popcorn in it? […] Please don’t answer that
[…]
What benefits from being out of sight, an object you can put things into, but never want to take things out of? Thus, I have now installed the Dune piggybank
whheydt, I will concede that there’s a vast untapped mine of ye olde SF stuff that could never have been filmed before modern CGI — LOTR being an ur-example — but which would be blockbuster material if adapted without too much Hollywoodisation.
John Moralessays
[Bit of a rant, I pre-emptively beg your understanding, Lynna]
Turns out, the recent adaptation of Foundation was nice visually, but shit as an adaptation.
My fears were fully realised, there, my cautious hopes dashed.
They fucked it up big-time, it was barely even an interpretation. :|
A bit like “I, Robot” or “Starship Troopers”, nobody who cares about the source material would imagine they’re anything other than bad fanfiction inspired by the originals. Bah.
(Still, hope springs ever eternal; who knows, maybe one day an actual adaptation at the level of Jackson’s LOTR — which was imperfect but far above those disasters I’ve mentioned — will be done of some of the classic SF motherlode that the period after WW2 but before the New Wave represents)
whheydtsays
Re: John Morales @ #262…
After seeing the first part of the Jackson LoTR, my wife swore she’d never even consider seeing anything by him ever again. (And she didn’t.)
The film version of Starship Troopers missed an interesting subtext of the original book, and one that most people reading the book miss, too. When Heinlein was in the US Navy, the only job ever assigned to Filipinos was to be a Mess Steward. The protagonist in the book is a Filipino. So Heinlein is, among other things, pointing out the stupidity of that practice. (There is a scene late in the book when Rico gives the key clue by mentioning that what was spoken in his home was Tagalog.) At the time ST was filmed, they could have made a more o less corresponding point by making him gay.
John Moralessays
whheydt, seems to me we’re both SF tragics; and may I say that from what you write, it seems that your wife was even stricter than I am about congruence to the source material. Which is, um, pretty strict! \
I can respect that.
For me, the worst of that first part was the elision of Glorfindel just to replace him — an Elf-Lord, no less! –with Aragorn’s love interest, but not putting in some mention of Tom Bombadil* also grated a bit. At least they sorta kept the mushrooms scene there for worldbuilding**, quite well done, too.
**The nature of hobbits is no less world-building than the inclusion of that of Tom Bombaldil, a primordial nature power. Middle-Earth is not merely a backdrop, it’s a vast expanse, in both time and space.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Grist – Misplaced Trust: Stolen Indigenous land is the foundation of the land-grant university system. Climate change is its legacy.
we located and mapped more than 8.2 million surface and subsurface acres taken from 123 Indigenous nations [to fund land-grant universities]. […] This involved handing Indigenous land to state legislatures so agencies could then manage those lands on behalf of specifically chosen beneficiaries.
[…]
Every new state carved out of the public domain […] received land grants for public institutions […] like dowries for joining the Union […] These trusts have a fiduciary obligation to generate profit for institutions, not minimize environmental damage.
^ Very long article with history about the schools listed below.
State trust lands just might be one of the best-kept public secrets in America.
* [Washington State University] runs on timber sales extracted from stolen Yakama lands.
* Texas A&M runs on oil and gas extracted from 4.2 million acres of Kiowa, Comanche and Mescalero Apache lands.
* [University of Arizona] runs on oil and gas extracted from the lands of at least 10 indigenous nations.
* [New Mexico State University] runs on oil and gas extracted from lands siezed from various Apache bands during the longest war in US history.
* [University of Minnesota] runs on mining extracted from Dakota lands, secured with the largest execution in US history (you’ve heard of Abe Lincoln’s mass hanging of the Dakota 38+1?)
[…]
Grist has made their methodology and their data open-source. […] Crosscut used data gathered by Grist to report this story, which focuses on WSU’s complicity in Indigenous dispossession. *
The Salt Lake Tribune used Grist data to report this story about the millions of dollars Utah State University generates mostly from coal, oil and gas extraction on stolen indigenous lands. *
This whole project is a continuation of an investigation that began at [HighCountryNews] a few years ago, about the role land grant universities play (not played) in colonization
* Too many links.
whheydtsays
Re: John Morales @ #264…
My late wife was not only an SF fan, but she also wrote, starting with Star Trek fanfic (and a Vulcan grammar that is the basis of every modern Vulcan conlang). While not officially acknowledged in the credits, she was the originator of the the term “ni var”. She had about 30 short stories and two novels professionally published.
I think swapping out Glorfindel had more to do with the shortage of female characters in Tolkien. The ones that are there are strong, but the lack is probably due to Tolkien’s late Victorian and Edwardian upbringing. What really grated–to both of us–was the portrayal of Aragorn. He damned well knew that he a good shot at being king of Gondor, and had been raised with that in mind. Playing him as someone agonizing over his future was just right out. I don’t think Jackson could really handle and out and out hero, so he watered Aragorn down to something he (as a director) could handle.
Re: John Morales @ #267…
Yes, the person cited in your link is my late wife. If you want to read her own works, take a look at https://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/
“Best…so far” is a pretty low bar. I have heard it claimed that before Lucas made Star Wars, he wanted to film E. E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensmen series, but he couldn’t get the rights. Having seen the travesty that is the anime “version” of that, I can understand why the rights holder would have turned him down. (Just for starters…dying Lensman gives kid–who is Kimbal Kinnison–his lens to carry on the work. That’s wrong on SO many levels. Having van Buskirk be the kids oafish, comedic sidekick doesn’t do anything to help…)
An Indian court has ordered a zoo in West Bengal state to change the names of two lions after a hardline Hindu group complained it hurt their religious sentiments.
[…]
On Thursday, the court said that animals should not be named after “Hindu gods, Muslim Prophets, [revered] Christian figures, Nobel laureates and freedom fighters”.
“You could have named it Bijli [lightning] or something like that. But why give names such as Akbar and Sita?” Justice Saugata Bhattacharya asked.
The court also asked if it would be prudent to name pets, including dogs, after people. “You could’ve avoided a controversy,” the judge said.
Surprisingly sensible, for a change.
KGsays
John Morales@264,
But Tom Bombadil does appear (as “Tim Benzedrine”) in one of the best scenes in Harvard Lampoon’s Bored of the Rings.
KGsays
StevoR@259,
I heard some NASA spokesdroid saying “Odysseus has taken the Moon!”, which doesn’t quite seem in line with the Outer Space Treaty. He did also say it was “A great step for all of humanity” or something very similar, apparently because it’s the first time a moon landing has been done by a commerical company.
A trove of Neanderthal tools made between 120,000 and 40,000 years ago were forged with glue, according to a team of researchers that recently studied the objects.
The research revealed the oldest evidence of a complex adhesive in Europe, according to an NYU release. The adhesive—composed of bitumen, an asphalt component that also occurs naturally in soil, and ochre—was found in trace amounts on stone tools from Le Moustier, a Neanderthal site in France. The findings were published this week in Science Advances…
KGsays
John Morales@262,
The SF I’d most like to see filmed well (and would most dislike to see filmed badly!) are some of Ursula Le Guin’s works. Either her fantasy stuff (the Wizard of Earthsea series) or her (social) science fiction, such as The Left Hand of Darkness – in which all but one of the characters are non-binary, so quite topical, or The Dispossessed (there is a film version of The Lathe of Heaven, available online and OK, but much more could be done with it now).
KGsays
Lynna, OM@241,
Another CPAC speaker was the blink-and-you-missed-it UK Prime Minister, Liz Truss. I doubt one in ten of the conference attendees knew who she is, but it’s interesting that she’s now willing to appear in the company of fascist criminals such as Steve Bannon, and indeed to banter with him. Apparently she thinks (or at least, claims to think) that her downfall was orchestrated by a “left-wing Deep State”; everyone outside the libertarian bubble thinks it was her beloved “free markets” taking fright at massive unfunded tax cuts, and thus forcing a steep rise in interest rates. She also attacked Joe Biden (in absolutely Republican terms, as “asleep at the wheel” and economically disastrous*, not as enabling genocide); and transgender people.
*The pretence that the US economy has not done remarkably well under Biden is bizarre in itself (whether you think that has actually been down to him and his policies or not), but gobsmacking from one who steered the UK economy straight into the ditch in record time.
Paul Ksays
KG @274: It would be very easy to make bad interpretations of Le Guin’s work. There’s nuance, and filmmakers are not known for nuance, for the most part. I recall reading this article, written by her, about her feelings on the SciFi Channels adaptation of Earthsea back in 2004: https://slate.com/culture/2004/12/ursula-k-le-guin-on-the-tv-earthsea.html . She did not like it. ‘When I looked over the script, I realized the producers had no understanding of what the books are about and no interest in finding out. All they intended was to use the name Earthsea, and some of the scenes from the books, in a generic McMagic movie with a meaningless plot based on sex and violence.’ She goes on from there.
Scientists have revealed a new, remarkably complete fossil – a 16ft (5m)-long aquatic reptile from the Triassic period.
The creature dates back 240 million years and has been dubbed a “dragon” because of its extremely long neck.
It is called Dinocephalosaurus orientalis, a species that was originally identified back in 2003.
This spectacular new fossil has allowed scientists to see the full anatomy of this bizarre prehistoric beast.
Dr Nick Fraser, from National Museums Scotland, who was part of the international team that studied the fossil, said this was the first time scientists had been able to see it in full. He described it as “a very strange animal”…
Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, through her attorney, responded Friday to one of House Republicans’ top impeachment witnesses, Tony Bobulinski, claiming in a letter first obtained by ABC News that comments he made in his recent interview with the House Oversight Committee were “defamatory,” with her attorney providing a photo of an alleged encounter between Bobulinski and former White House chief of Staff Mark Meadows that he says refutes Bobulinski’s claims about the incident…
Bobulinski, a top witness in Republican’s impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, told the House panel last week Hutchinson was a “liar and a fraud” while denying an anecdote Hutchinson wrote in her book, “Enough,” in which Hutchinson recalled that Bobulinski wore a “ski mask” during a secretive encounter with Trump’s then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, at a campaign rally in Rome, Georgia…
“Cassidy Hutchinson is an absolute liar and a fraud,” Bobulinski told the panel, saying he wasn’t wearing a ski mask and that “[Meadows] didn’t hand me a single thing.”
In the letter responding to Bobulinski, Hutchinson’s attorney wrote that while his client “has no desire to get involved in the impeachment investigation,” she “now finds herself the subject of defamatory comments made by Mr. Bobulinski in his testimony to that Committee.”
In the letter, Hutchinson’s lawyer provided a photo he says Hutchinson took at the time of the alleged encounter between Meadows and Bobulinski at the Trump rally…
I don’t know whether it’s a “ski mask”, but the lower half of his face is covered. Ski masks tend to cover the entire face, excepting eyes, mouth and sometimes nose. So perhaps it is a scarf or a high collar. The type of covering seems not to be the main issue though.
Paul Carpenter told NBC News that he was paid $150 to produce a fake AI-generated voice message from Joe Biden — and that the political operative Steve Kramer hired him to do it. Kramer has worked with Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips’ campaign to gather signatures to get on the ballot. NBC didn’t find evidence that the Phillips campaign was involved in the robocalls…
After nearly three decades, Vice will stop publishing stories to its website. Vice Media CEO Bruce Dixon said today that the company is going to lay off hundreds of employees as it plans a shift toward social platforms, according to a memo to employees obtained by Washington Post reporter Will Sommer.
“It is no longer cost-effective for us to distribute our digital content the way we have done previously,” Dixon writes. “Moving forward we will look to partner with established media companies to distribute our digital content, including news, on their global platforms, as we fully transition to a studio model.” …
KG @275, Liz Truss sounds tailor-made for the Republican Party in the USA … or for the worldwide authoritarian club. She even promoted tax cuts for the rich. It’s almost like she is a cookie-cutter version of an authoritarian or photo-fascist. Makes me wonder if they have a factory where they grow these dunderheads.
Initially, it seemed like a financial problem. Halfway through 2023, I noted that the Republican Parties in Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, and Minnesota were all noticeably short on cash — despite their electoral significance — with some flirting with the possibility of going “bankrupt.”
More recently, it looked like a personnel problem. Last month, over the course of 17 days, the state Republican Parties in Florida, Arizona, and Michigan parted ways with their chairs under difficult circumstances.
There were also questions about whether it was really an organizational problem, as Nevada held a presidential primary and caucus on the same week for a series of confusing reasons that left local voters baffled. And did I mention that the Nevada GOP chair is currently under criminal indictment for his role in his party’s 2020 fake elector scheme? Because he is.
But stepping back, the problems plaguing the Republican Party at the state level aren’t limited to finances, personnel, or administration. It’s all of those problems and more. In fact, The New York Times reported that state Republican parties “in roughly half of the most important battleground states are awash in various degrees of dysfunction, debt and disarray.”
[A]cross the map, state parties have become combat zones for the broader struggles inside the G.O.P. between the party’s old guard and its ascendant Trump wing, with rifts that can prove divisive and costly.
[…] the problems plaguing state Republican parties are emblematic of a larger dynamic, not dissimilar to the challenges GOP leaders are facing on Capitol Hill: Radicalized followers of Donald Trump are creating schisms and breakdowns that officials still aren’t sure how to handle.
[…] The Times’ report added:
Strategists who have worked on past presidential campaigns say that state parties matter and that, when effective, they can serve as some of the most important unseen and unsung forces in national politics. They provide an efficient way for the national party to inject cash into key states and to coordinate field operations up and down the ballot, while allowing campaigns to leverage cheaper postage rates and unrivaled local know-how.
It’s why, as the article added, “inside the Trump operation, there is frustration over the sad state of affairs in key state parties.”
To be sure, the party is facing real challenges at the national level, as Donald Trump pushes out Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel and tries to install a new leadership team — including his daughter-in-law.
But as messy as conditions are at the RNC, it’s fair to say matters are even worse for the state Republican parties.
[…] the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) issued a memo about an hour ago, urging the party’s Senate candidates to “clearly and concisely reject efforts by the government to restrict” in vitro fertilization.
MADISON, Wis. — A bipartisan ethics panel in Wisconsin has recommended felony charges against one of Donald Trump’s fundraising arms in relation to an alleged scheme that it says was meant to circumvent campaign finance laws in order to take out a powerful GOP lawmaker who has turned against Trump.
The Wisconsin Ethics Commission this week found probable cause that Trump’s Save America committee and several state and local Republican officials committed felonies and recommended several district attorneys investigate and prosecute them, according to records released Friday.
The commission’s investigation centers on the 2022 primary race between Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, one of the most powerful Republicans in Wisconsin, and Adam Steen, a political newcomer who embraced Trump.
[…]
Vos has had a tumultuous relationship with Trump for years, especially since the former president baselessly alleged the 2020 election in Wisconsin was rigged against him.
Hoping to appease Trump and his supporters, Vos hired a former state Supreme Court justice to conduct a review of the election, which centered on conspiracy theories and false claims that the legislature could revoke the state’s electoral votes for Joe Biden.
Trump claimed Vos did not pursue the investigation with enough vigor and endorsed Steen as he made his out-of-nowhere primary challenge to Vos in 2022. Vos narrowly won that primary, and now Steen’s allies are gathering signatures in hopes of holding a recall election of Vos.
[…]
The ethics commission made its referral against Save America and its agents, but did not identify anyone with Save America by name. It alleged those involved in the efforts committed felonies that can result in penalties of up to 3½ years in prison and fines of $10,000. Additional penalties could be in play if prosecutors pursue conspiracy charges.
The ethics commission consists of three Republicans and three Democrats. It referred charges to Republican prosecutors in five counties because Wisconsin law requires campaign finance cases to be prosecuted where the alleged perpetrator lives if they are a state resident. For out-of-state residents and entities, such as Save America, the alleged violations are prosecuted where they occurred.
If the district attorneys do not act within 60 days, the commission has the authority to refer its request for prosecution to Attorney General Josh Kaul (D)….
A lot of Republicans do not know what to say about Alabama Supreme Court decision:
NBC News noted this week that Republicans were already struggling to coalesce around a message on abortion rights ahead of the 2024 elections, but “a recent Alabama Supreme Court decision finding that embryos created through in vitro fertilization are considered children has put them in a new bind.”
Politico had a related report, adding, “The long tail of the Dobbs ruling just keeps whipping Republicans with thorny political consequences.”
For some, however, the challenge is especially acute. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, for example, is auditioning to be Donald Trump’s running mate, and he’s hit the campaign trail in support of the former president. At his latest press conference, the Republican was asked whether he agreed with the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling.
“Well, I haven’t studied the issue,” the senator replied.
[…] If Scott was arguing that he hasn’t studied the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling, that’s understandable, though he wouldn’t have to become an expert in the case to say whether or not he agrees with a court concluding that frozen embryos are people.
But if the Republican was suggesting he hasn’t studied the broader issue, there’s some compelling evidence to the contrary. In fact, as recently as 2021, several GOP senators co-sponsored a federal “personhood” bill — Sen. Rand Paul’s “Life at Conception Act” — which was designed to extend personhood rights at the moment of conception.
The legislation, which did not receive a vote and was never seriously considered, faced ample opposition, including from those who raised an obvious point: The consequences of such a law would, among other things, effectively ban in vitro fertilization.
If Tim Scott hasn’t “studied the issue,” why did he co-sponsor federal legislation that would’ve had the same effects of the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that he doesn’t want to talk about?
A new Tennessee law undercuts the Supreme Court’s 2015 landmark, closely divided decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide, and marks a significant victory for a resurgent conservative movement to restrict LGBTQ rights.
The law, signed by Gov. Bill Lee (R) to little fanfare on Wednesday evening, allows state officials to decline to “solemnize marriages.”
The new law effectively removes half of what is needed under state law to become legally married. In Tennessee, marriage occurs after two events: the issuance of a marriage license, and the formal solemnization of a marriage, which can be carried out by a religious official, a state notary public or a state official.
By targeting solemnization and not marriage licenses, the law allows Tennessee to undermine the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges while potentially avoiding a direct challenge to the precedent. Experts compared the new Tennessee law to the campaign waged against Roe v. Wade, in which many states passed increasingly aggressive abortion bans in the years leading up to the 2022 Dobbs decision, when a majority of justices were willing to revisit and scrap the Roe precedent entirely.
“I think they’re in the process of chipping away at marriage equality now to get to the same result,” Chris Sanders, head of the Tennessee Equality Project, told TPM, comparing it to the anti-abortion movement. He predicted the law would swiftly draw challenges.
The new law is among the first in the country to allow state officials to decline to participate in same-sex marriages or other forms of marriage. It represents a rising, aggressive tide in the conservative social movement: a recognition that after achieving a generational goal with the Dobbs decision, and with a Supreme Court stacked 6-3 in favor of conservatives, they’re in a position to lay siege to marriage equality and other personal freedoms. […]
👀 House Democrats have quietly started the clock on a new discharge petition for Ukraine aid
It is expected to ripen by March 1 under the current House schedule, at which point, pro-Ukraine lawmakers can begin signing it … https://t.co/oo0tXxOhIq
[…] Trump has developed a VP shortlist that includes plenty of potential sycophants who would never dream of crossing the boss.
During a “town hall” helpfully arranged to give Trump additional free airtime on Fox News, an even half-dozen candidates were confirmed to be on the list: Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, professional troll and former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, biotech dude Vivek Ramaswamy, and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.
A couple of these names can probably be dropped right away.
It’s not going to be DeSantis. First, Trump seems to have just too much fun ridiculing the guy who the media had picked to be Trump’s replacement in that brief period following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, when the press was desperately fishing for someone else who was willing to say racist, misogynist, and abysmally stupid things for the daily news cycle.
Even though he departed the primary season with an endorsement of Trump, DeSantis has since earned the ire of Trump’s campaign team by setting foot in South Carolina. Team Trump recently rewarded him with a fresh round of absolutely scathing comments. He’s not the guy […]
It’s also surely not going to be Tulsi Gabbard. Gabbard, handy as she is for Fox News to prop behind a sign that reads “Democrat,” is a nobody. Her utter lack of personal morality, dignity, or principles is no doubt appealing to Trump, and she can still net a speaking spot before the faithful at CPAC, but she’s always demonstrated the innate charisma of a wig stand.
Outside of people who stay glued to Fox News, no one gives a damn about Gabbard. “Was a representative three years ago” is way down there on the list of political capital, and Gabbard brings with her exactly zero people who weren’t already going to vote for Trump. […] Gabbard’s odds are miles better than DeSantis, but they’re still close enough to zero that it doesn’t matter.
Of those who remain, Donalds and Noem … exist. Sort of. Noem at least had the temporary cachet of being willing to crap all over the health of her constituents to demonstrate her love for Trump. Also she recently dispatched South Dakota’s National Guard to what she calls the “warzone” along the border, even though she sent them a month after border crossings plunged. Noem also benefits from the fact that she was so certain Trump would win from the outset that she shelved her own White House ambitions. It’s not a very good case for her nomination, but it’s a case.
Donalds … wait. Does he exist? That’s only slightly harsh because while Fox gives Donalds airtime, his whole shtick is just “Biden is bad.” No one else seems to pay much attention. But hey, Donalds did show up at CPAC to claim that “more people have died from wind turbines than nuclear power.” Trump will like that line.
Donald and Donalds. Would Trump find that fun or just confusing? Would he forget which one he is? Anyway, not Donalds.
That leaves the short part of the long shortlist: Ramaswamy and Scott.
You have to hand this much to Scott: He wants it. Oh, precious, he wants it so bad. Bad enough to give what may be the most embarrassing performance in a year of deeply embarrassing politics. [video at the link]
This moment came during Trump’s New Hampshire victory speech, and it’s unclear if his uncomfortableness in this moment comes from a level of sycophancy that exceeded even his wildest expectations, or if he just forgot for a moment that a Black man was standing behind him. But lord … this is awful on so many levels.
The bad news for Scott here is that Trump remembers he was appointed by former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and Trump remembers that Scott turned around and stabbed Haley in the back. That’s not the kind of behavior that makes the king comfortable, Tim.
Then there is Ramaswamy. Yes, he did join in the Republican presidential primary, but unlike anyone else who stepped onto that stage, there never seemed to be any doubt that he was doing it for any purpose other than raising his profile with Trump.
Ramaswamy has been out there doing his Trump homework, while other people are just hoping to get noticed. He’s been attacking New York Attorney General Letitia James and preaching the gospel of vengeance. And he doesn’t neglect the MAGA base that is still waiting for that next message from Q. That includes him saying that Michelle Obama is a man, and a promise to give Vladimir Putin just about everything he wants in Ukraine. [JFC]
Ramaswamy delivers his conspiracy theories and lies with the kind of intensity and confidence that shows Trump that he is all in. He has to be at the top of Trump’s list. Though watching Ramaswamy watch Trump, and Trump watch Ramaswamy, to see which of them will throw the other under the bus first could be good sport as the polls start to head south.
So that’s everyone. Except, hold on a second, Rep. Elise Stefanik has stepped into the ring. Stefanik has been doing her level best to get a pat on the head, confirming that she would have gone right along with Trump’s 2020 coup. [video at the link]
Trashing Pence, doubling down on Jan. 6, and expressing her willingness to take another swing at ending the republic. Ramaswamy might have a fight on his hands.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a proposal early Friday for Israel’s indefinite military control of Gaza, repeating hard-line stances he has made before but still surprising the public by putting it all in writing as a concrete postwar plan.
For months, Netanyahu has placed two topics largely off-limits in public questioning: What responsibility does he bear for security lapses leading to the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, and who will govern the enclave when the fighting is over?
On the first question, Netanyahu continues to deflect. But he has finally spoken on the second with a one-page proposal presented to his security cabinet Thursday night and released publicly after midnight. The outline is meant as a starting point for further discussions, his office said.
[…] The new policy followed a meeting Thursday with White House envoy Brett McGurk and came as momentum appeared to be building in Paris-based talks toward a possible cease-fire and hostage-release deal with Hamas.
[…] “Netanyahu’s number one goal is buying time,” said Gideon Rahat, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute and chair of Hebrew University’s political science department. “He bought as much time as he could on this in the face of pressure from Joe Biden.”
The proposal outlined by Netanyahu largely reflects what he has said in public. Among its key points:
Israel’s military will stay in Gaza as long as it takes to demilitarize the enclave, eliminate Hamas and keep it from regrouping.
Israel will assume greater control of Gaza’s southern border, in cooperation with Egypt “as much as possible,” and will carve out border buffer zones to prevent smuggling and further attacks. Egypt has rejected any Israeli role on its border with Gaza.
[…] The proposal rejects any permanent agreement with “the Palestinians” that is not achieved through direct negotiations with Israel, as well as any “unilateral” Palestinian state.
The Palestinian Authority, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said the outline was a nonstarter.
[…] But if the goals were in line with Netanyahu’s rhetoric, political observers said the proposal was notable for breaking the official silence on the topic. And it did not call for the reestablishment of Israeli settlements inside Gaza, as some of Netanyahu’s coalition partners have demanded.
Nor, as many Israeli political observers noted, did it slam the door on Palestinian Authority officials playing a role in Gaza, as Netanyahu has repeatedly done in the past. [That strikes me as looking really hard for any silver lining.]
Instead, the outline describes a civil service staffed by “local entities with managerial experience,” without defining who that might be. Anyone with ties to terrorist groups or countries “supporting terrorism” — a possible reference to Qatar and Iran — would be barred.
[…] “It’s vague enough to enable him to control his coalition on the one hand and to give a hint to Biden and others that there might be some type of Palestinian Authority role when it doesn’t come to security issues,” Rahat said.
But Palestinians saw the document’s silence as an insult.
“The Palestinian Authority is simply ignored, rendering it as if it doesn’t exist,” political analyst Mustafa Ibrahim told The Washington Post in a phone interview from Rafah, in southern Gaza, where he is sheltering with his family. “What Netanyahu’s plan presents is a vision solely centered around Israel and its interests, with no regard for the humanity or rights of Palestinians.”
The sanctions target those connected to opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s imprisonment, as well as Russia’s financial sector, defense industrial base and procurement networks.
[…] The U.S. is also imposing export restrictions on almost 100 entities that support Russia’s military efforts and taking action to reduce Russia’s energy revenues, Biden said.
[…] Biden emphasized the need for Congress to pass the Senate foreign aid package, saying Ukraine is “running out of ammunition.” Ukraine needs more supplies from the U.S. to “hold the line against Russia’s relentless attacks,” which are enabled by ammunition and arms from Iran and North Korea, the president said.
“That’s why the House of Representatives must pass the bipartisan national security supplemental bill, before it’s too late,” Biden said.
[…] Biden encouraged the governors to urge their states’ members of Congress to force the bill to be brought up for a vote in the House.
[…] The president mentioned the sanctions package to the governors, drawing widespread applause, and said it’s part of an effort to respond to Putin’s “brutal war of conquest” in Ukraine and Navalny’s death. “Because make no mistake, Putin is responsible for Alexei’s death,” Biden said.
The Treasury Department said in a release detailing the sanctions that its Office of Foreign Assets Control is targeting almost 300 individuals and entities; combined with actions by the State Department, the administration’s moves bring the total number of targets sanctioned to more than 500 — the largest number of sanctions imposed on Russia since it invaded Ukraine, the release said.
[…] He added that people won’t recognize many of the hundreds of names on the sanctions list “because ever since our first round of sanctions, Russia has been leveraging its intelligence services to find ways to evade our actions and procure the goods it needs to resupply the battlefield and now to make those goods at home.”
Russia’s wartime transformation is allowing the U.S. to target densely concentrated production “in new and efficient way,” Ademeyo [Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo] said. “With such vertical integration, we can hit the entire supply chain, and attempts to fortify his military industrial base have only made it more vulnerable. If Russia is going to turn its industries into wartime producers, then all Russians production is now fair game.” […]
Reginald Selkirksays
@287: “Hexaplex”
-plex is a Latin suffix, so that should probably be sexaplex.
Donald Trump is a grifter. Everything he touches is a grift. Everyone around him is a grifter—or a mark. And his grifting operation has always been a family affair.
We know this, and we’ve always known this. A New York judge just legally confirmed that his sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, are in on it. This is not controversial stuff.
Yet Republican state party leaders are now watching in abject horror as Trump initiates his latest grift: a takeover of the Republican National Committee as an additional funding vehicle for Trump’s staggering legal bills.
“He’s trying to hijack the RNC before he’s even the nominee. And it’s because he’s broke,” Katon Dawson, former chair of the South Carolina Republican Party, told NOTUS. “He has already spent millions worth of PAC money and he’s running out. So he needs another place to go raise money to pay his personal legal bills.”
According to the RNC’s own site, their mission is to “to fight for our proven agenda, take our message to every American, grow the party, promote election integrity, and elect Republicans up and down the ballot.” In other words, the RNC, just like its Democratic Party counterpart, the Democratic National Committee, is tasked with messaging the party’s agenda and providing the infrastructure for candidates to win at all levels of government.
[…] his daughter-in-law Lara Trump […] announced, with zero awareness of the organization’s purpose, that the committee would spend “every single penny” on Trump, that it was the “number one and only” job of the committee to elect Trump, and that it was the committee’s job to pay for Donald Trump’s legal bills. [video at the link]
As of the end of 2023, the last time the committees reported their financial numbers, the RNC was in a serious cash crunch, with just $8 million in the bank after raising $87.2 million in 2023. At this point in 2020, the RNC had $72 million. By comparison, the DNC raised $120 million, and had $21 million in the bank. (The RNC had an additional $1.8 million in debt, compared to just $319,000 for the DNC.)
Given that Trump bled his political action committees of more than $50 million last year on legal bills alone, Republicans wouldn’t be faulted for wondering when any money will be spent on, you know, elections.
[…] This isn’t a question about funding that “could be sucked away.” That money will definitely be diverted to Trump’s legal bills and assorted grifts. […]
What’s particularly funny is that Republican parties in key battleground states are still reeling from Trump’s 2020 coup attempt. “You know, we’d love to have a little extra help dealing with our own legal issues that result from the 2020 election,” Georgia GOP Treasurer Laurie McClain said. A separate NOTUS report noted how the Georgia Republican Party is bleeding itself dry covering the legal expenses of the defendants charged by Fulton County District Attorney Fanni Willis in the racketeering and conspiracy case stemming from attempted interference in the election. [Schadenfreude moment]
[…] Now, there is conflicting information from the RNC about whether it will cover Trump legal bills.
“Absolutely none” of the Republican National Committee’s funds will be used to pay former President Donald Trump’s multimillion-dollar stack of legal bills, a senior Trump campaign adviser insisted to ABC News as the former president’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, says that “every penny” of the party’s funds should be prioritized toward his reelection.
Yet it’s notable that this “senior adviser” didn’t put his name on the quote. So who will you believe—Lara Trump, speaking the will of grifter-in-chief Donald Trump, or some lower-level apparatchik attempting damage control after Lara had just severely sabotaged the RNC’s already-hurting fundraising operation? Donald will make the ultimate decisions on where that RNC money is going, and it’s going nowhere but in his own pockets.
No one—especially Republicans—should expect anything different.
Ukraine says it has shot down a second Russian A-50 plane. This is Russia’s version of an AWACs airborne command and control plane. This one was apparently downed over Russian territory near the Sea of Azov.
As President Biden would say, this is a BFD. [Tweet and images at the link]
Russia has confirmed the loss of the plane but claims it was due to friendly fire. They have to say that to prevent pilots from balking about flying missions close to the front. […]
Tomorrow is the two-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There are rallies and marches scheduled all over the world to show support for Ukraine. […]
Russia has now lost at least 1,000 officers of the senior lieutenant rank. […]
Right; pretend it wasn’t the Dobbs ruling, enabled by your court appointments, along with your pandering to religious whackaloons, that made this possible.
It is an experience that will be familiar to many women. A professional golfer has published video footage of a man giving her unsolicited advice on her technique, citing as his qualification to lecture her his 20 years of playing the game.
Georgia Ball, a PGA pro, was filming her swing at a driving range when the man stepped in uninvited to tell her where she was going wrong.
Posted on Instagram with the caption “Can you believe he said this?”, Ball can be seen glancing towards the camera and laughing politely, but incredulously, at the man’s tips.
“Excuse me, what you’re doing there, you shouldn’t be doing that. You should be … right through. Swing and follow through,” the man told Ball after she had fired a ball down the range. Referring to her backswing, he told her: “You’re … too slow on the way up.”
Canada-based University of Waterloo is racing to remove M&M-branded smart vending machines from campus after outraged students discovered the machines were covertly collecting facial-recognition data without their consent…
Jurors deliberated for five days in the civil corruption trial in New York against the National Rifle Association and its executives.
Wayne LaPierre diverted millions of dollars away from the National Rifle Association to live luxuriously, while the gun rights group failed to properly manage its finances, a jury found Friday.
[…] The case against the NRA was brought on by a lawsuit filed in 2020 by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who accused LaPierre and other current and former executives of flouting state laws and internal policies to enrich themselves.
The other defendants were John Frazer, the NRA’s corporate secretary and general counsel, and Wilson “Woody” Phillips, its former treasurer and chief financial officer.
The jury ruled largely in favor of James, finding that the National Rifle Association failed to properly run its nonprofit and its assets at any time between March 20, 2014 and May 2, 2022.
Jurors also determined that LaPierre, Phillips and Frazer all violated their statutory obligation to discharge the duties of their position in good faith.
[…] They said LaPierre caused $5.4 million in monetary harm to the NRA, but that he has already repaid at least $1 million of that. The 74-year-old appeared stoic as the verdict was read.
Phillips caused $2 million in monetary harm to the NRA, they found, while Frazer did not cause any monetary harm to the group.
[…] State Supreme Court Judge Joel Cohen will have the final say over monetary damages and remedies. That decision could happen in July.
[…] James’ attorneys spent six weeks in Manhattan court painting the NRA as “Wayne’s World,” which they said was full of free private jets, expensive meals, travel consultants, private security and trips to the Bahamas for LaPierre and his family.
During closing arguments, Monica Connell, an attorney with the state Attorney General’s Office, compared the defendants to children caught stealing from a cookie jar.
She urged the jury to hold the defendants accountable, even if their attorneys outlined steps they may have taken to address or correct violations.
“Saying you’re sorry now,” she said, “doesn’t mean you didn’t take the cookies.”
[…] On the stand, LaPierre said he used the organization’s financial resources on chartered private jets, family trips, black car services and high-end gifts for friends. He also testified that he authorized thousands of dollars in helicopter rides so that NRA executives could avoid getting stuck in traffic while traveling to and from NASCAR races.
During cross-examination, LaPierre testified that it was wrong to charter private planes and limo services for personal use.
None of the defendants has been criminally charged as part of James’ lawsuit.
[…] The NRA has operated as a nonprofit charitable corporation in New York since 1871. Its assets are required by law to be used in a way that serves the interests of its membership and advances its charitable mission.
In the last few years, the NRA has been considerably weaker, with less influence in the political sphere and fewer members. Membership fell to 4.2 million from nearly 6 million five years ago, The New York Times reported.
Membership dues dropped by $14 million from 2021 to 2022, according to an audit filed as part of the lawsuit
She considers embryos to be “babies”, but she is OK with them being killed during IVF; so now she needs to explain why she is OK with babies being killed.
birgerjohanssonsays
Anything that survives being literally frozen is too primitive/undifferentiated to be a human being. Siberian newts might make it, but not a functional human.
As for the dysfunctional Republican party organisations in battleground states, we see the consequences of four decades of increasingly extreme demagoguery:
The new generations no longer understands the message was simply propaganda to manipulate the rubes – these Republicans have become true believers of whatever drivel Tucker Carlson et al spouted. And this demographic are not good at working together for a common cause or long-term thinking, preferring to boost their egos or use party funds to feather their own nests.
Lynna@ 292
Trump and his religious audience were of course affected after Papa Emeritus II struck them with his Secular Haze
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=vyQZ13jobIY
John Moralessays
Reginald @309, good grief!
Desperately tries.
suddenly trying.
frantically trying.
controversial stance.
much more gibberish [sic] response.
Et fucking cetera. And that’s just in the title and the first three paragraphs!
Oh, right. ‘gibberish’ is a noun, the verb form would be ‘gibbering’.
(In case my noting that ignorant usage was not obvious; doesn’t say much for the writer’s grasp of English)
John Moralessays
Ah well, I’m gonna be (heh) desperately, frantically ignored, aren’t I?
The pattern has become clear. Futile, of course.
Should I say it’s glaringly obvious what’s going on? ;)
If someone is spouting gibberish, it should be evident. Quote them.
If someone is frantic, it is evident. Show it.
And so forth. Demonstrate it, instead of just asserting it.
(What sort of person likes “news” articles that tell them what to think is pretty obvious, no?)
StevoRsays
I reckon this week’s episodes of Media Watch here :
StevoR@259,
I heard some NASA spokesdroid saying “Odysseus has taken the Moon!”, which doesn’t quite seem in line with the Outer Space Treaty. He did also say it was “A great step for all of humanity” or something very similar, apparently because it’s the first time a moon landing has been done by a commerical company.
Yeah, “taken the moon” how? On its side aparently :
The private Odysseus lander is down on the lunar surface, in more ways than one.
The 14-foot-tall (4.3 meters) Odysseus, which was built by Houston company Intuitive Machines, apparently settled on its side during its historic touchdown yesterday (Feb. 22), mission team members said. But don’t panic — the pioneering spacecraft is still very much alive.
First time a private space company has successfully landed yes – versus the many more public (govt /national) space organisations landings there going back to the Soviet Luna and USA’s ranger craft.. Its a notable milestone certainly but hardly Moon-shattering, true. Still great to see and we can learn and gain from doing this in science and engineering terms.
Jeansays
Well Odysseus is at the correct angle with respect to the Moon’s equator. Too bad it landed on the south pole.
Pierce R. Butlersays
John Morales @ #s 311-313: … gibberish … is a noun … glaringly obvious …
So is “garbage” – “(a) much more garbage response” would seem, in many contexts, utterly cromulent. Last I heard, they called that a noun adjunct, and allow its usage except in the presence of certain aristocrats and deans.
It seems that New Republic piece piled on the adverbs – clumsy, I agree, but a rather venial sin in view of the linguistic and semantic crimes flourishing all around us.
Demonstrate it, instead of just asserting it.
Also, avoid clichés like the plague.
My first paying job, as a teenager, was as a copy editor, and I’ve developed an eye for textual problems ever since. Just about every commenter in every thread here breaks one rule or another, not even counting the typos and spellos. Even our esteemed host has slipped on a grammatical banana peel at times. And my own emissions require regular “oops”es all too often.
Can you imagine the drag on conversation if we all stopped and chided each stumble or mumble? Calling out errors of fact, logic, or ethics (etc) can help us improve our understandings; chewing on each others’ ears ends up just a pointless dominance game.
If you don’t have anything better to contribute than unsolicited Freshman Comp 101 regurgitations, please hold it in and try to find something more substantial/palatable to justify flailing your fingers.
John Moralessays
Pierce R. Butler, at least you are feisty. So.
It seems that New Republic piece piled on the adverbs – clumsy, I agree, but a rather venial sin in view of the linguistic and semantic crimes flourishing all around us.
It “seems” so, does it? Not actually the case, then?
Heh. My claim is a bit stronger than that.
My first paying job, as a teenager, was as a copy editor, and I’ve developed an eye for textual problems ever since. Just about every commenter in every thread here breaks one rule or another, not even counting the typos and spellos.
Perhaps. But only some commenters routinely and rattle off linkies to stupid, stupid opinion pieces without any due diligence whatsoever; in particular, a certain commenter (whose name you do not mention) prompts me to note when a particular piece loaded language or boring clickbait is remarkably annoying.
Can you imagine the drag on conversation if we all stopped and chided each stumble or mumble?
Is that what you are trying to insinuate I’m actually doing?
Calling out errors of fact, logic, or ethics (etc) can help us improve our understandings; chewing on each others’ ears ends up just a pointless dominance game.
Mmmhmm. As you demonstrate, O so helpfully, right there.
(I’m doing the etc)
If you don’t have anything better to contribute than unsolicited Freshman Comp 101 regurgitations, please hold it in and try to find something more substantial/palatable to justify flailing your fingers.
So… you talk the talk, dare you walk the walk, Pierce?
(The irony is palpable)
John Moralessays
Well, feisty, briefly.
John Moralessays
Right. No dominance games, nosiree! Perish the thought!
So… Here’s what a military analyst posted recently:
0:00 Two years of war
0:53 What can happen in year three
1:38 Russia’s current advantage
2:23 Future challenges for Russia’s economy
4:11 Growing instability in Russia
5:23 Russia’s advantage is temporary
5:58 Ukraine’s active defense
6:36 The optimistic scenario
7:12 The pessimistic scenario
9:10 Supply security is the variable
9:47 The West in strategic vacuum
John Moralessays
Right. Temporal extent extends.
“If you don’t have anything better to contribute than unsolicited Freshman Comp 101 regurgitations, please hold it in and try to find something more substantial/palatable to justify flailing your fingers.”
I just contributed an analytic take on the Ukraine war.
Therefore, no need to “hold it in”, right?
Words mean things, O person whose first job ever was as a copy editor — but you know that due to that, no?
—
Ah well. Endless thread, not like I’m using up comments to the detriment of others.
(Is that, in your estimation, O Pierce R. Butler, something more substantial/palatable to justify flailing my fingers? Or are you even pickier? Not that this is some sort of dominance game, oh no!)
Microplastics! They’re in everything, from our bodies to the ocean.
And apparently they’re even found in sediment layers that date back as early as the first half of the 1700s, showing microplastics’ pernicious ability to infiltrate even environments untouched by modern humans.
A team of European researchers made this alarming discovery after studying the sediment layers at three lakes in Latvia, as detailed in a study published in the journal Science Advances…
The Biden administration on Friday said Israel’s expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank is inconsistent with international law, signaling a return to long-standing U.S. policy on the issue, which had been reversed by the previous administration of Donald Trump.
A federal judge in California issued a warrant for the rearrest of former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov after federal prosecutors convinced the judge that the man at the center of House Republicans’ ongoing impeachment inquiry was “likely” planning to flee the United States.
President Joe Biden is supporting Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to become the next NATO secretary general, a U.S. official said Wednesday. Biden’s support is likely to sway more allies to get on board with Rutte’s nomination, after months of jockeying between him and several other European leaders for the job.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) went after New York Judge Arthur Engoron on Thursday, demanding he be ‘disrobed’ for his $355 million business fraud verdict against […] Trump last week.
It’s been two years since Russian dictator Vladimir Putin sent tanks rolling across the borders from Russia and Belarus, and began this long, nightmarish war. It’s safe to say that very few people on that first day of the invasion could have foreseen the situation that Ukraine is in today. It’s equally safe to say that few can predict where it will be in another year.
One day before that illegal, unprovoked invasion was launched, Daily Kos predicted that this war could be as damaging to Russia as the invasion of Afghanistan had been to the USSR four decades ago. That prediction was badly off base. The Soviets lost 14,500 soldiers over the 10 years of the Soviet-Afghan war. Russia lost 16,000 men before capturing the small city of Adviivka this past Saturday.
Only it won’t be that way in Russian history books. Because the Russian defense minister has now declared that Avdiivka was a textbook operation achieved with minimal losses. [JFC] So please ignore the videos you’ve seen, and don’t worry about the Russian military blogger who reported the truth about Russian losses. According to Russian Telegram channels, he committed suicide. Which may be the same thing as “sudden death syndrome.”
Victors get to write the history. And if everyone isn’t very careful, the next history of Europe will be written in Russian.
Putin expected to be in Kyiv in three days, and if others thought it would take longer, they didn’t think it would take all that much longer. U.S. intelligence was of the opinion that Russia would effectively win its war within days.
Many thought that, with Ukraine forced to surrender the seat of government, some elements of its military might retreat into neighboring Poland, or collapse into smaller units that would sustain an ongoing guerrilla war. And even if many expected Russia to pay a high price in trying to subjugate its much smaller neighbor, few even entertained the idea that, two years later, the war would still be underway as anything more than a sporadic, partisan affair.
Back on that first day, Mark Hertling, the former commander of U.S. forces in Europe, scribbled some thoughts on Putin’s immediate goals. [Map and list at the link]
By the first four of these benchmarks, Russia has utterly failed. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy remains resolutely in control. The Ukrainian army is still facing off with Russia at every point of the line, and extracting heavy consequences for every attempted Russian advance. Ukraine’s population remains committed to the fight, and about 10 million of those who left at the outset of the invasion have returned to Ukraine even as the fighting continues.
But on that last one—to weaken the West and divide NATO and the U.S.—Putin has scored a major victory. Week by week, day by day, Russia has gained more control over the Republican Party in the United States. Assistance to Ukraine passed overwhelmingly in the early days of the conflict, but since then, creeping Russian influence over Republicans has grown in both the House and Senate, reaching the point where positions that seemed outrageous two years ago now dominate the Republican Party.
At the heart of this issue is an idolization of Putin as an authoritarian strongman who holds all the wealth and power imaginable, doling out slices of each to his friends based on their loyalty. It’s precisely this model that has made Donald Trump such a fan. Putin has helped cement his spot at the top of the GOP pantheon with large doses of racism, misogyny, and hatred for the LGBTQ+ community, not to mention a solid dose of cold-hearted death to his enemies. That’s the kind of leader that makes Ted Cruz swoon.
From Trump to Tucker Carlson, the right has spent the past two years selling Republicans on how nice it would be to get rid of that messy old democracy. Just let Trump run the show without interference, and you’ll get clean subways. Ones where the trains run on time.
And all it costs is your freedom. Not like you’d ever miss that old thing.
Gaining just one out of those five possible goals after two years of fighting might not seem like a win for Putin, but that one may be all he needs. A Reuters report from earlier this week sums it up this way: “While still motivated to fight Russian occupation, [Ukrainian troops on the front line] spoke of the challenges of holding off a larger and better supplied enemy as military support from the West slows despite pleas for more from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.”
In a tactical sense, the loss of Avdiivka doesn’t mean much. Capturing a city whose pre-invasion population was around only 30,000 at the cost of over 16,000 Russian lives and hundreds of tanks shouldn’t go in anyone’s textbook unless the title of that book is “How to Not Give a Damn About Your Troops.”
But like the fall of Bakhmut nine months ago, Avdiivka sends a message: Putin is willing to sacrifice. He’s a sadistic, sociopathic bastard who would direct a hundred thousand to their slaughter if that’s what it takes to capture the next city. He simply does not care.
The only time that Putin likely did care was when his former “chef” Yevgeny Prigozhin led the mercenary Wagner Group toward Moscow last June. But that coup was aborted en route, Prigozhin is dead, and Putin is back to casually defending his actions by telling stories about how Poland was unreasonable when it didn’t just hand over territory to the Nazis.
Militarily, this war has morphed into something that no one saw coming. It’s not war as Russia practiced it in Georgia or Chechnya. And despite an infusion of NATO weaponry and training, it’s nothing like any conflict the West ever envisioned. It is a drone war. A war that has elements of every war back to World War I mixed with scenes lifted from a “Terminator” movie.
There may be no better way to see the difference between how this war started and where things stand than to look at two videos. The first comes from Mar 4, 2022. It shows the “40-kilometer convoy” of Russian vehicles moving slowly from the Belarus border in the direction of Kyiv. [video at the link]
The second video shows a warehouse in eastern Ukraine where Russia has hidden a cache of vehicles. Despite being undercover, Ukrainian FPV drones locate the entrance to the warehouse and slip inside. Once the vehicles are spotted, a whole series of drones enter, each targeting a different vehicle until the entire squad is destroyed. [video at the link]
Imagine what would happen today if Russia tried to form that 40-kilometer convoy in Ukrainian territory. The festival of explosions might have been visible in Moscow.
But Ukraine is in no way unique in making heavy use of drones. Russia has them, as well. Combine that with massive minefields and heavy fortifications, and Ukraine’s attempts to advance in the summer of 2023 stalled out.
Now Russia is pushing back. And while it may seem that they’re using the same “throw out isolated squads to die for no purpose” strategy that they employed through the first year of the war, they’re not. They’re throwing out squads to die, but those squads are forcing a much smaller Ukrainian force to attempt to hold every location along a long, difficult front. Meanwhile, Russia reportedly shifts tens of thousands of troops around behind the line, looking for an attack on Kupyansk, or Robotyne, or maybe back to Bakhmut. Soon after the capture of the rubble that was Avdiivka, Russia began moving near Marinka, and they’ve already reported to have taken ground in that area.
Putin is still not going to get his three-day march to Kyiv. He’s not going to be there in three weeks. Or three months. But the summer ahead could be grim.
Ukraine has been denied the ammunition and weapons it needs for so long that it’s unlikely to be able to mount anything like a counteroffensive this year. 2024 could be a year of hunkering down, trying to hang on as Russia launches one attack after another in an attempt to erase its humiliating losses—especially around Kharkiv.
Things are not as bad as we thought they would be in those first days, but they’re certainly not where anyone who supports Ukraine wants them to be.
——————————
[Screengrab of letter from Zelenskyy to “25 OAS official members”]
————————————
If you’d shown these numbers to anyone two years ago, they would have been shocked at the horrific and historic scale of Russia’s defeat. [List at the link]
———————————-
This image from two years ago still works just fine today. [Photo of protestors: “Putin burn in hell.”]
Don’t mess with this little girl. She’s got a good track record. [“Russian warship, go F__k yourself” poster held by little Ukrainian girl bedecked with blue and yellow flowers.]
Donald Trump’s newly launched $399 “Never Surrender High-Tops” had Fox News gushing about his savvy appeal to Black voters this week.
Urgh.
“They love sneakers,” explained Fox commentator Raymond Arroyo. “This is a big deal. Certainly in the inner city.”
My reaction? This is one of the most frustrating parts about living in a hyper-segregated white supremacist society. White people often fundamentally misunderstand Black people and yet they are almost always in positions where they get to describe us and our culture authoritatively. That’s a problem. To say the least. […]
I’ve attended the Conservative Political Action Conference almost yearly since 2009, always as a credentialed reporter. While there, I’ve seen the early attacks on President Barack Obama, the improbable popularity of libertarian Texas Rep. Ron Paul. I witnessed the rise of the Tea Party, listened to dozens of failed political candidates like former GOP vice presidential candidate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and was in the house for Donald Trump’s first appearance in 2011. In February 2020, I even got exposed early to Covid, just before the world shut down. But this year, CPAC head Matt Schlapp decided that the organization would no longer give press passes to “left-wing media.”
“So CPAC has a new rule,” he told former Trump adviser Steve Bannon on a segment for the right-wing cable outlet Real America’s Voice. “If you’re a propagandist, you can buy a ticket, like everyone else. But you’re not in the media, and we’re not going to credential you by saying you’re in the media.” Bannon congratulated Schlapp for the epic troll. “People’s heads are blowing up,” Bannon said gleefully.
Of course, the liberal media is still covering CPAC. It’s the oldest and largest conservative gathering in the country, launched in 1974 by veterans of Barry Goldwater’s failed 1964 campaign for president. Today, it’s held in a convention center just outside of Washington, DC, where it runs from Wednesday until Saturday when Trump is expected to appear. The fact that the whole thing was live-streamed makes it easier for those who did not want to shell out the admission fee.
I took Schlapp at his word and simply bought a ticket. I wasn’t thrilled to be contributing $295 to a conservative organization currently spending a lot of its money defending Schlapp from a lawsuit by a male Senate campaign worker who alleges that Schlapp groped him in the car while he was working for Herschel Walker in Georgia. And yet, the general admission pass did not turn out to be the liberal own that Steve Bannon and the CPAC boss seemed to think it would be.
For instance, without my official press badge, people have been nice! No one has hissed “fake news” at me in the bathroom line. Rather than turn their backs and march away upon my approach, conference attendees have chatted me up unprompted. Admittedly, it felt a bit uncomfortable, and I usually disclosed that I was a reporter. But sometimes, they’d already let fly the unfiltered crazy stuff they would never have said on the record.
Exiled from the press pen, I was just part of the audience, a space previously off-limits to reporters. To say the least, it was enlightening. On Friday, for instance, I listened to a main-stage speech from Chris Miller, a Republican running for governor of West Virginia. Because of its tax-exempt status, CPAC bans speakers from openly campaigning there, so he was listed on the program simply as “businessman.”
Like virtually every other speaker at the event, Miller devoted several of his allotted five minutes to railing against transgender healthcare. “Woke doctors are literally making boys into girls,” he declared. “They’re practicing mutilation, not medicine. They should be in prison.” At that point, a burly man in a giant black cowboy hat sitting next to me leaned over conspiratorially and proclaimed, “I think we should hang them all! I really do.” And he laughed like we were in on the same joke. I confess that I was too cowardly to tell him I was with the left-wing fake news. [video at the link]
Later, during a speech by South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, I was sitting next to a woman in full-on MAGA gear. When Noem declared, “There are some people who love America, and there are some people who hate America,” my neighbor gave me a small heart attack. “Get the FUCK OUT!” she yelled furiously, ready to rumble. “Get the FUCK OUT!” Meanwhile, the old man in the camo Trump hat next to her had somehow fallen asleep.
In the hotel lobby outside the CPAC main stage, the right-wing cable network Real America’s Voice had set up a studio. Bannon spent most of the conference holding court there and interviewing various MAGA celebs like Kash Patel, who President Donald Trump had once put in charge of counterterrorism at the National Security Administration, or Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), the rare Black conservative in the mix. The studio often drew a crowd that rivaled that of some of the speakers on the main stage. It certainly rivaled the convention in volume.
While I was taking in the spectacle, a middle-aged man in a gray suit came up to me and pointed to a nearby 7-foot-high poster of Tucker Carlson’s face. “Do you know why that’s here?” he asked. I explained that it was an ad for Tucker: The Biography, a book written by Chadwick Moore, a gay journalist and former liberal. “Oh, I see,” he replied. The man clearly wanted to keep talking, asking me what I was here for, which was unusual since in the past my press badge said it all.
My inquisitor had come to CPAC to see what people were saying about school choice and was disappointed to discover that the answer to that question was nothing. Education policy, he lamented, was nowhere to be found at this event. Indeed, what passed for policy discussions at CPAC this year was largely limited to mass deportations and attacks on trans athletes. The sober panels about the national debt, balancing the budget, or Social Security reform that once commanded top billing were a relic of another era before CPAC became an extension of Trump Inc., devoted to all the MAGA grievances like racial equity, the evils of windmills, or bans on gas stoves. When I finally was able to explain that I was a reporter who’d been denied a press pass, the man launched into an earnest yet incomprehensible spiel about how the government is censoring people. Politely, I fled into the crowd watching Bannon.
After two days of passing as a CPAC attendee, I marveled at how weird it was to be on the other side like this. Over the past 15 years, I have attended dozens of right-wing conferences and events, even in the Trump White House, and always as a credentialed reporter. This time, instead of being treated like the enemy, I was briefly embraced as part of the tribe, and it became clear how seductive this could be for some people. I saw up close how people felt liberated to be their worst deplorable selves in what they believed was a safe space, surrounded by supportive, like-minded enablers.
[…] MAGA world has not been friendly to the mainstream media, despite all its professed concern for free speech. In the past few years, I’ve been kicked out of MAGA events or denied press credentials—most recently to every Trump event in Iowa during the caucuses in January. CPAC had often seemed like the last holdout.
Keeping liberal reporters out of the press pen will probably not win Schlapp better news coverage. It certainly won’t keep those reporters from asking hard questions about his management of the American Conservative Union, the nonprofit behind the conference, or the other men who have now raised additional sexual assault allegations against him. In fact, the experience of covering CPAC outside the pen has been so enlightening that even if he decides next year to give me official credentials, I might just buy a ticket and sit with the rabble.
Pierce R. Butlersays
John Morales @ #s 318-321 – Thank you for illustrating my point.
I’ve long found it amusing (well, admittedly sometimes a bit annoying) that you think there must be something desperate or frantic about someone ignoring you. It never seems to occur to you that, at least now and then, you can be boring. Just like the rest of us!
John Moralessays
Rob,
I’ve long found it amusing (well, admittedly sometimes a bit annoying) that you think there must be something desperate or frantic about someone ignoring you.
Heh heh. It was a playful reference to #311. Not that subtle, I thought.
—
Pierce, your gratitude is duly accepted, substantial/palatable as it is.
The Covid death toll in the US is likely at least 16% higher than the official tally, according to a new study, and researchers believe the cause of the undercounting goes beyond overloaded health systems to a lack of awareness of Covid and low levels of testing.
The second year of the pandemic also had nearly as many uncounted excess deaths as the first, the study found…
Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, associate professor in the department of sociology and the Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesota and one of the study’s authors…
Russian authorities on Saturday handed the body of opposition leader Alexei Navalny to his mother after she struggled for a week to recover it, according to his political team.
Dozens of Russian celebrities, artists, activists and journalists had recorded video appeals to President Vladimir Putin in recent days to hand over Navalny’s body to his family, and more than 98,000 Russians signed a petition organized by the legal rights group OVD-Info.
Earlier Saturday, Navalny’s daughter, Dasha Navalnaya, 23, also joined the campaign, posting on X, formerly Twitter, “Give my papa’s body to grandmother.”
Announcing the breakthrough, Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s press secretary, said it was unclear whether authorities would interfere in the funeral arrangements.
Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, has said that her wish is for him to be flown to Moscow for a public farewell service, as is tradition in Russia, and for his funeral and burial to take place at the Troyekurovskoye cemetery, where many prominent Russians, including opposition figures, have been laid to rest.
[…] “The funeral is still to come. We don’t know if the authorities will prevent it from being held the way the family wants and the way Alexei deserves. We will report information as it becomes available,” Yarmysh said. She thanked the thousands of Russians who supported Navalnaya’s campaign to recover her son’s body. […]
Nazis appeared to find a friendly reception at the Conservative Political Action Conference this year.
Throughout the conference, racist extremists […] openly mingled with conference attendees and espoused antisemitic conspiracy theories.
The presence of these individuals has been a persistent issue at CPAC. In previous years, conference organizers have ejected well-known Nazis and white supremacists such as Nick Fuentes.
But this year, racist conspiracy theorists didn’t meet any perceptible resistance at the conference where Donald Trump has been the keynote speaker since 2017.
At the Young Republican mixer Friday evening, a group of Nazis who openly identified as national socialists mingled with mainstream conservative personalities, including some from Turning Point USA, and discussed so-called “race science” and antisemitic conspiracy theories.
One member of the group, Greg Conte, who attended the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, said that his group showed up to talk to the media. He said that the group was prepared to be ejected if CPAC organizers were tipped off, but that never happened.
Another, Ryan Sanchez, who was previously part of the Nazi “Rise Above Movement,” took photos and videos of himself at the conference with an official badge and touted associations with Fuentes.
Other attendees in Sanchez’s company openly used the N-word.
[…] In one of the most viral moments from this year’s conference, conservative personality Jack Posobiec called for the end of democracy and a more explicitly Christian-focused government. While Posobiec later said his statements were partly satire, many CPAC attendees embraced his and others’ invocations of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. […]
A new study based on 4,605 participants in the Michigan COVID-19 Recovery Surveillance Study shows that the prevalence of long COVID symptoms at 30 and 90 days post-infection was 43% to 58% lower among adults who were fully vaccinated before infection.
The study appeared yesterday in the Annals of Epidemiology…
[…] According to a Media Matters review, Fox News devoted just 6 minutes of coverage to the ruling and its consequences from February 16 through noon on February 23, even as Alabama fertility clinics shut down IVF treatments in response. MSNBC and CNN meanwhile dedicated 3 hours 45 minutes and 3 hours 13 minutes, respectively, to the ruling. While MSNBC and CNN each hosted numerous reproductive health experts and prospective parents seeking IVF treatment who have been affected by the ruling, Fox’s only guest to discuss the ruling was Fox News Sunday anchor Shannon Bream. [Graph showing media coverage is available at the link]
[…]
Six minutes on Fox News … compare that to 3 hours and 13 minutes on CNN.
[…] After getting in a requisite dig about trans girls competing in sports—which is apparently the top concern of Republican voters—Lara Trump declared that there was one other thing of singular importance that she wants her daughter to know. “I want her to understand that in the United States of America, we get ahead and succeed by merit, and merit alone.”
Then she explained how she “had the great honor of being endorsed by my father-in-law Donald Trump to co-chair the RNC.” Because that’s also merit.
That may sound like rank hypocrisy, but who could really claim that being married to Eric Trump isn’t one of America’s worst jobs? [video at the link]
Lara Trump also explained how she puts her kids to bed each evening by having them recite the pledge of allegiance. Which may sound pretty cold when she’s talking about a four-year-old and a six-year-old. But it probably beats bedtime stories about her road trips on the “Trump-Pence Women’s Empowerment Tour.” (Yes, dammit, that was a real thing.)
What’s clear now is that Lara Trump really has been empowered. Empowered to be a money chute for her father-in-law, who needs to tap a new source of ready cash to pay all his legal bills. And sure, Trump has theoretically named a new chairman—North Carolina Republican Party Chair Michael Whatley—to run the party, but there’s little doubt about the division of labor. Whatley’s task is working out how to handle election fraud, just like the fraud that other Republicans suspect Whatley committed when he took over the North Carolina GOP.
Lara will handle the money. Line up, Republican donors. You know where it’s going.
As a selection to run this grift, Lara Trump works well. And why not? She has years of grifting experience. Besides, she’s not so bad. She only allegedly helped funnel money from a charity that was supposed to help homeless dogs, into Donald Trump’s pocket. Her husband reportedly lifted money from a charity to help kids with cancer. On an evil scale of one to 10, she’s … no, fuck it. She’s still pretty evil. […]
Anyway, Lara’s role of making sure “every penny” donated to the RNC moves directly into Trump’s legal fund could be a short-term gig. Rumor has it that, despite having quite a few names on his VP shortlist, his daughter-in-law may be the only name he needs.
Donald Trump and Lara Trump could be the Republican dream couple. After all, Melania is 53 and doesn’t seem very enthusiastic about shedding her terry cloth robe and getting back on the campaign trail. It’s about time that Donald had someone younger and more enthusiastic at his side.
A deep-sea expedition off the coast of Chile has uncovered a treasure trove of scientific wonders, including more than 100 previously unknown marine species and a handful of never-before-seen underwater mountains — the largest of which is around four times the size of the world’s tallest building.
Incredible photos and video footage of the underwater landscape also showcase a menagerie of deep-sea weirdos, including intricate sponges, spiraling corals, a beady-eye lobster, a bizarre stack of oblong sea urchins and a bright red “sea toad” with hands for fins.
Between Jan. 8 and Feb. 11, researchers on board the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s (SOI) research vessel Falkor (too) explored the seafloor off the coast of Chile. The expedition, named “Seamounts of the Southeast Pacific,” focused on underwater mountains, or seamounts, in three main areas: the Nazca and Salas y Gómez ridges — two chains of more than 200 seamounts that stretch a combined 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) from Chile to Easter Island (also known as Rapa Nui); as well as the Juan Fernández and Nazca-Desventuradas marine parks. ..
WARREN, R.I. (AP) — A nearly 150-year-old stained-glass church window in Rhode Island that depicts a dark-skinned Jesus Christ interacting with women in New Testament scenes — known to many as the “Black Gospel Window” — has found a new home at a museum in Tennessee.
The window was installed in 1878 at the now-closed St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Warren. It is the oldest known public example of stained glass on which Christ is depicted as a person of color that one expert has seen. Scholars have studied the work, trying to determine the artist’s motivations…
A former congressional candidate from Columbus (Ohio) has been arrested by the FBI on Friday in connection to the 2021 Capitol riots.
Cleophus Dulaney, 63, is facing multiple charges, including assaulting law enforcement, during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. Dulaney was identified in videos as moving barriers to allow a mob of rioters to storm the Capitol grounds…
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) went after New York Judge Arthur Engoron on Thursday, demanding he be “disrobed” for his $355 million business fraud verdict against former President Trump last week…
She just wants another opportunity to show dick pics in the House of Representatives.
johnson catmansays
re Reginald Selkirk @345:
She just wants another opportunity to show dick pics in the House of Representatives.
The networks announced Donald Trump’s victory tonight in South Carolina shortly after the polls closed. The headlines speak of a decisive victory. The Times reported Trump “trounced” Haley, landing a “crushing blow”, a “big win” over Haley who “lost decisively.” But as I write 87% of the vote is in and Donald Trump has 60% of the vote to Nikki Haley’s 39.4%.
I come at all of this from a somewhat different perspective, I guess. Because there wasn’t a moment throughout 2023, or late 2022 for that matter, when I wasn’t certain Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee. We knew that after Iowa and New Hampshire and we know it now. In a presidential election or even a contested senate race 60-40 is pretty decisive. It’s plenty to make Trump the nominee. But I think we have to be honest and say that 40% of the electorate in a deeply Trumpy state like South Carolina voting against Trump is a huge showing of opposition precisely because the nomination race is effectively over.
It’s fair to say that this is Haley’s home state. She was two-term governor. That must figure into the equation. But 40% isn’t that different from the 43.2% she got in New Hampshire or the 40.3% Haley and Ron DeSantis got between them in Iowa.
I’m not going to speculate what it means for the general election. But this is a lot of persistent opposition for a candidate who has always been running as a de facto incumbent. Even if you set that de facto incumbency aside, it’s quite a lot for a candidate who is, whatever technicalities you want to get caught up in, the presumptive nominee. 40% of Republican primary voters are still showing up to say they don’t want Trump even when they know they’re definitely going to get him.
[…] “I know 40 percent is not 50 percent, but I also know 40 percent is not some tiny group,” Haley said Saturday night, as her supporters responded by chanting her name. They booed when she congratulated Trump on his victory.
“There are huge numbers of voters in our Republican primaries who are saying they want an alternative,” Haley went on. “I’m not giving up this fight when a majority of Americans disapprove of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden.”
[…] Trump’s campaign emphasized outreach through pastors, often touting the former president’s record of appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned the constitutional right to an abortion established in the 1973 case Roe v. Wade.
[…] “Our country is being destroyed, and the only thing standing between you and its obliteration is me,” he said. “In many ways, we’re living in hell right now.”
Trump further escalated his inflammatory attacks on his political opponents, calling them at turns “sickos,” “evil,” “Stalinist,” “executioners,” “thugs and tyrants, fascists, scoundrels and rogues.” As he has during his two previous campaigns, he told his supporters not to accept an electoral defeat, claiming without evidence that any loss would be illegitimate.
[…] Trump’s team is eager to shut down the primary and stamp out remaining pockets of dissent in the party, as it braces for a general election fight with Biden while navigating a thicket of legal issues. Trump faces 91 criminal charges across four indictments and has made frequent court appearances.
[…] On Saturday, an RNC member proposed restricting the party from paying the legal bills of any candidate and requiring the party to stay neutral until a candidate captures enough delegates to be the nominee — drawing a rebuke from Trump’s team.
“The primary is over [not true, not a fact] and it is the RNC’s sole responsibility to defeat Joe Biden and win back the White House,” Trump adviser Chris LaCivita said. “Efforts to delay that assist Joe Biden in the destruction of our nation. Republicans cannot stand on the sidelines and allow this to happen.”
Haley on Saturday criticized the choice of a family member to run the RNC. “I think having a family member run it, or a campaign manager being a part of it, should not qualify, and I would hope that the people in the RNC know that they have a responsibility, a responsibility to put in people in the RNC who are going to look out for the best interest of all of the Republican Party, not just one person,” she told reporters in Kiawah Island.
[…] “You need a leader that has moral clarity that knows the difference between right and wrong,” Haley said, pointing to Trump’s comments on NATO and accusing Trump of emboldening Russian President Vladimir Putin and “siding with a dictator who kills his political opponents.”
Haley campaign manager Betsy Ankney told reporters Friday that she has “infrastructure on the ground” in states like Georgia and Washington that vote after Super Tuesday “through the end of March.” The Trump campaign has projected that he could win enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination by the end of that month.
“In the next 10 days, another 21 states and territories will speak,” Haley said on Saturday. “They have the right to a real choice, not a Soviet-style election with only one candidate. And I have a duty to give them that choice.”
The Justice Department said this week that informant Alexander Smirnov invented a story about $5 million bribes paid to Joe and Hunter Biden and is also “peddling new lies.”
The Justice Department’s assertions this week that a longtime FBI informant was seeking to “spread misinformation” designed to hurt President Joe Biden after speaking to Russian intelligence operatives has put a new spotlight on an old debate:
To what extent, if any, has the Russian government manufactured or amplified unproven allegations of corrupt Ukraine dealings by Joe and Hunter Biden?
In a request to revoke his bail, prosecutors said that former informant Alexander Smirnov, charged last week with lying to the FBI in 2020 when he said Joe Biden had received a $5 million bribe, “is actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections after meeting with Russian intelligence officials” as recently as last fall.
The allegation that Smirnov was spreading new falsehoods about Joe Biden with an election looming hearkened back to an episode from the 2020 election, when the question of whether Russian spies were trying to smear Joe Biden was first raised.
Derogatory information, purportedly from Hunter Biden’s laptop, had surfaced in a New York Post article. Soon afterward, 51 former intelligence officials signed and blasted to the media a letter warning that the laptop story “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
[…] our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.”
[…] The House Judiciary Committee hauled some of them in for sworn interviews, and in May published a report titled, “How senior intelligence community officials and the Biden campaign worked to mislead American voters.” Some received death threats.
Now, many of those former officials say they feel vindicated by the allegations against the FBI informant.
No public evidence has emerged pointing to a Russian government role in how the laptop materials were made public. But the former officials say the materials fueled stories consistent with Russian efforts to accuse Biden of corruption that persist to this day — and that therefore they were justified in sounding the alarm.
“It validates exactly what we were warning about,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a 26-year CIA veteran who supervised operations involving Russia. “Ours was a prudent warning. The Russians were going to push this narrative of Hunter Biden and corruption, to hurt Joe Biden.”
[…] “The recent revelations show that we were prescient. While I would love to gloat, the important issue remains the same — foreign interference in American democracy, and unethical, cynical and faithless behavior by members of Congress entrusted to provide oversight of our important institutions.”
[…] the signatories said they were expressing a genuine concern that went beyond who would win an election. And it wasn’t only those 51 former officials who were concerned about possible Russian attempts to smear Biden. NBC News reported in October 2020 that the CIA and other spy agencies gathered intelligence on Giuliani’s dealings with alleged Russian intelligence agents as he searched for dirt on Biden and passed his findings on to the Trump White House.
American intelligence agencies were not spying on Giuliani, but on the people with whom he was talking, including Andrii Derkach, who had been identified by the Treasury Department as a Russian agent. In the process, the U.S. spy agencies learned that Derkach and other Russian operatives were in touch with Giuliani, and wanted to feed him information in an attempt to discredit Joe Biden.
In that context, the emergence of the laptop around the same time raised suspicions, especially because the New York Post reported that it obtained the material from Giuliani, who got it from the owner of a Delaware computer repair shop.
[…] It was Weiss who filed charges last week against Smirnov, accusing the informant of lying to the FBI when he relayed information that Joe and Hunter Biden had each accepted bribes of $5 million in 2015 from Ukrainian executives of Burisma […]
NBC News has reported that the bribery allegations had been investigated and debunked by the Justice Department during the Trump administration. But they had become part of the push by House Republicans to impeach Joe Biden. And the prosecutor who investigated, former Pittsburgh U.S. Attorney Scott Brady, testified to the House Judiciary Committee in October that the FBI viewed the informant as a “trusted source.”
It’s not clear when and why that changed. In a filing this week seeking to revoke Smirnov’s bail, prosecutors said he had repeatedly “lied to his FBI Handler after a 10-year relationship where the two spoke nearly every day” — and that he had “extensive” contacts with Russian operatives. […]
“Smirnov’s contacts with Russian officials who are affiliated with Russian intelligence services are not benign,” the filing says, adding that his “efforts to spread misinformation about a candidate of one of the two major parties in the United States continues. … What this shows is that the misinformation he is spreading is not confined to 2020. He is actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections after meeting with Russian intelligence officials in November.”
Out of respect for PZ I’m responding to a guy trolling me here, because he has some sick obsession with me and it’s nothing to do with the original thread in which the lies were told.
I don’t expect this to be of interest to anyone, sorry. X-D
Silentbob has done his best to pester me for years now, both here and elseblog.
Basically, trying to troll me. Misnyming me.
The claim of “misnyming” comes from Morales sharing that he adopted the name “John” because anglos couldn’t pronounce his actual name, which I won’t repeat because he’s apparently decided he’s got a problem with me saying it. That’s it. I called him by his actual name, which he shared, to be respectful.
Meanwhile he’s called me “SoylentBog”, “Stridentbib”, “Fecalbumbulus”, and any other insulting name he can think up. The claim I “misnymed” him is utter projection. In the unlikely event you care, Google and see if you can find me calling Morales anything other than his name (which he shared).
when it comes to being trolled, I react thus. I become, um, a tad vehement, and get frustrated as the minutes and the hours pass with no response.
Look at what’s being said here. This loony is claiming that since I left him alone, and let him have the last word in any argument – therefore I deserve to be trolled! The claim here is literally that if you get trolled and don’t feed the trolls – that means you deserve to be trolled!
Utterly insane.
Anyway, that’s it. Sorry for the boring correcting of the record no one cares about. It still needed correcting. Carry on.
[Stand by for a 47 post rebuttal from the obsessive loony. I won’t respond. Again.]
John Moralessays
Silentbob, your obsession with me is stupid.
Silentbobsays
Sorry, but this is too funny not to share! X-D
Apparently, when Morales said to PZ
I shall try to restrict myself when it comes to that particular person’s prodding with a formulaic acknowledgment I’ve been testing.
he meant he’s going to ritualistically chant DARVO at me:
A respectful comment to disagreements in this thread.
In my long and boring life, I have found that ‘agreeing to disagree’, and not getting provoked by minor disagreements is the road to avoiding high blood pressure.
(There are, of course, exceptions. If someone posts “Hitler was a nice guy” you are not expected to be cool about it)
The sea of chanting, nearly-naked men tussle, push and shove towards the shrine. “Washoi! Washoi!” they yell – let’s go, let’s go.
It is scene that has barely changed in the 1,250 years the Hadaka Matsuri, or the Naked Festival, has been taking place at the Konomiya Shrine, in central Japan.
But this year there is a change – a big one.
Away from the men’s huddle, a group are about to become the first women to ever take part…
Peter Thiel is trying harder than ever to get young people to skip college.
Since 2010, Thiel, an early Facebook investor and a founder of PayPal Holdings, has offered to pay students $100,000 to drop out of school to start companies or nonprofits…
Some big successes include Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, the blockchain network; Laura Deming, a key figure in venture investing in aging and longevity; Austin Russell, who runs self-driving technologies company Luminar Technologies; and Paul Gu, co-founder of consumer lending company Upstart…
Thiel and executives of the fellowship acknowledge they have learned painful lessons along the way. Some applicants pursued ambitious ideas that turned out to be unrealistic, for example.
“Asteroid mining is great for press releases but maybe we should have pushed back early on,” he says.
Others were better at applying to be Thiel fellows than they were starting businesses, it turned out…
They’ve also learned that lone geniuses with brilliant ideas aren’t usually the kinds of people who can build organizations…
The article is very kind to Peter Thiel. They do not mention the blood of young people thing, nor the libertarian island.
birgerjohanssonsays
New big f*cking snake discovered: Green anaconda.
birgerjohanssonsays
You know, anyone who tells people to skip college should first have to wrestle that 200-kg new anaconda.
The decimal point is 150 years older than historians thought it was, newfound notes from 15th-century Italy reveal…
But a consistent system of decimals wasn’t fully cemented until 1593, when German mathematician Christopher Clavius used decimals in an astronomical treatise. Now, new research suggests Clavius was playing with an older tradition, picking up the use of decimals from a 15th-century Venetian merchant named Giovanni Bianchini.
Bianchini’s work dates to between 1441 and 1450, making the decimal point a century and a half older than Clavius’ use of it, according to the authors of the new research…
The electron is the basic unit of electricity, as it carries a single negative charge. This is what we’re taught in high school physics, and it is overwhelmingly the case in most materials in nature.
But in very special states of matter, electrons can splinter into fractions of their whole. This phenomenon, known as “fractional charge,” is exceedingly rare, and if it can be corralled and controlled, the exotic electronic state could help to build resilient, fault-tolerant quantum computers.
To date, this effect, known to physicists as the “fractional quantum Hall effect,” has been observed a handful of times, and mostly under very high, carefully maintained magnetic fields. Only recently have scientists seen the effect in a material that did not require such powerful magnetic manipulation.
Now, MIT physicists have observed the elusive fractional charge effect, this time in a simpler material: five layers of graphene — an atom-thin layer of carbon that stems from graphite and common pencil lead. They report their results today in Nature…
Rob Grigjanissays
Silentbob @353:
I called him by his actual name, which he shared, to be respectful.
You, and everybody else, know perfectly well that you were being the opposite of respectful. You’re a creep.
StevoRsays
Astronomers believe the first galaxies formed around giant halos of dark matter. But a newly discovered galaxy dating to roughly 13 billion years ago mysteriously appeared long before that process should have occurred.The galaxy, called ZF-UDS-7329, contains more stars than the Milky Way, despite having formed only 800 million years into the universe’s 13.8 billion-year life span. This means they were somehow born without dark matter seeding their formation, contrary to what the standard model of galaxy formation suggests.
How this could have happened is unclear, but much like previous JWST discoveries of other inexplicably massive galaxies in the early universe, it threatens to upend our understanding of how the first matter in the universe formed, or possibly even the standard model of cosmology itself. The researchers published their findings Feb. 14 in the journal Nature.
Silentbob just ignore John Morales & John Morales just ignore Silentbob.
Just let each other be and don’t interact. Too hard?
(Actually I do know from personal experience its sometimes really very tough to let things be that you find triggering and absolutley compelled to respond to but still.)
Jazzletsays
Silentbob you might want to consider when you last posted something on these pages that wasn’t about John Morales, and also what proportion of your posts here are about someone or something else.
In this video I look at the recent performance of the Russian Ruble against the US Dollar, Chinese Yuan, Indian Rupee & the Euro and discuss the implication of the COLLAPSE in value on the Russian Economy.
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
3:03 US DOLLAR
6:57 EURO
8:39 YUAN
9:54 INDIAN RUPEE
11:28 INFLATION
14:44 INTEREST RATES
16:02 SUMMARY & CONCLUSION
Hj Hornbecksays
[Re-posted from PZ’s post about the FtB outage.]
Bad news, it seems the domain is out of our control for some time. In the meantime, I’ve set up a temporary workaround: proxy.freethought.online takes advantage of nginx’s ability to act like a proxy, and essentially does a Mallory-in-the-middle attack on FtB’s webserver. All links are re-written on-the-fly, and I’m even able to log into my account and post comments.
I’ll pitch PZ on something less duct-tape and bailing wire, reconfiguring FtB’s servers to work with another domain name, but this’ll do temporarily.
The candidate, Darrell Leon McClanahan III, said a picture of him apparently giving a Nazi salute was from “a religious Christian Identity Cross lighting ceremony,” not a cross burning…
A couple of weeks ago, both of South Carolina’s Republican senators, Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, scheduled a photo-op at the U.S./Mexico border, which ordinarily wouldn’t have been especially notable. After all, GOP officials and candidates routinely make such appearances, most of which go largely unnoticed.
But what made the South Carolinians’ event unusual was the attention it received from Democrats.
“It’s very nice that Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott are taking a field trip to the border,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a written statement. “But their actions speak louder than words. Senators Graham and Scott voted to keep the status quo and against the necessary resources to secure the border. We hope their trip will make them see the light and tell Trump to support our bipartisan border agreement.”
The same afternoon, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates issued a statement of his own, admonishing Graham and Scott for having “voted against the toughest, fairest, bipartisan border security deal in decades —-turning their backs on the Border Patrol Union and instead siding with drug cartels, human smugglers, and Donald Trump. … Senator Graham and Senator Scott should go back to Washington and un-kill the landmark border security legislation that is critical to actually supporting law enforcement and halting deadly fentanyl trafficking.”
[…] It’s been a long while since Democrats went on the offensive when it comes to border policies, but after Republicans killed a bipartisan border reform package — a compromise plan that GOP officials demanded before they rejected it — Democrats saw a rare opportunity.
[…] In President Joe Biden’s latest trip to the border, he added an element to the Democratic pitch. NBC News reported:
Biden made a direct appeal to Trump, asking him to join him in telling Congress to pass the bill, which was tanked after Trump rallied his allies in Congress against it. “You know and I know it’s the toughest, most efficient, most effective border security bill this country’s ever seen,” Biden said. “So instead of playing politics with the issue, why don’t we just get together and get it done?”
An Axios report referred to it as a “stunning moment,” and it’s worth appreciating why.
[…] The Biden White House worked in good faith with congressional negotiators from both parties, and the result was a credible package of reforms that was very likely to have a dramatic impact.
At Donald Trump’s behest, GOP lawmakers balked — killing the compromise plan they demanded — in large part because Republicans hoped to deny the Democratic president an election-year victory.
With this in mind, Biden’s direct appeal to the former president was a not-so-subtle way of reminding the political world of the facts: A bipartisan border security bill was derailed, not on the merits, but because Trump demanded that his party put political considerations above all. […]
New York lawmakers approved a new congressional map on Wednesday after blocking district lines drawn by the state’s bipartisan redistricting committee earlier this week, giving Democrats a slight boost as they seek to regain the U.S. House majority this year…
While Democrats currently hold 16 of New York’s 26 districts, they’re likely to see 17 safe Democratic seats and three competitive districts under the new map, according to prominent redistricting expert Dave Wasserman, a senior editor and analyst at the Cook Political Report.
“I call this a mild gerrymander. Any map that makes deliberate choices to benefit a party is a gerrymander on some level, but this is not an aggressive or maximal gerrymander by any means,” Wasserman said…
It’s unclear if Republicans will challenge the map, which could run afoul of New York’s constitutional prohibitions on gerrymandering…
Senator Mitch McConnell, the political Louisville Lip is finally giving up his spot as the top Senate Republican…
a seat in the party leadership which eventually led to his election as county executive. “Mitch McConnell is about one thing,” Pete warned me over and over again. “What is that?” I asked. “Mitch McConnell,” my uncle replied…
[…] Trump on Thursday said he hasn’t decided on a set number of weeks after which abortion should be banned after it was reported he privately has indicated he likes the idea of a 16-week ban. “More and more I’m hearing about 15 weeks. I haven’t decided yet,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity.
The phrasing could’ve been more clarifying, but the exchange nevertheless offered fresh insights […]
Trump initially told Hannity, for example, that “everybody on both sides” agrees decisions about abortion rights must be made “in the states.” As the former president really ought to understand by now, that’s not even close to being true, and much of the country supports the national protections that existed before Roe v. Wade was overturned.
But it was the rest of the on-air exchange that appeared to break some new ground.
Two weeks ago, The New York Times and NBC News reported that Trump had privately told members of his team that he liked the idea of a new, 16-week national abortion ban that would be imposed on states. His campaign issued a press release soon after, but it made no effort to deny the accuracy of the reporting.
It was against that backdrop that Trump told Hannity, “More and more I’m hearing about 15 weeks. I haven’t decided yet.” He then added, in his best passive voice, “The number 15 is mentioned. I haven’t agreed to any number. I’m going to see.”
It might be tempting to think Trump largely dodged the issue again, but that’s not quite right. The former president hedged, not on whether to impose a national abortion ban, but on the specific details on the kind of national abortion ban he’s prepared to embrace.
[…] Despite the murky phrasing, for those concerned about the future of reproductive rights, the message is plenty clear: If given the opportunity, Trump is putting a national abortion ban on the table.
Congress sent a short-term funding bill to President Joe Biden’s desk Thursday, averting a partial government shutdown this weekend and buying lawmakers more time to fund federal agencies through September.
Lawmakers are, of course, still dealing with the bifurcated model House Speaker Mike Johnson prefers. With this in mind, Congress will now have until March 8 — one week from today — to approve six pending appropriations bills. The new deadline for the remaining spending measures is March 22.
At that point, the House and Senate can get to work focusing on the next fiscal year.
But before the political world moves on, it’s worth taking a look at the vote tallies on the short-term funding bill (called a “continuing resolution,” or “CR”). At a Capitol Hill press conference after the measure cleared the House, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries took a moment to remind his Republican colleagues of a detail they probably found inconvenient.
“Once again,” the New York Democrat said, “Democrats have demonstrated our willingness to work together, do the right thing by the American people and provide the overwhelming majority of votes necessary to get things done.”
[…] The final tally in the Democratic-led Senate was 77 to 13, with far-right GOP senators voting in opposition, but the vote in the Republican-led House was even more interesting: The bill passed 320 to 99, with Democrats providing 207 of the votes needed to advance the legislation.
In other words, it’s Republicans who control the chamber, and it was Republican leaders who agreed to the terms to avoid the shutdown they threatened, but it was members of the Democratic minority that provided nearly two-thirds of the votes needed to pass the bill.
This legislative dynamic — Republicans relying on Democrats to govern — happens a lot more than GOP leaders like to admit. […]
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will visit former President Donald Trump next week at his Florida home Mar-a-Lago, according to a person briefed on the plans…
“This is B.S.—you were doing this as a dilatory tactic to help your political friend,” says Rachel Maddow on the Supreme Court agreeing to hear the Trump immunity argument, delaying his coup trial. “And for you to say that this is something that the Court needs to decide because it’s something that’s unclear in the law is just flagrant, flagrant bullpucky.”
YouTube link to an MSNBC segment that is 10:37 minutes long.
Rachel explains the “hair on fire” aspect. Lawrence O’Donnell offers a calming interpretation of events.
I think Rachel’s analysis that this is “flagrant bullpucky” on the part of conservatives on the Supreme Court is correct.
Reginald @379, that’s not good. It’s not good that the authoritarian doofuses are meeting. It’s not good that some media outlets will make it look like Trump is conducting foreign policy from Mar-a-Lago.
The pursuit of a cure for Alzheimer’s disease is becoming an increasingly competitive and contentious quest with recent years witnessing several important controversies…
For years, scientists have been focused on trying to come up with new treatments for Alzheimer’s by preventing the formation of brain-damaging clumps of this mysterious protein called beta-amyloid.
In fact, we scientists have arguably got ourselves into a bit of an intellectual rut concentrating almost exclusively on this approach, often neglecting or even ignoring other possible explanations…
My laboratory at the Krembil Brain Institute, part of the University Health Network in Toronto, is devising a new theory of Alzheimer’s disease.
Based on our past 30 years of research, we no longer think of Alzheimer’s as primarily a disease of the brain. Rather, we believe that Alzheimer’s is principally a disorder of the immune system within the brain…
In addition to this autoimmune theory of Alzheimer’s, many other new and varied theories are beginning to appear. For example, some scientists believe that Alzheimer’s is a disease of tiny cellular structures called mitochondria – the energy factories in every brain cell…
I think it’s good researchers are still looking at this. Beta-amyloid plaques are involved in the brain damage associated with Alzheimer’s. But there has never been valid convincing evidence as to whether these plaques are cause or effect.
Ever since they launched their “investigation” into supposed misdealings by members of President Joe Biden’s family, Republicans have clamored to get Hunter Biden behind closed doors. On Wednesday, that finally happened, but those same Republicans can’t be too happy about the results.
Thanks to the insistence of Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, who didn’t want the results of this appearance buried along with 91 other transcripts that Republicans have refused to release, the full transcript of Hunter Biden’s six-hour deposition is now available.
What it shows is by turns hilarious and infuriating. Republicans clearly have no evidence that President Joe Biden has ever done anything wrong in connection to his son or his son’s business. Hunter’s testimony only showed the tragedy of his experience with drugs, how far Republicans were willing to go to indulge conspiracy theories, and how trivial all Hunter’s business dealings were in comparison to something that really does deserve investigation: the $2 billion reward lavished on Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
Hunter Biden was 2 years old when his father became a senator, and everything he had to say about his professional relationship could be summed up in one response that Hunter gave to a question by Rep. Jamie Raskin.
Transcript quotations have been slightly edited for readability.
Hunter: There was one thing that we—that I was fully aware of my entire life, is that my dad was an official of the United States Government, and there were very bright lines that I abided to and that I was very, very cognizant of. And I made certain that I never engaged with my father in asking him to do anything on my behalf or on behalf of any client of mine.
Republicans spent a lot of the day repeating wild claims about Hunter’s business dealings and trying to get him to admit to at least some of the connections they have been alleging for months. That never happened. That single response by Hunter was never seriously challenged.
However, there were some satisfying exchanges, as when Hunter took questions from Rep. Matt Gaetz. Republicans have been claiming from the beginning that Hunter Biden had no value to the businesses where he worked beyond his last name, and Gaetz went right to this point.
Gaetz: What value did you bring to Burisma?
Hunter: I would love to, again, read you the entirety of my resume.
Gaetz: No, that’s the things you did before Burisma. I mean, when you were working at Burisma –
Hunter: Well, that’s the value that I brought to Burisma. The things that I did before, my experience, the vast experience that I had. I was on over 13 different boards. I was the chairman of the board of the largest humanitarian organization, that supports the largest humanitarian organization in the world. I was the vice chairman of the board of the largest national passenger rail system.
Gaetz: Mr. Biden, I don’t need you to go back through your resume.
Hunter: You just asked –
Gaetz. The question is, how did you deploy that experience for a million bucks a year for Burisma?
Hunter: How did I deploy that experience? By serving on the board in a transparent and ethical way, providing the best advice that I could give. Just like any other board member on any other company in any other organization, that’s how you provide your value. And the value is your experience. The value is your ability to then transfer that experience into real-world action.
Like other Republican questioners, Gaetz failed to get an answer that handed him any ammunition he could use against Joe Biden or any reason for the farcical investigation to continue. […]
Other Republican representatives repeatedly asked Hunter whether he had received money from foreign governments, including China, Ukraine, and … Romania? To all of these questions, Hunter firmly answered that he had never worked for or received pay from any foreign government. Unlike someone else.
Hunter: The question being asked, that you’re stating, is that my father said that I never received any money from China, the Government of China. Unlike Jared Kushner, I’ve never received money from a foreign government. He –
Hunter was cut off in his response on this occasion, as he was on a second occasion when he tried to point out that Kushner flew to Saudi Arabia and “picked up $2 billion.”
“No, no, no, no, no, no. Not ‘okay,’” Hunter replied after Rep. Harriet Hageman implied he had taken money from Romania. “I never worked for a country. I am not Jared Kushner. I never got money from a country. Not one foreign government ever gave me money, guys—none, zero, not one.”
When it came time for questions from Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, the back and forth showed just how small everything under investigation was when compared to what the Republicans refused to look into.
Swalwell: Did your father ever employ in the Oval Office any direct family member to also work in the Oval Office?
Hunter: My father has never employed any direct family members, to my knowledge.
Swalwell: While your father was President, did anyone in the family receive 41 trademarks from China?
Hunter: No.
Swalwell: As President and the leader of the party, has your father ever tried to install as the chairperson of the party a daughter-in-law or anyone else in the family?
Hunter: No. And I don’t think that anyone in my family would be crazy enough to want to be the chairperson of the DNC.
Swalwell: Has your father ever in his time as an adult been fined $355 million by any State that he worked in?
Hunter: No, he has not, thank God.
Swallwell: Anyone in your family ever strike a multibillion-dollar deal with the Saudi Government while your father was in office?
Hunter: No.
Swalwell: That’s all I’ve got.
A number of moments in the hearing are eye-rolling, and a number are heartbreaking. Hunter Biden never once shies away from explaining the devastating effect his addiction to drugs had on his life, how he struggled for recovery, and how he wanted to make his parents proud. Republicans constantly tried to get him to admit that his drug use made him worthless as a means of showing that he had no value to the companies he dealt with, but Hunter constantly refused to give them what he wanted.
In the end, two statements from Hunter Biden’s opening remarks may be the best representation of what this hearing was all about, and how despicable it is that this Republican smear campaign has gone on so long.
Hunter: You have built your entire partisan house of cards on lies told by the likes of Gal Luft, Tony Bobulinski, Alexander Smirnov, and Jason Galanis. Luft, who is a fugitive, has been indicted for his lies and other crimes; Smirnov, who has made you dupes in carrying out a Russian disinformation campaign waged against my father, has been indicted for his lies; Bobulinski, who has been exposed for the many false statements he has made; and Galanis, who is serving 14 years in prison for fraud.
Rather than follow the facts as they’ve been laid out before you in bank records, financial statements, correspondence, and other witness testimony, you continue your frantic search to prove the lies you and those you rely upon keep peddling. Yes, they are lies.
And finally, Hunter Biden gave what might be the most important statement of the day, one that should resonate with anyone in any party.
Hunter: During my battle with addiction, my father was there for me. He helped save my life. His love and support made it possible for me to get sober, stay sober, and rebuild my life as a father, a son, a husband, and a brother. What he got in return for being a loving, supportive parent is a barrage of hate-filled conspiracy theories that hatched this sham impeachment inquiry and continue to fuel unrelenting personal attacks against him and me.
If the goal of the deposition was to make Joe Biden seem like an even better father, Republicans succeeded.
Both chambers of the Legislature still need to vote on a unified version of the measure before sending it to Gov. Kay Ivey for a signature…
I thought there was an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that zygotes are “persons” and that mishandling them constitutes homicide. I don’t see how mere legislation can override a state supreme court finding of constitutionality. They would need to get that finding overturned somehow.
If they agree that zygotes are “persons”, this legislation is a declaration that murder of “persons” is OK during IVF but not during abortion. Good luck coming up with a rationalization for that.
President Joe Biden and Republican front-runner Donald Trump treated the country to a split-screen lesson in presidential politicking as they both descended on Texas to address the vexing issue of immigration.
For Biden, the trip to the border town of Brownsville was an opportunity to combat Republican criticism that he hasn’t done enough to stop the flow of migrants into the U.S. Biden used his platform to both educate viewers about the bipartisan border deal that Republicans tanked and revive a call to pass it.
Biden explained that he wanted people to understand “clearly” what happened to that bipartisan border deal. The bill, he said, was on its way to passage when it was “derailed” by partisan politics.
“The U.S. Senate needs to reconsider this bill,” Biden said, “and those senators who oppose it need to set politics aside and pass it on the merits—not on whether it’s going to benefit one party or benefit the other party.” […]
[Video at the link]
[…] Trump, for his part, chose to go down the rabbit hole less taken. He dubbed California Gov. Gavin Newsom, “Newscum”—repeating it twice because he found it so clever. [Video at the link.]
He assailed letting immigrants into the country “who don’t speak languages.”
“Nobody can explain to me how letting in people from places unknown, from countries unknown—who don’t speak languages,” Trump said. “We have languages coming into our country, we have nobody that even speaks those languages—they’re truly foreign languages, no one even speaks them.”
They’re foreign—get it? They’re people who don’t speak languages, and there are languages nobody speaks. Solid analysis. [Video at the link]
Trump had more to say about the migrants.
“They’re coming from jails, and they’re coming from prisons, and they’re coming from mental institutions, and they’re coming from insane asylums, and they’re terrorists.”
But it was the split screen that was truly priceless. [Videos at the link]
Polling shows many Americans still don’t know about the border deal and its Trump-engineered failure. Biden went on offense Thursday to talk about the bipartisan deal, the GOP’s intransigence toward actually addressing the border problem, and offer solutions.
But Trump did his part too—giving Team Biden a jarring contrast that most candidates only dream off.
Ukraine’s military said on Thursday it had shot down three more Russian Su-34 fighter-bombers, the latest successes it has reported against Moscow’s air force.
“After successful combat operations against an enemy aircraft in the night on Feb. 29, two more Russian aircraft were destroyed: Su-34 fighter-bombers in the Avdiivka and Mariupol sectors,” Army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on the Telegram messaging app…
The Ukrainian military said last week that Russia had lost six warplanes in three days…
On January 26, the jury in Citizen Trump’s second E. Jean Carroll trial told the defaming rapist he had to pay a $83.3 million penalty to the woman he had assaulted and dragged through the mud. On February 8, Judge Kaplan registered the penalty. This action gave Trump 30 days to come up with the cash or bond to continue filing motions trying to overturn or reduce the award. Trump’s casual boasts of his wealth and cash on hand indicated this was no problem.
t was all hot air. Last Friday, February 23, Trump begged the court to delay enforcing the bond. Or if that was not an option, at least reduce it to sofa change. Judge Kaplan declined to delay or reduce the award. Instead, he asked E. Jean Carrol’s lawyers to offer their opinion by today (February 29) and granted Trump’s team an opportunity to respond by March 2 (this Saturday).
Carroll’s lawyers, led by the redoubtable Roberta Kaplan (no relation), have responded in a memorandum to Judge Kaplan. They were brutal. Their lacerating scorn resounds throughout. Let us have a look.
E. Jean Carroll’s reply to Trump
Carroll starts by dismissing Trump’s request to delay or lessen the award as an unsubstantiated request that the Court takes his word he is good for the cash and would pay up. In addition, they point out that Trump has even more ominous financial and legal clouds on his horizon.
The reasoning Trump offers in seeking this extraordinary relief boils down to nothing more than “trust me.” He doesn’t offer any information about his finances or the nature and location of his assets. He doesn’t specify what percentage of his assets are liquid or explain how Carroll might go about collecting. He doesn’t even acknowledge the risks that now accompany his financial situation, from a half billion-dollar judgment obtained by the New York Attorney General to the 91 felony charges that might end his career as a businessman permanently.
[…] Carroll’s brief continues by outlining the four reasons Trump’s “requested relief” is a substance-free and legally unwarranted ask.
There is absolutely no basis in law for Trump’s requested relief. His position fails for four independent reasons.
– First, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 62(b) does not authorize unsecured stays.
– Second, Trump bears the burden of proof under Rule 62(b) and has obviously failed to meet that burden given that he has failed to submit any evidence with his motion.
– Third, under controlling Second Circuit law, Trump has not made the showings necessary to obtain relief from the presumptive obligation to post a full supersedeas bond.
– Finally, […]Trump has not shown a likelihood of success in prevailing on his anticipated post-trial motions and every other relevant factor cuts against him.
In short, Trump is asking for something he is not entitled to. He offers no evidence or showings. And, despite Trump’s optimistic rhetoric, he is not getting off the hook. Therefore, Judge Kaplan should swat Trump’s primary and secondary requests away. […]
… As he would explain in a succession of bland government conference rooms, Yeagley was able to access the geolocation data on Grindr users through a hidden but ubiquitous entry point: the digital advertising exchanges that serve up the little digital banner ads along the top of Grindr and nearly every other ad-supported mobile app and website…
The report goes into great detail about how intelligence and data analysis techniques, notably through a program called Locomotive developed by PlanetRisk, enabled the tracking of mobile devices associated with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s entourage. By analyzing commercial adtech data, including precise geolocation information collected from mobile advertising bid requests, analysts were able to monitor the movements of phones that frequently accompanied Putin, indicating the locations and movements of his security personnel, aides, and support staff…
The competing narratives about a deadly aid distribution in Gaza, explained.
More than 100 Palestinians were killed and more than 250 were wounded in Gaza City early Thursday morning as they tried to access desperately needed aid. Eyewitness accounts point to Israeli troops opening fire on the crowd, though Israeli statements blame a stampede for the casualties.
Food, clean water, and other basic goods are nearly impossible to come by throughout Gaza due to ongoing Israeli military operations and the extreme destruction the past four months of war have wrought. Overall, humanitarian aid to Gaza has been extremely limited not only because of the difficult on-the-ground logistics and danger in delivering assistance, but also because Israel has heavily restricted aid from entering the enclave.
[…] In the span of five months, this conflict has killed 30,000 Palestinians and injured tens of thousands more; as already-scarce resources dwindle, those numbers are likely to increase exponentially unless there is a sustained ceasefire.
How were so many people killed and wounded?
Hundreds of people in Gaza City awaited the arrival of the aid convoy — some lining up Wednesday to get the canned goods and flour from aid trucks in the besieged city. People throughout Gaza are in extreme need, but the north, where Gaza City sits, faces particularly serious and pressing shortages of the most basic goods; an aid convoy that arrived earlier this week was reportedly the first in a month.
What happened to the people waiting for aid is a matter of debate. In an emailed statement, the Israel Defense Forces acknowledged an incident in Gaza City, saying only that ”Gazan residents surrounded the trucks, and looted the supplies being delivered. During the incident, dozens of Gazans were injured as a result of pushing and trampling. The incident is under review.”
[…] Around 100 people with gunshot wounds were treated at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City, the New York Times reported. The hospital also received the bodies of 12 people who had been shot and killed. More than 150 patients, many with shooting injuries, were being treated at al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza, as Dr. Mohammed Salha, the hospital’s acting director, told the Associated Press.
A later press conference by Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an IDF spokesperson, mentioned that the IDF fired warning shots but blamed casualties on people trampling each other as they tried to get access to food and supplies. He denied that there was an Israeli strike on the convoy of 38 trucks.
One Palestinian eyewitness, Kamel Abu Nahel, told the Associated Press that Israeli troops fired initial shots which scattered the crowd. After the shooting stopped and people returned, Abu Nahel said, troops opened fire again. He was shot in the leg and is being treated at Shifa hospital.
The information landscape in Gaza is extremely challenging. Foreign reporters have not been able to enter the area during the ongoing operations since October 7, and details of exactly what happened are still coming to light. […]
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: A couple of idiots try to go into business with Donald Trump. He agrees to a very generous financial split in his favor. Then he tries to screw the idiots out of their little share, the partnership sours, and lawsuits start flying.
Oh, you have heard this one? Almost literally every week since 1973? How about that.
This news is the latest in the long saga of the Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), the company that owns Trump’s online Nazi clubhouse, TruthSocial. TMTG was founded in early 2021 when some former contestants on “The Apprentice,” which alone should be enough to set off the stall alarms in any business-oriented cockpit, approached the former president after he got kicked off Twitter for trying to use it to overthrow democracy.
The founders’ pitch was simple: Build a social media site, claim you’re going to compete with and quickly destroy all the established Big Tech companies like Amazon and Apple, and then something something profit. Trump signed on to the plan and took a 90 percent ownership stake in the new entity. The two former gasbags from “The Apprentice,” Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss, formed an LLC called United Atlantic Ventures (UAV), which got 8.6 percent. The last 1.4 percent went to an attorney on the deal, who apparently hasn’t read a newspaper since at least the mid-1980s and was thus unaware that anyone entering a deal with Donald Trump should always, always, always, always, and we can’t stress this enough, fucking always get paid upfront.
TMTG planned to raise money via an entity called a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, a concept Our Liz ably broke down a while back:
It exists to hoover up a bunch of cash, take itself public, and then buy a private company, which is then spared the indignity of disclosing its books as it would have to if it went public on its own. If you were, say, a Dollar Store version of Twitter with no apparent ability to compete with established social media companies and a pitchman who is toxic to half of America (and more or less all of not-America), a SPAC would be a pretty good way to gin up cash.
Frankly, it sounds to us like every other shitty and overvalued investment vehicle that we’ve spent almost our entire adulthood watching crash the economy in one spectacular clusterfuck or another, but we’re not the type of business genius who can compete with Donald Trump.
The idiots who did try to get in bed with Trump this time, Litinsky and Moss, soon found that Trump was not happy with only 90 percent of the shares in a company that is currently valued at $3 billion, based on Thursday’s stock price. He almost immediately started chiseling by trying to talk Litinsky into handing a boatload of his shares over to spousal concubine Melania Trump.
This was the first step in what Litinsky and Moss now claim is an effort to reduce their stake in the merged company:
UAV’s attorneys allege in the motion that Trump has recently attempted to “drastically dilute” the partnership’s stake as part of what they called an “11th hour, pre-merger corporate maneuvering” tactic designed to increase the amount of authorized stock, from 120 million shares to 1 billion shares.
UAV’s attorneys wrote that the “dilution scheme” had “no legitimate business purpose” and suggested that Trump and the Trump Media board planned to issue the new shares to “Trump and/or his associates and children,” watering down UAV’s stake to less than 1 percent.
[LOL. Evil. Bad.]
The merger has long been held up by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has been investigating all sorts of shadiness that has clung to this deal like barnacles on a boat hull. […]
Still, even with all the shadiness that included TMTG being so desperate for cash while it waited for merger approval that it may have taken an $8 million infusion from a Kremlin-linked entity [LOL again], the SEC recently gave its blessing to the merger, and DWAC’s shareholders planned to vote to finalize it in the coming weeks.
Now the whole deal might get held up while this lawsuit, plus a couple of others related to some other accusations of shenanigans the various parties have been throwing at each other, works its way through the chancery courts in Delaware, which is where TMTG was incorporated.
So to sum up, Trump himself may have torpedoed a deal that would have added $3 billion to his net worth, at least on paper, at a time when he is desperate to come up with better than half a billion dollars in three weeks to cover the civil judgments against him in his E. Jean Carroll and New York business fraud trials. All because he apparently couldn’t be satisfied with 90 percent of $3 billion.
There have been people who have been worrying on social media that Trump had found his vehicle to wriggle out of that jam. But even if cashing in all that stock was an option, well, it’s not now.
If people are still, in the year of our Lord 2024 A.D., dumb enough to try and enter into a business deal with Trump, well, our hearts are bleeding. Wait, laughing. Whichever one indicates more contempt.
Because none of this is unusual for Trump, whose entire theory of business is that your parents never hugged you and you have never felt truly loved in all your life so you have to screw everyone you ever work with in some misguided Freudian effort to get revenge on Fred and Mary by directing your hatred at the rest of humanity . Also your brain is a mountain of discarded Super Bowl loser T-shirts moldering away in a Calcutta garbage dump. Have fun selling your properties at fire-sale prices, you putz.
Yesterday, we told you that Republican senators might very well block Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth’s bill to protect IVF, even though many of them are currently jumping up and down swearing to Jesus that they aren’t going to steal your IVF. Because why would you need to protect IVF? It’s not like Republicans are coming for your IVF, ha ha just kidding, yes they are.
[…] they blocked it!
As is usually the case with Duckworth’s bill, it was absolute idiot Mississippi Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith who did the deed. “The bill before us today is a vast overreach that is full of poison pills that go way too far,” said Hyde-Smith. Whatever, batshit lady.
What kinds of poison pills? Uh, we don’t know, but here’s Hyde-Smith saying the bill will legalize the creation of “human-animal chimeras,” and oh my God you have to hear how she pronounces “chimeras,” it’s amazing. [video at the link]
[…] In her speech announcing why she wouldn’t protect IVF from Christian fascists, Hyde-Smith said Duckworth’s bill would do other bad things, but we are sorry, you lose the argument when you say it’s going to legalize “human-animal chimeras […]
She also said:
It would legalize human cloning. It would legalize commercial surrogacy, including for young girls without parental involvement. It would legalize gene edited designer babies and lift the federal ban on the creation of three parent embryos.
Sure thing, dipshit.
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren steered the conversation back to reality:
“This has always been about conservative politicians controlling women’s bodies,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Wednesday. “This has been Donald Trump and the Republicans’ plan all along, and the opposition to Sen. Duckworth’s proposal today shows that Republicans are doubling down against reproductive freedom. They are coming for medication abortion, they are coming for birth control, and they are even coming for prenatal care. Make no mistake.”
They absolutely are, and do not let them lie about it. Indeed, the Supreme Court is just about to hear arguments from clownshow doctors and dentists from the religious right about why the FDA approval for the incredibly safe abortion drug mifepristone should be banned. Is that safe in front of this illegitimate partisan hack Court? (By the way, you should know that they’re currently studying the use of mifepristone as an incredibly safe once-a-week birth control pill, without all the side effects many of the current methods have. It’s a big fucking deal.)
As the Republican Party has become more MAGA-fied and fascist, its most extremist, most universally loathed members have progressively gained power. And for a while now they’ve been pushing and sometimes passing these “personhood” bills, which are a true poison pill in the abortion rights fight. After all, if embryos are people, it gets a lot easier to arrest pregnant people and their doctors for all kinds of things that might happen during a pregnancy. Learn about it. Learn about pregnancy criminalization.
None of this has anything to do with unborn babies, and fuck anyone who says it does. Just like Senator Warren said, this is about conservatives controlling people’s bodies. (We say “people” in this context because firstly, it’s not only those who identify as women who can get pregnant, OH AND ALSO because this is the same overall fight as the religious right crusade against LGBTQ+ people, which is about … conservatives controlling people’s bodies!) […]
People should take note: @371 Hj Hornbeck setup a proxy. I tried it. It works fine. THANK YOU! This is an important step in avoiding all the idiots that want to lie and vent their stupid hate on freethought blogs and others.
I wonder, Hj will you continue to make this available? It appears to update in realtime. That makes it very viable.
Russia is set to ban gasoline exports for six months to stabilize prices and counter escalating demand for crude products.
The restriction, effective on March 1, was confirmed by Alexander Novak, the spokesperson appointed by Russian President Putin for Deputy Prime Minister and the key figure overseeing Russia’s extensive energy sector, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing Russia’s RBC…
Walgreens and CVS said Friday that they are preparing to dispense the abortion pill mifepristone in states where it is legally allowed, starting as soon as next week.
Walgreens said it has completed the Food and Drug Administration’s certification process to sell mifepristone and expects to do so within a week. “We are beginning a phase rollout in select locations to ensure quality, safety and privacy for our patients, providers and team members,” the company said.
CVS said it is “working with manufacturers and suppliers to secure the medication and are not yet dispensing it in any of our pharmacies,” adding that it will begin filling prescriptions for the drug in Massachusetts and Rhode Island “in the weeks ahead and will expand to additional states, where allowed by law, on a rolling basis.” […]
“With major retail pharmacy chains newly certified to dispense medication abortion, many women will soon have the option to pick up their prescription at a local, certified pharmacy—just as they would for any other medication,” President Biden said in a statement. “I encourage all pharmacies that want to pursue this option to seek certification.”
The FDA modified its risk protocol for mifepristone in January 2023, allowing pharmacies to become certified to dispense the drug to patients with a prescription as long as they comply with the agency’s requirements. […]
Millions of Americans have been affected by delays in obtaining medicine or having to foot the bill without insurance
A ransomware gang once thought to have been crippled by law enforcement has snarled prescription processing for millions of Americans over the past week, forcing some to choose between paying prices hundreds or thousands of dollars above their usual insurance-adjusted rates or going without lifesaving medicine.
Insurance giant UnitedHealthcare Group said the hackers struck its Change Health business unit, which routes prescription claims from pharmacies to companies that determine whether patients are covered by insurance and what they should pay. The hackers stole data about patients, encrypted company files and demanded money to unlock them, prompting the company to shut down most of its network as it worked to recover.
Change Health and a rival, CoverMyMeds, are the two biggest players in the so-called switch business, charging pharmacies a small fee for funneling claims to insurers.
[…] A notorious Russian-speaking ransomware ring known as ALPHV claimed responsibility for the Feb. 21 breach, capping a string of attacks that included several hospitals.
[…] U.S. pharmacies reported a wide range of impacts, with independent stores experiencing some of the worst problems.
UnitedHealth estimated that more than 90 percent of the nation’s 70,000-plus pharmacies have had to alter how they process electronic claims as a result of the Change Health outage. But it said only a small number of patients have been unable to get their prescriptions at some price.
[…] Many pharmacies have started routing claims through CoverMyMeds, which posted a notice online Feb. 22, “No outages here.”
[…] For pharmacies that were not able to quickly route claims to a different company, the Change Health outage left pharmacists to try to manually calculate a patient’s co-pay or offer them the cash price.
Compounding the impact, thousands of organizations cut off Change Health from their systems to ensure the hackers did not infect their networks as well.
[…] The attack on Change Health has left many pharmacies in a cash-flow bind, as they face bills from the companies that deliver the medication without knowing when they will be reimbursed by insurers.
[…] The Change Health outage has been particularly tough on independent pharmacies, because they can only see prescriptions that a patient filled at their pharmacy — and not ones that the patient filled at others. The “switch” connects independent pharmacies to insurers or pharmacy-benefit managers, who have a more expansive view.
This means small pharmacies wouldn’t know if a drug they dispense interacts with another drug a patient received at a different pharmacy or whether a patient is trying to fill a controlled substance from multiple pharmacies.
[…] In December, the Justice Department said it and partner nations had hacked ALPHV, recovering hundreds of decryption keys so that victims could get their data back without paying, and some analysts predicted the group would not recover from the internal penetration.
[…] But as the past week has shown, ALPHV was hardly disabled. ALPHV reappeared on another site within days and announced it would exact revenge. It invited its affiliates to break into more sensitive American targets. […]
Cries of “Russia without Putin!” “Russia will be free!” and even “Putin is a murderer!” rose from the defiant crowd.
For one day at least, Russia’s opposition came alive to mourn its lost leader.
The funeral of Alexei Navalny on Friday almost did not happen at all. But thousands ultimately turned out — braving the snow, heavy security and weeks of Kremlin efforts to derail the event — so that they could pay their respects to the man who challenged President Vladimir Putin with a vision for a democratic Russia.
Bearing flowers, candles and placards, the crowd chanted Navalny’s name as his body was first delivered to a church in southern Moscow for a brief funeral and then to a nearby cemetery.
There were also riskier words uttered in a country where the state crushes even modest displays of dissent. “Russia without Putin!” “Russia will be free!” and even “Putin is a murderer!” were all audible cries from the clamorous masses.
Navalny’s supporters say he was poisoned on Putin’s instruction, a charge the Kremlin denies.
The funeral was viewed around the world, with a YouTube livestream set up so that those who saw hope in Navalny’s struggle could follow the event online. Earlier in the day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov gave “a reminder” to those taking part: “Any unsanctioned gathering” would be punished.
[…] there was a heavy security presence at the event, including police stationed on rooftops and guarding Navalny’s old house nearby. Opposition media reports suggested that at least two people had been detained during the event and, in the past, Russian intelligence services have used surveillance footage to track down protesters and punish them after the fact.
Navalny’s death and the ensuing crackdown shows “an absolute panic on Putin’s side,” said Bill Browder, an American businessman turned arch Kremlin critic. Despite the president’s almost certain victory in an election two weeks away, Browder believes that “Putin is clearly feeling scared in advance of this so-called election — which isn’t really an election” and that his tactics are “just pure repression at this point to keep people in line.”
The day was also tinged with the geopolitical tension between Moscow and the West, with a crowd of diplomats, including U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne M. Tracy, in attendance a day after Putin reiterated his threats of nuclear war.
[…] “That you had several kilometers of people bravely coming out to honor his memory, I think, was a surprise for everybody, because all of them were taking extreme risks,” he [Browder] said. “For every person who is on the street showing their face, there are probably 100 or 1,000 more back home who are scared but still outraged.”
[…] First elected in 2000, Putin, 71, has already been in power longer than any predecessor since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, a reign that has become ever more repressive, rights groups say.
[…] “I don’t know how to live without you, but I will try to make you happy for me and proud of me up there,” Yulia Navalnaya wrote in a final tribute on social media. “I don’t know if I can handle it or not, but I will try.”
Ahead of Hunter Biden’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee’s impeachment inquiry this week, Republicans didn’t make much of an effort to hype the closed-door Q&A, but after it wrapped up, they were eager to present it as a partisan success.
The three GOP lawmakers spearheading the impeachment crusade — Oversight Chair James Comer, Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, and Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith — sat down with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Wednesday night, and the host asked, “On a scale of one through 10, how damaging was today’s testimony — or deposition — to Hunter Biden?”
Smith, who did not attend the deposition, replied, “I’d say an eight.” Comer agreed. [Bullshit]
At that point, however, it was difficult to say with confidence whether the Republicans’ boasts had merit, since the public had not yet seen a transcript of the Q&A.
The morning after the Hannity interview, shortly before the transcript started reaching inboxes, the party’s tone shifted. Republican Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona appeared on Fox and conceded that the official record would “read well” for Biden because lawyers representing the president’s son did “a great job” preparing the witness.
It was the first big hint of what was to come. NBC News reported on the release of the 229-page transcript:
The document … underscores the disconnect between what House Republicans have repeatedly alleged are criminal actions by Hunter Biden and his father and the documentation and testimony they have made public as part of their impeachment inquiry. “We wanted a quick and full release” of the transcript, a representative from Hunter Biden’s legal team told NBC News on Thursday. “This transcript shows why this [investigation] needs to end. They have nothing.”
A Washington Post analysis drew a similar conclusion, equating the deposition to a Bruce Lee movie.
Republican legislators and interviewers challenging the president’s son on the House majority’s behalf would throw out an allegation, often one that’s been worn smooth after tumbling around in the right-wing media universe for the past year or two. And Biden would invariably swat it away, stripping off the layers of innuendo that had been applied by Donald Trump and Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) or Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) or any of myriad Fox News commentators.
Remember, this closed-door deposition was the Republicans’ idea. They demanded this opportunity to get answers from President Joe Biden’s son, and subpoenaed him accordingly. GOP officials and their teams had all kinds of time to get their acts together, settling on the perfect lines of inquiry to uncover evidence of Joe Biden being involved in Hunter Biden’s private-sector work.
And now that we’ve seen the transcript, we know that Republicans failed spectacularly to find any evidence whatsoever of Joe Biden being involved in Hunter Biden’s private-sector work — not because GOP investigators are incompetent, but because there apparently is no such evidence to find.
Comer and Smith may have been eager to pat themselves on the back on Wednesday night, but the truth has come into focus: The deposition was the latest in a lengthy series of duds.
Is it any wonder why some in the GOP have begun describing the impeachment crusade against the Democratic president with words and phrases such as “clueless,” “disaster,” and “parade of embarrassments”?
After a lower court ordered Kristina Karamo to stop identifying herself as chair of the Michigan Republican Party, she appealed. Yesterday, the Michigan Court of Appeals rejected her case.
Excerpt from a longer analysis written by Josh Marshall:
[…] Perhaps behind the scenes the U.S. is still mostly focused on heading off a wider regional conflagration. But it’s very hard for me to see that that’s really still the case. The current Israeli government is weak and brittle. It’s deeply unpopular at home. And even within Israel, which has viewed all of this through a totally different prism from most of the rest of the world, there’s a growing recognition that the operation has run its course. It’s time for the U.S. to act more decisively to bring this to an end.
A bill that will allow Louisiana residents to carry a concealed firearm without a permit is headed to the desk of Gov. Jeff Landry. The bill would also remove current requirements for new gun owners to have their fingerprints taken and attend a training course on firearm safety. Landry has already indicated he intends to sign this bill into law.
The Republican governor is also set to sign a new batch of “tough on crime” bills authored and approved by a GOP-dominated state Legislature. These bills increase the number of crimes that are subject to prison sentences and lengthen sentences for existing crimes.
Louisiana currently has the second-highest incarceration rate in the nation. It also has the second-highest firearm mortality rate and the second-highest homicide rate. How are Republican legislators addressing these issues? By putting more people in prison and increasing potential gun violence.
[…] The new legislation also makes juvenile court records public, even though they are typically sealed to protect minors. That means even a crime committed as a juvenile will now be visible to potential employers and others for the rest of a young offender’s life.
Meanwhile, the state Legislature is also pushing through a permitless concealed carry law that dumps the state’s previous requirements for training. An 11-state study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health showed that dropping training requirements for those carrying concealed weapons resulted in an average of 21 additional gun assaults per 100,000 population.
Considering how closely Louisiana trails Mississippi for the top spot in gun deaths (28.6 gun deaths per 100,000 population in Mississippi vs. 26.3 per 100,000 in Louisiana) this seems like just the ticket to move the Bayou State to the top of the chart.
For comparison, Louisiana’s rate of gun deaths is three times greater than California’s and almost five times greater than New York’s. […]
Meanwhile, as it prepares to spend more money on prisons, Louisiana turned down federal funds to feed 594,000 hungry children this summer and falls 20% below the national average on spending for education. […]
[…] the core: McAfee [the judge] cannot apply the “appearance of conflict” standard. He needs to meet the higher bar of finding an actual conflict of interest.
The defense attorneys failed to prove that one existed during the evidentiary hearing, he [Prosecutor Adam Abbate] said, adding, “They still got nowhere.”
[…] In Thursday’s coverage of visits to the southern border by both President Joe Biden and Donald Trump, CNN didn’t just follow both and deliver bland language about competing messages. When Trump’s few minutes of talking were chock full o’ lies, CNN cut in and moved immediately to provide its audience with a real-time fact check.
This isn’t the first time CNN has done this. CNN’s past refusal to fully air one of his speeches so enraged Trump that he tried to have the company’s license revoked without seeming to realize that cable networks don’t need a license. But it’s always good to see the media treating the facts as important, so … hat tip.
Too bad they didn’t get to the really meaty—and absolutely bizarre—part of Trump’s visit. [video at the link]
CNN’s online coverage also provided this information to readers who didn’t happen to be watching at the time. And the contrast they highlighted with Biden was more than just the kind of “dueling remarks” coverage provided elsewhere.
Biden’s speech, largely delivered from a prepared text, was highly factual. Biden devoted much of the address to an accurate description of various provisions of the bipartisan border bill he supports but Trump’s opposition helped to kill in Congress.
Trump’s speech minutes prior, much of which appeared to be off the cuff, was filled with assertions about migrants that were unsubstantiated, misleading or just plain false.
This is the kind of coverage that should be happening more often, and when it does happen, it seems only appropriate to praise one of those outlets for doing something right—and hoping that it becomes a trend.
Meanwhile, at the border … [Video of Trump waving to migrants on the other side of the fence. Trump saying, “They like Trump.” JFC]
President Biden said Friday that the United States would launch an airdrop campaign to deliver aid to Gaza. The announcement comes with the enclave on the brink of famine, humanitarian groups say. Aid convoys have struggled to make deliveries amid Israeli bombardment and disruptions at border crossings. Airdrops are expected to begin “in the coming days,” according to National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
The Smokehouse Creek Fire is already the biggest in Texas history and has spread into Oklahoma.
Wildfires in Texas have destroyed as many as 500 homes and structures, Gov. Greg Abbott said today. He warned that the number could grow.
The Smokehouse Creek Fire, covering an area larger than Rhode Island, is the biggest in Texas history.
The fire covers more than 1 million acres, or 1,600 square miles, and is 15% contained, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service, and covers tens of thousands of acres in Oklahoma.
Two people have been confirmed dead. Former substitute teacher Joyce Blankenship, 83, was found dead at her home, family members said. Cindy Owens, believed to be in her 40s, from Amarillo, died yesterday, two days after she got out of her truck in Canadian and the fire “overtook her,” officials said.
There are three other active wildfires and the National Weather Service warns that heat and high winds are likely to cause “critical fire weather conditions again” over the weekend. […]
Last week, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump claimed he supports in vitro fertilization, responding to a politically disastrous ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that halted some IVF treatment in the state.
But contrary to Trump’s statements, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank closely heading up a wide-ranging policy and staffing initiative for the next GOP administration, has published numerous pieces opposing assisted reproductive technology including in vitro fertilization. The think tank has also expressed support for Alabama’s ruling.
The Heritage Foundation is the lead institution supporting Trump’s agenda through Project 2025, a conservative coalition preparing to staff the next GOP administration with loyalists and implement an extreme right-wing agenda. Project 2025 has an advisory board of dozens of supportive right-wing organizations.
The Alabama Supreme Court recently held that frozen embryos cultivated through IVF treatment have the same rights as living children, and that a person can be held liable for destroying embryos. As a result, some fertility clinics offering IVF have paused treatment, and IVF could become less accessible and more expensive. The ruling sparked backlash from reproductive rights advocates and fear among Republicans, who are reluctant to align themselves with such an unpopular policy
In one example of the Heritage Foundation’s publications on IVF, the author called the Alabama ruling an “unqualified victory” that “affirms the state’s commitment to promoting a culture of life for all its residents.”
[…]
On February 28, Fox News host Jesse Watters hosted “James Lee” on his show to discuss the murder of Laken Riley on the campus of the University of Georgia. Watters did not disclose, however, that Lee is actually James DePaola, who has had multiple run-ins with the law himself, including when he became violent over a grilled cheese sandwich his wife had made, prompting his 12-year-old daughter to call the police.
On February 28, Athens-Clarke County Mayor Kelly Girtz held a press conference. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the press conference had been interrupted multiple times by protesters, including James DePaola.
Law-enforcement officers did not remove anybody from the room while Girtz spoke, but police asked Athens resident James Depaola several times to wait his turn to speak.
“We the people are tired of this lawlessness,” Depaola told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution after the press conference ended. “We are being put last.”
Later that day, Watters hosted “James Lee” on his show and played footage of DePaola interrupting the press conference, praising him for his actions. (Watters’ full “migrant crime spree” segment can be viewed here. Watters likens his guest to Rick Santelli’s rant in 2009 that kicked off the tea party. His guest concludes by telling Watters that “You don’t get the credit you deserve as a patriot and a real journalist.”)
[…] But before advising Fox News on immigration policy, DePaola was previously best known for violently threatening his wife after deciding that she had used too many slices of cheese on his grilled cheese sandwich, leading to his young daughter calling the police. As Time reported in 2016:
A man wanted just two slices of cheese on his sandwich, so when his wife used three slices in his grilled cheese sandwich, he became irate.
Angered at the sight of all the extra cheesiness, James DePaola became agitated and violent, yelling at the woman, Michele DePaola. According to WSB-TV, DePaola then ripped the landline out of the wall so his wife couldn’t call the police and reportedly screamed at her intensely. The couple’s 12-year old daughter who witnessed the incident called the police to the scene, according to Athens-Clarke County police.
James DePaola was charged with obstruction of a 911 call and criminal trespass/damage to property over what the police now refer to as “the grilled cheese incident”. DePaola has a history of “abusive behavior,” and was often “excessively critical and controlling of day to day things in life” like sandwiches, apparently.
[Ah, the dangers of fixing your man a sandwich.]
Fox5 Atlanta posted a booking picture of DePaola at the time, making clear he is from Athens-Clarke County; the site also mentioned that two of his other young children were present when he threatened his wife.
While this may be Jesse Watters’ ideal guest, we cannot recommend that news outlets take public policy advice from someone violently triggered by an unexpected slice of cheese.
The real question is why Fox News didn’t tell its audience DePaola’s full name.
Scientists and researchers are celebrating what they call a “dream” discovery after an exploratory drill confirmed a high concentration of helium buried deep in Minnesota’s Iron Range.
Thomas Abraham-James, CEO of Pulsar Helium, said the confirmed presence of helium could be one of the most significant such finds in the world…
… as a drill reached its depth of 2,200 feet below the surface.
According to Abraham-James, the helium concentration was measured at 12.4%, which is higher than forecasted and roughly 30 times the industry standard for commercial helium…
For decades, the U.S. was the leading exporter of helium, but the former government-run reserves have since been depleted and sold off to private equity…
In a surprise visit to Ukraine’s frontline city of Kharkiv on Friday…
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte signed a 10-year security deal – with the Netherlands promising to help fund the supply of 800,000 artillery shells to hold back Russian forces.
RUTTE: “It’s clear that Ukraine’s armed forces urgently need more air defence missiles and more artillery shells. So our focus is on ramping up our defence production and finding ways to alleviate shortages in the short term.”
Rutte said the Netherlands would kick in $162 million toward the initiative launched by the Czech Republic, which said it sourced hundreds of thousands of ammunition rounds to be delivered to Ukraine if funding was secured…
The liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday rejected a Democratic lawsuit that sought to throw out the battleground state’s congressional maps, marking a victory for Republicans who argued against the court taking up the case.
The decision leaves the state’s current congressional district boundaries in place for the November election.
The decision not to hear the congressional challenge comes after the court in December ordered new legislative maps, saying the Republican-drawn ones were unconstitutional. The GOP-controlled Legislature, out of fear that the court would order maps even more unfavorable to Republicans, passed ones drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. He signed those into law on Feb. 19 and urged the court to take up the congressional map challenge.
The Elias Law Group, which filed the congressional challenge on behalf of Democratic voters, said the court’s decision on the legislative maps opened the door to them revisiting the other maps.
But the court declined to take up the case. It did not give a reason in the unsigned order…
Stephen Colbert ;
Trump Needs $454 Million, Fast | Why Nikki Haley Is Holding On | A “Total Genius” Speaks At CPAC
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=__VX4ugDYy4
“Four more cents! Four more cents!”
🙂
He’s just sittin’ around, thinkin’ about what number he likes…
Honestly, you can fire all the political consultants — Dems can just put this up on billboards in every state in the country: “Former President Trump on Thursday said he hasn’t decided on a set number of weeks after which abortion should be banned.”
The U.S. economic recovery from the pandemic has been stronger and more durable than many experts had expected, and a rebound in immigration is a big reason. A resumption in visa processing in 2021 and 2022 jump-started employment, allowing foreign-born workers to fill some holes in the labor force that persisted across industries and locations after the pandemic shutdowns. Immigrants also address a longer-term need: replenishing the work force, a key to meeting labor demands as birthrates decline and older people retire.
Vladimir Putin was right to be afraid of Alexei Navalny. Even after the Russian dictator almost certainly had the anti-corruption activist murdered in an Arctic prison camp, thousands turned up at a makeshift memorial shortly after his death. Many of those who came were beaten and carried away by Russian police.
Still, thousands—possibly tens of thousands—have gathered in Moscow for Navalny’s funeral on Friday, in defiance of Putin and overt threats from security forces.
The hearse carrying Navalny’s body was temporarily held at the entrance of Borisovskoye Cemetery before multiple busloads of riot police hurried the coffin into a church for a brief service. Then it was taken to a grave as thousands of mourners tried to enter the cemetery. Many were held back by barriers or lines of police, but thousands more gathered in the area outside the cemetery to form a makeshift memorial. Crowds there chanted, “Don’t be afraid!” and “Don’t give up!” [video at the link]
With access to the cemetery limited, the protests outside may have been even larger. And the courage that mourners displayed is tremendous, especially in light of the highly visible abuse that they have faced over the past week. [videos at the link]
Ukrainian Pravda also reports that some of those in attendance chanted, “No to war!” and “Ukrainians are good people!” while demanding that Russian forces be brought home.
It would be wonderful to think that the tragedy of Navalny’s death might be redeemed by an anti-war movement that would save thousands of lives, but at this point, there is little to indicate this is a threat of the scale that might get Putin’s attention, much less force him to change his mind about the illegal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian military has made a point of doing its primary recruiting among ethnic minorities in rural areas, leaving regions around Moscow and St. Petersburg lightly touched. Even with hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers dead, and hundreds of thousands more away at the front, keeping the pressure on wealthier, urban areas low has helped reduce the threat of organized protests—especially when police continue to meet even small-scale protests with brutal force. [videos at the link]
But this would certainly be an excellent time for feelings in Russia to turn. On the ground in Ukraine, the shortage of ammunition among Ukrainian troops is being dearly felt. [map at the link]
The pocket of Ukrainian control that existed around Avdiivka since the start of the war has now vanished. Villages to the north and west that had previously resisted all Russian assaults are now falling.
As the open-source intelligence group Frontelligence Insight reports, Russia has continued to advance after taking Avdiivka, moving through the much smaller towns of Sjeverne, Lastochkyne, and Stepove. Russians have also made a breakthrough near Marinka, leaving other areas along the long-held defensive line near the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in danger. [video at the link]
Russia is not advancing without taking losses, but a shortage of ammunition not only played a major role in Ukraine’s eventual retreat from Avdiivka, it also means Russia can now advance without taking the kind of enormous losses it did over the last four months.
The only possible solution is to get additional arms to Ukraine. Quickly.
With Ukraine aid still being blocked by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, the Biden administration and Pentagon are working on a plan to expedite emergency assistance to Ukraine. According to The New York Times, this plan would involve tapping into President Joe Biden’s remaining authority to draw down around $4 billion worth of weapons and provide them to Ukraine. The problem is that the funds to replace those weapons for U.S. forces have been exhausted.
If Biden takes this step, it will mean removing weapons from the U.S. arsenal and sending them to Ukraine, with no guarantee those weapons will soon be replaced. However, the need for weapons, particularly 155 mm artillery shells, is clearly much greater in Ukraine at the moment than it is in America. Taking this step is much more of a political risk—allowing Republicans to claim that Biden is damaging America’s military readiness just months before the election—than it is a military risk to the nation.
Considering Congress’ perpetual habit of giving the Pentagon billions more than it requested, it’s hard to believe that this gap would stay open very long.
However, even if Biden does take this action, it would provide only a fraction of what Ukraine needs to protect itself and continue the fight through 2024. Passing the Ukraine assistance bill remains critical.
To that end, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries put a deal on the table this week that might finally get things moving. Speaking to The New York Times, Jefferies suggested that Democrats in the House would shield Johnson from an attempt to remove him as speaker if Johnson would allow the Ukraine bill to come to the floor.
So far, this offer doesn’t seem to have removed the deadly roadblock that is holding up a vote … but at least it seems possible.
——————————–
Now that Russia has the coking plant at Avdiivka, Ukraine is helping them keep it warm. [video at the link of JDAM strikes on Russian positions]
———————————-
[updated list of Russian losses]
Liz Cheney talks about the Supreme Court gifting Trump a delay:
What percentage of voters know that Trump can cancel prosecutions of himself if he wins back the White House?
The court’s decision is terrible news, to be sure, but it gives Democrats an opportunity to clarify a few crucial points, and they should seize it.
First, Democrats should stress that voters need to know before the election whether Trump committed crimes—and this is due to them as a matter of right. Second, Trump is seeking these delays to end all prosecutions of himself if he regains the White House—to corruptly place himself above the law by pardoning himself or having his handpicked lickspittle attorney general do it. Democrats must say clearly that if the court helps delay the trial until after the election, it will be enabling him to do that.
Steven T. Dennis posted on X:
One way to look at McConnell is that he has often had the role of editor of Congress. Empowered by the filibuster and his conference, he had a key veto point in Washington; spending, taxing and legislating had to pass through his filter.
McConnell said no so often for so long that when he would on those fairly rare occasions say yes, things could happen lightning fast. Like that time he decided to raise the age for buying tobacco products to 21 *and it just happened.* Don’t even remember any real debate.
McConnell started saying yes more often under Biden: Bipartisan infrastructure, chips, and so on created a burst of legislating. (That dealmaking also had another effect: They helped preserve filibuster for future and stalling BBB by bolstering Manchinema-ism).
This Congress McConnell is no longer the filter. The House has been paralyzed.
McConnell two years ago was able to wave a wand and double the size of Ukraine aid packages. Now…
Recycling previous metals from electronic waste is very expensive and, at a large scale, often requires exorbitant amounts of power and very expensive machines to recycle efficiently. However, scientists have discovered a food byproduct, whey protein, capable of recovering gold from electronic waste, making the recycling process substantially more efficient than it once was. With this byproduct, the energy cost of the entire recycling process can be 50 times lower than the value of the gold extracted from electronic components. The team found they could extract around 450mg of gold from 20 motherboards using this method…
PFLAG, a leading U.S. LGBTQ advocacy group, on Friday won a temporary restraining order blocking demands from Texas’ Republican attorney general for information about the group’s work with families of transgender minors seeking gender-affirming treatments, such as puberty blockers and hormones.
The order, which will remain in effect for at least two weeks, from Travis County District Court Judge Maria Cantú Hexsel came in a lawsuit PFLAG filed Wednesday against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Hexsel set a hearing for March 25 on whether to block Paxton’s demands for as long as the case is pending…
Two humpback whales were photographed having sex for the first time, a new study published in the journal Marine Mammal Science said.
The image, which was captured off the coast of Maui, Hawaii, also marked the first documented case of sexual activity between two male humpback whales, per the study…
A federal judge in Austin took Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to the woodshed Thursday, explaining to him between swats on the behind that the US Constitution is very clear that the federal government has authority in setting and enforcing immigration policy. That means no, states can’t pass their own laws, like Texas’s Senate Bill 4, set to go into effect March 5, to arrest and deport people the police think might be undocumented immigrants.
US District Judge David Ezra issued an injunction to keep Texas from enforcing the law while the state appeals the ruling to the Fifth Circuit Court, which tends to be friendlier to rightwing nonsense like this than the rest of the federal judiciary […]
as the Texas Tribune put it:
“SB 4 threatens the fundamental notion that the United States must regulate immigration with one voice,” Ezra wrote.
Ezra also wrote that if the state arrested and deported migrants who may be eligible for political asylum, that would violate the Constitution and also be “in violation of U.S. treaty obligations.”
Ezra also had little patience for Abbott’s pet rightwing theory that the Constitution grants him the power to take on immigration enforcement due to an “invasion” of immigrants, because no federal court has ever accepted the claim that “invasion” means anything other than an attack by foreign military forces. Sorry, Governor, but “surges in immigration do not constitute an ‘invasion’ within the meaning of the Constitution, nor is Texas engaging in war by enforcing SB 4.” Ezra went on to provide a very thorough review of what “invasion” and “actually invaded” mean in constitutional terms, and notes that they always refer to “ongoing hostilities by a coordinated armed hostile military force,” not migrants crossing the border. Somehow, with great restraint, he refrained from adding, “You imbecile. You fucking moron.”
Abbott nonetheless clung to his talking points, hoping to move it up through the appeals process all the way to the Supreme Court. On social media, Abbott said he wasn’t worried by the injunction, because “this was fully expected,” and then he lied about the Constitution again, saying, “Texas has solid legal grounds to defend against an invasion.” You know, apart from the multiple pages in the decision explaining those words don’t mean what he thinks they mean.
[…] Finally, let’s just remind ourselves that, for all the panic the Right is whipping up about migrants at the border, in hopes of scaring enough voters to return Donald Trump to office, America needs immigrants […]
But wait! What about the “migrant crime wave”? As MSNBC’s Chris Hayes pointed out Thursday night, Fox News seems to have run out of ways to claim the economy is in the toilet, so now it’s synched up with the Trump campaign to focus almost exclusively on “migrant crime.”
Honestly, you cannot overstate the deluge of coverage. At any given moment all day, Fox is either reporting on crime, finishing a segment on crime, or about to run a segment on migrant crime.
[Alarmingly true.]
And when you go trying to create a story, there’s always some horrific crime out there to seize on, even if it’s an extreme outlier. It’s true that an undocumented immigrant has been arrested in the murder last week of nursing student Laken Riley on the University of Georgia campus, while Riley was out on a morning run.
That’s undeniably awful — but also not typical of murders in the USA, where native-born citizens remain more likely to kill you than illegal immigrants. (Legal immigrants have the lowest murder rate of the three groups, the Cato Institute points out.) […]
As for the Fox News narrative that crime is now out of control in “sanctuary cities” where Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have sent busload after busload of asylum-seekers, that too is quite simply bunk, Hayes says.
[A]ccording to new analysis from NBC News, “expert analysis and available data for major city police departments show that, despite several horrifying high-profile incidents, there is no evidence of a migrant driven crime wave in the United States.” In fact, in many of the cites like New York that have taken in a huge amount of migrants, and there really have been a lot, crime has gone down quite considerably.
[…] It’s a beautiful country. With the exception of mean pinch-faced creeps like Abbott who don’t understand America one bit, America’s people are beautiful too — including and perhaps especially those just beginning the daunting path to become Americans. Screw “replacement theory” — we are made greater by all those who become Us.
The West Virginia state Senate approved a bill this week that would require schools to show a scientifically inaccurate “fetal development” video made by the far-right anti-abortion group Live Action, in hopes of brainwashing 8th and 10th graders into becoming anti-choice zealots.
It’s called the “Baby Olivia” bill, and just like so many other bills named after white women, its entire purpose is the erosion of civil liberties. Well, technically, Olivia is the name of the imaginary fetus, but the point stands.
Via NPR:
The video is produced by Live Action, an anti-abortion rights advocacy group that produces media content. It begins by showing a sperm and egg meeting, followed by a flash of light and a narrator saying, “this is where life begins, a new human being has come into existence.” […]
Live Action says the video uses animation to portray the “miracles of early fetal development as an education tool.” But the video has come under criticism by legislators and advocacy groups over questions of medical accuracy and whether it’s appropriate to show to students.
Lila Rose, the founder of Live Action, says the video was made with a team of medical experts from the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetrics and Gynecology.
“This is when we date the beginning of human life. So it’s not, like, an opinion. It’s not a belief. It’s a scientific fact,” Rose told NPR.
It is, in fact just like an opinion or belief, in that it is one. It has the potential to become a human life, but so do the sperm and egg.
The actual American College of Obstetricians and Gynecology opposes the video, as they think it’s kind of important to give students accurate information about fetal development instead of a ridiculous cartoon […]
Incredibly, two Republicans made some pretty decent arguments against the bill.
GOP state majority leader Sen. Tom Takubo said he would not vote for the bill because there is information in the video he said is “grossly inaccurate.”
“If we’re going to codify something that we’re going to teach as fact, it needs to be fact and therefore, we’ve codified a video that is not factual,” said Takubo, who is also a practicing pulmonologist. […]
GOP state Sen. Charles Trump agreed that although he personally agrees that life begins at conception, he thinks “it is an imposition of what is fundamentally a religious or spiritual belief. I don’t think it is a matter of proven or established science.”
[…] Despite those two Republicans and all Democrats voting against the bill, it did pass the Republican supermajority Senate and will head to the House for another vote — and, most likely, will end up becoming law.
Perhaps next they will require science classes to teach the children all about how it is definitely possible for a human being to turn into a pillar of salt or give birth without ever having had sex.
Aid organizations say that airdrops fall far short of meeting the desperate needs for food and supplies in the enclave.
The U.S. completed its first airdrop of humanitarian aid into Gaza this morning, with 3 military C130 planes dropping 66 pallets containing 38,000 meals, officials told NBC News. Aid organizations say that airdrops fall far short of meeting the desperate needs for food and supplies in the enclave, where many of the 2.2 million people are facing starvation.
The deadly violence surrounding an aid convoy in Gaza City — in which more than 100 people were killed after Israeli forces were accused of opening fire on a crowd of Palestinians hoping to get food — has inflamed global calls for an immediate cease-fire, including from France and Germany
[…] U.S. officials scrambled to salvage ongoing cease-fire negotiations, with President Joe Biden saying he remains hopeful that a deal will be reached before Ramadan.
Israel has essentially accepted the proposed framework of a Gaza cease-fire if Hamas agrees to release sick, elderly and women hostages, according to a U.S. senior administration official Saturday. The current deal would be more complicated than the earlier cease-fires due to its length, but the six-week deal “has the potential to extend from there.”
Aid agencies and health workers said “a large number” of the dead and injured taken to hospitals following the violence had gunshot wounds. […]
The biggest snowstorm impacts parts of Northern California and Nevada causes power outages, freeway closures and avalanche warnings.
As snow totals continue to accumulate by the hour winter storm warnings in California’s Sierra Nevada are expected to remain in effect until Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.
The region has been experiencing relentless blizzard conditions since Thursday, resulting in the closure of a long stretch of Interstate-80 in California and residents being asked to take shelter as heavy snow and strong wind gusts threatened their safety.
The National Weather Service said Saturday that more than 3 inches of snow had been falling in Sierra Nevada each hour and winds were blowing over 100 mph, causing whiteout conditions “making travel impossible through the area.”
This is the biggest snowstorm of the season, with additional blizzard and winter storm warnings extending to parts of Northern California and the state of Nevada. […]
Video at the link.
birgerjohanssonsays
Crossposted from Mano Singham’s blog
“RNC Members Panic As Trump Prepares To Bankrupt The Entire Republican Party”
The orange vampire is draining them, because they were too yellow to impeach him when they had the chance.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=5_djNR0NUnY
Nikki Haley picked up her first two Senate endorsements: Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-Alask;, and Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, are backing Haley for the GOP nomination.
[…] “I’m proud to endorse Gov. Nikki Haley,” Murkowski said in a statement released by the Haley campaign. “America needs someone with the right values, vigor, and judgment to serve as our next President — and in this race, there is no one better than her. Nikki will be a strong leader and uphold the ideals of the Republican Party while serving as a President for all Americans.”
Collins told the Bangor Daily News that Haley “has the energy, intellect, and temperament that we need to lead our country in these very tumultuous times.” Haley’s campaign confirmed the endorsement to NBC News.
Voters in Alaska, Maine and more than a dozen other states will cast ballots on Super Tuesday, when 865 Republican delegates will be up for grabs. Haley has yet to win a primary or caucus. […]
Excerpts from “How to Picture A.I.” by Jaron Lanier:
[…] We have brought artificial intelligence into the world accompanied by ideas that are unhelpful and befuddling. The worst of it is probably the sense of human obsolescence and doom that many of us convey. I have trouble understanding why some of my colleagues say that what they are doing might lead to human extinction, and yet argue that it is still worth doing. It is hard to comprehend this way of talking without wondering whether A.I. is becoming a new kind of religion.
In addition to the apocalyptic atmosphere, we don’t do a good job of explaining what the stuff is and how it works.
Most non-technical people can comprehend a thorny abstraction better once it’s been broken into concrete pieces you can tell stories about, but that can be a hard sell in the computer-science world. We usually prefer to treat A.I. systems as giant impenetrable continuities.
[…] The usual terminology, starting with the phrase “artificial intelligence” itself, is all about the idea that we are making new creatures instead of new tools. This notion is furthered by biological terms like “neurons” and “neural networks,” and by anthropomorphizing ones like “learning” or “training,” which computer scientists use all the time.
It’s also a problem that “A.I.” has no fixed definition. It’s always possible to dismiss any specific commentary about A.I. for not addressing some other potential definition of it. The lack of mooring for the term coincides with a metaphysical sensibility according to which the human framework will soon be transcended.
[…] Computer scientists call the grid elements found at each level “neurons,” in order to suggest a connection with biological brains, but the similarity is limited. While biological neurons are sometimes organized in “layers,” such as in the cortex, they are not always; in fact, there are fewer layers in the cortex than in an artificial neural network. With A.I., however, it’s turned out that adding a lot of layers vastly improves performance, which is why you see the term “deep” so often, as in “deep learning”—it means a lot of layers.
[…] We use A.I. algorithms to direct social-media flows to and between people, to run finance, and much more. In all these cases, virality has become expected. But, within A.I., we have to do something like repressing virality to get the stuff to work. Shouldn’t we consider doing something similar when it comes to the deployment of A.I.? Wouldn’t that make culture, politics, and economics a little less crazy?
[…] Generating text works a little differently than generating images because, for one thing, text is a sequence of words. Instead of settling on a single desired image, an A.I. that works with words must choose the next word many times, over and over, in relation not only to your prompt but to previous words chosen. There are plenty of other differences. Even so, when a generative-A.I. model is choosing the next word, you can think of that word as a single point of uncertainty—of noise—being resolved into a word choice, as if it were a very tiny and simple image. This is why a broadly similar process to the one that produces the surreal cat image can be used to generate a summary of any given document.
[…] To non-coders, the fact that A.I.s can produce code might seem astonishing. But computer programs are a type of text, and training data are plentiful.
[…] If text is a one-dimensional string of words, and images are two-dimensional grids of pixels, then videos are three-dimensional, because they extend in time. But the same principles that allow for the generation of text and images work for videos, too. Recently, OpenAI announced Sora, a generative-video system that can create realistic video clips from text prompts. In the physical world, moviemaking often requires a continuity person—someone who makes sure that props, hairdos, and the angle of the sun don’t suddenly change from one moment to the next. Continuity is profound because it is what makes reality consistent, and, in a sense, real; it’s important that a thing still looks like itself even if it goes out of frame and comes back. Until now, continuity errors have prevented A.I. from making convincing videos. If a generative-image system tries to produce the frames of a movie, those frames end up disconnected, with details that don’t match up as time passes.
Sora approximates continuity using a simple principle. […] In a movie, a particular patch of image in one frame will generally show up in the next frame, too, though it usually will have changed a little; for instance, a glint in a cat’s eye will probably endure for more than one frame, but it won’t stay in exactly the same spot. It isn’t too hard to calculate how little elements of a patch, like a highlight in a cat’s eye, move from one position to the next in a series of frames. Once you analyze a movie like this, you get sweeps of portions of images that continue from frame to frame, through time. (What I am calling sweeps are called “patches” in most of the academic literature, but since patches just sit there and sweeps move, I prefer to use sweeps here.)
[…] For Sora, these sweeps are the fundamental building blocks, instead of the pixels that make up still images. Combinations of sweeps of visual features through time are associated with text descriptions, and, by entering text prompts, users can recombine these sweeps in new ways. The process of generating movies with this kind of model naturally captures much of how things move in reality, including how perspectives change when the camera moves, and how bodies sway. It can cause a bite to remain missing after a fake person eats part of a fake burger. At the same time, we can start to understand why hands might be more likely to get distorted by the process. Hands have their own internal structure and principles of motion, which means that combining the way streaks tend to flow for a whole scene can easily miss what’s going on in the microworld of a hand.
[…] One problem with the usual anthropomorphic narratives about A.I. is that they don’t nurture our intuitions about its weaknesses. As a result, our discussions about the technology tend to involve confrontations between extremes: there are enthusiasts who think that we’re building a cosmically big brain that will solve all our problems or wipe us out, and skeptics who don’t see much value in A.I.
[…] I find the image of a new tree reaching up toward, but not typically above, a canopy altitude defined by other trees to be a useful and balanced one. It offers an alternative to the view that A.I. does nothing but regurgitate—but it also communicates skepticism about whether A.I. will become a transcendent, unlimited form of intelligence. […] What it does do is maximize the value of training data. That, in itself, is a great enough reason to be enthusiastic about the latest A.I. advances.
[…] Leveraging human effort in new, better ways is the very definition of economic value. This is a good starting principle for managers, investors, and customers to keep in mind. If you want to understand where generative A.I. will bring the most value, ask yourself: Which human activities have been done many times before but not in exactly the same way? In those areas, generative A.I. can probably make the situation better.
[…] One step that researchers have taken, to positive effect, is to begin patrolling the intelligible parts—the prompts and outputs. Today’s A.I. systems include “guardrails” that blunt users who prompt them in ways their developers predict will be harmful. Effort also goes into depreciating the worst of the training data. By resisting criminal, phony, malicious, or biased training data, we can grow a healthier forest.
[…] The science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke famously stated that a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. But that is only true if that technology is not explained well enough. It is the responsibility of technologists to make sure their offerings are not taken as magic.
A ship attacked by Yemen’s Houthi rebels has sunk in the Red Sea after days of taking on water, officials said Saturday.
The Rubymar had been drifting after the attack in February. It marks the first ship sunk by the Houthis amid their monthslong attacks on shipping in the vital waterway.
Yemen’s internationally recognized government, as well as a regional military official, confirmed the ship sank. […]
[…] We begin today with Itamar Eichner of Ynet News who was the first to report that Minister without portfolio and Knesset opposition leader Benny Gantz will be traveling the United States today for high-level talks about the situation in Gaza; apparently without the initial approval of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
This visit comes at a time when efforts to secure a hostage exchange deal have been ongoing for quite some time, and amidst reports in the U.S. that the American government is losing patience with Netanyahu’s conduct in the war – and allegations that he is being restrained by his government partners Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
The Prime Minister’s Office expressed anger at the publication of Ynet and clarified that Gantz is flying without the Prime Minister’s approval, contrary to the government regulations, which “require every minister to coordinate his trip in advance with the Prime Minister, including approval of the travel plan.”
According to Netanyahu’s associates, “the Prime Minister clarified to Minister Gantz that the State of Israel has only one Prime Minister.” From Washington, Gantz is expected to continue to London.
Earlier this week, President Joe Biden emphasized that Israel must pursue peace with the Palestinians for its long-term survival. He cautioned that the country’s “incredibly conservative government” risked losing international support, during an appearance on “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”
Trevor Hunnicutt of Reuters reports that among the officials that Minister Gantz will meet with are Vice President Kamala Harris, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and members from both parties of Congress.
The talks, first reported by Reuters, are expected to span topics including reducing Palestinian civilian casualties, securing a temporary ceasefire, the release of hostages held in Gaza and increasing aid to the territory, a White House official said.
“The Vice President will express her concern over the safety of the as many as 1.5 million people in Rafah,” the official said, adding that Israel also had a “right to defend itself in the face of continued Hamas terrorist threats.”
A statement from Gantz confirmed that he would meet with Harris, as well as with U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Republican and Democratic members of U.S. Congress.
“Minister Gantz personally updated the prime minister on his own initiative on Friday of his intention to travel, in order to coordinate the messages to be transmitted in the meetings,” the statement said.
Yasmin Rufo and David Gritten of BBC News write about petitions to the Israeli and Egyptian governments by journalists and news organizations for international journalists to have access to Gaza.
Only one foreign journalist has been granted entry into Gaza through Egypt on an escorted visit. CNN’s Clarissa Ward – who is among the signatories of the letter – was able to spend only a few hours on the ground in the southern border city of Rafah with an Emirati medical team in December.
The letter calls on Israel’s government to “openly state its permission for international journalists to operate in Gaza”.
It also asks Egyptian authorities to allow foreign press access to the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza. […]
The broadcasters represented in the letter are the UK’s BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky News, and the US outlets ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC.
A number of journalists who signed the letter have been reporting from Israel during the conflict.
As I have said, while I have some sympathy for the Gazan journalists already operating at great risk to their lives and the lives of their loved ones, I am under no illusion that those Gazan journalists have operated independently of the influence of Hamas.
Nor do I entirely trust the reporting of the number of Western journalists embedded with the IDF; after all, the IDF will show those journalists what they want seen and reported.
Most of the international journalists there have reported on conflicts and wars before. Allowing them freedom to report on the war without “embedding” may also serve to better protect those Palestinian journalist who have been losing their lives. [I agree]
… There were plenty of moments during Mr Trump’s campaign events in Greensboro, North Carolina and later in Richmond when he appeared to struggle to deliver his speech or seemed to be confused…
“One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns” — 18th century nursery rhyme.
It is the month of chocolate eggs and Easter bunnies. In the UK this means the shops are full of fruity bread products, along with the traditional chocolate egg-stravaganza. I refer, of course, to the hot cross bun, a favourite Easter treat on these isles we call the United Kingdom. […]
As we are not affiliated with any specific religion here at Your Wonkette, I feel I ought to impart the (perhaps surprising) news that hot cross buns predate Christianity by several thousand years. Credit for the invention of the first hot cross bun goes to our old friends the Ancient Egyptians, who developed the earliest recorded bread recipes. The Egyptians used a bread roll that had been marked with a cross in their celebrations of the gods. The cross divided the bread roll into four equal sections to represent either the four phases of the moon, or the four seasons (not the landscaping company), depending on the occasion. So hot cross buns could actually be considered a rather pagan fruity snack. Of course, Christianity co-opted this delicious treat, although the fruit was not included in the ancient Egyptian version; I suppose the nice big cross on the top of it was just too good a symbol to pass up on. Hot cross buns have been a symbol of Easter and the crucifixion of Jesus since around the sixth century AD, courtesy of the Greeks. The modern, fruity form, which was first recorded in London during the 18th century, has its origins in the 14th century with the development of the Alban Bun — a fruited bread roll which was traditionally given to the poor on Good Friday.
There is a degree of religious symbolism in the ingredients used (aside from the glaring symbolism of the huge cross on the top): The spices are supposed to represent those used in the embalming of Jesus — although I struggle to get my head around the use of cinnamon and mixed spice for embalming. It’s hard to imagine an embalmer’s shop smelling like a bakery without getting Mrs Lovett vibes. To further drive the association with the Christian religion, the sale of hot cross buns was restricted to Good Friday, Christmas, and burials during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Don’t worry, no one was going to be confined to the Tower of London for selling delicious hot cross buns; the punishment for breaking this particular law was the forfeiture of the buns to the poor. There was also nothing preventing you from baking your own if you had a craving for fruity, spiced bread products. In the interests of separation of Church and the State that is my kitchen, I should also point out that there is nothing stopping you from decorating your hot cross buns with something that is not a cross. If you can pipe it then it can go on there, so pipe that pentagram, or the Bat signal, or any other symbol you want (Cakes Jr. opted for the pentagram).
The traditional way to enjoy a hot cross bun is freshly toasted and spread with lavish amounts of butter (my breakfast for the next few days). The addition of jam or marmalade is also permissible, and some people have been reported to enjoy them with cheese — a step too far for me.
Carbohydrates – 41 g per bun or 615 g for the entire batch. Please enjoy responsibly.
EQUIPMENT
2 Mixing bowls (or stand mixer and a mixing bowl)
Digital kitchen scales
Measuring jug
Wooden spoon
Baking paper
Deep sided oven tray
Small bowl or ramekin
Pastry brush
INGREDIENTS
For the buns:
300 ml milk (preferably full fat)
50 g butter
500 g bread flour (bread flour has higher protein than cake flour, if in doubt check the nutrition information)
1 tsp salt
75 g sugar
7 g (1 sachet) fast-action yeast
I egg, beaten
200 g raisins, sultanas or mixed fruit (or 150 g of chocolate chips if you don’t like dried fruit — this will change the carbohydrates)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice
For the cross (or other symbols):
75 g all-purpose flour
50 ml water
For the glaze:
3 tbsp apricot jam or maple syrup
1 tbsp water
INSTRUCTIONS
Bring your milk to the boil then remove from the heat and add the butter, leave to cool until it reaches hand temperature.
In your mixing bowl combine your bread flour, salt, sugar, and yeast. Make a well in the centre.
Pour in your milk and butter mixture and add your beaten egg.
Mix well using a wooden spoon, then use your hands to bring the mixture together to form a sticky dough ready for kneading. Knead your dough for 5 minutes, or until the dough feels smooth and elastic. I find the easiest way to do this is to use the heel of one hand to push the dough away from me, stretching it out, then turning the dough a quarter turn and repeating. It helps to lightly oil your hands with a little olive oil first as this will prevent the dough from sticking to your hands. Alternatively, you can skip this entire step by using your stand mixer and dough hook attachment on a low- medium low speed (second or third setting) for 5 minutes.
Lightly oil your clean mixing bowl and transfer the dough to this bowl. Cover with a damp tea towel and leave to rise until doubled in size; this will usually take at least an hour. Alternatively, you could leave the dough in the refrigerator overnight.
Once your dough has doubled in size it’s time to add your fruit (or chocolate). Tip this into your bowl and fold the dough over it, repeating until the fruit is well-combined.
Line your oven tray with baking paper.
Divide your dough into 15 evenly sized balls and place them into your oven tray. Leave 1 ½ to 2 inches between each ball to give them space to rise; you may need to use a second tray if you’re short on space. Cover the tray with the damp tea towel and leave to rise for another hour.
Preheat your oven to 390 F (200 C), or 355 F (180C) for a convection oven.
Mix your remaining all-purpose flour with 50 ml water until it forms a thick paste.
Spoon this paste into a piping bag with a round nozzle, or use a disposable piping bag or sandwich bag with the tip/corner snipped off. Pipe your crosses or symbol of your choice across the top of your buns. You may want to use scissors to cleanly cut the paste when you finish each symbol.
Place into your hot oven and bake for 20 minutes, by which time the hot cross buns will be golden in colour and your kitchen will smell divine.
Gently heat your jam or maple syrup with 1 tbsp of water. When you remove your hot cross buns from the oven use a pastry brush to glaze the top of each bun with your jam/syrup mixture. Leave to cool.
Sit down and enjoy a delicious hot cross bun, ideally toasted, and served with plenty of butter (jam/jelly is optional). According to Cakes Jr. (and millions of other Brits who aren’t me, shocked face!), a cup of tea is the ideal accompaniment for this little treat.
An added note: If you leave out the spices and fruit from this recipe you will have a basic enriched dough. If you roll this dough into hotdog bun shapes and top them with glace icing (confectioner’s sugar mixed with water), you will have Iced Fingers. If you bake them as buns like you do in this recipe, you can slice them as you would a burger bun, fill with strawberry or raspberry jam and whipped cream, then close and sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar to make a Split. That’s three recipes for the price (the price is exactly $0 as all Wonkette recipes are free) of one! […]
The sinking of the Rubymar, a Belize-flagged, U.K.-owned ship yesterday presents an “environmental risk” to the Red Sea, officials said. The ship was attacked by Houthi rebels in February and had been leaking a mileslong slick of oil into the sea since.
The ship’s cargo of approximately “21,000 metric tons of ammonium phosphate sulfate fertilizer” risks leaking into the surrounding marine environment, U.S. Central Command said.
In a statement today, Greenpeace MENA Program Director Julien Jreissati warned of “far-reaching” ecological and environmental consequences without urgent action and access to the shipwreck site.
“As well as any further leaks of fuel oil from the engines, the sinking of the vessel could further breach the hull, allowing water to contact with the thousands of tons of fertilizer, which could then be released into the Red Sea and disrupt the balance of the marine ecosystems, triggering cascading effects throughout the food web,” he added.
Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, the foreign minister in Yemen’s internationally recognized government in Aden, said in a post on X: “The sinking of the Rubymar is an environmental catastrophe that Yemen and the region have never experienced before.”
Heavy gunfire has caused panic in recent days after calls by gang leader Jimmy Cherizier, a former police officer, for criminal groups to unite and overthrow Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
[…] Armed groups were closing in on Haiti’s largest prison on Saturday night, defying police forces who called for help after days of gunfire in parts of the capital as a major gang leader seeks to topple Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
Two of the Caribbean country’s main police unions called for assistance to stop inmates, many considered to be high-profile criminals, from fleeing the National Penitentiary in Port-Au-Prince.
It was unclear how many had fled the prison, a number that newspaper Gazette Haiti said was “significant.” Some detainees were reluctant to leave en masse for fear of being killed in crossfire, sources told Reuters.
Police officers assigned to the prison had vacated the premises on Saturday, according to reports by local media AyiboPost. […]
Well, I should hope that she would not endorse Trump. Sheesh.
In an interview with “Meet the Press,” Haley dodged, saying, “When you all ask Donald Trump if he would support me, then I will talk about that.” […]
Still some wiggle room there. Not good.
[…] The statement is an apparent shift from her previous attitude toward a potential endorsement. Asked in July whether she would support Trump if he wins, Haley told Fox News, “I would support him because I’m not going to have a President Kamala Harris,” referring to the fact that Vice President Kamala Harris would become president if anything were to happen to President Joe Biden in a second term.
In order to participate in primary debates hosted by the Republican National Committee last fall, every candidate signed a pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee. Haley signed that pledge.
But in her “Meet the Press” interview, she blasted the RNC, saying, “The RNC is not the same RNC” and that “now it’s Trump’s” RNC.
“I mean, at the time of the debate, we had to take it to where, ‘Would you support the nominee,’ and in order to get on that debate stage, you said, ‘Yes,’” Haley said.
[…] Trump has endorsed Michael Whatley, the North Carolina GOP chair, and Lara Trump, his daughter-in-law, to take over as chair and co-chair of the group. […]
Haley also made some wishy-washy remarks about abortion.
A new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute reveals that more than half of Republicans don’t understand America and would like either Jesus Christ or Donald Trump to lead us to a God-ordained promised land flowing with milk, honey, unchecked grift, and bottomless cheese fries.
According to PRRI, 55% of Republicans qualify as Christian nationalists, per the survey’s criteria, as opposed to just 25% of independents and 16% of Democrats. At the same time, 83% of Democrats can be considered “skeptics” or “rejecters” of Christian nationalism, compared with just 43% of Republicans who feel the same way.
Meanwhile, those Christian nationalist views are, as you might have guessed, strongly predictive of support for Donald Trump.
According to PRRI, “Among those who hold favorable views of Trump, 55% qualify as Christian nationalists […]
In other words, there’s a good reason the current House speaker thinks he’s Moses and the Alabama Supreme Court thinks eight-celled frozen embryos are human beings. Republicans are all hunkered down in a hermetically sealed room sniffing the same glue.
PRRI based its survey results on a five-point definition of Christian nationalism. Respondents were asked if they agreed or disagreed—either “mostly” or “completely”—with the following statements:
– The U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation.
– U.S. laws should be based on Christian values.
– If the U.S. moves away from our Christian foundations, we will not have a country anymore.
– Being Christian is an important part of being truly American.
– God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society.
[…] The fact that a majority of the U.S. population still identifies as Christian does not make America a Christian nation, and it never has […]
Nope! We are a religiously diverse country with a Constitution that—in theory, at least—protects the rights of all citizens regardless of creed, and explicitly prohibits religious tests for public office.
But even though U.S. Christian nationalists have a completely (M)ass-backward view of religion’s proper place in a pluralistic liberal democracy, they nevertheless wield outsized influence. And consider the current makeup of the Supreme Court, and the ascent of Speaker Mike Johnson—who’s called the principle of church-state separation a “misnomer”: That influence only continues to grow.
Ja’han Jones, writing for MSNBC’s “The ReidOut Blog,” noted this out-of-whack power dynamic:
[…] So adherents and sympathizers of Christian nationalism make up about 30% of the American population — and evidently about 66% of the Supreme Court bench, if the Dobbs ruling is any indicator.
In other words, because two presidents who were originally elected by a minority of voters have appointed five of our current SCOTUS justices, the majority of Americans […] are already living under a quasi-theocracy. And Christian nationalism’s enduring popularity only promises to make this tyranny of the minority worse.
That a movement so antithetical to clearly defined and long-held American values has overtaken one of our two major parties is truly disturbing. But as this same survey makes clear, we are still the majority. Which means there’s still plenty we can do to push back, even if the game is rigged against us, thanks to the same Constitution that’s supposed to confer inalienable religious freedoms.
Clark, whose No. 6 Iowa Hawkeyes faced No. 2 Ohio State on Sunday, needed 18 points to surpass Maravich for the record. Last week, the senior guard broke a pre-NCAA scoring record set by Lynette Woodard for women’s major college basketball and announced her intention to enter the 2024 WNBA draft, where she’s widely expected to be the No. 1 overall pick.
Posted by readers of the article:
Pete set the record in 1970. That means that the record sat there for 54 years before Caitlin Clark broke it. And we have seen some excellent basketball players in both the woman’s and men’s games since then. Amazing.
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3 pointers have been a thing for a while. Why hasn’t a male broken Pete’s record? Players playing for 4 years has been a thing for a while. Why hasn’t a male broken Pete’s record?
Incels are just sad.
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She is an amazing athlete and a really good role model for the girls today.
Despite her success, she is down to earth and hasn’t been part of any controversy such as drugs, media issues, or selling herself to Chinese or Russian masters.
I wish her luck!
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Go Caitlin go! Talent, hard work, style. You have it all!🌹
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An amazing feat in every way. Congratulations. She has raised the bar and the awareness of woman’s sports.
Pistol Pete would be happy. Two players that changed the attitudes about basketball.
—————————–
Yeah, we know: Pete didn’t get to shoot 3s. He did it in 3 years.
She still has the record, though. And that’s OK, you’re still a man. Pete’s still a man.
Can ya shut up and avoid mansplaining for once?
Reginald Selkirksays
@466: Players playing for 4 years has been a thing for a while. Why hasn’t a male broken Pete’s record?
“One and done” came and went, and it is no longer necessary for the really good players to spend even that much time in college. Lebron James, for example, didn’t set any college records because he didn’t play even a day of college basketball, jumping straight from high school to the NBA. The salaries in the NBA are much bigger and more enticing than the salaries in the WNBA. Perhaps now that college “student-athletes” can get big money with NIL (as Clark is doing), someone might bother to stick around long enough to set some records, but it may not be likely.
BTW, since you didn’t mention, Iowa beat Ohio State 93-83. OSU is still ranked on top of the Big Ten conference with a 16-2 conference record, while Iowa and Indiana both have a 15-3 conference record. All three teams will undoubtedly be invited to the NCAA ‘March Madness’ post-season playoffs. One category where Clark has come up short in both high school and college is in winning championships.
The record now stands at 3685 points. As I understand, the record is for regular season points, so is now closed out.
Reginald Selkirksays
@466 Pete Maravich still holds the NCAA record for points in a single season with 1381 in 1969-1970. Followed by:
Elvin Hayes 1214 in 1967-1968
Frank Selvy 1209 in 1953-1954
Pete Maravich 1148 in 1968-1969
Pete Maravich 1138 in 1967-1968
…
All Ohio Republican U.S. Senate candidates opposed November amendment passed by 57% of Ohio voters that guaranteed rights to fertility treatment…
It is “imperative that our candidates align with the public’s overwhelming support for IVF and fertility treatments,” warned the memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Every Republican running for the U.S. Senate in Ohio took heed and raced to cover their anti-choice backsides. Every one of them affirmed their solidarity with those appalled over the Alabama ruling. Every one of them is a fraud…
Dutch track star Femke Bol continued her golden year on Saturday, smashing her own indoor 400-meter world record at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Scotland.
After leading the pack for the majority of the race, the 24-year-old streaked away on the finishing straight to record a time of 49.17 seconds, almost a second ahead of her compatriot Lieke Klaver in second place. The USA’s Alexis Holmes finished in third with a personal best time of 50.25.
Bol’s time also shattered the world record of 49.24 she had set just two weeks ago at the Dutch national championships, as well as the championship record of 50.06 that Russia’s Olesya Krasnomovets-Forsheva had set in 2006…
‘Elvis was as pilled up as me!’
Dan Penn on writing hits for Aretha, Otis, Dolly and more | Music
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/04/elvi-dan-penn-hits-aretha-otis-dolly-im-your-puppet-do-right-woman
Donald Trump’s rhetoric is often delusional, but he generally seems to understand the kind of criticisms he faces. Trump rejects the disparagements, of course, but he realizes that they exist.
We know this, of course, because Trump invariably takes the criticisms and applies them to his political foes. The Associated Press reported over the weekend on a classic example of the phenomenon.
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday further escalated his immigration rhetoric and baselessly accused President Joe Biden of waging a “conspiracy to overthrow the United States of America” as he campaigned ahead of Super Tuesday’s primaries.
[eyeroll]
“Biden’s conduct on our border is by any definition a conspiracy to overthrow the United States of America,” the Republican said at an event in North Carolina. “Biden and his accomplices want to collapse the American system, nullify the will of the actual American voters and establish a new base of power that gives them control for generations.”
Obviously, the rhetoric was bonkers, but it stood out as notable for a couple of reasons.
[…] As the argument goes, the incumbent Democratic president wants an influx of migrants as part of an elaborate scheme that involves registering the new arrivals to vote, all in the hopes of tipping the electoral scales.
In reality, Biden has taken steps to discourage new migrants — he also endorsed a bipartisan package of conservative border reforms that Trump ultimately helped kill — and the idea that a new arrival can simply be handed a voter-registration form is insane. To register to vote, one must be an American citizen, and the process migrants must go through before even trying to become citizens is difficult and takes many years.
[…] Trump wasn’t simply trying to deceive, he also was trying to confuse. […]
[Trump] with little subtlety, has touted an authoritarian-style vision for the United States — up to and including his stated intentions to create a “Day One” dictatorship after taking office.
[…] he would also seize control of government departments and agencies that have historically operated with independence, enact radical anti-immigration plans, use government powers to crack down on journalists, and hire right-wing lawyers who will be positioned to help Trump politicize federal law enforcement and exact revenge against his perceived political foes.
He’s also been quite candid about issuing pardons to politically allied criminals and labeling his opponents “vermin,” seemingly indifferent to the word’s 1930s-era antecedents.
All of this, of course, comes against a backdrop of his own record, which includes trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, deploying a mob of radicalized followers to attack his own country’s Capitol, and trying to claim illegitimate power despite the will of the American electorate.
Naturally, this has led Trump to accuse Biden of conspiring to “overthrow” the country and “nullify the will” of the voters.
[…] One party says Politician X is attacking democracy; the other party says Politician Y is attacking democracy; and many are left to assume that the truth is somewhere in between.
Except, it’s not. Trump’s critics are telling the truth about his authoritarian-style vision, while the former president himself is simply accusing his opponents of doing what he’s doing.
[…] The I’m-rubber-you’re-glue approach is Trump’s go-to rhetorical tactic. […] (“No puppet, no puppet,” he said. “You’re the puppet.”) [snipped more examples]
[…] Trump said Russia supported Democrats.
[…] In May 2016, Sen. Ted Cruz — at the time, Trump’s rival for his party’s nomination — said the future president “is a pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth. And in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying. … Whatever he does, he accuses everyone else of doing.”
Eight years later, the quote remains highly relevant.
Reports out this morning that former Trump Org CFO Allen Weisselberg will plead guilty today for testimony he gave in the New York civil fraud trial of Donald Trump:
Mr. Weisselberg, 76, is now expected to concede that he lied to investigators from the New York attorney general’s office when they were investigating Mr. Trump for fraud. The attorney general, Letitia James, had accused Mr. Trump of wildly inflating his net worth to obtain favorable loans and other benefits.
ABC News reported in February that Weisselberg was in plea talks. The exact terms of the plea are not yet public.
Weisselberg’s trial testimony that he didn’t think much about the size and value of Trump’s Fifth Avenue Manhattan triplex, which was wildly inflated, was blown up by a subsequent article in Forbes.
The perjury had a de minimis effect on the trial, which still resulted in a $450 million judgment and a ban on Trump doing real estate business in New York. Weisselberg is not expected to be a witness in the upcoming hush money criminal trial, though he was a key figure in that scheme.
The Supreme Court forced the state of Colorado to keep Donald Trump on the presidential ballot after the state’s Supreme Court found that the Constitution’s Disqualification Clause barred him from running for office.
The court issued its ruling in a unanimous, per curiam order.
In a relatively brief, 13-page opinion, accompanied by one concurrence from Justice Amy Coney Barrett and another from the three liberals on the bench, the court decided that the Constitution leaves the question of Trump’s disqualification to Congress.
“Responsibility for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates rests with Congress and not the States,” the court ruled.
The ruling brings one of the most prominent efforts to hold Trump accountable for his attempt to stay in power after losing the 2020 election to an end. The court, in oral arguments and in its Monday opinion, went out of its way to dodge the question of whether that attempt – which culminated in the Jan. 6 storming of Congress – constituted an insurrection.
Instead, the opinion focuses on a threshold question which all but ensures that the Disqualification Clause will remain a dead letter, at least as applied to Trump’s 2020 self-coup attempt. The justices focused instead on whose job it is to enforce Section Three of the 14th Amendment, neatly excluding themselves from the equation. Instead, they kicked the issue of who should bar those who have taken an oath to the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection from holding office to Congress.
In so doing, the court set up a new rule which extends beyond Trump: that Congress, and not the states, is responsible for enforcing disqualification against federal officeholders and candidates. To do that, the majority held, Congress must pass new legislation.
Writing in concurrence, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and, separately, the three liberals made essentially the same point, though the liberals did so much more stridently. The question at hand, they all agreed, was whether an individual state could keep a presidential candidate found to have engaged in insurrection off of its ballot. But by finding that legislation is needed to enforce the disqualification clause, they wrote, the majority went far beyond what the case required.
“By resolving these and other questions, the majority [in this Supreme Court decision] attempts to insulate all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding federal office,” the liberal justices seethed.
The liberals also took shots at the majority’s supporting evidence for the finding that a legislative enforcement mechanism was needed, sneering in particular at its reliance on a non-precedential 1869 lower court case that even Trump’s lawyer didn’t fully embrace.
“These musings are as inadequately supported as they are gratuitous,” they wrote.
Barrett makes a similar point, albeit more gently, arguing that the case presented did not compel the justices to decide whether legislation is the exclusive mechanism by which Section 3 can be enforced.
[…] The liberals took her point a step further, steaming that the majority has not only gotten out over its skis, but fatally weakened attempts to disqualify insurrectionists going forward.
In an eye-catching jab, the three justices quoted from Stephen Breyer’s dissent in Bush v. Gore, a case which multiple conservative justices worked on for Bush.
“What it does today, the Court should have left undone,” the liberal justices cited.
“It reaches out to decide Section 3 questions not before us, and to foreclose future efforts to disqualify a Presidential candidate under that provision,” they wrote. “In a sensitive case crying out for judicial restraint, it abandons that course.”
Completely expected, and as it was issued “per curiam” no one objected. The holding was that Congress must pass some legislation to make the Fourteenth stick. They also noted that the states could bar someone from state office, just not the Presidency.
—————————-
If they had upheld it, by end of day at least half the States would’ve seen lawsuits challenging Biden’s name on ballots, and we wouldn’t even have to worry about what happens on election Day because he’d be knocked out of the running in enough that Trump would already have won.
—————————–
The Court has ruled that in a democracy, voters are free to elect someone to the presidency whose stated goals and actions are aimed at destroying that democracy. In other words, the Court will not save us from ourselves…
My problem with the ruling is that the Supreme Court Justices seem to think that Congress critters will pass some legislation. Not likely.
Also, why does Congress (and its legislation) have to be the only enforcement option. Couldn’t court rulings about criminality or insurrection also kick someone off the ballot?
Opill, the first oral contraceptive pill to be available without a prescription in the U.S., has shipped to retailers nationwide. It will be sold online and in the family planning aisle of drugstores, convenience stores and supermarkets later this month, the manufacturer announced Monday.
[…]
This isn’t a new kind of birth control pill. The drug substance was originally approved for prescription use in 1973, according to the Food and Drug Administration. But this is the first birth control pill that has been approved for use without a prescription from a health care provider.
“We have been working on it for nine years and got approval in July 2023 from the FDA to move forward. And it’s been kind of full-steam ahead since that day,” says Triona Schmelter, an executive at Perrigo, which manufactures Opill.
[…]
Reginald Selkirksays
@489: the court decided that the Constitution leaves the question of Trump’s disqualification to Congress.
“Responsibility for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates rests with Congress and not the States,” the court ruled.
They got that exactly backwards. The 14th lays out explicit involvement for the legislature:
Section 3.
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
I helpfully bolded the relevant sentence for those who are cognitively impaired and Supreme Court justices. Their ruling inverts the burden of effort required for congressional involvement.
Malaysia’s government said Sunday it may renew the hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 after a U.S. technology firm proposed a fresh search in the southern Indian Ocean where the plane is believed to have crashed a decade ago.
Transport Minister Anthony Loke said Texas-based Ocean Infinity has proposed another “no find, no fee” basis to scour the seabeds, expanding from the site where it first searched in 2018…
Well this is certainly not a cover for CIA/DoD seafloor mapping.
Ukraine said it blew up a key bridge used by the Russian military in Russia’s Samara region on Monday.
The railway bridge over the Chapaevka river in Samara was struck at about 5 a.m. on Monday, causing rail traffic in the region to be suspended, local authorities told state-run news agency Tass…
Even though this comment will soon be history, it is important that I write this:
@47 StevoR mentioned they are non-binary.
I reply: Dear StevoR, I didn’t know that until your comment. And, I don’t care. Your decency and many excellent contributions to this site are what I admire and appreciate.
Many years ago we told of how we love that auditions for classical musicians usually have a large opaque curtain between the musician an the judges. This ensures that the musician will be judged by their performance, not their appearance.
Rep. Lauren Boebert was absent from a campaign event in Colorado’s 4th congressional district last month because she was at home working out if her ex-husband had thrown all her belongings into a pond, according to The Washington Post.
The Post reported that Lauren Boebert skipped speaking at the gathering of the Pachyderm Club, a local Republican group, in a Colorado coffee shop to attend to the personal matter…
Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) said he is not “going to lie” on behalf of the Republican Party when asked why he decided to not seek reelection.
Buck, who announced last November that he will not be running for reelection, said on NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday” that while his goals for the country have not changed, the world around him “has changed dramatically.”
“We’ve gone from a time when the Tea Party stood for conservative principles, for constitutional principles, to a time where the [populists] have taken over the Republican Party and are really advocating things that I believe are very dangerous,” he told host Chris Stirewalt in an interview that aired Sunday…
Followup regarding the GoFundMe set up to raise funds to pay Trump’s legal bills:
It may be shut down, because even if it is legit, it has been set up to help someone evade legal punishment.
Hello readers of The Infinite Thread. We reached the limit of 500 comments in the previous chapter, and now the thread has automatically rolled over to begin again at comment number 1.
For the convenience of readers, here are a few links back to the previous group of 500 comments:
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2024/01/07/infinite-thread-xxx/comment-page-4/#comment-2212146
Elena Cardone created a GoFundMe trying to (not joking) raise $355 million dollars to pay for Trump’s legal judgements.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2024/01/07/infinite-thread-xxx/comment-page-4/#comment-2212143
House Republicans constructing new border bill without foreign aid
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2024/01/07/infinite-thread-xxx/comment-page-4/#comment-2212141
Trump owes a total of $542 million … for now. The interest fees are still increasing: [list at the link]
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2024/01/07/infinite-thread-xxx/comment-page-4/#comment-2212108
Georgia senator vows to protect girl, but then runs away after learning she is trans
Man, who ran for Texas House seat in 2022, and wife found guilty on Jan. 6 riot charges
I would like to take this opportunity to remind people that the 14th amendment is not exclusive to the orange one.
GOP conspiracy crumbles, Johnson bumbles, plus Gaetz’s latest stumbles
From tomh in previous thread, #498
“Quote of the day:
“My father built the skyline of New York City: And this is the thanks he gets….
Eric Trump on Fox News.”
Even if he did (he didn’t), he (and you) did it fraudulently. That’s the point.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/judge-engoron-scorches-trumps-ass
Alexei Navalny’s death is confirmed, family calls for immediate return of his body
Video of Biden speaking is available at the link.
Ukrainian forces withdrawing from key city of Avdiivka
It marks the most high-profile retreat for Kyiv’s forces since Russia’s capture of Bakhmut. A lack of military aid has forced Ukrainian commanders to ration ammunition.
Dallas Morning News
Judge rejects AG Ken Paxton’s bid to dismiss securities fraud case
By Philip Jankowski / Feb 16, 2024
Fox News hyped a flimsy report that made dubious claims about Joe Biden. The FBI just arrested the informant who falsified the information.
Many video segments, and more details are available at the link.
In addition to Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Martha MacCallum, Ainsley Earhardt, Rachel Campos-Duffy, all of the Fox & Friends hosts, Will Cain, and Jesse Watters promoted the lies dozens of times on a daily basis for months. None of the Fox hosts have aired corrections. In other words, Fox News viewers may not know that the foundation of the House Republican’s investigation has crumbled.
Followup to comment 10.
Sean Hannity did not apologize, but he did react:
EU seizes $130m assets linked to money laundering in Lebanon
Election Law Blog
In Trump Immunity Case at SCOTUS, Alabama and 21 States Ask for Stay Because of “Speculation,” “True or Not,” That Trump Election Subversion Prosecution “was Calculated to Silence or Imprison President Biden’s Political Rival”
Rick Hasen / February 16, 2024
From the brief of Alabama and 21 other states (full text)
Good news, the polls are off by quite a bit:
Link
Good News:
Link
DOJ: Confiscated Russian funds will support Ukraine — via Estonia
It is the first time the U.S. will transfer funds to a foreign ally for the explicit purpose of assisting Ukraine and comes as foreign aid for the embattled nation has stalled in Congress.
Backdoor ways to arm Ukraine:
RUSSIA – Putin Goes Bananas Over USA Arms Deal as Ukraine Ecuador Swap Deepens Economic Cold War
Santos hits Kimmel with suit over alleged misuse of Cameo videos, claiming ‘fraud’
I have opinions on how that suit is going to go.
Supreme Court of Canada unanimously affirms Indigenous jurisdiction over child welfare (Feb 9)
Trump hawks $399 branded shoes at ‘Sneaker Con,’ a day after a $355 million ruling against him
Trump opts against Supreme Court appeal on civil immunity claim over Jan. 6 lawsuits
Japanese American prison camp site in Colorado is now a national park
Farron Cousins at ‘Farron Balanced’ at Youtube has an idea why the polls are skewed. The polls start off by checking the wossname, when you count all people living in USA. Then they check how many registered Democrats and Republicans that live in those states, before they start polling.
But the last… wossname, I am not an English speaker goddammit, was before the pandemic. Since then, a disproportionate number of Republicans have died, för reasons we all know (they still keep dying, because COVID is still here, and even the ‘mild’ variants are twice as deadly as the flu).
Farron Cousins is saying, the way the polls are designed they have not corrected for the demographic shift and are acting on obsolete data.
I do not know the nuts and bolts of how polls are designed (and it is 41 years since I took a course in statistics) so I have to trust Cousins is processing the numbers right.
But this could help explaining the discrepancy between polls and election results.
@23 “census”
re Reginald Selkirk @20: Sneaker CON indeed!! I bet the sneakers are almost as good as tRump Steaks or tRrump University. And I wonder if the “Victory47” cologne has the stink that reportedly surrounds the former president?
Reginald Selkirk @ 24 Thanks.
You deserve some ‘good vibes’
This Youtube video is 48 minutes long. It is more upbeat than most ‘SCP Foundation’ tales.
SCP-4043 │ Gaia │ Archon │ XK-class Scenario (Ft. Lumi)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=pABLVrH2NcE
WaPo:
Texas builds base near border where the state is quarreling with feds
By Ben Brasch / February 17, 2024
Examining viruses that can help ‘dial up’ carbon capture in the sea
.https://phys.org/news/2024-02-viruses-dial-carbon-capture-sea.html
Cartoon: He gets us
Mike Johnson pretends to care about Navalny while having raked in the rubles.
That article leaves too many questions unanswered, and not enough proof of Mike Johnson’s connections to funding from Russians is provided. Still, it does look like a worthy target for investigation.
High-altitude winds over Washington soared to 265 mph, near record.
Washington Post link
Propelled by the jet stream, at least two flights departing from hubs in the Mid-Atlantic reached speeds over 800 mph.
Wind and weather charts are available at the link.
“Goodbye to my fearless friend,” Alexei Navalny, by Michael McFaul
Washington Post link
Over 400 detained in Russia as country mourns the death of Alexei Navalny
Hundreds of people across Russian cities streamed to makeshift memorials and vigils for victims of political repression, following news of Navalny’s death in an Arctic penal colony.
An ordinary squirt of canned air achieves supersonic speeds – engineer spots telltale shock diamonds
‘How will he pay?’ and other reactions to that $355 million verdict against Trump
‘Our First Death On The Ultimate World Cruise’: Passenger Found Dead Aboard Nine-Month Royal Caribbean Cruise
Article does not address the questions I would have asked:
Does the corpse get to complete the journey? Or is there a partial refund?
Lasers smaller than a human hair emit doughnut-shaped light
Link
J.D. Vance goes abroad to prove he is a ‘useful idiot’
Republican opponent of US aid to Ukraine brings his case to an international conference
PM says Denmark to donate all its artillery to Ukraine
Pavel: Czechia can deliver 800,000 shells to Ukraine if allied financing secured
Ukraine shoots down 4 Russian fighter jets in weekend killstreak, says air force chief
Ah, religion.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/18/hindu-nationalists-court-lion-named-after-muslim-emperor-india
Back-to-back storms set to hit an already drenched California, raising the flood threat
@John Morales #44:
The Hindu epic Ramayana’s plot involves Sita getting abducted by a foreign ruler and imprisoned in a garden until her partner Rama rescues her. Sita’s faithful chastity was a central element. Mating would be a hangup.
Later in the article:
Oh come on!
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/everyday/what-its-like-to-be-non-binary-and-have-a-feminine-body/103416006
As they note in this good article, they don’t owe anyone androgyny.
Aopologies if already posted but via Aussie ABC :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-18/alexei-navalny-impact-on-vladimir-putin-analysis/103480870
Just some stunning ogorgoeous images of of our homeworld here taken by a sapcecraft named fotr a legendary Greek hero now on its way to our Moon :
https://www.space.com/intuitive-machines-odysseus-moon-lander-first-photos
@48: “He’ll go down in history as nothing but a poisoner.”
Maybe not, he’s been mixing it up lately. It was windows for a while, and then an exploding airplane.
New Survey of Scholars Finds Lincoln Remains America’s Greatest President
And the occasional reminder:
A shallow lake in Canada could point to the origin of life on Earth
The U.S. military says it struck a Houthi underwater vessel in the Red Sea
Paper Nautiluses Hitch A Ride On Jellyfish To Protect Their Eggs
Frozen embryos are ‘children,’ Alabama Supreme Court rules
Court Opinion, p37 Chief Justice (pdf)
MoDOT claims unborn baby killed in crash as an employee
@55: Conservatives’ efforts to bring back child labor set a new mark.
Three Finns have fun with explosives.
“How hard it is to explode a hole in concrete wall?”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=rUKTIt5GQrM
Good news, but very technical.
“Targeting ‘undruggable’ proteins promises new approach for treating neurodegenerative diseases”
.https://phys.org/news/2024-02-undruggable-proteins-approach-neurodegenerative-diseases.html
Obama Wasn’t The First Black President, According to Persistent Theories
Get Ready to Grow Purple Tomatoes This Summer
Ukraine says it shot down 2 more Russian fighter jets — extending its streak to 6 in just 3 days
John Oliver just made Clarence Thomas an offer he thinks the SCOTUS judge can’t refuse
For fuck sake… WHAT THE HELL IS WITH RELGION AND THE GLORIFICATION OF VIRGINITY!? How did sex, a pleasurable act that perpetuates the species, become something dirty, filthy, and otherwise “unholy” to the magical beings that supposedly rule our universe?
And why do religious men like watching pron so much? Methinks the Xians doth protest too much.
Q&A: Study finds women more likely than men to suffer from long COVID
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-02-qa-women-men-covid.html
“Artificial Intelligence played Wargames. The result isn’t reassuring.”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=mh_hNvGTmIg
@Akira MacKenzie #63:
Different misogyny.
Prince Rama had married Sita at the beginning and was about to be crowned. Someone called in a favor to exile him for 14 years. Rama and Sita had been married 13 years living in wilderness by the time she was abducted. She was utterly devoted to Rama and refused the captor’s “one year to marry me or I’ll eat you (literally)” proposal for nearly the whole year. Rama kills the captor and rescues her.
Wikipedia – Ramayana
Wikipedia – Sita, Second Exile
Some campaign news tidbits, as summarized by Steve Benen:
Link
In other news, love those tomatoes pictured at the link in comment 60.
Quoted in comment 55:
So, God can righteously destroy human life. And God may have arranged for the destruction of frozen embryos in Alabama?
Liz Cheney:
The Hill:
Pew Research Center:
Commentary:
Link
Kamala Harris made a persuasive case that the war in Ukraine has been an “utter failure for Russia.” It’s a case Republicans should take seriously.
Republican lawmakers do not deal in logic, good judgement, or facts. They listen to their cult leader, Hair Orange Furor the Demented One. And he has a personal beef with Ukraine.
YouTube link to ten minute video.
Followup to Reginald @62.
Link
The Lies Are Very Obvious
Link
Posted by readers of the article:
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Gov. Tony Evers signs new election maps, ending Wisconsin Republicans’ grip on legislative power
Molly Beck, Eva Wen, and Andrew Hahn / 2/19/24
Capital One to buy Discover
The Billionaire Bully Who Wants to Turn Texas Into a Christian Theocracy
An hour and a half of Russian military hustory.
“The Horrible History of Russian Fighter Planes ”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ny4AYOv-nUk
@68 Lynna
So don’t protest. Rally to Genocide Joe no matter how high the piles of human skulls are. Got it.
If this is your strategy for responding to horrific Biden policies you deserve a thrashing in November.
Never Before Seen Viral Organisms Found Inside Our Bodies – “Obelisks”
(Anton Petrov shares my taste for trying to keep up with a lot of sciences)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=oFxomyt4oDA
Winthrop University Makes History with Inaugural Cornhole Team
Link
Beholder @ 78
About backing Biden…
The American muslims have realised they have leverage, and are using it. They want real changes in the middle east policies and are holding Joe Biden over a barrel to get it.
From their point of view Democratic presidents have proven disappointing again and again.
Yes I know Trump is much, much worse but the genocide in Gaza is happening right now and the election is in November. From the point of the muslims their reaction is rational, after decades of disappointments. Good luck telling them otherwise, this revolt has been long time coming.
Liz Cheney Says House Speaker Mike Johnson Should Risk His Job To Aid Ukraine | HuffPost Latest News
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/liz-cheney-mike-johnson-ukraine-russia_n_65d30c89e4b0ce1bdc3a2302
I can’t believe she is saying something praiseworthy.
Behold, The Terrible AI Cartoon That Explains The World As MAGA Sees It
https://www.wonkette.com/p/behold-the-terrible-ai-cartoon-that
Lots of screen grabs from the video are available at the link, so you can see for yourself.
Washington Post:
Large administrative regions.
Russia never disappoints🫡
.https://youtube.com/shorts/hQwlbpOGDD
The Kiruna municipality they mention mostly consists of alpine tundra with nearly all people living in a mining town. The good part is, they have a rocket launch site because there is zero risk of the spent rockets hitting anyone.
Western Australia is so far from the more populated states in the east it practically functions as its own country.
@birgerjohansson #77:
That history only mentions it in passing then stops short of the 1960s when it flew.
BlueJay – How to Win the Cold War, Tupalev Tu-22 (22:26 to 26:00)
Measles erupts in Florida school where 11% of kids are unvaccinated
Astronomers find what may be the universe’s brightest object with a black hole devouring a sun a day
Another video from Vlad Vexler: VLAD REACTS: Trump on Navalny
I adduce it because in his preamble he clarifies a concept that eludes many people and I think it’s an important one, so I’ve put the work in.
Here’s my slightly summarised transcribed excerpt of that concept. I have taken the liberty to add punctuation and adjust it for readability, since Vlad is one of those YouTubers who speaks extemporaneously though rather slowly, and what he says is quite dense in meaning but somewhat stream-of-consciousness.
Man who authorities say bragged of ‘kinda’ breaking Pelosi sign on Jan. 6 arrested
Trump mentions Navalny … but that’s it
Surprise, it’s all about him.
Widow, ex-prime minister and former police chief indicted in 2021 assassination of Haiti’s president
ArsTechnica – Air Canada must honor refund policy invented by airline’s chatbot
Improving health for minorities:
Researchers optimize genetic tests for diverse populations to tackle health disparities.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-02-optimize-genetic-diverse-populations-tackle.html
Making things worse for minorities:
“Researchers find worsening distress among Latinos in the United States”
.https://phys.org/news/2024-02-worsening-distress-latinos-states.html
Democrats värdering Republicans in the badger state.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wisconsin-redistricting_n_65d3719ce4b043f1c0ac1013
Dang. It was intended to be a pun, but spell check altered “badgering” to a swedish word.
Damn you, spell check, damn you to hell!
.
Biology.
“Common plant (Carolina azolla) could help reduce food insecurity, researchers find”
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-common-food-insecurity.html
“Anoxic marine basins are among the best candidates for deep-sea carbon sequestration, say scientists”
.https://phys.org/news/2024-02-anoxic-marine-basins-candidates-deep.html
OK, I don’t think much of The Lincoln Project, but this did amuse me.
“Fred” – The Lincoln Project goes AI – [YouTube, 1m15s]
CA7746 @94, perhaps you too will appreciate Peter Watts’ take on that:
https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=10977
—
Reginald @92, that’s a rather simplistic take; cf. my #90 — the reference is later on in the video, where Vlad talks about an algorithmic jump (linkage) in political utterances.
Fwd: New model identifies drugs that shouldn’t be taken together
.https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-02-drugs-shouldnt.html
Colorado man dies after being bitten by pet Gila monster
“Junk DNA in birds may hold key to safe, efficient gene therapy”
.https://phys.org/news/2024-02-junk-dna-birds-key-safe.html
“Fasting-like diet lowers risk factors for disease, reduces biological age in humans: Study”
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-02-fasting-diet-lowers-factors-disease.html
Followup to Reginald @92.
Link
https://www.threads.net/@maddowmaddow/post/C3ibDRwubyM
Video at the link.
Followup to comments 92 and 103.
Donald Trump spent Presidents Day in full meltdown mode
I didn’t post the all-caps screeds. Those are available at the link. Here’s a snippet that reveals the general tenor of the screeds:
Link
Sabine Hossenfelder:
“Good News: Small Nuclear Thorium Reactors are Coming to Europe.”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Tf4XahwtJUk
A few questions for engineers:
-would standardised nuclear powerplants be significantly cheaper than the unique snowflake powerplants or is this wishful thinking?
Also, if huge battery parks really become affordable around 2030, can this solve most of the problems with the intermittent solar and wind power production? (I am making the assumption that legacy coal/oil powerplants are kept in reserve for extreme shortfall events)
Nazis marched through downtown Nashville:
Link
Video at the link. The Neo-Nazis in the video also shouted homophobic slurs.
Cartoon: Using the First Amendment to end the First Amendment
Photo of Mike and Trump available at the link. Two insufferable, smug assholes sharing a moment at Mar-a-Lago.
Link
RFK Jr. Super PAC Puts Promoters of Conspiracy Theories on the Payroll
The list includes a 9/11 truther and election denialists.
More details about the doofuses and dunderheads the Super PAC hired are available at the link.
Link
You’ll Never Guess What Anti-Vaxxers Think Alexei Navalny Died From
Okay, fine, you absolutely will.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/youll-never-guess-what-anti-vaxxers
Bullet-riddled body found in Spain was Russian defector, Ukraine says.
Washington Post link
One of my parents came to me once a long time ago wanting to challenge the theory of evolution. I don’t remember precisely what the challenge was but within about 20 seconds they had dashed off with a “stop attacking my faith!”.
They came to me, and acted like my response was an attack. This isn’t quite the same but here’s a legislator who thinks it’s an attack to be asked questions about support by someone and their child.
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/02/gop-lawmaker-runs-away-when-he-finds-out-he-was-talking-to-an-8-year-old-trans-girl/
There’s something here that needs calling out.
Re: Lynna, OM @ #108…
Grumble… All these people who think it was GRANDparents who were involved in WW2. My FATHER was in the Maritime Service training ships engineers on the new power systems being installed in ships, and my late wife’s father was in the Army training pilot cadets on aircraft recognition.
If it comes that, my late wife had an UNCLE who was a pilot in the Lafayette Escadrille in WW1.
If you get back to great-grandparents, we’re talking US Civil War.
Lynna… @ # 103 quoting Benen quoting Pelosi: … what does Putin have on Donald Trump that he always has to be beholden to him, his buddy in vileness? … I don’t know what [Putin] has on [Trump], but I think it’s probably financial.
I often wonder why politicians and “pundits” across the board so frequently speculate about that but so rarely mention what seems to me the most obvious scenario. Before they collapsed, Trump’s chain of casinos earned the largest fine then imposed by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement for failing to use the bookkeeping methods required to detect money laundering, with the foremost unquestioned and never-found “person of interest” in that case bearing the name of “Ivanov”.
We should also note that many sources report considerable overlap between Russian intelligence services and Russian organized crime – and that the former in particular, unlike the Trump Org, have a reputation for thorough and meticulous record-keeping. (Cue Dragnet theme music.)
Some lighter drama.
“LNSM Turns 10: Seth Meyer’s Baby Was Delivered in His Lobby”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=W7qHP5tmb6U
I post this because -despite the stereotypes about New Yorkers- his neighbors were very helpful. 😊
Biden administration to impose major sanctions to hold Russia accountable for Navalny’s death
President Joe Biden said that the sanctions package will be announced on Friday, the day before the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
@Brony #115:
Same story as just before the thread rolled over. Linked here at #2. Similar text.
The rest of your comment was novel ofc. Good delivery.
Rep. Tim Burchett falsely blamed an “illegal alien” for the Kansas City Super Bowl parade shooting. The Republican is now backpedaling, but not well.
Excerpt from Ron Filipkowski’s summary:
Ah, an excellent example of an elected Republican official.
Link
Link
See also: Trump allies prepare to infuse ‘Christian nationalism’ in second administration
Spearheading the effort is Russell Vought, president of The Center for Renewing America, part of a conservative consortium preparing for Trump’s return to power.
Oh FFS.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/west-virginia-house-gonna-put-those
Followup to comment 123.
Christian Nationalists trying to hide their agenda … and failing.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-team-not-preparing-to-turn
Re: Lynna, OM @ #124…
Is eating a “bodily function”? If so…there go all the cook books.
At least the tories are true to their brand.
“Michael Gove failed to register hospitality with donor whose firm he referred for PPE contracts” | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/20/michael-gove-failed-to-register-hospitality-from-donor-whose-firm-he-referred-for-ppe-contracts
Bible gamers:
AARP The Magazine, February/March 2024, p. 89 BrainGames:
The answer is allegedly “Cat”, bit I direct your attention to Ep.Jer.1, 21
whheydt @126. Good point. LOL
In other news:
Link
Parkland survivor trolls Trump’s new sneaker venture by buying domain and directing visitors to gun safety site
Followup to comment 123.
Link
Lynna OM @ 129
Being from Europe I do not think of Beyoncé as ‘black’, she could easily be from Southern Asia like KIA. Merican society -having been obsessed with race since goddamn Cotton Mather- just has to pigeonhole everyone to race as well as musical category.
.
Aaargh, time for a review of another of those films.
“GAM444 Messiah – Netflix Episodes 3 & 4 ”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=4xxcFrE82Uk
The christians behind the film had good intentions – they wanted to criticize the cruel border policies of Trump, but they screwed up big, as becomes evident if you listen to this podcast.
2 men charged with murder in Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade shooting
Previously two minors had been charged in the deadly violence the officials have said started as a dispute between several people.
LockBit digital gang disrupted by international law enforcement in ‘Operation Cronos’
re Lynna @133: So staring is now a reason to shoot people?!! MURRICA!!!
@134
After years of losing, it’s finally feds’ turn to troll ransomware group
johnson @135, yeah that “he’s looking at me” excuse for shooting someone really struck me too. Petty, childish. Except they had guns. They killed or injured many people.
Ron DeSantis pretends he isn’t at fault for book ban he signed into law
Politico:
Mask mandates? Supreme Court rejects appeal from Marjorie Taylor Greene, GOP lawmakers
Alito says he was right to fear that opponents of gay marriage would be treated as bigots
Yes, and…? What exactly is his objection to calling bigots bigots? Does he think that is worse than being denied basic human rights?
re Reginald Selkirk @141: Doncha know that the REAL bigots are the people who call bigots bigots?
‘Extremely rare event:’ Satellite images show lake formed in famously dry Death Valley
Kayakers and nature lovers are flocking to Death Valley National Park in California to enjoy something exceedingly rare at one of the driest places in the United States: Water.
A temporary lake has bubbled up in the park’s Badwater Basin, which lies 282 feet below sea level. What is typically a dry salt flat at the bottom of Death Valley has for months been teeming with water after record rains and flooding have battered eastern California since August…
Former Marine and crypto lawyer John Deaton to challenge Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren
Good luck with that, crypto-bro.
Re: #140
According to The Hill Marjorie Taylor Greene racked up over $100,000 in fines for refusing to wear a mask on the floor of Congress during the pandemic. She had this to say: “Even though I was fined over $100,000 by Pelosi, I wouldn’t change a thing,” she said. Genius.
Your fingerprints can be recreated from the sounds made when you swipe on a touchscreen — Chinese and US researchers show new side channel can reproduce fingerprints to enable attacks
This is really stretching my ability to believe. I will keep my eyes out for debunking articles.
Steve Shives at Youtube:
“What About Guns For Marginalized People?”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=S9IALTqQ4ck
Birds:
Oriental pied hornbills found to have object permanence levels comparable to apes
.https://phys.org/news/2024-02-pied-hornbills-permanence-apes.html
Reginald @146, excellent!
That’s the proper attitude.
‘Common practice’ to take leftovers’, says cleaner sacked over tuna sandwich | Employment tribunals | The Guardian
.https://www.theguardian.com/law/2024/feb/20/common-practice-to-take-leftovers-says-cleaner-sacked-over-tuna-sandwich
-Yes, but the commoners have no business acting like their betters ! MAGA! Long live Boris Johnson! (Sarcasm)
BuzzFeed: People Revealed The Creepiest, Cult-Like Towns Across The United States, And Personally, I’d Take Note Of These
Reginald Selkirk @ 151: I Don’t know. I’ve been to some of those towns, and didn’t find them creepy at all. But I’m an old white guy who no longer has long hippie hair. I live in a similar town now, population less than 2000, and have for 20 years. I won’t go to the local all night gas station, since it’s the local hangout of the MAGA and MAGA adjacent. They don’t creep me out; I just worry I’ll get into a pointless, heated argument when I overhear one of them say something nasty and stupid, which is almost a guaranteed occurrence. But right across the square from this place is The Common Market, a small grocery store with a co-op vibe, owned and run by our friend Joyce, a life-long resident who recently turned 70, who’s openly gay. Everyone in town knows and likes her, including most of those bigots at the BP. We have a neighbor right across the street who has a confederate flag next to a Trump flag hanging in her yard, and we have a BLM and Rainbow flag hanging in ours. I think, like the country as a whole, even in our little town, the majority of folks live in the kind, reality-based universe, but the significant minority is loud and out.
@141 Reginald Selkirk
“Does he think that is worse than being denied basic human rights?”
He thinks it is a denial of his basic human rights. To Alito and his ilk, the most fundamental human right is the right to deny rights to those less powerful.
Nesting Doll Stars Proposed as Solution to General Relativity
GODDAMMIT! 🤯
The roof of Umeå fire station just collapsed!
There has been a lot of snow, but that is not unusual, just this morning I saw people showelling snow from the roof of another big building, people know how to deal with snow. When building anything over here, the strength of roofs are calculated to stand up to bad winters. I can only speculate that the contractor screwed up badly.
I expect Alito might be upset that people using the n word are called bigots.
Not that long ago, people were oppressed just for opposing being ‘replaced’ by Jews. Where will this anti-bigot bigotry end? Soon, a patriot may no longer be able to fly the Confederate battle flag without ni…minorities whining.
@ 141
“Does he think that is worse than being denied basic human rights?”
That’s just the trouble, Alito doesn’t think sexual freedom is a “human right” at all. He believes that his deity wrote sexual ethics in stone: No polyamory (unless you are a man, until we change our mind in the New Testament), no butt-or-mouth-stuff, no loving anyone with the same genitals, and no women on top. He thinks his god will send your magical ghost to Hell for doing or even thinking otherwise. To him, LGBTQ people are either deluded or evil and efforts to legitimatize their existence and the sex acts involved will lead humanity to bedlam and barbarism.
Therefore, anyone who oppose this “threat” is good and deserves the protection of the law. Trying to make them obey the same rules that the rest of society is expected to play be, thus aiding and abiding perversion and blasphemy, is therefore “persecution.”
That’s what you are dealing with. Now, act accordingly.
NASA’s New Horizons Discovered a Large Surprise in The Kuiper Belt
Astronomical unit
@ 158
I’m sure that’s what the Mi-Go WANT you to think!
Trident missile test fails for second time in a row
“Are American voters really as polarized as they seem? Research suggests ‘yes'”
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-american-voters-polarized.html
A very typical feline.
https://share.temu.com/GcFoFvzqOZA
Estonia thwarts ‘shadow war’ attack, Prime Minister Kaja Kallas tells CNN
Sparring GOP factions now plan 2 conventions at opposite ends of state
How problematic is the Senate GOP’s ‘carpetbagger’ problem?
There’s a common thread tying together several Republican U.S. Senate candidates this year: They have suspect ties to the states they’re running in.
Donald Trump has claimed to be the pillar of patriotism. He also routinely condemns the U.S. as “evil,” “corrupt” and “crooked.” The contradiction matters.
Associated Press:
Mesquite, Texas is a Dallas suburb.
Excerpts from Biden’s speech:
Russia’s Staggering Success In Duping Willing Republicans And Right Wing Media
Asha Rangappa (former FBI special agent, lawyer):
Tourist shop fined for selling ‘Yakutat alpaca’ products
Cartoon: The Trump sneakers
Cartoon: Mike Luckovich on the emperor’s new sneakers
A few new details have emerged about Tucker Carlson’s recent visit to Russia:
Link
Re: Lynna, OM @ #164…
And don’t forget that Sen. Tuberville–officially a senator from Alabama–apparently spends most of his “home” time living in Florida.
Re: Lynna, OM @ #170…
I know of a store in Albany, CA that has a cart escalator…and has had for at least the last 15 years.
Link
They do this at Aldi stores here in the USA.
whheydt @171, good point.
whheydt @172, yep. Lots of people trolled Tucker Carlson with facts about their local stores having cart escalators. Tucker was/is ignorant. His “I’m amazed and delighted” face in the video was just asking for a brutal debunking.
In other news about people saying crazy shit and then being called on it:
Link
“Study of usefulness of lockdowns during epidemics identifies alternate solution”
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-02-usefulness-lockdowns-epidemics-alternate-solution.html
Neuroscientists explore how the brain makes decisions
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-02-neuroscientists-explore-brain-decisions.html
The question is, how does the brain do good decisions? “Horse paste is a cure, nuke the hurricane, yippee!!”
Sabine Hossenfelder:
“Chinese Maglev Train breaks Speed Record: Is this the Future of Transportaion?”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=C1Kw5TtCKWU
Trump Being Persecuted Just Like Navalny, Minus The Poisoning And Mysterious Death
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-being-persecuted-just-like
https://www.wonkette.com/p/after-losing-majority-on-pa-school
Oh FFS.
Nikki Haley sides with Alabama Supreme Court on IVF ruling: ‘Embryos, to me, are babies’
The Alabama court’s recent ruling raised concerns among doctors and patients that classifying embryos as children could restrict in-vitro fertilization.
Ukrainian women fighting the Russians:
Link
Alabama Supreme Court chief justice spreads Christian nationalist rhetoric on QAnon conspiracy theorist’s show
Chief Justice Tom Parker’s recent concurring opinion in a case granting rights to embryos drew criticism for invoking religious language.
@ 170
The right will just reply “Deep state deception! It’s all photoshopped and deep fakes designed to impugn the credentials of the world’s only TRUE journalist!” As far as they’re concerned Tucker can tell no lies
Campaign news tidbits, as summarized by Steve Benen:
21 Starbucks Stores Plan To Form Unions In 1-Day Blitz
The union Workers United has organized roughly 400 stores, but is locked in a bitter bargaining fight with the coffee chain.
GOP continues bogus ‘investigation’ after star witness turns out to be Russian mole
More at the link, including the sawdust photo. The sawdust is tan in color and sitting on a table saw. Nevertheless, Sean Hannity of Fox News was convinced it was cocaine. JFC.
Biden is forgiving another $1.2 billion in student loan debt
Is that somehow different from his “I’m confused and constipated” face? That’s the only one I’ve seen.
Reginals, seek and you shall find: https://medium.com/indian-thoughts/tucker-carlsons-4-most-terrifying-facial-expressions-a3f3e7b12ca3
“On his popular evening opinion show, Tucker Carlson Tonight, I’ve noticed that he is able to cycle through only 5 facial expressions: anger, indignation, satisfaction, glee, and concern (all pictured above in the title image). He uses all of them effectively, at various intervals, to further his slippery arguments.1 Nov 2021”
“The IVF ruling means, in Alabama, life begins when a man notices his first cousin is hot.”
Canada set to help bankroll massive ammunition shipments to Ukraine: sources
birgerjohansson @176
That study makes the unwarranted assumption that subsequent COVID infections will be milder than the first, we already have plenty of evidence that is not so. It also completely ignores the long term damage that is caused by micro clots all over the body, we don’t know what effect repeated infections will have, but it is not at all unreasonable to suggest that repeated infections may lead to cumulative damage. We already know that even mild infections increases the rate of new diagnoses of heart disease, kidney disease and diabetes.
The Israeli Scientist Who Is Growing Testicles in a Lab
Meet the Super DVD: Scientists Develop Massive 1 Petabit Optical Disk
in other words, 125 Terabytes
Black Man Running for NC Governor Says Black People Owe Reparations, but Wait.. There’s More Foolishness
I see. Why did they need to stand up and fight, and whom did they stand up against?
Folow-up to #55:
The Alabama SC ruling also referred to frozen embryos as “extrauterine children”.
Redefined “child” so thoroughly, they added a qualifier for children NOT in a uterus!
Re: Sky Captain @ #197…
Now if they’d just decide that “postuterine children” must get state help where needed….
How guns keep people safe: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/21/michigan-man-pleads-not-guilty-daughter-shooting
Fact checking Trump once again. This factchecking is all recent. It is in response to Trump’s town hall on Fox News yesterday:
Link
See also: https://twitter.com/MikeSington/status/1760288062003986619
Followup to comments 141, 153, 156 and 157.
Discriminators getting discriminated against is the real discrimination!
https://www.wonkette.com/p/justice-alito-is-going-to-need-his
Posted by a reader of the article:
It was the judge who excused three jurors.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/didnt-we-say-james-comer-was-literally
Unvaccinated Florida kids exposed to measles can skip quarantine, officials say
Highlighting by me for effect.
1) Yes, this asshole again.
2) An idiotic thing to say when you have a low vaccination rate and an active outbreak.
3) Let’s save money by causing a wider measles outbreak? Apparently he knows as much about economics as he does about medicine.
birgerjohansson @178, Sabine does not think so.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)
Followup to comment 202.
Josh Marshall:
Arizona DA says she won’t extradite alleged SoHo hotel killer to New York
Reginald @203: preventable sickness! The measles outbreak in Florida is scary. Ladapo is a rightwing quack.
Toms River man faces January 6 charges , wore name on clothes during riot, FBI says
“they’re not sending their best. […] They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us.” – D.J. Trump
@birgerjohansson #178:
That maglev train, the Hyperloop, is a Musk project, which makes it a death trap and doomed stunt to disrupt near-term investment in public services.
The Scathing Atheist just shared: “ScathingAtheist 575: Hovering Jesus Rules Edition” to pateron members, and it should be available for non-members at Youtube in a day or two.
John Morales @ 204 Sky Captain @ 209
A Musk project? OK, waste of money. His one acconplishment – and it is a big one- is investing enough money in reusable rockets to prove the concept. If he had been content with that, he would have been remembered fondly.
Now he is more like a late-age Henry Ford, complaining about the Jews and thinking that Hitler feller is not too bad.
After 34 years the Japanese stock market finally reached a new record high.
This means breaking an important psychological barrier after three decades of the economy in the doldrums.
They even had negative inflation, which is worse than it sounds.
This is a big discovery!
“New class of ‘intramolecular bivalent glue’ could transform cancer drug discovery”
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-class-intramolecular-bivalent-cancer-drug.html
Well yeah, but if Hunter Biden was getting high by huffing sawdust, wouldn’t that be even more nefarious?
Kooks meet at CPAC: Former British PM, Steve Bannon, Farage
“Britain’s ‘deep state’ thwarted my plans”, Liz Truss tells US far-right summit | CPAC | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/21/liz-truss-deep-state-cpac-far-right
SaveAFox:
“Dixie stole my glasses”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=bV7LOpDV2AY
AT&T outage: Thousands report issues with US mobile services
FBI launches probe into church investigated by BBC
US health tech giant Change Healthcare hit by cyberattack
CNN:
My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell must pay $5 million to election data debunker, federal judge confirms
Link
Followup to comment 187 and to KG @214.
About those lines of sawdust:
Washington Post link
That was not a photo of cocaine. That was not a photo taken by Hunter Biden.
Followup to comment 173, a slight correction: Trump is racking up $87,502 per day in post-judgment interest until he pays the judgment, ABC News calculated.
More news about grifters and con artists having to pay up:
My Pillow Guy Mike Lindell must cough up $5 million to the guy who won the “Prove Mike Wrong” challenge by debunking Lindell’s claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
Washington Post link
Link
“Myopic fundamentalism” is a good description. It’s a special kind of cluelessness.
Cartoon: Tom the Dancing Bug takes a Calvinesque and Hobbesian look at crime and punishment
Trump, confused: “We’re gonna have very powerful crime. And you’re gonna be proud of it again.”
https://twitter.com/BidenHQ/status/1760475337912172621
Yep. Trump said exactly that.
Link
The video is available at the link.
India farmers’ protest: X admits to taking down posts and accounts
Freeze peach.
Cartoon: Trump sneakers
Days after Alabama’s Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos are children, a second clinic pauses IVF treatment
Republican: Colleagues were warned informant’s Biden claims were not verified
@231: In case anyone is confused by Ken Buck, a Republican, apparently telling the truth, he is one of the many who will not be seeking reelection this year.
Universal Antivenom for Snake Bites Might Soon Be a Reality
Followup to birgerjohansson @215.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/happy-cpac-here-are-some-new-developments
Sigh. It’s always an ugly mess when the actual details are aired.
And, of course, some conservative dunderheads paid Schlapp’s legal bills.
Outraged Anti-Vaxxers Learn The Red Cross Doesn’t Separate Vaccinated And Unvaccinated Blood
https://www.wonkette.com/p/outraged-anti-vaxxers-learn-the-red
What’s sad is that they actually thought they did this to begin with.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/chris-rufo-has-ties-to-yet-another
Authoritarians standing front and center … and speaking up loudly.
Circuit court blocks judge’s decision to release white supremacist for being ‘selectively prosecuted’
President Biden met with Alexei Navalny’s widow and daughter
Cartoon: Lived in a shoe
Followup to comment 224.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/weird-mike-johnsons-republican-colleagues
This year’s CPAC promises to be a wild ride of off-the-wall bonkers
Town Hall columnist Kurt Schlichter:
Schlichter is the guy that was recruited by Andrew Breitbart to write conservative commentary. “Town Hall” in an online forum/website. Schlichter is featured as a speaker at some CPAC panels.
Scientists find link between brain imbalance and chronic fatigue syndrome
President Joe Biden:
Vice President Kamala Harris:
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley:
What it means for Trump if Cohen testifies and Weisselberg does not
A Swedish team has processed data from the James Webb Space Telescope and found the first evidence of the neutron star in the Large Magellanic Cloud from the supernova four decades ago.
JWST found infrared radiation of ionised argon that is heated up by the nearby neutron star.
Dune: Part Two ‘like no other blockbuster’, say impressed critics
Dune: Part Two Blows Away Your Sandworm-Sized Expectations
US intelligence casts doubt on Israeli claims of UNRWA-Hamas links, report says | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/22/us-intelligence-unrwa-hamas
@ 247
I’ve got tickets for an early IMAX showing this Sunday. I’m so excited!
SaveAFox:
“One red fox, one girl, one orange cat, and a silver fox play in the snow.”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=VYh9HWaE9Hs
@ 244
OK, Joe, Kamala, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO STOP THIS? Right now, all your’ doing is talking. and if the your precious constitution won’t let you step in and punish these states, then maybe it’s time to throw out that outdated piece of James Madison’s TP.
Or, maybe it’s time we got ourselves a new leader and a new government that WILL take on the right-wingers.
Pence group announces $20 million effort to fight GOP’s ‘drift toward populism’
I was led to believe that the founding of this nation was a rather radical endeavor. Did my teachers mislead me?
The private space company Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus moon lander is landing soon – 30 mins or so live oin youtube here.
ReRe#253 The Oddysseus lander is down and talking to Earth. A little nail biting as the lander took its time to communicate.
@Reginald Selkirk #247, Akira MacKenzie #249:
I found a use for the Dune popcorn bucket
No babies detected.
https://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/embryology/index.php/Main_Page
Nikki Haley would be fun to ask about what all this other stuff is. Kinds of baby? Do we reorient to babby as group? Self-destructive language manipulation.
Gotta love movies such as “Dune” — the only possible spoilers are how much it deviates from its source material.
I probably have an odd approach to things Dune. I originally read it as two serials–a 2 part and a 3 part–when it appeared in Analog.
@ 254. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls : Yes. Thanks.
Had me worried for a bit here but seems Odysseus is on the lunar surface and working. Looking forward to the first images & more news coming back :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-23/live-updates-moon-landing-intuitive-machines-odysseus-lander/103494722
Excellent video from Daniil Orain‘s channel (1420):
Russian historian gave a good speech on brainwashing and dictatorship
whheydt, I will concede that there’s a vast untapped mine of ye olde SF stuff that could never have been filmed before modern CGI — LOTR being an ur-example — but which would be blockbuster material if adapted without too much Hollywoodisation.
[Bit of a rant, I pre-emptively beg your understanding, Lynna]
Turns out, the recent adaptation of Foundation was nice visually, but shit as an adaptation.
My fears were fully realised, there, my cautious hopes dashed.
They fucked it up big-time, it was barely even an interpretation. :|
A bit like “I, Robot” or “Starship Troopers”, nobody who cares about the source material would imagine they’re anything other than bad fanfiction inspired by the originals. Bah.
(Still, hope springs ever eternal; who knows, maybe one day an actual adaptation at the level of Jackson’s LOTR — which was imperfect but far above those disasters I’ve mentioned — will be done of some of the classic SF motherlode that the period after WW2 but before the New Wave represents)
Re: John Morales @ #262…
After seeing the first part of the Jackson LoTR, my wife swore she’d never even consider seeing anything by him ever again. (And she didn’t.)
The film version of Starship Troopers missed an interesting subtext of the original book, and one that most people reading the book miss, too. When Heinlein was in the US Navy, the only job ever assigned to Filipinos was to be a Mess Steward. The protagonist in the book is a Filipino. So Heinlein is, among other things, pointing out the stupidity of that practice. (There is a scene late in the book when Rico gives the key clue by mentioning that what was spoken in his home was Tagalog.) At the time ST was filmed, they could have made a more o less corresponding point by making him gay.
whheydt, seems to me we’re both SF tragics; and may I say that from what you write, it seems that your wife was even stricter than I am about congruence to the source material. Which is, um, pretty strict! \
I can respect that.
For me, the worst of that first part was the elision of Glorfindel just to replace him — an Elf-Lord, no less! –with Aragorn’s love interest, but not putting in some mention of Tom Bombadil* also grated a bit. At least they sorta kept the mushrooms scene there for worldbuilding**, quite well done, too.
—
* Tom Bombadil has been omitted in radio adaptations of The Lord of the Rings, the 1978 animated film, and Peter Jackson’s film trilogy, as non-essential to the story.
**The nature of hobbits is no less world-building than the inclusion of that of Tom Bombaldil, a primordial nature power. Middle-Earth is not merely a backdrop, it’s a vast expanse, in both time and space.
Grist – Misplaced Trust: Stolen Indigenous land is the foundation of the land-grant university system. Climate change is its legacy.
^ Very long article with history about the schools listed below.
via Toastie (HighCountryNews):
* Too many links.
Re: John Morales @ #264…
My late wife was not only an SF fan, but she also wrote, starting with Star Trek fanfic (and a Vulcan grammar that is the basis of every modern Vulcan conlang). While not officially acknowledged in the credits, she was the originator of the the term “ni var”. She had about 30 short stories and two novels professionally published.
I think swapping out Glorfindel had more to do with the shortage of female characters in Tolkien. The ones that are there are strong, but the lack is probably due to Tolkien’s late Victorian and Edwardian upbringing. What really grated–to both of us–was the portrayal of Aragorn. He damned well knew that he a good shot at being king of Gondor, and had been raised with that in mind. Playing him as someone agonizing over his future was just right out. I don’t think Jackson could really handle and out and out hero, so he watered Aragorn down to something he (as a director) could handle.
whheydt:
1: wow!
2: wow! (https://fanlore.org/wiki/Vulcan_Language#Fanon_Vulcan_Languages_and_Vulcanisms)
3: still. By far the best adaptation of such an opus as had been filmed, after all the quibbles, no?
Re: John Morales @ #267…
Yes, the person cited in your link is my late wife. If you want to read her own works, take a look at https://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/
“Best…so far” is a pretty low bar. I have heard it claimed that before Lucas made Star Wars, he wanted to film E. E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensmen series, but he couldn’t get the rights. Having seen the travesty that is the anime “version” of that, I can understand why the rights holder would have turned him down. (Just for starters…dying Lensman gives kid–who is Kimbal Kinnison–his lens to carry on the work. That’s wrong on SO many levels. Having van Buskirk be the kids oafish, comedic sidekick doesn’t do anything to help…)
A Point of Honor is on my reread shelf.
In the news (follow-up): An Indian court has ordered a zoo in West Bengal state to change the names of two lions after a hardline Hindu group complained it hurt their religious sentiments.
Surprisingly sensible, for a change.
John Morales@264,
But Tom Bombadil does appear (as “Tim Benzedrine”) in one of the best scenes in Harvard Lampoon’s Bored of the Rings.
StevoR@259,
I heard some NASA spokesdroid saying “Odysseus has taken the Moon!”, which doesn’t quite seem in line with the Outer Space Treaty. He did also say it was “A great step for all of humanity” or something very similar, apparently because it’s the first time a moon landing has been done by a commerical company.
Glued Blades Are the Oldest Ever Found in Europe—and They Weren’t Made by Us
John Morales@262,
The SF I’d most like to see filmed well (and would most dislike to see filmed badly!) are some of Ursula Le Guin’s works. Either her fantasy stuff (the Wizard of Earthsea series) or her (social) science fiction, such as The Left Hand of Darkness – in which all but one of the characters are non-binary, so quite topical, or The Dispossessed (there is a film version of The Lathe of Heaven, available online and OK, but much more could be done with it now).
Lynna, OM@241,
Another CPAC speaker was the blink-and-you-missed-it UK Prime Minister, Liz Truss. I doubt one in ten of the conference attendees knew who she is, but it’s interesting that she’s now willing to appear in the company of fascist criminals such as Steve Bannon, and indeed to banter with him. Apparently she thinks (or at least, claims to think) that her downfall was orchestrated by a “left-wing Deep State”; everyone outside the libertarian bubble thinks it was her beloved “free markets” taking fright at massive unfunded tax cuts, and thus forcing a steep rise in interest rates. She also attacked Joe Biden (in absolutely Republican terms, as “asleep at the wheel” and economically disastrous*, not as enabling genocide); and transgender people.
*The pretence that the US economy has not done remarkably well under Biden is bizarre in itself (whether you think that has actually been down to him and his policies or not), but gobsmacking from one who steered the UK economy straight into the ditch in record time.
KG @274: It would be very easy to make bad interpretations of Le Guin’s work. There’s nuance, and filmmakers are not known for nuance, for the most part. I recall reading this article, written by her, about her feelings on the SciFi Channels adaptation of Earthsea back in 2004: https://slate.com/culture/2004/12/ursula-k-le-guin-on-the-tv-earthsea.html . She did not like it. ‘When I looked over the script, I realized the producers had no understanding of what the books are about and no interest in finding out. All they intended was to use the name Earthsea, and some of the scenes from the books, in a generic McMagic movie with a meaningless plot based on sex and violence.’ She goes on from there.
Fossil reveals 240 million year-old ‘dragon’
Texas judge upholds school’s suspension of black student over dreadlocks
Ex-Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson says photo refutes Biden impeachment witness’s claims
I don’t know whether it’s a “ski mask”, but the lower half of his face is covered. Ski masks tend to cover the entire face, excepting eyes, mouth and sometimes nose. So perhaps it is a scarf or a high collar. The type of covering seems not to be the main issue though.
A New Orleans magician says he made the AI Biden robocall telling people not to vote
Vice is abandoning Vice.com and laying off hundreds
KG @275, Liz Truss sounds tailor-made for the Republican Party in the USA … or for the worldwide authoritarian club. She even promoted tax cuts for the rich. It’s almost like she is a cookie-cutter version of an authoritarian or photo-fascist. Makes me wonder if they have a factory where they grow these dunderheads.
Could be good news in a way: State Republican parties have become intraparty ‘combat zones’
Interesting:
Summarized from https://twitter.com/AudreyFahlberg/status/1761060968468029802
WaPo:
Wisconsin ethics commission refers Trump fundraising arm for prosecution
By Patrick Marley / February 23, 2024
Followup to comment 284.
A lot of Republicans do not know what to say about Alabama Supreme Court decision:
Link
Dodge the issue. Tap dance around the issue. It’s not going away. Republicans and religious whackos have shot themselves in the foot again.
Study: ‘Hexaplex’ vaccine aims to boost flu protection
.https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-02-hexaplex-vaccine-aims-boost-flu.html
While I hate G00GLE, this great image (I think PZ will love it) was posted on all-hat-no-cattle.blogspotDOTcom
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlGGxu59BI5IeJu6EYbRZv257axWJRO82VH6aQPZOy2sG0Ls_r3_un1VDqXOTWBDt4CXy1UI91Brp0xAIDOVIaoeWojS7tgz5Jl_hLETNw_xmFP-r3HA2s_KduR8uhZHrD4oNPlkcC4Dise7xELQ1ODhsGOe69sxZWj5ZOLw7leMGSSaK4uLEnsYRIu6c-/s640/GG5ncafWoAE69ZY.jpeg
cross-posted from Pharyngula
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/tennessee-marriage-equality-challenge
Really bad news.
Wall Street Journal:
Link
Certainly there is no one on that VP list that might be expected to tone Trump down.
Trump says that Israel is the capital of Israel.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1760885608577159563
Video at the link includes Trump reminiscing about calling “the biggest leaders in the whole world.”
Later in that speech, as Aaron Rupar noted, Trump had put his “National Religious Broadcasters” audience to sleep. Link
Washington Post link
Biden announces more than 500 sanctions on Russia after Navalny’s death
The sanctions target those connected to opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s imprisonment, as well as Russia’s financial sector, defense industrial base and procurement networks.
@287: “Hexaplex”
-plex is a Latin suffix, so that should probably be sexaplex.
Link
Russia loses another A-50 command and control plane
“Scathing Atheist 575 – Hovering Jesus Rules Edition”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=4chbgB4Rtqw
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1761040651091615815
Reginald, that’s not how language works.
Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_word
Trump calls on Alabama to protect IVF treatment after court ruling
Right; pretend it wasn’t the Dobbs ruling, enabled by your court appointments, along with your pandering to religious whackaloons, that made this possible.
Make sure you have 2 measles shots before you travel on spring break, says Canada’s top doctor
We all know which third world countries she is worried about…
Is it Science Fiction or Fantasy? A Simple Guide to Genre in Speculative Fiction
Reginald @303, that is quite silly; the author does not get what distinguishes SF from Sci-Fi from Fantasy.
(Quick: do you think Star Wars is SF?)
Anyway… this did amuse me quite a bit.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/23/you-shouldnt-be-doing-that-female-pro-golfer-films-mansplainer-at-driving-range
(video at link)
A better take on it: https://damiengwalter.com/2018/08/07/science-fiction-vs-scifi-vs-sf-what-is-the-true-definition/
Vending machine error reveals secret face image database of college students
Jury finds NRA and Wayne LaPierre liable in civil corruption trial
Jurors deliberated for five days in the civil corruption trial in New York against the National Rifle Association and its executives.
Nikki Haley Desperately Tries to Walk Back Comment on Alabama Embryo Ruling
She considers embryos to be “babies”, but she is OK with them being killed during IVF; so now she needs to explain why she is OK with babies being killed.
Anything that survives being literally frozen is too primitive/undifferentiated to be a human being. Siberian newts might make it, but not a functional human.
As for the dysfunctional Republican party organisations in battleground states, we see the consequences of four decades of increasingly extreme demagoguery:
The new generations no longer understands the message was simply propaganda to manipulate the rubes – these Republicans have become true believers of whatever drivel Tucker Carlson et al spouted. And this demographic are not good at working together for a common cause or long-term thinking, preferring to boost their egos or use party funds to feather their own nests.
Lynna@ 292
Trump and his religious audience were of course affected after Papa Emeritus II struck them with his Secular Haze
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=vyQZ13jobIY
Reginald @309, good grief!
Desperately tries.
suddenly trying.
frantically trying.
controversial stance.
much more gibberish [sic] response.
Et fucking cetera. And that’s just in the title and the first three paragraphs!
Here, for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_language
Oh, right. ‘gibberish’ is a noun, the verb form would be ‘gibbering’.
(In case my noting that ignorant usage was not obvious; doesn’t say much for the writer’s grasp of English)
Ah well, I’m gonna be (heh) desperately, frantically ignored, aren’t I?
The pattern has become clear. Futile, of course.
Should I say it’s glaringly obvious what’s going on? ;)
If someone is spouting gibberish, it should be evident. Quote them.
If someone is frantic, it is evident. Show it.
And so forth. Demonstrate it, instead of just asserting it.
(What sort of person likes “news” articles that tell them what to think is pretty obvious, no?)
I reckon this week’s episodes of Media Watch here :
https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch
Plus
Planet America – Is Navalny’s death a game changer? And Donald Trump’s legal woes (30 mins long) & Planet America Fireside Chat – Nikki Haley’s last stand and the election conspiracies surrounding Taylor Swift – 45 minutes long) make pretty intresting and informative viewing FWIW. Bill Browder’s interview on Putin and Navalny’s murder among other segments.
@ 272.KG :
StevoR@259,
I heard some NASA spokesdroid saying “Odysseus has taken the Moon!”, which doesn’t quite seem in line with the Outer Space Treaty. He did also say it was “A great step for all of humanity” or something very similar, apparently because it’s the first time a moon landing has been done by a commerical company.
Yeah, “taken the moon” how? On its side aparently :
Source : https://www.space.com/intuitive-machines-odysseus-moon-lander-tipped-over
First time a private space company has successfully landed yes – versus the many more public (govt /national) space organisations landings there going back to the Soviet Luna and USA’s ranger craft.. Its a notable milestone certainly but hardly Moon-shattering, true. Still great to see and we can learn and gain from doing this in science and engineering terms.
Well Odysseus is at the correct angle with respect to the Moon’s equator. Too bad it landed on the south pole.
John Morales @ #s 311-313: … gibberish … is a noun … glaringly obvious …
So is “garbage” – “(a) much more garbage response” would seem, in many contexts, utterly cromulent. Last I heard, they called that a noun adjunct, and allow its usage except in the presence of certain aristocrats and deans.
It seems that New Republic piece piled on the adverbs – clumsy, I agree, but a rather venial sin in view of the linguistic and semantic crimes flourishing all around us.
Demonstrate it, instead of just asserting it.
Also, avoid clichés like the plague.
My first paying job, as a teenager, was as a copy editor, and I’ve developed an eye for textual problems ever since. Just about every commenter in every thread here breaks one rule or another, not even counting the typos and spellos. Even our esteemed host has slipped on a grammatical banana peel at times. And my own emissions require regular “oops”es all too often.
Can you imagine the drag on conversation if we all stopped and chided each stumble or mumble? Calling out errors of fact, logic, or ethics (etc) can help us improve our understandings; chewing on each others’ ears ends up just a pointless dominance game.
If you don’t have anything better to contribute than unsolicited Freshman Comp 101 regurgitations, please hold it in and try to find something more substantial/palatable to justify flailing your fingers.
Pierce R. Butler, at least you are feisty. So.
It “seems” so, does it? Not actually the case, then?
Heh. My claim is a bit stronger than that.
Perhaps. But only some commenters routinely and rattle off linkies to stupid, stupid opinion pieces without any due diligence whatsoever; in particular, a certain commenter (whose name you do not mention) prompts me to note when a particular piece loaded language or boring clickbait is remarkably annoying.
Is that what you are trying to insinuate I’m actually doing?
Mmmhmm. As you demonstrate, O so helpfully, right there.
(I’m doing the etc)
So… you talk the talk, dare you walk the walk, Pierce?
(The irony is palpable)
Well, feisty, briefly.
Right. No dominance games, nosiree! Perish the thought!
So… Here’s what a military analyst posted recently:
(Obs, I rate him)
What will happen in year three of the war?
Anders Puck Nielsen
Right. Temporal extent extends.
“If you don’t have anything better to contribute than unsolicited Freshman Comp 101 regurgitations, please hold it in and try to find something more substantial/palatable to justify flailing your fingers.”
I just contributed an analytic take on the Ukraine war.
Therefore, no need to “hold it in”, right?
Words mean things, O person whose first job ever was as a copy editor — but you know that due to that, no?
—
Ah well. Endless thread, not like I’m using up comments to the detriment of others.
Here: “To Infinity and Beyond”: What is Transfinite Induction?
That’s gotta be a better contribution, no?
(Is that, in your estimation, O Pierce R. Butler, something more substantial/palatable to justify flailing my fingers? Or are you even pickier? Not that this is some sort of dominance game, oh no!)
Microplastics Found in Sediment Layers Untouched by Modern Humans
Intuitive Machines: Odysseus Moon lander ‘tipped over on touchdown’
That’s the second tipped moon lander recently. Perhaps they will start making them shorter and flatter, or else give them a self-righting mechanism.
Reuters:
NBC News:
Politico:
The Hill:
Ukraine Update: The two-year anniversary of Putin’s illegal, unprovoked invasion
Cartoon: Trump shopping network
Link
Video commentary from Garrison Hayes is available at the link.
Being Denied a Press Pass at CPAC Was the Best Way to Cover the Conference
John Morales @ #s 318-321 – Thank you for illustrating my point.
John @313:
I’ve long found it amusing (well, admittedly sometimes a bit annoying) that you think there must be something desperate or frantic about someone ignoring you. It never seems to occur to you that, at least now and then, you can be boring. Just like the rest of us!
Rob,
Heh heh. It was a playful reference to #311. Not that subtle, I thought.
—
Pierce, your gratitude is duly accepted, substantial/palatable as it is.
Covid death toll in US likely 16% higher than official tally, study says
Russian authorities hand Navalny’s body to mother for burial.
Washington Post link
Nazis mingle openly at CPAC, spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories and finding allies
Study shows 43% to 58% lower prevalence of long COVID among vaccinated people
Fox News buries Alabama frozen embryo ruling imperiling IVF, giving it just 6 minutes of coverage
Six minutes on Fox News … compare that to 3 hours and 13 minutes on CNN.
US jets intercept high-altitude balloon over Utah
Reginald @338, that’s good news.
In other news,
Link
‘Mind-blowing’ deep sea expedition uncovers more than 100 new species and a gigantic underwater mountain
Stained glass window showing dark-skinned Jesus Christ heading to Memphis museum
Former congressional candidate from Columbus arrested in connection to Jan. 6 Capitol riots
Greene says Judge Engoron ‘should be disrobed’
She just wants another opportunity to show dick pics in the House of Representatives.
re Reginald Selkirk @345:
So she is going to show pics of herself?
CNN projects Trump wins South Carolina primary as Haley vows to stay in race
Trump suggests his mug shot and indictments appeal to Black voters
‘I couldn’t be more offended’: Analyst reacts to Trump’s comments about Black voters
https://rss.app/en/rss-feed/cnn-rss-feed
Face It: This is a Weak Showing for Trump in South Carolina, by Josh Marshall
Cartoon: Deep embryonic thoughts
Washington Post link
Former U.S. spies warned in 2020 that the Hunter Biden scandal had Russian fingerprints. They feel vindicated now.
The Justice Department said this week that informant Alexander Smirnov invented a story about $5 million bribes paid to Joe and Hunter Biden and is also “peddling new lies.”
A response to lies by John Morales.
Out of respect for PZ I’m responding to a guy trolling me here, because he has some sick obsession with me and it’s nothing to do with the original thread in which the lies were told.
I don’t expect this to be of interest to anyone, sorry. X-D
The claim of “misnyming” comes from Morales sharing that he adopted the name “John” because anglos couldn’t pronounce his actual name, which I won’t repeat because he’s apparently decided he’s got a problem with me saying it. That’s it. I called him by his actual name, which he shared, to be respectful.
Meanwhile he’s called me “SoylentBog”, “Stridentbib”, “Fecalbumbulus”, and any other insulting name he can think up. The claim I “misnymed” him is utter projection. In the unlikely event you care, Google and see if you can find me calling Morales anything other than his name (which he shared).
Look at what’s being said here. This loony is claiming that since I left him alone, and let him have the last word in any argument – therefore I deserve to be trolled! The claim here is literally that if you get trolled and don’t feed the trolls – that means you deserve to be trolled!
Utterly insane.
Anyway, that’s it. Sorry for the boring correcting of the record no one cares about. It still needed correcting. Carry on.
[Stand by for a 47 post rebuttal from the obsessive loony. I won’t respond. Again.]
Silentbob, your obsession with me is stupid.
Sorry, but this is too funny not to share! X-D
Apparently, when Morales said to PZ
he meant he’s going to ritualistically chant DARVO at me:
see:
https://proxy.freethought.online/singham/2024/02/23/trumps-vice-presidential-shortlist/#comment-5303241
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2024/02/20/how-much-do-you-hate-the-gays/comment-page-1/#comment-2213223
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2024/01/07/infinite-thread-xxx/comment-page-5/#comment-2213224
Hahahahhahahaha!
Dude, it’s a deal. The only thing you’re allowed to say to me from now on is your mantra. Stick to that and we’re golden. X-D
Silentbob, your obsession with me is exceedingly stupid.
Protected lands provide a last stand for critically endangered vultures in West Africa
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-critically-endangered-vultures-west-africa.html
Cell engineering team links cancer drug to potential therapy for Alzheimer’s disease
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-02-cell-team-links-cancer-drug.html
A respectful comment to disagreements in this thread.
In my long and boring life, I have found that ‘agreeing to disagree’, and not getting provoked by minor disagreements is the road to avoiding high blood pressure.
(There are, of course, exceptions. If someone posts “Hitler was a nice guy” you are not expected to be cool about it)
Japan naked festival: Women join Hadaka Matsuri for first time
Peter Thiel’s $100,000 Offer to Skip College Is More Popular Than Ever
The article is very kind to Peter Thiel. They do not mention the blood of young people thing, nor the libertarian island.
New big f*cking snake discovered: Green anaconda.
You know, anyone who tells people to skip college should first have to wrestle that 200-kg new anaconda.
World’s oldest known decimal point discovered in merchant’s notes from 1440s Italy
Electrons become fractions of themselves in graphene, study finds
Silentbob @353:
You, and everybody else, know perfectly well that you were being the opposite of respectful. You’re a creep.
Source : https://www.space.com/ancient-galaxy-upending-cosmology
Suggestion :
Silentbob just ignore John Morales & John Morales just ignore Silentbob.
Just let each other be and don’t interact. Too hard?
(Actually I do know from personal experience its sometimes really very tough to let things be that you find triggering and absolutley compelled to respond to but still.)
Silentbob you might want to consider when you last posted something on these pages that wasn’t about John Morales, and also what proportion of your posts here are about someone or something else.
Economic analysis video (I do watch boring stuff, no? I speed it up, but):
RUSSIAN Ruble Collapse is Damaging Russian Economy as Import Costs Raise Inflation & Interest Rates
[Re-posted from PZ’s post about the FtB outage.]
Bad news, it seems the domain is out of our control for some time. In the meantime, I’ve set up a temporary workaround: proxy.freethought.online takes advantage of nginx’s ability to act like a proxy, and essentially does a Mallory-in-the-middle attack on FtB’s webserver. All links are re-written on-the-fly, and I’m even able to log into my account and post comments.
I’ll pitch PZ on something less duct-tape and bailing wire, reconfiguring FtB’s servers to work with another domain name, but this’ll do temporarily.
Missouri GOP moves to toss ‘honorary’ member of Ku Klux Klan from governor’s race
French Senate votes to enshrine abortion rights in constitution
Glad to see Free Thought Blogs back online.
In other news: Joe Biden made a direct appeal to Donald Trump, urging him to stop undermining a bipartisan border bill. As a tactical matter, the move made a lot of sense
New York lawmakers approve a new congressional map giving Democrats a slight boost
Good riddance to Mitch McConnell
For Donald Trump, the question is apparently how to impose a national abortion ban, not whether to impose a national abortion ban.
Trump stepping on a rake.
Link
I am not liking that bifurcated model at all. Just more opportunities for far rightwing Republicans to cause chaos and to waste time.
Hungary’s Viktor Orbán to visit former president Donald Trump at Florida home next week
YouTube link to an MSNBC segment that is 10:37 minutes long.
Rachel explains the “hair on fire” aspect. Lawrence O’Donnell offers a calming interpretation of events.
I think Rachel’s analysis that this is “flagrant bullpucky” on the part of conservatives on the Supreme Court is correct.
Reginald @379, that’s not good. It’s not good that the authoritarian doofuses are meeting. It’s not good that some media outlets will make it look like Trump is conducting foreign policy from Mar-a-Lago.
Alzheimer’s Might Not Actually Be a Brain Disease, Expert Reveals
I think it’s good researchers are still looking at this. Beta-amyloid plaques are involved in the brain damage associated with Alzheimer’s. But there has never been valid convincing evidence as to whether these plaques are cause or effect.
Hunter Biden absolutely owned Republicans in his testimony, by Mark Sumner.
Alabama Senate and House pass bills to protect IVF after court ruling
I thought there was an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that zygotes are “persons” and that mishandling them constitutes homicide. I don’t see how mere legislation can override a state supreme court finding of constitutionality. They would need to get that finding overturned somehow.
If they agree that zygotes are “persons”, this legislation is a declaration that murder of “persons” is OK during IVF but not during abortion. Good luck coming up with a rationalization for that.
Biden and Trump both spoke at the border. Only one looked presidential
Ukraine says it has shot down three more Russian warplanes
E.J. Carroll lawyer calls Trump filing a “paper napkin signed by the least trustworthy of borrowers”
More details at the link.
Trump’s lawyers have two days to respond.
How the Pentagon Learned To Use Targeted Ads To Find Its Targets
More than 100 Palestinians were killed trying to get aid
The competing narratives about a deadly aid distribution in Gaza, explained.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-sued-by-business-partners-who
https://www.wonkette.com/p/idiot-mississippi-senator-aint-gonna
People should take note: @371 Hj Hornbeck setup a proxy. I tried it. It works fine. THANK YOU! This is an important step in avoiding all the idiots that want to lie and vent their stupid hate on freethought blogs and others.
I wonder, Hj will you continue to make this available? It appears to update in realtime. That makes it very viable.
Russia will reportedly ban gasoline exports for 6 months to offset ‘excessive’ demand for crude products
Walgreens, CVS to begin selling abortion pill mifepristone in some states. (That’s a Washington Post link.)
U.S. prescription drug market in disarray as ransomware gang attacks.
Washington Post link
Millions of Americans have been affected by delays in obtaining medicine or having to foot the bill without insurance
Thousands turn out to mourn Navalny, defying Putin, at funeral in Moscow
Cries of “Russia without Putin!” “Russia will be free!” and even “Putin is a murderer!” rose from the defiant crowd.
Photos at the link.
Followup to comment 383 (and other comments up-thread concerning Hunter Biden).
Republicans had plenty of time to prepare for Hunter Biden’s deposition. They nevertheless failed, adding to their list of embarrassing duds.
Detroit Free Press link
Excerpt from a longer analysis written by Josh Marshall:
Link
Louisiana’s solution to gun violence? More guns
Judge Hears Final Arguments In Fani Willis DQ Imbroglio
Excerpted from a longer presentation:
CNN does it right, cutting off Trump in the middle of lie-riddled speech
U.S. to launch airdrop campaign over Gaza, Biden says, as humanitarian crisis worsens.
Washington Post link
Texas wildfires live updates: 500 structures destroyed, governor says
The Smokehouse Creek Fire is already the biggest in Texas history and has spread into Oklahoma.
Trump claims he supports IVF access. The think tank behind the next GOP administration is strongly opposed.
Fox News guest decrying “migrant crime” previously arrested after getting violent over a grilled cheese sandwich he deemed too cheesy
Pope says Christianity is “ugly theology” that threatens humanity
Oh wait, I got that wrong. He really said gender theory is ‘ugly ideology’ that threatens humanity.
Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be biggest ever in North America
@326
Netherlands’ Rutte signs security deal in Ukraine
Wisconsin Supreme Court rejects Democrats’ congressional redistricting challenge
Research combines two leading theories to better explain how and why people cooperate with one another
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-combines-theories-people-cooperate.html
Thanks to this man, MDMA could soon be legal for therapy | Life and style | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/feb/29/mdma-therapy-legal-rick-doblin
A gender pay gap? In this economy? | First Dog on the Moon | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2024/feb/28/a-gender-pay-gap-in-this-economy
AI-powered platform could help law enforcement get ahead of designer drugs
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-ai-powered-platform-law-drugs.html
Researchers make precious headway into a genetic form of Alzheimer’s disease”
LRP protects the brain from tau.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-02-precious-headway-genetic-alzheimer-disease.html
How to Eradicate Global Extreme Poverty
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=2DUlYQTrsOs
This is a big pollution problem in third world countries
“New dyeing method could help jeans shrink toxic problem”
-a more sustainable form of indigo!
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-dyeing-method-jeans-toxic-problem.html
Why Eve Wasn’t a Mere “Helper”- ‘ezer’ means “rescuer”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/5Vv-E3n1ZTs
New York Times BUSTED Making Up Oct 7th “Mass R*pes” Reporting
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=HJnRgux2NGs
Trump neurological smoking gun, dementia | Dr. John Gartner
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=vuZw_8mM6xE&
Stephen Colbert ;
Trump Needs $454 Million, Fast | Why Nikki Haley Is Holding On | A “Total Genius” Speaks At CPAC
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=__VX4ugDYy4
“Four more cents! Four more cents!”
🙂
Misogyny: How Adam’s “Rib” is Mistranslated
.https://youtube.com/shorts/FN4pVp6lNJ0
Leaking, exploding abandoned wells wreak havoc in West Texas
Toxic salty water from fracking injection elsewhere.
* Blog ate drafts until I shortened the link and abandoned the quote altogether.
Scathing Atheist 576 – Quantum Leap Day Edition
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=wFGyLYrVrw0
Skepticrat 219 – Sneaker of the Louse Edition
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=uo0Qcjz89V8
Test
Britain: it aint pretty.
“The Conservatives’ economic record since 2010 in 10 charts” | Budget 2024 (spring) | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/02/conservatives-economic-record-budget-deficit-gdp-tax-tory-budget
Swedish home with cold war bunker attracts buyers as Russia fears rise | Sweden | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/02/swedish-home-with-cold-war-bunker-attracts-buyers-as-russia-fears-rise
The headline: UK weather: Met Office issues yellow warning for snow in west of England
Better than a warning for yellow snow. :)
John Morales @ 429 -literally a Frank Zappa title 🙂
.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
“How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler”
The man who tricked Nazi Germany: lessons from the past on how to beat disinformation | Books | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/02/the-man-who-tricked-nazi-germany-lessons-from-the-past-on-how-to-beat-disinformation
“Lauren Boebert’s son robbed a woman WITH A BRAIN TUMOR”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Pd1jjvMqYc8
Rachel Maddow on Threads:
New York Times:
This Year’s CPAC Attendees Believe, More Than Ever, That Trump Is A Savior
Ultimately, CPAC conservatives believe Trump is their best bet to defeat the radical-left “desecrators.”
Thousands defy Putin to attend Navalny’s funeral, by Mark Sumner. The article also includes an update on Ukraine.
Cartoon: Mitch McConnell passes the torch
Liz Cheney talks about the Supreme Court gifting Trump a delay:
Steven T. Dennis posted on X:
Scientists use whey protein sponges to extract gold from computer parts, like motherboards — the process is 50X less expensive than the cost of gold and eco-friendly
Judge blocks Texas attorney general’s demands for LGBT group’s records
2 male humpback whales photographed having sex in scientific breakthrough
Good news:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/federal-judge-blocks-greg-abbotts
https://www.wonkette.com/p/west-virginia-senate-votes-to-expose
U.S. completes first airdrop in Gaza; Israel agrees to cease-fire framework
Aid organizations say that airdrops fall far short of meeting the desperate needs for food and supplies in the enclave.
West Coast braces as blizzard in California’s Sierra Nevada brings nonstop snow, dangerous conditions
The biggest snowstorm impacts parts of Northern California and Nevada causes power outages, freeway closures and avalanche warnings.
Video at the link.
Crossposted from Mano Singham’s blog
“RNC Members Panic As Trump Prepares To Bankrupt The Entire Republican Party”
The orange vampire is draining them, because they were too yellow to impeach him when they had the chance.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=5_djNR0NUnY
Cartoon: McConnell opened the gates
To no one’s surprise, Trump won all the delegates at Michigan’s GOP convention caucuses.
Also to no one’s surprise, Trump won the Idaho GOP caucuses.
And, alas, Trump won the Missouri Republican caucuses.
Nikki Haley picked up her first two Senate endorsements: Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-Alask;, and Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, are backing Haley for the GOP nomination.
Link
As of now, Trump has 247 delegates and Haley has 24.
Excerpts from “How to Picture A.I.” by Jaron Lanier:
New Yorker link
Obviously, I snipped a lot.
Link
Student Toe-Licking Fundraiser Sparks Investigation Into Oklahoma School
“SNL Weekend Update: Trump and Biden Visit Southern Border, McConnell to Step Down”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=X2TUYKfIrOk
14th amendment: “Jamie Raskin drops bad news on Trump”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=12X2eCbTiRU
Study provides rare glimpse of the ringtail, an important but poorly understood predator
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-rare-glimpse-ringtail-important-poorly.html
Novel research approach sheds light on how midsize predators interact
https://phys.org/news/2018-02-approach-midsize-predators-interact.html
Study offers rare long-term analysis of techniques for creating standing dead trees for wildlife habitat
https://phys.org/news/2024-01-rare-term-analysis-techniques-dead.html
Hossenfelder:
New approach to quantum computing could soon beat IBM
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=UgVG2EH-1lw
Cartoon: Trump property liquidation
Link
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1764090205105983593
Video at the link.
JFC! He even has the crowd cheer for his hair.
Trump crowd goes silent as he confuses Biden and Obama again
https://www.wonkette.com/p/those-cakes-we-like-are-raisin-hell
Followup to comment 450.
Link
Haitian police unions plead for help after attack on main prison
Heavy gunfire has caused panic in recent days after calls by gang leader Jimmy Cherizier, a former police officer, for criminal groups to unite and overthrow Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
Nikki Haley says she’s no longer bound by RNC pledge to endorse Trump if he wins
Well, I should hope that she would not endorse Trump. Sheesh.
Still some wiggle room there. Not good.
Haley also made some wishy-washy remarks about abortion.
“Broke Trump Racing Against The Clock To Raise Half A Billion Dollars”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=QwouwjJLGhE
Poll: A majority of Republicans identify as Christian nationalists
Caitlin Clark passes Pete Maravich to become all-time NCAA Division I scoring leader.
Washington Post link
Posted by readers of the article:
“One and done” came and went, and it is no longer necessary for the really good players to spend even that much time in college. Lebron James, for example, didn’t set any college records because he didn’t play even a day of college basketball, jumping straight from high school to the NBA. The salaries in the NBA are much bigger and more enticing than the salaries in the WNBA. Perhaps now that college “student-athletes” can get big money with NIL (as Clark is doing), someone might bother to stick around long enough to set some records, but it may not be likely.
BTW, since you didn’t mention, Iowa beat Ohio State 93-83. OSU is still ranked on top of the Big Ten conference with a 16-2 conference record, while Iowa and Indiana both have a 15-3 conference record. All three teams will undoubtedly be invited to the NCAA ‘March Madness’ post-season playoffs. One category where Clark has come up short in both high school and college is in winning championships.
The record now stands at 3685 points. As I understand, the record is for regular season points, so is now closed out.
@466 Pete Maravich still holds the NCAA record for points in a single season with 1381 in 1969-1970. Followed by:
Elvin Hayes 1214 in 1967-1968
Frank Selvy 1209 in 1953-1954
Pete Maravich 1148 in 1968-1969
Pete Maravich 1138 in 1967-1968
…
National and Ohio Republicans desperately pretending they haven’t been attacking IVF
The 17 worst things Mitch McConnell did to destroy democracy
NBA: LeBron James passes 40,000-point mark but LA Lakers lose to Denver Nuggets
That’s the sort of career record he probably couldn’t hope to reach if he had dawdled several years in college.
Snopes: Jack Posobiec Spoke at CPAC About Wanting to Overthrow Democracy?
Haley will win DC GOP primary, CNN projects
Dutch star Femke Bol sets second 400-meter indoor world record in two weeks
Parts of this dune are 13000 years old
“Scientists unearth mysteries of giant, moving Moroccan star dune” | Geology | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/mar/04/scientists-unearth-mysteries-of-giant-moving-moroccan-star-dune
Boeing, Gaza & Clarence Thomas: 1/3/24: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=G-dJMqpGvjM
Farron Cousins:
“Mark Meadows Left With No Choice But To Flip On Trump”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=gHK-iksU_Uw
‘Elvis was as pilled up as me!’
Dan Penn on writing hits for Aretha, Otis, Dolly and more | Music
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/04/elvi-dan-penn-hits-aretha-otis-dolly-im-your-puppet-do-right-woman
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/04/elvi-dan-penn-hits-aretha-otis-dolly-im-your-puppet-do-right-woman
Buna, a big scary predator stalking a victim
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ndGb8M9AyIo
Breakthrough Could Reduce Cultivated Meat Production Costs by up to 90%
https://scitechdaily.com/breakthrough-could-reduce-cultivated-meat-production-costs-by-up-to-90/
Star dune: Scientists solve mystery behind Earth’s largest desert sands
@475: Sorry, I composed 482 hours ago but forgot to push the ‘post’ button.
Sexism in the City: ‘No matter how hard I work, they will never ever recognise me’ | Financial sector | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/04/sexism-in-the-city-no-matter-how-hard-i-work-they-will-never-ever-recognise-me
These companies will eventually meet darwinian selection pressure.
(This would have been important for the energence of large human groups)
“New model evaluates how reputation and indirect reciprocity affect cooperative behaviors”
https://phys.org/news/2024-03-reputation-indirect-reciprocity-affect-cooperative.html
Supreme Court unanimously rules to keep Trump on Colorado ballot
They trickled down their legs.
Forgot to post a link for the text quoted in comment 487. Here is the link.
In other news: Weisselberg To Plead Guilty To Perjury In Trump Civil Fraud Case
Followup to Reginald @486.
SCOTUS Unanimously Rules Disqualification Clause Can’t Keep Trump Off Ballot
Followup to comment 489.
Posted by readers of the article:
My problem with the ruling is that the Supreme Court Justices seem to think that Congress critters will pass some legislation. Not likely.
Also, why does Congress (and its legislation) have to be the only enforcement option. Couldn’t court rulings about criminality or insurrection also kick someone off the ballot?
Phys Org:
Scientists reveal how first cells could have formed on Earth
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-scientists-reveal-cells-earth.html
NPR:
First over-the-counter birth control pill heads to stores
By Sydney Lupkin / March 4, 2024
They got that exactly backwards. The 14th lays out explicit involvement for the legislature:
I helpfully bolded the relevant sentence for those who are cognitively impaired and Supreme Court justices. Their ruling inverts the burden of effort required for congressional involvement.
Malaysia may renew hunt for missing flight MH370, 10 years after its disappearance
Well this is certainly not a cover for CIA/DoD seafloor mapping.
Explosion Hits Bridge Used by Military Deep Inside Russia, Kyiv Confirms
Even though this comment will soon be history, it is important that I write this:
@47 StevoR mentioned they are non-binary.
I reply: Dear StevoR, I didn’t know that until your comment. And, I don’t care. Your decency and many excellent contributions to this site are what I admire and appreciate.
Many years ago we told of how we love that auditions for classical musicians usually have a large opaque curtain between the musician an the judges. This ensures that the musician will be judged by their performance, not their appearance.
Stay well, my friend
Lauren Boebert missed a campaign stop because she was busy working out if her ex had thrown her stuff into a pond
Ken Buck says he’s ‘not going to lie’ on behalf of GOP
Sweden:
Tailoring a comfort-fit police jacket
https://techxplore.com/news/2024-03-tailoring-comfort-police-jacket.html
Britain:
“City meadow blooms with first used condom of spring” | The Daily Mash
https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/environment/city-meadow-blooms-with-first-used-condom-of-spring-20240304245883