Imagine you are a movie producer. There you are sitting in your office, doing whatever producers do all day: make phone calls, hit on your assistant, talk about your ongoing juice cleanse. Then a screenwriter walks in and pitches a script in which the two lead roles are Donald Trump and Roy Cohn. You love it. You think, “Finally! The sympathetic and heroic story that Donald Trump and Roy Cohn deserve!”
You would be a fucking idiot if you thought that.
Which brings us to Dan Snyder: billionaire, litigious pervert, former owner of the football team then known as the Washington R******s, and apparently a fucking idiot.
Snyder is not a movie producer, but he reportedly was an investor in a new movie called The Apprentice, a movie about Donald Trump premiering on Monday at the Cannes Film Festival. The film traces the life of a young Trump in the 1970s and early 1980s as he tries to make it big in Manhattan real estate. Trump’s lawyer and consigliere at the time was Roy Cohn, one of the most all-around abusive, cruel, rotten sociopaths of a human being to ever walk the Earth. [Oh dear. It hurts to even read about it.]
[…] The best thing you could say about 1970s-era Donald Trump and Roy Cohn was that neither one of them was the Times Square Torso Killer. Allegedly.
Not Dan Snyder, though. From Variety:
Sources say Snyder, a friend of Trump’s who donated $1.1 million to his inaugural committee and Trump Victory in 2016 and $100,000 to his 2020 presidential campaign, put money into the film via Kinematics because he was under the impression that it was a flattering portrayal of the 45th president. Snyder finally saw a cut of the film in February and was said to be furious.
LOL, and may we add, LMAO.
Snyder reportedly then hired lawyers to try and prevent the filmmakers from releasing The Apprentice, which is funny because the movie does not yet have a distribution deal. The producers are premiering it at Cannes in the hopes of drumming up some interest.
Shoot, for all we know, some clever publicists planted this story to gin up some controversy. It says a great deal about people’s opinion of Dan Snyder that it would ring so very, very true. […]
Did Snyder not read this script before he agreed to put money into filming it? […]
Our advice to budding filmmakers out there: always read the script and never, ever, ever, EVER have anything to do with Dan Snyder. Pretty much the entire NFL will back us up on that one.
For years, Republicans across the country have waged war on public schools. Public schools are the enemy, they tell conservative parents. They’re going to make your white children feel badly about themselves by telling them they are bad and racist, they’re going to turn your children gay and trans, and then they are going to hate you and reject you and your beautiful Christian values.
[…] As it turns out, though, rural Republicans have been pretty darn reluctant to defund their own public schools, which are often the only schools in their area, in order to funnel money to more affluent suburbanites who are already sending their kids to private schools and don’t feel they should also have to pay for other people’s kids to go to public schools.
In fact, it’s been one of the only things the larger GOP has had trouble getting them on board with, partly because public schools serve a larger function than just education in these areas.
“Public schools provide more than just a high school diploma in rural areas, which frequently lack private alternatives,” reports The Daily Yonder, which reports on rural issues. “They are a large employer, serve as public gathering spaces for community events, and they inform the community’s next generation of workers, voters, and leaders.”
The GOP has pushed homeschooling, they’ve spread distrust of public schools and public school teachers, and even actively tried to make public schools worse by making it so unqualified people can teach at them (just as unqualified people can teach at charter schools). Still, there are rural Republicans running against vouchers.
Now, state Republican leaders are cracking down on those who refuse to get in line and support them.
Via WNAX in South Dakota:
Just last month in Texas, Republican Governor Greg Abbott targeted Republican members of the state house who opposed his school choice initiative using out-of-state cash from billionaire donors and super PACs. Six members were defeated in the March 5 primary and four more were forced into runoffs. […]
Oklahoma House Speaker Charles McCall, a popular rural legislator, faced big money blowback for halting a school voucher bill in 2022.
Residents of Sulphur, which, with a population of 5,000, is the largest town in McCall’s district, received a wave of political mailers and TV ads attacking the representative. The money for this political blitz came from Club for Growth, a conservative PAC located in Washington, D.C.
In Iowa, in 2022, Governor Kim Reynolds actively campaigned against Republicans who did not support her plan to expand the state’s school voucher program.
The GOP is playing a long game here. Yes, they want to privatize and monetize schools because they want to privatize and monetize everything. But they also want more control over who has access to education and who doesn’t. They want to ensure top spots for their own kids and they want an underclass of relatively ignorant culture warriors they can deploy to vote for tax cuts and against regulations so long as they throw in a little “And we’ll protect you from the gays and the feminists!”
These people are right to oppose school vouchers, which education activist Jonathan Kozol has rightly called “the single worst, most dangerous idea to enter education discourse in my lifetime.” School vouchers mean their kids will get screwed, that their kids will get a lesser education, so that Muffy and Biff’s parents can get a sweet discount on their private school tuition. They mean less money for books, less money to attract good teachers, and less money for sports and other extracurricular activities. State parties are asking parents in rural areas for a pretty big sacrifice.
As important as it is to fight the grotesque culture war battles that the Right has foisted upon our public school system, it’s just as important to continue to fight for the continued existence our public school system — for everyone. And you never know, perhaps, for some people out there, this might be the thing that finally makes it click that no, these people do not actually give a flying shit about them at all.
[…] The legislation, negotiated by Republican and Democratic senators, is designed to reduce border crossings, raise the bar for migrants to qualify for asylum and quickly turn away those who fail to meet it. It empowers the president to shut down the border if certain triggers are met. If it becomes law, it would be the most sweeping set of migration restrictions in decades. Biden has endorsed the bill.
But former President Donald Trump helped kill the legislation earlier this year and Republicans say they will block it again.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., notified members on the floor about the Thursday vote, calling it “the strongest, most comprehensive border security bill we’ve seen in a generation.”
“This week, Republicans will get another chance to do the right thing,” Schumer said Monday. “Most people agree the status quo cannot continue. Our southern border is in desperate need of more resources, and our immigration system is in serious need of repair.”
“All those who say we need to act on the border will get a chance this week to show they’re serious — serious — about fixing the border,” Schumer added. “We’re going to need bipartisan support if there’s any hope of getting this bill done.”
It will require 60 votes to advance and is expected to fail because of overwhelming Republican opposition.
[…] Schumer has said GOP opposition to the bill proves that the party doesn’t care about securing the border and is instead trying to preserve the issue as a political weapon for Trump to use in the 2024 election. Trump has made immigration and the overwhelmed border a centerpiece of his run, vowing a crackdown. […]
Amal Clooney is one of the legal experts who recommended that the chief prosecutor of the world’s top war crimes court seek arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and leaders of the militant Hamas group.
The human rights lawyer and wife of actor George Clooney wrote of her participation in a letter posted Monday on the website of the couple’s Clooney Foundation for Justice. She said she and other experts in international law unanimously agreed to recommend that International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Karim Khan seek the warrants.
Khan announced his intention to do so Monday, saying that actions taken by both Israeli leaders and Hamas in the seven-month war in Gaza amounted to war crimes. […]
Actor Scarlett Johansson said Monday that OpenAI used an “eerily similar” voice to hers for their new ChatGPT 4o chatbot despite having declined the company’s request to provide her voice.
Earlier in the day, OpenAI announced it would no longer be using the voice, but did not indicate why.
“Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system,” Johansson wrote in a statement, which a representative shared with NBC News. “He told me that he felt that by my voicing the system, I could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives and help consumers to feel comfortable with the seismic shift concerning humans and AI. He said he felt that my voice would be comforting to people.”
“After much consideration and for personal reasons, I declined the offer,” she continued. “Nine months later, my friends, family and the general public all noted how much the newest system named ‘Sky’ sounded like me.”
OpenAI debuted its new ChatGPT 4o last week, touting its ability to hold conversations in voice chats, among other features. The new tech quickly drew comparisons to the kinds of futuristic AI portrayed in movies, offering five voices — including “Sky.”
In Monday’s announcement, OpenAI said that the “Sky” voice was not an “imitation” of Johansson’s voice. The company said it was recorded by a professional actor, along with other voices that are still available. The company said it would not share the actors’ names for privacy reasons. The voice chat feature was promoted during a May 13 product demonstration held by OpenAI, but the feature has been available since September 2023.
[…]
Drying rivers threaten the endangered salamander-like amphibian, which is a crucial part of the region’s ecosystem and has been part of Mexican mythology and culture since pre-Hispanic times.
As his criminal trial prepared to begin anew yesterday, Donald Trump briefly addressed journalists, complaining once again about the lack of protesters at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse. The defendant, however, had an explanation that seemed to make him feel better.
“Outside, it looks like it’s supposed to be Fort Knox,” Trump complained. “There are more police than I’ve ever seen anywhere — because they don’t want to have to anybody come down.”
George Conway, a lawyer with considerable experience in Republican politics, noted soon after, “This is an amazing lie, even for Trump. There is virtually complete freedom of movement around that courthouse.”
As a great many people have noted in recent weeks, there’s a park across from the courthouse. It’s open to the public. If the former president’s followers wanted to assemble and show their support for the defendant, they could do so, freely. The park does not resemble Fort Knox in any way. [True, true, true!]
I understand why Trump is lying — it bruises his ego that the park has been largely empty for weeks — but that doesn’t make his whining any less pitiful.
That said, it’s important to note that there were some protesters on hand at the courthouse yesterday, though they weren’t the ones the former president wanted to see. The New York Times reported:
Donald J. Trump has been joined in recent days by entourages of supporters who watch his prosecution in the morning and then give statements backing him outside the courthouse. On Monday, the daily news conference disintegrated into chaos, when anti-Trump demonstrators and hecklers surrounded the speakers, then effectively silenced them with shouts, whistles and the clanging of a cowbell.
The protester taunting the Trump surrogates with a “Bootlickers” banner stood out as especially notable. [video at the link]
My bet is that the bootlickers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, are glad that the defense rested today. The trial will be over fairly soon, and the bootlickers will not have to return to NYC to be heckled. Summation by the prosecution and defense, followed by jury instructions from Judge Merchan, are scheduled for next week.
As the trial began in earnest last month, the defendant made no secret of what he wanted to see. In a message he published to his social media platform, the presumptive GOP nominee wrote, “GO OUT AND PEACEFULLY PROTEST. RALLY BEHIND MAGA. SAVE OUR COUNTRY!”
The Times reported soon after that Trump was “not happy” when few followed his directive, because “he wanted a circus to accompany his trial.”
Much to the Republican’s chagrin, the circumstances were familiar.
[…] as Trump’s post-defeat legal woes intensified, his rhetoric about his supporters taking to the streets grew louder. In January 2022, for example, amidst speculation about possible indictments, Trump said at a rally that if he were to face charges, “I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had.”
In September 2022, Trump delivered a related ominous message, saying that if he were indicted, the United States would face “problems … the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen.”
The vague predictions turned into directives last year. In March 2023, as Trump prepared for an indictment in New York, he turned to his social media platform, writing, “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” In case that was too subtle, Trump added a few hours later, “IT’S TIME!!! … WE JUST CAN’T ALLOW THIS ANYMORE. … WE MUST SAVE AMERICA! PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!”
Around the same time, Trump derided talk of “peaceful” demonstrations, while suggesting that if he were indicted in New York, it might cause “potential death [and] destruction” that “could be catastrophic for our Country.”
[…] those calls were largely ignored. Some supporters turned out in Manhattan around the time of his first arrest, but the gatherings were, by any fair measure, underwhelming duds.
After his classified documents scandal led to his second indictment, the former president again called on his followers to rally behind him — Trump wrote, “SEE YOU IN MIAMI ON TUESDAY!!!” on his social media platform — but the numbers were again small.
Local law enforcement was prepared for crowds of up to 50,000 people. The actual crowd was closer to 500.
Two months later, at a Trump arraignment in Washington, D.C., a “handful” of his supporters showed up to register their dissatisfaction.
The good news is, some protesters finally showed up and were heard yesterday. The bad news, at least for the criminal defendant, is that they were there to heckle Trump’s sycophants as the Republican surrogates took steps to undermine the legal system.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump-appointed jurist in Texas, has earned a reputation as one of the nation’s most controversial federal judges. It was, for example, Kacsmaryk who took it upon himself to suspend the FDA’s approval of mifepristone last year, relying in large part on highly dubious studies — which have since been retracted. [Embedded links available at the main link.]
This week, the same conservative made national news again. The Associated Press reported:
A federal judge has blocked the Biden administration from enforcing a new rule in Texas that would require firearms dealers to run background checks on buyers at gun shows or other places outside brick-and-mortar stores. The decision by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, came before the rule had been set to take effect Monday.
[…]granted an injunction against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, preventing the Biden administration from fully implementing the new federal policy — but only in Texas.
The case was filed in the federal district court for the Northern District of Texas, which is a very busy place for important lawsuits with national implications. It was, after all, just 10 days earlier when U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman — another Trump-appointed jurist in the same district — halted the Biden administration’s policy on lowering credit cards late fees before it could take effect.
It’s probably not a coincidence that lawyers representing big banks and major credit card companies filed their case in this specific district.
[…]Remember the Republican case to destroy the entirety of the Affordable Care Act? It was filed in the federal district court for the Northern District of Texas. Remember the case undermining the Navy’s vaccine requirements? It was also filed in the federal district court for the Northern District of Texas.
The tactic goes by different names. I’ve seen it referred to as “forum shopping,” “judge shopping,” “venue shopping,” and “court shopping,” but the phrases all mean the same thing: Instead of simply taking one’s chances in the judiciary, many litigants effectively try to hand-pick ideologically aligned jurists, by filing their cases in specific districts, in order to guarantee success before the process even begins in earnest.
After Kacsmaryk’s ruling yesterday on requiring firearms dealers to run background checks on buyers at gun shows, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer took the opportunity, not just to express his disagreement with the ruling, but also denounce the strategy that brought this case to Kacsmaryk’s courtroom in the first place.
“Today was supposed to be a significant day for gun safety in America,” the New York Democrat said. “Today was supposed to be the day new rules closing loopholes on background checks went into effect — rules that Democrats and Republicans worked on together when we passed the bipartisan gun safety bill two years ago.
“But surprise, surprise: MAGA radicals have put background check reforms on ice by going to their favorite judge in the entire country, in the Northern District of Texas, and getting him to rubber stamp a nationwide injunction. […]”
Schumer added that he still intends to move forward with legislation intended to address this practice, which Republicans will no doubt oppose. Watch this space.
[…] With extreme weather events becoming more frequent and alarming (Houston’s weekend windstorm is just the latest example), we’ll be lucky if we haven’t already Wile E. Coyote’d off the climate change cliff. Yet Republicans see a planet choking on the predictable results of 50 years of bad decisions and say, “Hold my beer—it’s brewed with fossil fuels […]”
[…] Politico is reporting that Andrew Wheeler, Trump’s former Environmental Protection Agency administrator and an ex-coal company lobbyist, would be keenly interested in returning to the White House to finish the job he started. Which, again, mostly entails killing the planet.
Politico:
Former Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler told the POLITICO Energy podcast that he sees key pieces of Biden’s green policies falling quickly if former President Donald Trump wins in November: Courts will strike down Biden’s aggressive pollution limits for coal- and gas-fueled power plants, he predicted. He suspects the auto industry won’t fight to keep regulations pushing a swift transition to electric vehicles, especially in light of EVs’ disappointing sales numbers.
Yes, by all means, let’s err on the side of post-apocalyptic dystopia. Future generations won’t resent us at all. They’ll be too busy scrubbing the coal patina off the giant statue of Trump […]
Of course, Wheeler’s doom-filled predictions could very well be self-fulfilling. Politico reports that he’s “ready to take back his old job if his former boss wins the White House in November.” […] while Trump usually hires the worst-worst people, he’s also been known to accidentally tap the best-worst people—which means they’re competent at doing horrible things. And Wheeler appears to be of this ilk, Politico reports.
One potential reason for Democratic nervousness would be Wheeler’s persona as a capable, no-thrills technocrat. Unlike the stream of scandals that plagued Trump’s first EPA leader, former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, Wheeler didn’t generate headlines by installing a $43,000 phone booth in his office, dwelling in a lobbyist’s Capitol Hill condo or ordering his staff to shop for a used mattress from Trump’s Washington hotel.
Instead, Wheeler used his longtime experience navigating EPA regulations as an industry lobbyist and top congressional aide to undo as many of the Obama administration’s climate policies as he could. Some Republicans in Congress are eager to see him succeed in doing the same for Biden’s trademark regulations.
That’s great news for the industry executives who’d love to write their own business-friendly regulations—which, according to recent reports, they’re already doing in the hopes of getting them rubber-stamped by Trump on Day One of his next administration. And it falls on the heels of Trump’s promise to help the fossil fuel industry further despoil the Earth in exchange for roughly $1 billion in campaign largesse. […]
Of course, saving the planet and saving American democracy seem like heavy lifts, and as concerned citizens and voters, we’re being asked to do both over the next several months. Luckily, the means to accomplish these tasks is the same: electing Democrats up and down the ballot—but especially at the top.
While Republicans have long since abandoned the planet and done it brazenly, their anti-democracy schtick is still relatively new. But it’s gaining momentum, and if Trump returns to the White House, it will no doubt become de rigueur.
[…] fascism is the GOP’s cool new thing.
In fact, to further highlight the holistic nature of our save-the-world-from-Trump project, it’s worth noting that the fascist, Christian nationalist Project 2025 includes a convenient plan for pushing the planet to the brink, presumably to convince Jesus to return to save the righteous and roll coal in the parking lot at the next CPAC gathering.
The Guardian:
The guide’s chapter on the US Department of Energy proposes eliminating three agency offices that are crucial for the energy transition, and also calls to slash funding to the agency’s grid deployment office in an effort to stymie renewable energy deployment, E&E News reported this week.
The plan, which would hugely expand gas infrastructure, was authored by Bernard McNamee, […] McNamee was also a Trump appointee to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He previously led the far-right Texas Public Policy Foundation, which fights environmental regulation, and served as a senior adviser to the Republican senator Ted Cruz.
So voters have a clear choice. They can support democracy, the planet, and women’s reproductive freedom—or go with the guy who’ll destroy all those things but make them feel a skosh better about their latent racism.
It’s an easy choice. Then again, we’ve been faced with nothing but easy choices for decades, and look where that’s gotten us.
Today on Truth Social (and Instagram, but that has since been deleted there), Nazi Germany fetishist Donald Trump posted an ad featuring a clarion call to create a North American version of the Third Reich with the words “Unified Reich” if he is elected again.
Natalie Allison at Politico:
Donald Trump’s social media account on Monday shared a video referencing a “unified reich” in a post about how the country will change if he becomes president again.
His campaign said a staffer did not see the word “reich” before it was posted — an explanation President Joe Biden’s team blasted on Monday night.
In the video shared on Trump’s Truth Social account, while a narrator described “What happens after Donald Trump wins,” the screen twice flashed to a headline showing the words “Industrial strength significantly increased … driven by the creation of a unified reich.”
The German phrase “reich” refers to an empire, but also carries the connotation of Adolph Hitler’s “Third Reich,” another name for his Nazi regime.
Soo Rin Kim, Lalee Ibssa, and Kelsey Walsh at ABC News:
Former President Donald Trump on Monday posted a video on his social media platform that uses a language that appears to mirror that of Nazi Germany, suggesting there will be a “Unified Reich” if he wins the 2024 election.
The phrase “Unified Reich” appears as a part of hypothetical news headlines that announce Trump’s hypothetical victory in the 2024 election, with the narrator asking, “What happens after Donald Trump wins?”
Under a big headline that says, “WHAT’S NEXT FOR AMERICA?” there is a smaller headline underneath […] “INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED DRIVEN BY THE CREATION OF A UNIFIED REICH.”
The video then predicts an economic boom, tax cuts, border security and deportation of undocumented immigrants if Trump wins the 2024 election.
Cheering for some Biden administration accomplishments and/or intentions that are good for me, and probably good for you too:
☆ Since Barack and I created CFPB, the agency has taken on special interests on behalf of hardworking families. Its work to end corporate rip-offs is more important than ever—and the Supreme Court decision to uphold its funding is an unmistakable win for American consumers.
☆ HBCUs are responsible for: 40% of Black engineers, 50% of all Black teachers, 70% of all Black doctors and dentists, And 80% of all Black judges. Today I’m proud to announce we’ve invested over $16 billion in HBCUs, the most ever by any Administration.
☆ Education is linked with freedom. That’s why the Brown v. Board decision we commemorate today is so important. The work of building a democracy of possibility—a democracy worthy of our dreams—starts with opening the school doors of opportunity for all.
☆ I’ve long believed that people who’ve borne the brunt of pollution should be the first to see the benefits of new investment—that’s why my Justice40 Initiative is delivering for disadvantaged communities. Environmental justice will always be at the heart of my climate fight.
Donald Trump repeatedly claimed that he wanted to testify during his criminal trial in New York, that he had “no problem” with testifying, and even insisted that he would “absolutely” testify.
“I’m testifying. I tell the truth, I mean, all I can do is tell the truth. And the truth is that there is no case,” Trump said. [LOL]
But the truth is that Trump isn’t going to testify. Because on Tuesday morning, Trump’s defense team rested its case without Trump coming near the witness stand.
Adult film actress Stormy Daniels was willing to tell the jury what she knew even though one of Trump’s attorneys outright accused her of lying. Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen spent days on the stand undergoing tough cross-examination from Trump’s lead attorney.
But Donald Trump chickened out.
It was easy to predict that Trump wasn’t actually going to take the stand. Not only did every legal expert consider it a very bad idea, but Trump already made a blatant attempt to weasel out of testifying earlier this month when he claimed that he couldn’t testify because of the gag order imposed by Justice Juan Merchan. [eyeroll]
“This judge has taken away my constitutional right,” Trump told reporters. “We’re filing, I think today, a constitutional motion.”
Merchan shot down that lie soon after Trump tried this ploy.
“It does not prohibit you from taking the stand,” Merchan told Trump in court.
He went on to explain that the purpose of the gag order was to protect jurors and witnesses and that it only affected what Trump said outside of the courtroom.
Trump’s defense rested on Tuesday after calling only one evidentiary witness, attorney Robert Costello, who was little less than a disaster for the defense team. On Monday, Merchan had to clear the courtroom after Costello talked back to the judge, tried to make his own objections from the witness stand, and insulted prosecutor Susan Hoffinger in a way that jurors definitely noticed. With Trump refusing to step up in his own defense, Costello’s angry answers are the only impression jurors will get from Trump’s side.
Closing arguments are expected to be heard next Tuesday, after which the jury will determine its verdict.
Donald Trump just sent out a fundraising appeal falsely claiming he “could even be thrown into PRISON FOR LIFE!” if the jury in his “hush money” case returns a guilty verdict, the New York Times reports.
He actually faces up to four years in prison, or probation.
Biden still isn’t on the ballot in Ohio, and Republican state House Speaker Jason Stephens told reporters this morning that there won’t be a legislative fix. By all appearances, the matter is now headed to court.
[…] a proposed amendment to enshrine abortion access in Nevada’s constitution appears to be on track now that reproductive rights advocates say they’ve submitted the required number of signatures. “State officials will review the signatures, and they have until July 8 to fully certify the proposed amendment for the ballot,” the report added.
It’s a little early for Donald Trump to start making personnel plans for a possible second term. Election Day 2024 is still 167 days away, and […] there’s no reason for the presumptive Republican nominee to start picking Cabinet members.
That said, Trump was willing to answer a question over the weekend about who might be in the mix for his next attorney general. The Texas Tribune reported:
[…] Trump said he would consider tapping Ken Paxton for U.S. attorney general if he wins a second term in the White House, calling his longtime ally “a very talented guy” and praising his tenure as Texas’ chief legal officer.
When KDFW in Dallas asked the former president whether he’d consider Paxton to lead the Justice Department, Trump replied, “I would, actually. He’s very, very talented. I mean, we have a lot of people that want that one and will be very good at it. But he’s a very talented guy.”
A variety of adjectives come to mind when thinking about the Texas attorney general, though “talented” isn’t necessarily at the top of the list.
[…] it was just two months ago when Paxton faced felony charges as part of a securities fraud case. As the trial date drew closer, the Texas Republican agreed to pay nearly $300,000 in restitution, take legal ethics classes, and complete 100 hours of community service.
[…] the case was just part of a larger set of troubles. The criminal allegations, for example, were distinct from the state bar investigation into Paxton’s ridiculous efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
What’s more, Paxton’s securities fraud allegations were also unrelated to the corruption allegations raised by leading top officials in Paxton’s office, which are currently the subject of an ongoing federal criminal investigation. The matter was also the subject of a state House investigation, which concluded that the state attorney general repeatedly broke the law by, among other things, abusing his office to hide an extramarital affair, doing special favors for a donor, and retaliating against perceived foes.
The scandal led to Paxton’s impeachment, though he was acquitted by his partisan allies in the state Senate.
[…] there’s also Paxton’s record and judgment to consider: It was the state attorney general, for example, who also fought to prevent Kate Cox from terminating a dangerous pregnancy late last year. [!!!]
This is the same Paxton who sued pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, for example, as part of a weird gambit related to Covid vaccines; opened an investigation into Media Matters over its efforts related to Elon Musk’s social media platform; sued Yelp as part of a dispute over so-called “crisis pregnancy centers”; and issued investigative subpoenas demanding medical records from a hospital in a different state.
But Paxton also led “Lawyers for Trump” in 2020, and he recently showed up to express his support for the former president at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, so if the presumptive GOP nominee returns to the White House, and Paxton wants to be attorney general, […]
Rachel Maddow dedicated her Monday night show to Donald Trump’s Georgia election fraud case, which has been pushed back until 2025 due to ongoing attacks on Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
“Prosecutors asked the judge to start this trial two months ago. The first trial date they asked for was early March 2024. That was going to be first,” Maddow reminded everyone. This is a far more serious case than Trump’s current New York hush money case. When audio tape came out of then-President Trump pressuring Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” votes, Willis was obligated to open a criminal investigation.
“Of course she did. How could she not have?” Maddow asked. But as soon as she did, “They opened the floodgates on her.”
Maddow detailed the egregious overstepping by Republican lawmakers in Georgia who have tried to destroy Willis’ credibility, have her thrown off the case, and create new powers of fascistic oversight. On the federal level, Rep. Jim Jordan has begun one of his many circus investigations into the Georgia district attorney, harassing her with subpoena requests.
Through all of this Willis has been steadfast in defending herself, but “this is not a profile in courage. This is a profile in cowardice,” Maddow said. “This is a profile in failure and neglect by us—by the country. Because the reason she is out there defending herself so ably is because nobody else is defending her.”
Maddow interviewed Willis about her experience these past few years, and Willis thanked her for having her on, saying she doesn’t have many people “ask about what is the personal journey that’s been going on, and it really hasn’t been happening in the last year. It’s been happening since about a month after I took office.”
“From the time I took office, I began to get threats,” Willis said.
She detailed how she has not lived in her family home for some time due to security threats but is unwilling to let the home go “because I refuse to give up the home where I raise my children.”
Willis added that, while she must also have an around the clock security detail with her, she feels “it’s well worth it, to have the honor of being the first female district attorney in Fulton County.”
As for the Republican Party’s attacks on the rule of law in general and her in particular, Willis told Maddow that Americans “should feel sorry for those that are trying to deter me from my work. It doesn’t do anything but motivate me to continue to work and to work hard. I’m not someone that’s going to be broken.” [But Republicans have slowed her down.]
Willis, who faces a primary and election this year, told Maddow, “I am at a point where I need Fulton County voters to get out and vote. I need people around the country to support me, big and small, to say that we are going to be a country that still believes in the rule of law.”
Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform, has filed its first quarter revenue numbers to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The good news for MAGA-loving stockholders is that the company, of which Trump owns a reported 64.9% of the outstanding shares, pulled in a cool $770,500. Now get your sad horn sound ready: It also reported a net loss of $327.6 million.
In a statement, the company’s CEO, former House member and Republican attack dog Devin Nunes, said the losses were due to costs in finalizing a merger with shell company Digital World Acquisition Corp. Nunes, best known for suing parody Twitter accounts, said Trump Media would now be exploring and pursuing “a wide array of initiatives and innovations to build out the Truth Social platform including potential mergers and acquisitions activities.” [blather, blustering, bullshit]
Since going public in March, Truth Media’s inflated valuation led to the stock’s value plunging shortly after an initial rise. The first quarter filing comes just one month after the company’s stock plummeted for a second time after the company announced it was considering adding more than 15% more stock to the publicly available shares, devaluing current stockholders’ shares.
[…] Meme stocks show dramatic gains and losses due to their stock value being directly connected to internet popularity on various social media platforms. The inherent issue with these stocks is that they are usually untethered from any material evaluation of the company being traded.
This frequently leads to pump-and-dump activity on stocks like Trump Media, with buyers inflating the value over short periods of time by creating social media buzz and then quickly dumping the stock for a profit.
When Truth Social first launched in early 2022, the site quickly went down with technical issues, potential copyright issues, and executives jumping ship. Even though the net losses this year amount to almost one-third of a billion dollars, the company “believes it has sufficient working capital to fund operations for the foreseeable future.”
Or until Trump dumps his shares for some quick cash.
If the Supreme Court rules that bump stocks aren’t machine guns later this summer, it could quickly open an unfettered marketplace of newer, more powerful rapid-fire devices.
The Trump administration, in a rare break from gun rights groups, quickly banned bump stocks after the 2017 mass shooting at a Las Vegas concert that was the deadliest in U.S. history. In the ensuing years, gun rights groups challenged the underlying rationale that bump stocks are effectively machine guns — culminating in a legal fight now before the Supreme Court.
Justices appeared divided on the issue during oral arguments in February, and they are on the clock to hand down a ruling by June. […]
David Pucino, legal director at Giffords Law Center, said lower courts are currently treating bump stocks and similar devices like machine guns, which are banned. […]
If the Supreme Court does overturn the ban, he said, it “would be very, very dangerous for public safety.”
Bump stocks, which gained national attention after the shooter in Las Vegas used the devices to kill 60 and injure hundreds more, are inaccurate, sporadic and difficult to control, jolting a gun back and forth. Gun enthusiasts have created new rapid-fire devices without the jolting drawbacks of bump fire. [Of course they have.]
The logic of legalization for all of the devices is basically the same: It’s not technically a machine gun. And if it’s not named, it’s not banned.
[…] If the Supreme Court undoes the bump stock ban, it would be up to Congress to decide how — or whether — to regulate rapid-fire devices, which have proliferated through the gray market since 2017.
[…] After tying it to the history of right-wing obstruction of justice concerning American politicians who cavorted with Nazis in the 1940s, Maddow went through the tick-tock of the obscene Republican obstruction efforts to fuck the criminal justice system, ever since the recording emerged of Trump trying to get election officials to “find him” the 11,780 votes he’d need to win Georgia.
– Georgia Republicans suddenly invented themselves a new power to remove prosecutors, now that a Black lady they believe themselves superior to was having the audacity to investigate their God king for trying to overthrow the country.
– They created a new special committee for the investigating of Fani Willis, to investigate Fani Willis (for investigating Trump).
– They want to audit her office!
– Marjorie Taylor Greene is filing ethics complaints!
– House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, the epitome of a washed up JV coach who thinks he’d be in the big leagues if somebody else hadn’t stolen it from him, refuses to stop harassing this woman who, for the record, did not speak to him first. He’s investigatin’ her! He’s gonna hold her in contempt of Congress!
– Now Republican Senators Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley are taking a break from being the Kremlin’s fluffers to investigate Willis. (To be fair, this could be part of that remit.)
– And then of course, we remember that one “hook” Republicans found — Fani Willis dated one of her lawyers! It’s not illegal or an ethical issue […]
They didn’t take her down with that last one — and she’s dead serious that they won’t take her down with any of the others either — but they sure did succeed in delaying, delaying, delaying, to the point that the Georgia trial now won’t happen until after the election.
Maddow was pissed last night, that America is letting this vile shit stand, that nobody is defending Willis from these nakedly political attacks. […] We all know why Republicans are doing this, and it’s not because they care if Fani Willis’s sex life could have possibly affected her work judgment. (And there’s no evidence it did.)
“Back off,” Maddow said the rest of us would be saying in an alternate universe where we weren’t being cowards about this. “Back off the judges, back off the witnesses and the jurors, back off the prosecutors, back off Fani Willis, protect these cases, protect the rule of law.”
After that, Maddow interviewed Willis. If anybody understands exactly who these Republicans are and what they’re after, it’s she. She called Jim Jordan a “clown.” And she had this to say about the prosecutorial oversight board Georgia Republicans created to control Black prosecutors:
“What is so ironic is, although it’s only 14 of the 50 DAs in the state of Georgia, most of the citizens report to our jurisdictions, so, although we’re smaller in number than the other 36, most of the population has elected these minority DAs to serve them and has trusted their judgment,” Willis argued.
“But apparently we now need Daddy to tell us how to do our job.”
We’d say Willis doesn’t need our help, but that would be the easy way out and prove Maddow’s entire point. Willis does need our help. She needs our support, in big ways and small, and she said that last night. She has a primary election today, and a re-election in November, and somehow through all this, she needs to bring Donald Trump to justice along with all his crime friends.
“With Lincoln, they had a team of rivals,” Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said. “With Trump, you have a team of felons.”
USA Today published a well-timed piece over the weekend, noting that Donald Trump has embraced a crew of convicted criminals as the former president’s campaign advances.
Like many things that Trump does, bringing back into the fold a group of political operatives that he pardoned has no modern historical precedent. … “With Lincoln, they had a team of rivals,” [Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley] said. “With Trump, you have a team of felons.” Presidents normally try not to be associated with criminals, Brinkley noted.
For now, let’s put aside the question about whether the former president will himself be a convicted felon between now and Election Day 2024. Instead, it’s worth appreciating the scope of his “team of felons,” which by some measures is still growing.
In fact, just yesterday, as part of the parade of partisan allies showing up at the Manhattan Criminal Court, Bernard Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner, was on hand to show his support for the defendant.
Kerik, of course, also went to prison after pleading guilty to federal tax fraud and other charges before his release in 2013. As Marketwatch noted, he also received a Trump pardon in 2020.
The former president’s courthouse entourage also included Chuck Zito, who, as The New Republic noted, also spent several years in prison for drug conspiracy charges.
This comes a week after the public learned that Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, also had an advisory role with the Republican National Convention, despite Manafort having gone to prison — right up until Trump pardoned him shortly before Christmas 2020, rewarding his former aide for failing to cooperate with law enforcement.
Meanwhile, Peter Navarro, another member of Trump’s inner circle, is currently in prison, while it appears increasingly likely that Steve Bannon, who remains close with the former president’s operation, will soon be behind bars, too.
USA Today’s report added that Michael Flynn and Roger Stone “are spending time with former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago,” and both received Trump pardons after being accused of serious felonies.
The number of people in Trump’s orbit who’ve been convicted of crimes in recent years is so great, The Washington Post once described it as the “remarkable universe of criminality“ surrounding the former president.
That was nearly five years ago. By any fair measure, the “team of felons” problem is quite a bit worse now.
The death of Ebrahim Raisi poses significant questions, not just over his own successor but that of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The sudden death of a leader will shake any country, but the crash that killed President Ebrahim Raisi comes at a particularly precarious moment for Iran and the Middle East as a whole.
The Islamic Republic is a regional giant that can ill afford a wobble at the top.
Abroad, it is engaged in a shadow war with Israel that has come terrifyingly close to spiraling into an open regional conflict. At home, it is grappling with a long-running economic crisis that’s been joined by social turmoil, as brutal protest crackdowns have caused a widening chasm between the ultraconservative religious elite and the more liberal youth.
Raisi, 63, was seen by many as a pliant figurehead, chosen for his loyalty to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s aging supreme leader. While this may not change any immediate policies — foreign or domestic — many observers believed him to be a front-runner to replace Khamenei, 85, and his sudden death could upend the battle to helm the theocratic regime as it confronts these challenges.
[…] Tehran has accelerated its nuclear program since the United States withdrew from a landmark agreement capping its activities and has now pushed far beyond the restrictions imposed in that deal, enriching uranium close to the levels needed to build nuclear weapons, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.Meanwhile, it is supporting a number of proxy forces fighting Israel, and in some cases American forces, across the region: from Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and fighters in Iraq and Syria.
The situation escalated last month after a suspected Israeli bombing of a consular building in Damascus, Syria, killed two Iranian generals. Iran’s unprecedented direct response of 300 missiles and drones fired at Israel brought the rivals closer to a wider war that neither appeared to want.
[…] Raisi’s death “is going to create some problems for the regime internally,” […] possibly weakening Iran’s attempts to limit attacks by its proxy militias on American forces. If Iran’s sudden succession quandary causes “some sort of a paralysis, even briefly, it could lead to a scenario in which Iran’s control over these militias is weakened,” he said. “And they may actually begin anew their attacks on U.S. troops and bases.”
It’s clear Iran wants to convey an air of stability and strength.
Khamenei enacted Article 131 of the Constitution, giving Vice President Mohammad Mokhber power and mandating elections within 50 days, while launching five days of mourning featuring public funeral processions in major cities that began Tuesday.
[…] It’s unclear who Raisi’s successor might be, owing to the opaque nature of Iran’s political system. Hard-liners have assumed dominance of all major facets of Iranian power, and the clerical elite tightly controls who is allowed to run in its elections — disbarring moderates at recent ballots in March. […]
any hopes that Raisi’s death may open the way for a less hard-line supreme leader will very likely be disappointed, Parsi at the Quincy Institute said.
“The main candidates right now, as at least the ones that have publicly spoken, are not necessarily less hawkish than Raisi,” he said. “On the contrary, many of them are considered to be more so.”
The Department of Housing and Urban Development said the health and safety inspections resumed Monday.
The federal government’s inspection system for public housing suffered a major technical failure that forced inspections to be canceled for two weeks, according to groups representing housing providers.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development stopped conducting mandatory health and safety inspections from May 6 until Monday, according to staff members of the Public Housing Authorities Directors Association and LeadingAge, a nonprofit that represents nursing homes and HUD-funded senior housing providers, based on their conversations with federal officials.
The federal government conducts about 20,000 inspections every year to ensure that its subsidized housing for low-income residents is “decent, safe and sanitary,” as required under federal law.
In a statement to NBC News, HUD attributed the stoppage to “a failed update from our IT vendor” and confirmed that inspections resumed Monday. “The safety and security of residents in properties participating in HUD assisted housing programs is a top priority,” the agency added. […]
The stoppage is the latest challenge that HUD has faced in revamping its inspection system, which it has spent years developing.
The new system, known as NSPIRE, aims to address long-standing concerns that HUD’s inspections weren’t rigorous enough and allowed health and safety problems to fester for years. The overhaul strengthened standards for carbon monoxide detectors, fire alarms and mold remediation, and focused more on residential units than the external appearance of the properties — changes that drew praise from many housing advocates.
In 2022, HUD awarded Millsapps, Ballinger & Associates up to $7 million to develop the software platform for its new system.
Since NSPIRE’s launch last year, some housing groups have flagged issues with its implementation. At times, inspectors deducted points based on the old standards rather than the new ones, and providers were unable to appeal their inspection scores using the new software platform, according to the Public Housing Authorities Directors Association, or PHADA.
“There is a lot of frustration with HUD trying to move forward with these programs when HUD itself is not yet ready,” said Timothy Kaiser, executive director of PHADA. “They do not at times acknowledge realistically the challenges that they face.” […]
birgerjohanssonsays
“Have I Got News for You S67 E7. Jason Manford. 17 May 24”
draconian practices being deployed in at least three North African nations [Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania] to dissuade sub-Saharan migrants from risky crossings to Europe.
[…]
the European Union and individual European nations are supporting and financing aggressive operations […] to detain tens of thousands of migrants each year and dump them in remote areas, often barren deserts […] exposing them to abandonment with no food or water, kidnapping, extortion, sale as human chattel, torture, sexual violence and, in the worst instances, death. […] The Sahara has become an increasingly frequent and perilous punishment […] [Officials were also selling migrants to militias, who then held them for ransom.]
John Moralessays
Bah. Vox updated its website, and of course it’s shittier than before. Might give up on it, too much scrolling to see the content.
Time for a pop quiz. Which of these trades saves more gas:
A) Swapping a car that gets 25 miles per gallon (MPG) for one that gets 50 MPG, or
B) Replacing a car that gets 10 MPG with one that gets 15 MPG.
If you said that A conserves more gas, you’re mistaken. And it’s not even close.
Here’s why: In the first scenario, the old vehicle getting 25 MPG uses four gallons of gas to travel 100 miles, while the new one at 50 MPG uses two. In the second scenario, the vehicle getting 10 MPG needs 10 gallons to traverse those 100 miles, while the one at 15 MPG uses 6.7, saving 3.3 gallons — fully 65 percent more than in scenario A.
If you answered wrong, don’t be too hard on yourself.
Well, I hope they’re not too hard on themselves for answering wrong.
Obviously, using 2 gallons to travel 100 miles saves a shitload more ‘gas’ than using 6.7 gallons to travel the same distance.
(Yes, I know what they intended to claim)
—
BTW, here in Oz, it’s ‘petrol’ or ‘gasoline’, not ‘gas’. Gas is, you know, the gaseous stuff, not the liquid stuff.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Trump promises to deport all undocumented immigrants, resurrecting a 1950s strategy
Operation W*tb**k, a military-style campaign launched by the Eisenhower administration in the summer of 1954 to end undocumented immigration by deporting hundreds of thousands of Mexicans.
[…]
INS agents set up roadblocks and raided fields, factories, neighborhoods and saloons where immigrants were working or socializing. The INS also built a vast wire-fenced security camp […] to detain […] before sending them to the border.
[…]
Operation W*tb**k wound down its operations a few months later, and […] deportation of undocumented immigrants plummeted over the next decade. […] it was more show than substance […] sizable share of these apprehensions were repeat arrests, sometimes in a single day. Moreover, over 97% of these deportations occurred without a formal order of removal. Instead, migrants agreed, or were coerced, to leave the country after being apprehended.
[…]
Operation W*tb**k’s main objective was not to remove Mexican immigrants but rather to frighten U.S. farmers, especially in Texas, into hiring them legally. This tactic largely worked. A crucial but often overlooked detail […] is that it happened at the same time as the Bracero Program, a massive guest-worker program […] Between 1942 and 1964
[…]
The INS explicitly recognized the connection […] “should … a restriction be placed on the number of braceros allowed to enter the United States, we can look forward to a large increase in the number of illegal alien entrants into the United States.” It is no coincidence that the lull in migrants illegally crossing […] did not last once the Bracero Program ended
[…]
If he were to win the presidency again, Trump would have the legal authority to deport undocumented immigrants, but the logistical, political and legal obstacles to doing so quickly and massively are even greater today than they were in the 1950s. […] immigrants now live in cities, where immigrant sweeps are more difficult to carry out. […] undocumented population is much more dispersed and diverse than in the 1950s. […] most undocumented immigrants in the U.S. did not sneak across the border. […] mass deportations are likely to spark a more broad-based resistance today
StevoRsays
Scientists from the Oregon State University conducted chemical analyses on air bubbles trapped within the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide ice core. They discovered that, in the last glacial period, Earth experienced its highest CO2 increase: 14 parts per million in just 55 years. Not, our planet experiences that increase every five years.
… (Snip).. A favorite refrain among the dwindling number of climate deniers is that increases in temperature and carbon dioxide levels are a natural part of the Earth’s atmospheric cycle. And while the planet has certainly seen some rise and falls in both of those metrics over thousands (and even millions) of years, what the planet is currently experiencing far outstrips everything that has come before.
In a new study published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), scientists from Oregon State University identified the fastest natural rates of CO2 rise over the past 50,000 years. …
As primary results came in last night, Donald Trump touted the victories of GOP candidates who ran unopposed, as if his support for unchallenged incumbents was somehow impressive. The former president did this over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.
Embedded links to the “over and over again” are available at the main link. Link
When it comes to the newly unsealed revelations from Donald Trump’s classified-documents scandal, there’s a big difference between what’s important and what Republicans are pretending is important. Let’s start with the latter.
The former president, referencing newly available materials, claimed by way of his social media platform that the Justice Department “AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE” while executing a court-approved search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. This, according to Trump, is proof that President Joe Biden is “MENTALLY UNFIT TO HOLD OFFICE.”
It wasn’t at all clear how or why the Republican made this leap, but his allies were similarly hysterical. Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, for example, claimed that the incumbent Democratic president “ordered the hit on Trump at Mar-a-Lago.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia added that the Justice Department and the FBI had plans to “assassinate” the former president. Even some Fox News personalities parroted the line. [What fresh hell is this?]
Trump even issued an outlandish fundraising appeal, falsely claiming that Biden was “locked & loaded” and “ready to take me out” during the FBI’s search of his glorified country club.
All of this was utterly bonkers. As NBC News reported, Trump and allies appeared to be misconstruing “standard operating procedure at the FBI.” In fact, the bureau took the unusual step of issuing a public statement yesterday, explaining reality, and leaving no doubt that the former president and his allies simply had no idea what they were talking about.
But as truly ridiculous as the Republican rhetoric was, it would be a mistake to assume that there were no revelations of note in the newly unsealed court documents. NBC News also reported:
The judge who oversaw special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Donald Trump’s retention of classified records questioned how the former president could not have noticed that he had highly sensitive documents in his bedroom in Florida, a newly unsealed ruling shows.
The timeline of events helps clarify matters. In the spring of 2022, the Justice Department subpoenaed Trump, directing him to return the documents he took. In June 2022, the Republican’s attorneys insisted to law enforcement that there were no classified materials at Mar-a-Lago.
When Trump refused to comply with the subpoena, and his lawyer’s claims proved false, the FBI showed up at the venue in August 2022 to retrieve the classified documents the former president wasn’t supposed to have. In December 2022, Trump’s legal team arranged for a sweep of the Republican’s properties to ensure there were no remaining sensitive documents in his possession.
It was at that point when personnel found even more classified documents — in Trump’s bedroom. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell wondered how, exactly, this happened, and in a 2023 ruling, she wrote, “Notably, no excuse is provided as to how the former president could miss the classified-marked documents found in his own bedroom at Mar-a-Lago.”
In case this weren’t quite enough, a Politico report went on to note, “In a footnote, Howell also noted that another Trump adviser connected to his Save America PAC had acknowledged scanning the contents of the box that contained the classified materials in 2021 and storing them on a personal laptop provided by the PAC.”
There’s a reason the former president and his allies were fixated on absurd “assassination” claims: They were no doubt aware that the reality-based revelations from yesterday made Trump look even worse.
It was just two months ago when the new leadership team at the Republican National Committee started making significant personnel changes, including hiring two new lawyers to oversee the party’s election-year legal efforts.
One of the attorneys was longtime Republican lawyer Charlie Spies, who was hired to serve as the RNC’s chief counsel. That didn’t last: Spies was “pushed out” after failing to embrace Donald Trump’s ridiculous election conspiracy theories.
The other lawyer the RNC hired in March was Christina Bobb, who was tapped to serve as the party’s senior counsel for election integrity, and who was back in the news Tuesday. My MSNBC colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim reported:
Rudy Giuliani and several other defendants in the Arizona “fake electors” case have been arraigned on charges of conspiracy, fraud and forgery over an alleged scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Donald Trump’s favor. … Others arraigned Tuesday include former Arizona Republican Party chair Kelli Ward and Christina Bobb.
[…] As MSNBC’s Chris Hayes asked online, “What do you think the news cycle today would be like if the DNC’s head of voter mobilization got arraigned for voter fraud?”
[…] In case anyone needs a refresher, a recent Washington Post analysis made clear that Bobb’s not just another Republican lawyer.
She has a robust pedigree, at least as far as Trump is concerned. Soon after the 2020 election, she began working with Giuliani and others to elevate baseless or later-debunked claims about the results in various states having been tainted by fraud. She was involved in the “audit” of votes in Arizona, working with Trump campaign official (and Georgia co-defendant) Mike Roman. She wrote a book, published in January 2023, cataloguing familiar (and baseless or debunked) criticisms of the results. It’s all there, from Antrim County to State Farm Arena to True the Vote. (The book’s forward was written by Stephen K. Bannon; Jim Hoft of the conspiracy-promoting site Gateway Pundit wrote a blurb.)
That was just a sampling. Bobb also talked in 2022 about a plot to overturn the 2020 election results and possibly return Trump to the White House before the 2024 elections. A year later, the lawyer raised the possibility of someone “intentionally” having released Covid as part of a scheme to interfere with Trump’s re-election effort.
A year after that, she suggested that it shouldn’t much matter whether a presidential candidate was found guilty of insurrection.
Complicating matters, in 2022, a leading Justice Department official went to Mar-a-Lago with a few FBI agents in the hopes of retrieving documents Trump improperly took and refused to voluntarily give back. As part of that meeting, as regular readers might recall, it was Bobb who signed a certification statement, indicating that the former president had fully complied with a grand jury subpoena and no longer had any classified materials at his glorified country club.
That statement, we now know, wasn’t true: As the FBI discovered during a search two months later, Trump still had plenty of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Bobb later told investigators that she did not draft the statement she signed and blamed the mess on another Trump attorney.
In other words, the lawyer who will help oversee the Republican National Committee’s “election integrity” efforts is a “big lie” proponent, an election conspiracy theorist who played a prominent role in a scandal that led to one of Trump’s many felony indictments, and is now under indictment in Arizona, where she has been charged with election-related crimes.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has screwed up the Mar-a-Lago case in so many ways it defies easy categorization. Her slow rolling of the trial is obviously her single gravest sin. But there’s another layer of malfeasance going on here that came more clearly into view yesterday.
Over the objection of Special Counsel Jack Smith, Cannon ordered the unsealing of previous filings in the case. In some of those filings, it’s becoming apparent, Trump has tucked in information about the case that he wants to seed in the public imagination and use as fodder for his presidential campaign and for fighting the criminal charges outside of court.
Cannon has given him a green light to do so, and the results became apparent yesterday.
In one of the filings, Trump drew attention to the FBI’s deadly force policy, which was in effect during the search of Mar-a-Lago, as it is in every FBI field operation. As soon as the filing was unsealed, right-wing news outlets seized on it and accused Biden of being responsible for gunning for Trump.
Trump himself later in the day amplified these bogus attacks on social media:
Crooked Joe Biden’s DOJ, in their Illegal and UnConstitutional Raid of Mar-a-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE. NOW WE KNOW, FOR SURE, THAT JOE BIDEN IS A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY. HE IS MENTALLY UNFIT TO HOLD OFFICE—25TH AMENDMENT!
It became a campaign fundraising email, too: “BIDEN’S DOJ WAS AUTHORIZED TO SHOOT ME!” [WTF? eyeball
Of course none of this is true. The same deadly force policy that is in effect for every FBI operation was in effect for the Mar-a-Lago search. The FBI doesn’t need special authority to use deadly force; it has standing authority to use deadly force when circumstances warrant it. This is a standard operating policy, and Biden had nothing to do with its promulgation in general or its application in the Mar-a-Lago search in particular.
But you can see the dynamic plainly from what I just had to do to explain this to you: Trump wants to use the criminal justice process to generate more disinformation, Cannon facilitates him doing so with her rulings, right-wing media go apeshit, Trump gooses the reaction some more, and then a day later I come along and try to unpack it all for you, including the underlying falsity, with a put-the-toothpaste-back-in-the-tube futility. The FBI issued an unusual statement in similarly futile fashion.
This is all bad enough, but there’s another even darker layer here: It feeds the right-wing animosity toward federal law enforcement that has already led to two attacks on FBI field offices in the past two years. As former FBI agent Asha Rangappa points out:
It’s a central component of white nationalist ideology that federal law enforcement is an enemy and that instigating a (race) “war” with FLEOs is the vehicle through which the ideal society will be created. Just consider to whom appeals are being made when the FBI is attacked for doing their jobs.
The Biden administration said it has suspended from all federal funding programs the scientist at the heart of the lab leak theory of the origins of the coronavirus, and proposed blocking him from receiving federal funding in the future.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sent a letter to Peter Daszak on Tuesday, less than a week after the agency took similar action against Daszak’s organization, EcoHealth Alliance (EHA).
In the letter, HHS said it was holding Daszak responsible for EcoHealth Alliance’s failure to adequately monitor the activities of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and then subsequently failing to report on the lab’s high-risk virus studies.
“The alleged conduct of EHA is imputed to you, because during all or part of the time relevant, you participated in, knew of, or had reason to know of EHA’s improper conduct, through your role as the President of EHA” as well as project director and principal investigator, HHS wrote.
While bans generally last for about three years, “I may impose debarment for a longer period or shorter period as the circumstances warrant,” the agency said in the letter.
HHS cited information from 31 federal documents dating back to the National Institutes of Health’s initial 2014 grant to EcoHealth, leading up to the May 15 notice suspending and proposing debarment of Daszak’s organization.
EcoHealth and Daszak have come under fire from Republicans and Democrats over the group’s work with the Wuhan lab, particularly regarding controversial “gain of function” research to enhance the ability of the virus to cause disease or make it more transmissible.
Earlier this month, House lawmakers questioned Daszak about EcoHealth’s record on biosafety and its relationship with the Wuhan lab, though Republicans did not produce any evidence linking the COVID-19 pandemic to EcoHealth’s research.
[snipped a lot of details]
The National Institutes of Health said it is still waiting for materials it requested from EcoHealth in 2021 and 2022, and noted EcoHealth did not submit its 2019 annual report to federal officials for nearly two years.
“Given the issues regarding the management of EHA’s grant awards and subawards, and the nature of the virology research being conducted by EHA … I have determined that the immediate suspension of Dr. Daszak is necessary to protect the public interest,” a memo from a redacted HHS suspension and debarment official and the deputy assistant secretary for acquisitions said.
This looks like an incomplete report to me.
birgerjohanssonsays
GOP Leaders BLOW UP in House after Trump Facts Stated
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=dXOG-BEw_Kc
The Republican rules for the House literally bans the mention of Trump being in a court, since that is ‘negative’ speech about Donald Trump. This is Putin-level censorship.
John Moralessays
birgerjohansson, what?
The Republican rules for the House literally bans the mention of Trump being in a court
I find that hard to believe. So hard, even, that I don’t believe it.
And no, I’m not gonna watch some biased opinion piece article.
(Got an actual citation for this purported change to the rules for the House?)
—
“GOP Leaders BLOW UP in House after Trump Facts Stated”
Tells ya all you need to know about the source.
John Moralessays
This is Putin-level censorship.
Listen to yourself.
Putin-level censorship is more about beatings, imprisonment, drafting into the army, or falling out of a window.
I know it’s hyperbole, but it’s ridiculous nonetheless.
Actually, that’s Trump-level wankery, is what it is. Ridiculous, blatantly false hyperbole.
A Democratic member of the House read into the record a list of the charges Trump is facing. A Republican member asked that those remarks be struck from the record and the member presiding at the time agreed.
So…while the there is some hyperbole in the initial claim, what happened is pretty much what was described.
John Moralessays
Yes, I know, whheydt.
Partisan puffery that’s almost meaningless, but clickbaited to the max, and of course bait’n switchy.
I really don’t like that stuff.
“The Republican rules for the House literally bans [sic] the mention of Trump being in a court”
What was described is a claim about the rules, which is a false claim, and hyperbole about exploding people.
Now, if you reckon what happened is pretty much what was described, fair enough.
I don’t. Obviously.
And no, it’s not being hyperliteral to point out that if a headline says “X!” and the content is “¬X”, it is not a truthful headline.
—
A Democratic member of the House read into the record a list of the charges Trump is facing. A Republican member asked that those remarks be struck from the record and the member presiding at the time agreed.
Indeed. I know; I did my due diligence before commenting.
But that’s a different claim, and hardly a newsworthy one.
(Politicians posturing, who’d have thought!)
—
PS I caught your comment in the other thread; condolences.
Anniversaries can be hard.
whheydtsays
Re: John Morales @ #49…
Just responding to your very kind last point….
It all just kind of piles up this time of year. Our anniversary was 8 May. Her birthday was 6 June. She died on 28 June.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@John Morales #46:
“The Republican rules for the House literally bans the mention of Trump being in a court”
I find that hard to believe. So hard, even, that I don’t believe it.
@John Morales #49:
Here are the rules: [52 pg pdf] What was described is a claim about the rules, which is a false claim
p192 “held […] to refer to the President”
p193 “extended to a presumptive major-party nominee”
p195 (208): “Accusations that the President has committed a crime, or even that the President has done something illegal, are unparliamentary. he following allegations are not in order: […] (2) discussing ‘charges’ leveled at the President”
/This manual also includes the numerous forbidden phrases describing Trump.
John Moralessays
Um, Trump is not the President.
(It’s Biden)
whheydtsays
Re: John Morales @ #52…
Clearly, you are not a Republican. Or, at least, not a “proper” Republican in the eyes those currently controlling the Republican party.
John Moralessays
Thing is, the claim isn’t from some Republicans.
It’s from the MeidasTouch Network and was adduced by Birger.
Note, too, the conclusion: “This is Putin-level censorship.”
It doesn’t follow from the false premise, even, but the point is that’s not exactly incisive analysis, is it?
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@John Morales #52:
Um, Trump is not the President.
I excerpted “extended to a presumptive major-party nominee”. Here is the surrounding text, which was introducing the section.
pgs 192,193:
The standards applicable to references regarding the President apply also to the President-elect. In the 102d Congress, the Speaker enunciated a minimal standard of propriety for all debate concerning nominated candidates for the Presidency, based on the traditional proscription against personally offensive references to the President even in the capacity as a candidate. This policy has been extended to a presumptive major-party nominee for President. […] Under this standard, the following remarks regarding personal conduct, demeanor, or attributes have been held out of order
John Moralessays
CA7746, again:
(1) The Republican rules for the House literally bans the mention of Trump being in a court; and
(2) The standards applicable to references regarding the President apply also to the President-elect. In the 102d Congress, the Speaker enunciated a minimal standard of propriety for all debate concerning nominated candidates for the Presidency, based on the traditional proscription against personally offensive references to the President even in the capacity as a candidate.
Hm. I concede Trump is the current President-elect.
Nonetheless, how (in your estimation) is merely mentioning Trump being in a court specifically proscribed thereby?
(And, of course, the rules do not mention Trump by name, because they’re not about Trump)
—
See, here’s the thing:
A palpably false headline with a bullshit claim and an opinion based on that. Video stuff, too.
Now, you want to hold that (1) and (2) are semantically equivalent (or close enough), I can’t stop you.
But you’d be wrong if you did.
I noted that.
—
It’s the lazy way of commenting, ain’t it?
Me, I prefer quality over quantity, when adducing opinion pieces.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) sharply criticized Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on the House floor Wednesday after Johnson made an appearance at former President Trump’s criminal hush money trial in Manhattan.
“Look at the cover of today’s New York Times, Mr. Speaker. This is unbelievable. Here’s a picture of the Speaker of this House of Representatives, second in line to the presidency, standing in front of a courthouse, acting as a prop for Donald Trump, trying to interfere with a criminal trial, because apparently, Republicans like law and order unless it applies to them,” McGovern said.
He continued, addressing fellow House members on the floor, saying the “stunt” Johnson and several other Republican lawmakers pulled by supporting Trump in New York, “diminishes this House of Representatives.”
“Their candidate for president has been indicted more times than he’s been elected,” McGovern said in comments highlighted by Mediaite.
Huh.
John Moralessays
BTW, CA7746, re: “The chair read from a MUCH longer manual.”
The initial claim — the headline — is The Republican rules for the House, in case you failed to get why I adduced the link I did. It wasn’t lazy and it wasn’t arbitrary, and thereby it was more apposite.
I concede Trump is the current President-elect. – John Morales@56
Why would you concede that when it’s not true?
John Moralessays
Heh.
Because I can afford to so so, KG. :)
(Doesn’t matter to my case, does it?)
But, yes. Republican Presidential Candidate Elect, I suppose.
Presumptive President for Republicans.
birgerjohanssonsays
A Different Bias:
“Why Has Sunak Called the Election Now?”
Yes, let’s see why.
“An unpleasant, uncaring bumbling oaf”.
OK. That seems plausible.
KGsays
Nice of Rishi Sunak to give me a birthday present yesterday! At least, that’s as rational an explanation as any for his decision to call a general election he’s bound to lose 6 months before he needed to. I have no great hopes of Starmer, but election night itself should provide a good number of “Portillo moments”* when particularly loathsome Tory MPs lose their seats (even among the utterly loathsome, some are even more loathsome than others).
*“Portillo moments” because in the 1997 election, the vile right-winger (and widely-tipped future PM) Michael Portillo’s loss of his seat, announced at 3.10a.m., gave rise to the question “Were you still up for Portillo?”. To be fair, my guess is that Portillo would regard many of today’s Tory MPs as contemptible. And following his defeat, he reinvented himself as a TV presenter of travel programmes, concentrating on rail journeys, rather than becoming a right-wing talking head.
The problem with Donald Trump’s “deadly force” claims about the FBI isn’t just that he’s lying. It’s also that his lies might prove dangerous.
Donald Trump’s position in his classified-documents case was already difficult to defend, but newly disclosed details make matters even worse. […] highly sensitive documents were found in 2022 inside the former president’s bedroom at Mar-a-Lago.
A Washington Post report added, “Buried in the supporting documentation for one of the motions was a document that contained a new public revelation: Once Trump realized that security cameras at Mar-a-Lago could capture his employees moving classified government information that officials were attempting to retrieve, he allegedly ensured that they would avoid the cameras when moving boxes.”
At least for now, neither the presumptive Republican nominee nor any of his sycophants have even tried to present a defense for any of this. Rather, they’ve focused their energies on something else entirely.
On Tuesday afternoon, the former president, referencing the newly available materials, claimed by way of his social media platform that the Justice Department “AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE” while executing a court-approved search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. This, according to Trump, constituted proof that President Joe Biden is “MENTALLY UNFIT TO HOLD OFFICE.”
As we discussed soon after, it wasn’t at all clear how or why Trump made this leap, but his allies were similarly hysterical. [snipped details]
[…] After the claims were thoroughly and completely discredited, and the FBI itself took the unusual step of issuing a public statement leaving no doubt that the former president and his allies simply had no idea what they were talking about, Trump repeated the claim anyway. From an item published to his social-media platform early this morning, shortly after midnight:
“… Biden’s Department of Injustice authorized the use of ‘deadly force’ in their Illegal, UnConstitutional, and Un-American RAID of Mar-a-Lago, and that would include against our Great Secret Service, who they thought might be ‘in the line of fire.’”
The presumptive GOP nominee would apparently have the public believe that President Joe Biden directed law enforcement to prepare to shoot people, including Secret Service agents, at Mar-a-Lago.
As Trump lies go, this isn’t just stark raving mad; it’s also quite dangerous.
The basic details are unambiguous and uncontested:
– After Trump defied a federal subpoena, the FBI executed a court-approved search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. This was neither “illegal” nor “unconstitutional.”
– The relevant paperwork included standard language, used every time the FBI executes a court-approved search warrant.
– The language is intended to limit, not encourage, the use of deadly force.
– When the FBI searched President Joe Biden’s home in Delaware, as part of a separate search for classified documents, the paperwork included the same phrasing — which, by Team Trump’s reasoning, means the Biden administration was prepared to “assassinate” the Democratic incumbent himself.
But as easy as it is to shake one’s head in disgust at Republicans’ willingness to peddle such ludicrous lies — even after they’ve been debunked — it’s just as important, if not more so, to consider the potential consequences.
“The threat of political violence is persistently high, especially in the months leading up to the 2024 presidential election. And by spreading this hoax, Trump is fanning the flames, in particular, of anti-government extremism,” a Just Security analysis explained this morning.
The piece added, “Conspiracy theories such as the nonsensical assassination plot fuel the extremists’ anti-government paranoia and increase the likelihood of future violence. We should accordingly not be surprised if rightwing extremists interpret Trump’s words as a call to action against the FBI or others.”
I think violence done in his name is what Trump wants.
Followup to several comments up-thread that discuss rules about what can be said about Trump (and others) on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives:
[…] In general, the relevant rules are supposed to discourage House members from personally attacking each other during floor remarks. In this instance, however, Republican concluded, after a surprisingly lengthy delay for deliberation, that McGovern wasn’t allowed to go after the former president, either — even though everything McGovern [Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass] said was entirely true. [video at the link]
As part of the process, McGovern was prohibited from speaking again for the rest of the day, though the Massachusetts Democrat said via social media, “Apparently, Republicans are allowed to say that Trump’s trial is a sham, and the judge is corrupt and the jury is rigged. But it’s against the rules for me to even acknowledge that the trials exist.” [LOL. Well said.]
Of course, there is a degree of irony to the circumstances: Had Republicans ignored McGovern’s (accurate) remarks, they likely would have gone largely unnoticed. But by targeting the congressman’s list of Trump scandals, far more people saw and heard the comments.
[…] Streisand effect. […] In other words, the more someone tries to divert attention away from a story, the more it ends up having the opposite effect. […]
The Supreme Court threw up yet more impediments to protecting minority voters Thursday — one of the conservatives’ most successful crusades and one that has already become a legacy of the Roberts Court.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, joined by all of his right-wing peers (except for Justice Clarence Thomas in one section). The three liberals dissented. The case — Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP — stems from a congressional map in South Carolina; the Court took so long in handing down a ruling that the state’s 2024 elections were already set to take place under the map that a district panel found to be racially gerrymandered.
Alito, as Justice Elena Kagan described in her dissent, “cherrypicked” evidence brought at trial to reverse engineer a conclusion that the map was really drawn to give Republicans a partisan advantage, not to disempower Black voters. Such a distinction means little in a region where race and partisan lean are often closely aligned, but the Supreme Court previously barred partisan gerrymandering claims from being heard in federal court.
The effect of the decision will be to make it even harder to win racial gerrymandering claims. […]
Alito consistently expresses more concern about the feelings of South Carolina legislators than he does about their role in disenfranchising their own voters.
“When a federal court finds that race drove a legislature’s districting decisions, it is declaring that the legislature engaged in ‘offensive and demeaning’ conduct that ‘bears an uncomfortable resemblance to political apartheid,’” he wrote, quoting old cases. “We should not be quick to hurl such accusations at the political branches.”
[…] In her dissent, Kagan hammered Alito for appointing himself as an additional attorney to help South Carolina’s case. […] “This Court is not supposed to be so fearful of telling discriminators, including States, to stop discriminating,” she added.
She ended her dissent with a look to the future — where states simply have to raise the “possibility” that they drew their gerrymanders with criteria other than race in mind to get off scot-free. [Yep]
“When racial classifications in voting are at issue, the majority says, every doubt must be resolved in favor of the State, lest (heaven forfend) it be ‘accus[ed]’ of ‘offensive and demeaning’ conduct,” she eyerolled. [LOL.]
Thomas, writing separately, mildly criticizes Alito for redoing the work of the district court before taking an extreme position: that redistricting questions shouldn’t be decided by federal courts at all. Full stop.
“In my view, the Court has no power to decide these types of claims,” he wrote. “Drawing political districts is a task for politicians, not federal judges. There are no judicially manageable standards for resolving claims about districting, and, regardless, the Constitution commits those issues exclusively to the political branches.”
Thomas’ positions, once fringe, have increasingly become the guiding light for this far-right Court.
A new Harris poll for The Guardian found that the majority of Americans believe that the U.S. is in a recession.
This is patently untrue.
The U.S. is experiencing an extended period of growth, and while market forecasters spent much of the last three years predicting that a recession was just around the corner, it never arrived. Now economists believe that a recession is increasingly unlikely.
As The Wall Street Journal reported a month ago, the U.S. economy is the envy of the world, and it has “far outperformed expectations over the past year and a half.” But in poll after poll, Americans say that the economy is poor or simply bad. And a plurality believe the economy was better under Donald Trump. [OMFG]
With voters saying that the economy is their top issue for the 2024 election, there might be nothing more important to President Joe Biden than finding a way to get people to believe good news in a nation pervaded by media outlets and Republican politicians selling disaster.
All three of the major stock indexes set new records in the last week, with the Dow Jones closing above 40,000 for the first time.
While it’s easy to dismiss stock prices as something that matters only to the rich, workers with 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts have also benefited from this extended period of good economy and rising markets. [snipped details]
Sure, that’s a lot of money for the wealthy who control 93% of stock, but it’s also tens of millions of Americans who will have a more comfortable and secure retirement. In fact, the number of Americans who have over $1 million in their retirement accounts grew by 20% in the last quarter of 2023.
Unemployment dropped from 6.3% under Trump and has remained under 4% for the longest period since the Vietnam War. Also, 15 million new jobs have been created under Biden while 2.9 million were lost under Trump.
Not only that, but manufacturing jobs, long the foundation of a strong middle class, are making a comeback under Biden as the CHIPS and Science Act brings in billions in new investment. Good new jobs are finally being created in areas where Trump promised but failed to deliver.
Economists recognize that the economy is much better under Biden than it was under Trump. So why do polls keep showing that Americans aren’t giving Biden any credit? And why do 74% of swing state voters say inflation is getting worse even though that’s not true?
[…] As The Wall Street Journal reported in April, there’s nothing wrong with the data; the economy really is thriving in just about every way that can be measured.
When it comes to the economy, the vibes are at war with the facts, and the vibes are winning. This is obviously bad news for President Biden’s re-election hopes. He can’t exactly tell voters that they are wrong; he would be called out of touch. And it probably wouldn’t change anything. The vibes seem symptomatic of a broader pessimism disconnected from the data.
That reflects an earlier post from the Poynter Institute.
Voters are giving Donald Trump — who’s seeking to return to the White House — more love on the economy than they’re giving Biden. In a late February-early March CBS News poll, almost two-thirds of respondents nationally said the economy was good under Trump, while 39% said the same of today’s economy under Biden.
Over the last three years, Biden has done a tremendous job at handling the real economy. Yet somehow the “vibe economy” seems immune to an avalanche of good news. Maybe that’s a matter of messaging, or maybe it’s simply because it’s easier to believe the worst. [And doofuses get their daily thrill by believing the worst.]
If there’s any problem Biden needs to solve before November, it’s how to get voters to believe in the near miracle he has already delivered.
Cartoon: Tom the Dancing Bug presents RFK Jr’s brain worm’s guide to third-party voter brains
Pierce R. Butlersays
From the Steve Benen report quoted@ Lynna’s #50: Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, for example, claimed that the incumbent Democratic president “ordered the hit on Trump at Mar-a-Lago.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia added that the Justice Department and the FBI had plans to “assassinate” the former president. Even some Fox News personalities parroted the line.
I haven’t seen anything spelling it out explicitly, but it seems pretty obvious that the FBI timed their search specifically for when Trump had gone to New Jersey – precisely to minimize the theatrics and risks of reactions getting out of control. That the Congressional Chorus of Crazies drops that detail reveals just how little actual thought they expect from their followers – no doubt quite realistically.
Pierce R. Butlersays
Oops – @ my # 72, that should’ve read “Lynna’s # 41”!
The Democratic-led Senate confirmed President Joe Biden’s 200th federal judge Wednesday, a milestone that highlights a sharp contrast with his election rival, Republican former President Donald Trump, as they seek to shape the courts over the next four years.
“Reaching 200 judges is a major milestone,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “Our federal judiciary is now far more balanced, far more diverse, far more experienced.”
It’s unclear whether Biden will catch up to the 234 judges Trump secured in his presidential term. But the winners of the presidency and the Senate majority in the 2024 election will have the power to shape the courts for the next few years, and the two men have dramatically different criteria in choosing nominees.
The White House occupant next term could even pick one or more new Supreme Court justices, which could shift or entrench the current 6-3 conservative majority. By the time the winner is sworn in, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas will be 76 and conservative Justice Samuel Alito will be 74. The next oldest member of the court is liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who will be 70. Chief Justice John Roberts will turn 70 a week after the swearing-in.
[…] In addition to selecting new justices, the two parties have different visions for the Supreme Court: Democrats say they’re looking at new rules, such as a binding code of ethics and recusal standards for justices, and a more active role overseeing the court. Republicans, content with the conservative majority they’ve built, are telegraphing a hands-off approach that would preserve the court’s existing structure.
[…] Biden’s judges include many former civil rights lawyers, labor lawyers and public defenders, breaking from the mold of prosecutors and corporate lawyers that previous presidents tended to lean on. More than 60% of Biden’s judges are women, and more than 60% are nonwhite, said the White House. […] he has put more Black women on circuit courts than all previous presidents combined and more Hispanic and Asian American judges than any other president. […]
[…] May’s full Flower Moon reaches peak illumination at 9:53 A.M. (EDT) on Thursday, May 23. It will be below the horizon at this time. Therefore, venture outdoors on the nights of the 22nd and the 23rd to get the best view of the bright, full Flower Moon! […]
Whoops, a little late with this announcement, but you may want to enjoy moon watching tonight.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has added a new layer of irony to his crusade against diversity in Florida. As part of his “Freedom Summer” initiative, he’s requiring bridges in the Sunshine State to only use red, white, and blue lights from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
First announced by Florida Director of Transportation Jared Perdue, the requirement prevents cities from lighting up bridges to celebrate holidays like Juneteenth or Pride Month.
“Thanks to the leadership of Gov. DeSantis, Florida continues to be the freest state in the nation,” Perdue said. [uhh]
The move seems to be a clear attack on the LGBTQ+ community and the rainbow colors typically used to celebrate Pride Month—a favorite scapegoat for the anti-woke troll governor. DeSantis infamously signed the discriminatory “Don’t Say Gay” bill into law in March 2022.
The bill’s purpose was to prohibit “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels.” The vagueness puts educators at risk of punishment if they even happen to mention that they are in a same-sex marriage, among other things.
This is not the first time DeSantis and the state’s department of transportation have tried to squash colorful lighting schemes on the state’s bridges. Back in 2020, the department of transportation denied St. Petersburg’s request to light up the Sunshine Skyway Bridge for Pride Month. Public outrage led to a reversal of that decision in 2021.
Carlos Guillermo Smith, Equality Florida’s senior policy adviser, told The Washington Post that “the bridge lights were about celebrating diversity and inclusion, which will continue to happen in our communities.”
[…] Cindy Noble, president of Jacksonville’s Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, told Florida’s NBC affiliate, “It’s very disheartening because they did this a couple years ago, and here we are again and it’s not just the group that we represent, this also affects people who celebrate Juneteenth, violence against women’s day, Gun Violence Prevention Day. It’s affecting a bunch of groups with important causes.”
Jacksonville’s Acosta Bridge has historically been lit up to celebrate various holidays and causes, including gun safety awareness and the city’s minor league baseball team, the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp.
Ever the troll, DeSantis seems to be riffing off of the “Freedom Summer” of 1964, when civil rights activists banded together in a massive effort to register southern Black Americans to vote.
A little followup to the story of Justice Alito and his wife flying flags that show support for Trump/insurrection/Christian nationalism outside their homes:
[…] last summer at the Alitos’ beach house in New Jersey, they flew the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, an explicitly Christian nationalist flag that was all over the January 6 insurrection, along with a couple other flags that didn’t advocate for the overthrow of the United States government. Even the New York Times wants to make sure you know, nah, this is explicitly Christian nationalist.
This is a different flag from the one they flew in Virginia, which was an upside down American flag because Mayday, Mayday, the guy they didn’t like won the election, won’t someone do something about it like attack Congress maybe. […]
We are talking about a Supreme Court justice of the United States, and he’s doing all of this while he’s ruling on cases specifically related to Republican MAGA terrorist/insurrectionist efforts to steal the 2020 election. Right now, Alito is set to be allowed to squeak open his shitmouthed maw anew, and have a say on whether Donald Trump will ever be held accountable for the terrorist attack he incited against the country in order to overturn that election and overthrow the government. Again, we want to be as clear as possible: Samuel Alito is on the Supreme Court. Samuel Alito is currently helping decide whether Trump and his thousands of Proud Boy/military and law enforcement losers can get in trouble for trying to violently, by force, overthrow the government. And Samuel Alito flew two different flags at two different houses that specifically were flags begging Jesus and maybe some Proud Boys/military and law enforcement losers to Please Help Trump Overthrow the Government. […]
Federalist Society creep Leonard Leo has one of the Christian terrorist flags outside his house too! He and Alito are extremely, extremely close. Why, Leo helped Alito get the wingnut welfare job he currently has, even though he’s not remotely qualified for it.
[…] Dahlia Lithwick argues that Senate Democrats aren’t the problem. It’s us, and our willingness to let this fuckery slide. Long block quote, because YOLO, this piece is a million words already:
[R]ather than hurling ourselves headlong into the “Alito Must Recuse” brick wall of “yeah, no,” we need to dedicate the upcoming election cycle, and the attendant election news cycle, to a discussion of the courts. Not just Alito or Thomas, who happen to go to work every day at the court, and not just Dobbs and gun control, which happen to have come out of the very same court, but the connection between those two tales: what it means to have a Supreme Court that is functionally immune from political pressure, from internal norms of behavior, from judicial ethics and disclosure constraints, and from congressional oversight, and why that is deeply dangerous. […]
An imperial court is the problem, not Martha-Ann Alito’s childish tantrums and not whatever her husband will tell Fox News tomorrow about how the haters made him fly a Christian nationalist flag as the court took on the mifepristone case. Please don’t let the rapid riptides of the news cycle or the sense that God wants us all to live under the fist of an imperial court forever and ever, amen, distract from the fact that term limits, court expansion, an inspector general, and filibuster reform, all of this is possible, and none of it is happening in the wake of the Alito flag revelations, just as none of it was happening when Ginni Thomas showed up at an insurrection rally.
Expanding the court isn’t some kind of activist position. It should be the mainstream Democratic position, hell or high water. Win the 2024 presidential election, keep the Senate, win back the House, […] use them to count out eight (8) new seats on the Court, to be filled by eight (8) 40-year-old multiracial women Biden will appoint to fill them.
Leave the conservatives out in the cold for good. Don’t worry, they’ll have their Christian terrorist flags to keep them nice and warm.
The MAGA lie that Joe Biden ORDERED THE ASSASSINATION! of Donald Trump is the stupidest MAGA lie since “Donald Trump won the 2020 election.” But goddamn, [Trump’s cult followers] are buying it, just as their leaders knew they would.
It’s been everywhere in right-wing media, especially on Fox News. Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo […] finds it “so extraordinary!”
Judge Boxwine really has been on one, pretending she’s too stupid to know the FBI has standard policies involving when and where force can be used, and failing to even check whether she’s lying when she says, “They didn’t do it against Joe Biden when they seized his records.”
But Fox News still has journalists on staff, and sometimes — SOMETIMES — they do real reporting […]
Jacqui Heinrich, the reporter Tucker Carlson wanted fired when she factchecked some Trump lies about Dominion and election rigging, drew the short of that straw this time.
[…] Here is the full text of that Fox News reporting:
NEWS: FBI SEARCHES AT PRESIDENT BIDEN’S HOMES ALSO INCLUDED DEADLY FORCE POLICY (which is standard) A person familiar with the Hur investigation confirms that the standard Department of Justice policy statement regarding the use of deadly force was also included in the operations order for the searches at President Biden’s residences in Delaware. CONTEXT: yesterday, former President Trump suggested that the Biden administration wanted to kill him during a search of his Mar-a-Lago estate. A fundraising email read, “Joe Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out”. The FBI said standard protocol was followed, no additional steps were taken and there was no departure from the norm. This news about the deadly force policy also being in place for the FBI searches at Biden’s homes underscores that point.
[…] (And again, Trump wasn’t even present during the search of Mar-a-Lago, which the FBI knew.)
[…] Heinrich followed up with a simple confirmation from the FBI, that it followed its own standard protocol: [screen grab at the link]
And a confirmation from AG Merrick Garland, who also confirmed it was the standing protocol during the search of Joe Biden’s Delaware house: [screen grab at the link]
Does that settle things, when Fox News reports it out? […]
A sample of Heinrich’s replies:
“Sorry, but I don’t believe anything this FBI says! I’d ask for proof!”
“Release a copy of it then.”
[…] “Not when it’s the executive branch and secret service is involved, dig a little more Jacqui”
“Until I see it like I’ve seen Trump’s, it doesn’t exist. There is no standard operating procedure for raiding a former president’s home.”
“Need the paperwork”
“Now we know how the Nazis got Germans to load the trains. It’s standard procedure for all the Jews to get on. Don’t worry, it’s all been coordinated so pack em in. It’s misinformation to suggest this isn’t all very normal.”
“Only thing better would be if you said, ‘ Suckers and losers’ hoaxer, Jen Griffin confirmed your ‘reporting.’ Lol”
Stormy Daniels was almost done testifying. She was showing signs of exhaustion after hours of withering cross-examination from Trump attorney Susan Necheles, who prompted Daniels to describe her open hatred of Trump, her encounters with the paranormal, and her “Make America Horny Again” strip tour.
Necheles, an experienced New York City litigator, looked poised to go in for the kill. She brought her questions back to the Lake Tahoe celebrity golf tournament where Trump and Daniels met, and asked one of her final questions:
“President Trump was the biggest celebrity, probably, at that tournament, right?”
Daniels seemed confused. “It depends on what you’re a fan of,” she replied.
But Necheles pushed: People recognized Trump? They “followed him around?” He did very well at golf? He played on his own?
“I don’t remember what the scores were,” Daniels said.
It was one instance of a pattern that emerged throughout testimony in Trump’s criminal hush money trial: his attorneys went out of their way to massage his ego, loading questions with praise for their boss or having witnesses testify to how big and successful Trump is.
After sitting through the entirety of the trial, I wasn’t entirely sure that my impression about this flattery — its scope and its frequency — had been correct. So, I pulled up all of the transcripts from testimony, and entered a few search terms: “success,” “big,” “golf,” “huge,” and “admire.”
It’s a less than scientific method, but it yielded results. What I found were dozens of instances in which Trump’s legal team directed their questioning towards eliciting testimony about the greatness of their client. […]
[…] Russian Forces Lost– according to a top of main page graphic which is updated daily.
Troops +1330 in the past day: Total Dead: 497,700 [Actually, that number is a combination of wounded and killed.]
Tanks +11: Total Destroyed: 7,622
Artillery +40: Total Destroyed: 12,860
Other Armored Vehicles +27: 14,748
Aircraft +1: Total Destroyed: 355
Helicopters: Total Destroyed: 326
Ships: Total Destroyed: 27
The Associated Press reports:
“31,000 Ukrainian military personnel have been killed in this war. Not 300,000, not 150,000, not whatever Putin and his deceitful circle have been lying about. But nevertheless, each of these losses is a great sacrifice for us”, Zelenskyy said at the “Ukraine. Year 2024” forum in Kyiv.
Ukrainian Counterattacks Recapture Lost Ground in Kharkiv Sector, US-Made Strykers in Action
Kyiv Post
Ukrainian troops counterattacking in the northern Kharkiv sector recovered lost ground and captured Russian prisoners of war, but bitter fighting in the town of Vovchansk was still in progress, official and open-source reports said on Wednesday.
Both the Ukrainian DeepState battle tracking platform and the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) confirmed that Ukrainian forces had recaptured buildings and advanced in the battleground town less than five kilometers from the Russian border. An ISW May 22 report called the situation in the town “dynamic.”
Ukrainian Drones Hit Russian Military Factories 1,000 KM Away
Kyiv Post
Ukrainian intelligence (HUR) told Kyiv Post it struck Russian military production facilities in Tatarstan on May 23 with UAVs.
More than 1,000 km from the border, Ukrainian drones struck several military equipment production facilities in Russia’s Tatarstan on Thursday afternoon, Ukrainian military intelligence sources (HUR) told Kyiv Post.
The strike drones reached Kazan and Nizhnekamsk – where various companies make products to equip the Russian military’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine – the HUR source said.
The source said, with a smile, that “the operation was carried out as part of the Ukrainian holiday – Heroes’ Day,” adding that it was “HURkitlyvo” – which translates to loud with the sound of a rumbling.
…and finally:
Dominoes Keep Falling – Fifth Corrupt Russian Official Taken into Custody
As the Kremlin escalates its crackdown on Russia’s corrupt generals the head of the Ministry of Defense department for state procurement becomes the second arrested in less than 24 hours.
Russian milbloggers have reported on that Vladimir Verteletsky, a senior defense ministry official in charge of procurement for Russia’s armed forces was arrested on suspicion of “accepting a bribe on an especially large scale.” He was arrested after law enforcement officers raided his office in the main building of the Ministry of Defense on Frunzenskaya Embankment in Moscow.
~~~
So there you have it. […] The truth is that Ukraine is keeping Putin’s Mafia State from launching further wars. [“wars” maybe, but Russia is still supporting disruptive actions in Africa; and supporting disinformation campaigns in many way and in many places.]
[…] And the drone wars continue … relentlessly and unabated. Today someone using a drone hung the Ukrainian national flag on telephone/power lines in St. Petersburg, Russia … Vladimir Putin’s own hometown. Serious next level trolling!! [video at the link]
G7 finance ministers gather in Italy on Thursday (23 May) for a three-day meeting dominated by plans to use Russian assets to help Ukraine, as well as new sanctions on Moscow and the commercial threat posed by China.
The ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven world powers are meeting in Stresa, on the shores of northern Italy’s Lake Maggiore, to prepare for the larger summit of G7 heads of state next month in Puglia.
Top of the agenda is a plan to finance crucial aid to Ukraine using the interest generated by the €300 billion of Russian central bank assets frozen by the G7 and Europe.
The United States has proposed granting Ukraine, which has been fighting a Russian invasion for more than two years, up to $50 billion in loans secured by this interest.
The team used computer models of planets with different kinds of atmospheres and then simulated what JWST would observe from these worlds. These tools were a step above what had first been used to interpret the TRAPPIST-1 c results. Three different kinds of worlds were explored: ones with either Venus-like thick CO2 atmospheres, oxygen-dominated atmospheres, or water-rich “steam” atmospheres. Confirming the previous results, Lincowski and company found that TRAPPIST-1 c probably does not have a thick CO2 blanket. But the team also found that fairly thick oxygen atmospheres with 1 to 10 times Earth’s surface pressure fit well within the JWST measurements’ margins of error. In addition, steam atmospheres, where a runaway greenhouse effect is driving liquid water into the atmosphere, were also possible.
TRAPPIST-1 c hosting either a thick oxygen atmosphere or a relatively thick steam atmosphere would be scientifically awesome. While we might not expect either kind of world to host life (but who knows), what matters is diversity.
Based on the current radiation levels of Trappist-1, even its outer planets would lose an Earth’s atmosphere worth of gases within a few hundred million years. Planets such as Earth, Mars, and Venus had very thick atmospheres in their youth, so we could assume the Trappist worlds would have as well. But young red dwarfs give off even more high-energy radiation, so atmospheres would evaporate at an even faster rate. Since Trappist-1 is a bit older than our sun, about 8 billion years old, any atmosphere the Trappist worlds might have had is likely long gone.
More research, observations and studies badly needed and I’m really anxiously looking forward to the results on Trappist-1’s outer planets since the question of whether red dwarfs – the vast majority of stars can actually host habitable planets or (almost?) always strip their atmospheres away through strong stellar flares is a question with huge implications for common advanced life might be in the cosmos.
Pierce R. Butlersays
StevoR @ # 87, quoting Wikipedia: TRAPPIST-1 c hosting either a thick oxygen atmosphere or a relatively thick steam atmosphere … we might not expect either kind of world to host life …
In what kind of scenario would a planet have lots of free oxygen (not bound to hydrogen, iron, carbon, sulfur, etc) without photosynthesis (a biological process)?
StevoRsays
Hope so! The answer does seem to be maaaybe..
Will we see more intense auroras this year? The science of solar storms explained
ABC Science / By science reporter Jacinta Bowler
Victoria Police Commissioner Shane Patton has apologised to Indigenous communities across the state for the police’s role in the Stolen Generations.
At an event in Melbourne’s north attended by leaders of the Indigenous community, Commissioner Patton apologised on behalf of the force and pledged to do better.
“It’s vital for Victoria Police to face up to and accept responsibility for the widespread harm caused to Aboriginal people by the role police played in forcibly removing children from their families,” he said. “I am deeply sorry for the harm which this has caused and the harm which continues to be felt now.”
@ Pierce R. Butler : “In what kind of scenario would a planet have lots of free oxygen (not bound to hydrogen, iron, carbon, sulfur, etc) without photosynthesis (a biological process)?”
Not sure but obvs not necessarily a biological one. FWIW Europa has an oxygen atmosphere :
Ionized (charged) particles from Jupiter impact the moon’s icy surface, splitting water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. But exactly how much oxygen is in Europa’s thin atmosphere has been a matter of debate. On March 4, 2024, a new study from an international team of scientists with NASA’s Juno mission said they’ve determined the rate of oxygen production on Europa to be about 1,000 tons every 24 hours. That’s enough oxygen for a million people to breathe every day, yet still less than previous studies had estimated. The result also means less oxygen could make its way into the ocean below the surface, possibly affecting habitability.
Although its highly doubtful that particular mechanism is at work on Trappist 1c. Perhaps a chemical process that frees oxygen from rocks – sorta like rusting in reverse? Or maybe Trappist 1c had a vastly higher level of oxgen when it formed due to the composition of the nebula it formed from? Pure speculation on my part but who knows? Or algae inits atmosphere that are at a high enough level to have ideal conditions a la speculated Cytherean life? It certainly does raise that and other questions.
StevoRsays
Imagines a Trappist 1 c like Venus but covered in green clouds of photosynthesising aerial lifeforms that either evolved or were engineeered to live there above a surface that’s like that of Venus .. Unlikely (highly x lots?) but who knows?
StevoRsays
Oh and looks like another potentailly, maaaybe pomising exoplanet has been discovered the other day too :
Scientists using a NASA space telescope have discovered a tantalizing world. It’s about the size of Earth, sits remarkably close to our solar system, and could be comfortable for life as we know it. The extrasolar planet, or “exoplanet,” named Gliese 12 b, orbits a small and cool red dwarf star located just around 40 light-years from Earth in the constellation Pisces. The exoplanet — which the team found with NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) — is estimated to have a width around 1.1 times that of Earth, making it similar to our planet as well as Venus, which is often called our world’s solar system “twin.”
… (Snip!) …
Gliese 12 b receives around 85% of the radiation that Venus gets from the sun, but is thought to have a much cooler surface temperature of 107 degrees Fahrenheit (42 degrees Celsius) compared to Venus’ surface temperature of 867 degrees Fahrenheit (464 degrees Celsius).
Though Earth and Venus are both in the sun’s habitable zone, one can support life and has a favorable atmosphere, while the other is an inhospitable hellscape with temperatures hot enough to melt lead. Studying Gliese 12 b could help us understand why this is the case. “Gliese 12 b could teach us a lot about how our own solar system has developed as well,” Palethorpe added.
Again, orbiting a red dwarf and so, again, depending on what happens with red dwarf suns and a planetary atmospheres highlighting again how important answering that question is. StillI, I do find this fascinating good news.
StevoRsays
How are Trumpist traitors Alito and Thomas still on SCOTUS & not behind bars for sedition?
The Supreme Court struck down a challenge to a congressional map in South Carolina that civil rights groups argued was a racial gerrymander. In a 6-3 decision, the conservative majority delivered a win to Republicans who said they used politics, not race, as the key factor when drawing the district bounds. (BULLSHIT! -ed,) Geoff Bennett discussed the decision with NewsHour Supreme Court analyst Marcia Coyle.
If American voters are looking for a presidential candidate who’s desperate to please Big Oil, Donald Trump is running the right kind of campaign. The Washington Post reported this week:
In a rambling fundraising pitch to oil executives in Houston on Wednesday, former president Donald Trump promised them that he would immediately approve their projects and expand drilling in a second term — just as he worked to expedite the controversial Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines soon after taking office in 2017.
So let me see if I have this straight. The presumptive Republican nominee — ostensibly a “populist,” running as a man-of-the-people candidate — headlined an event organized by three oil executives. At the gathering, Trump, talking to people who paid $250,000 per person to be there, assured his wealthy supporters that he’d do everything the oil industry wants, including lifting the natural gas export ban, scraping existing energy safeguards, and opening up more federal lands to oil drilling.
The comments, the Post’s report added, drew “cheers from the audience.”
This comes on the heels of a Politico report indicating that oil industry executives are writing up presidential executive orders now, in the hopes that Trump will simply sign them if/when he returns to the White House. A few days later, the Post also reported on the former president recently huddling with Big Oil leaders at Mar-a-Lago.
If the account is accurate, the Republicans’ presumptive presidential nominee told the oil industry executives that they should raise $1 billion to return him to the White House — and if they did, he’d reward them by eliminating environmental safeguards and approving new tax breaks.
The “deal” that Trump described, the Post added, “stunned several of the executives in the room.”
It’s an increasingly bizarre dynamic: Democrats are accusing Trump of being in Big Oil’s back pocket, to the which the Republican is effectively responding, “Yep.”
But that’s not all Democrats are saying. The New York Times reported:
Senate Democrats opened an investigation on Thursday into former President Donald J. Trump’s meeting with oil and gas executives last month to determine whether Mr. Trump offered a “policies-for-money transaction” when he asked for $1 billion for his 2024 campaign so he could retake the White House and delete President Biden’s climate regulations.
The Times’ report added that two Senate committee chairs — Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island — sent letters to top executives of eight oil companies and a trade group this week, seeking details of the Mar-a-Lago meeting.
[…] Democrats on the House Oversight Committee launched a similar effort this week, but given the fact that they’re in the minority and have no subpoena power, oil industry executives and their lawyers will probably be uninterested in the outrage. The letters from Senate Democratic committee chairs, however, will be harder to ignore.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville appeared on Fox Business yesterday morning and continued to express great confidence in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. But part of the Alabama Republican’s pitch could use some work:
“You know, the unemployment rates of all people in the country were very, very low under Donald Trump, but not under this president. Everybody is looking for a way to get a job.”
He didn’t appear to be kidding. [video at the link]
[snipped details from 2017, 2018 and 2019]
In Biden’s first year in the White House, the unemployment rate rapidly improved, falling from 6.4% in January to 3.9% in December. In 2022, the average for the year improved to 3.6%. A year later, it remained at 3.6%.
In fact, in April 2023, the jobless rate fell all the way to 3.4% — a level unseen in the United States since before the Moon landing. What’s more, the unemployment rate has now been below 4% for 27 consecutive months — a streak also unseen since the 1960s.
If Tuberville wants to have a debate about how and why we’re seeing these numbers, that’s fine. If he wants to discuss who deserves credit for encouraging economic data, we can do that, too.
But to argue — out loud and on national television — that the unemployment rate isn’t low under Biden, and that it was actually better under Trump, is demonstrably ridiculous.
Donald Trump was silent for a year about Evan Gershkovich’s detainment. It now appears the former president would’ve been better off staying silent. [Pretty much always true in Trump’s case.]
In March 2023, Russian security forces detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and falsely accused the journalist of espionage. It was the first such arrest of American journalist in Russia since the latter days of the Cold War.
The move sparked bipartisan outrage, though Donald Trump, for reasons he did not explain, said literally nothing — for over a year. Given the former president’s apparent eagerness to curry favor with Vladimir Putin, the Republican’s silence did not go unnoticed.
In April, more than a year after Gershkovich was first detained, Trump sat down with Time magazine, which asked why the presumptive GOP nominee hasn’t called for the reporter’s release. “I guess because I have so many things I’m working on,” Trump replied.
In the same interview, however, the former president declared, in reference to Gershkovich, “I’ll get him released. He’ll be released. Putin is going to release him.”
Yesterday, at 1:30 a.m. eastern, Trump shed additional light on the subject with a curious message published to his social media platform.
“Evan Gershkovich, the Reporter from The Wall Street Journal, who is being held by Russia, will be released almost immediately after the Election, but definitely before I assume Office. He will be HOME, SAFE, AND WITH HIS FAMILY. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, will do that for me, but not for anyone else, and WE WILL BE PAYING NOTHING!”
This sparked a considerable amount of speculation as to what in the world Trump was getting at. So far, he hasn’t elaborated, and the subject didn’t come up during the former president’s rally in New York.
But there are basically three possibilities here.
1. Trump was guessing at what Putin is thinking. Perhaps Trump was merely speculating about future events, effectively guessing in a chest-thumping sort of way. If this interpretation is correct, Trump doesn’t know that Gershkovich will be released sometime between early November and mid-January, but the former president expects that based on his assumptions about Putin and the Russian leader’s eagerness to make him happy.
2. Trump has secret insights into what Putin is thinking. In both the Time magazine interview and his online message, Trump appeared to speak with great confidence about what, exactly, Putin would do in the coming months. Note the declarative sentences about future events: “Putin is going to release him,” and the Russian autocrat “will do that for me.” It raises the unsettling possibility that the presumptive Republican nominee has direct insights into Putin’s plans, and Trump is simply passing along his benefactor’s intentions.
3. Trump was sending a message to Putin. Maybe Trump wasn’t guessing, and perhaps he has no insights into Moscow’s plans, but it’s possible that Trump was instead trying to let Putin know about his own preferences.
As New York magazine’s Jon Chait argued, “Perhaps he’s right that Putin ‘will do that for me, but not for anyone else.’ But that is because Putin rightly considers Trump an ally in whose success he is invested. What’s worse is that, by openly signaling to Putin that he does not want Gershkovich to be freed before the election, he is destroying whatever chances may exist to secure his release before then. If Gershkovich goes free prior to the election, Trump would look foolish, and Trump understands perfectly well Putin does not want that to happen.”
Hanging overhead is a question the former president probably won’t answer: If Trump has unique influence with Putin, and the Russian leader is prepared to release Gershkovich as a favor to the Republican, why doesn’t Trump use that power now and help bring the reporter home immediately?
The presumptive GOP nominee could claim credit, spend the next several months bragging about the feat, and bask in the pre-election praise. So why not pick up the phone and use his leverage now?
Trump just spouts whatever bullshit pops into his head. He does not care if his bullshit causes Evan Gershkovich to spend more time in a Russian prison.
If Donald Trump happens to be traveling between Mar-a-Lago and his Doral golf resort over the Memorial Day holiday weekend, he can’t miss seeing a billboard reading: “Vote For Joe Not The Psycho.”
The billboard was put up by conservative lawyer George Conway, a fervent never Trumper who was once married to former Trump campaign manager and senior adviser Kellyanne Conway.
Last October, Conway told a meeting hosted by The New Republic that the way to stop Trump from returning to the White House is to “make him crazy” by waging a “psychological war” against the former president.
And Conway’s latest move to get under Trump’s skin was to put up a billboard on I-95 just a few miles south of Palm Beach. It’s the highway you’d take to reach the Trump National Doral golf resort in Miami.
“On a lark I decided, `Hey, that’s a good place to put the sign,” Conway said in an interview Thursday on MSNBC. Trump is also running his presidential campaign out of an office near the West Palm Beach airport.
“So this was the perfect location,” Conway said. “I hope he sees it and I hope it amuses him as much as it amuses me.” […]
Photos, video with chirping birds, map, etc. available at the link. Video of Conway discussing Justice Alito flying January 6-linked flags at his homes is also available at the link.
Wow, and I thought the NY Post coverage was over the top when they were claiming 10,000 Maga supporters turned out in the Bronx to welcome their Mango Messiah at his rally in Cortona Park this evening. Then I glanced at the Fox News headline — 25,000 (according to a campaign aide)! Seriously?! Particularly when the permit was apparently for a maximum of 2300?
Fortunately, Raw Story has a much more “fair and balanced” assessment of the actual crowd size:
An NYPD officer shocked her partner Thursday night with information she’d received about former President Donald Trump’s political rally in the Bronx…
The officer informed her partner of a report she received from the NYPD’s aviation team, whose helicopters could be seen hovering over Trump’s presidential rally.
The news: Aviation estimated about 3,500 people were at the MAGA rally.
Replied her partner, with surprise “That’s it?”
The crowds who gathered in the park were not limited to Trump supporters but included large groups of protesters who expressed outrage at the former resident protesting in their borough.
How many people frequent Trump rallies is a point of contention often thrown into doubt.
The actual number of supporters who filed into a recent rally in New Jersey was initially reported to be up to 100,000 people, but a later investigation put the number in the thousands […]
And in an update on the rally itself, there was the usual steady stream of people leaving the rally early while tfg was still speaking:
Guardian reporter Hugo Lowell reported that the ex-president was “scheduled to appear shortly for his rally in South Bronx, NY — sound track is Macho Man and YMCA.”
“Meanwhile maybe a thousand people haven’t made it past Secret Service screening, unclear whether Trump will wait for them to make it into the park where it’s being held,” the reporter added.
An hour later, as Trump was still speaking when Lowell made a follow-up report:
“Trump’s rally had a max capacity limit, so maybe a thousand are still outside the Secret Service perimeter more than an hour later — though a steady stream of people is now entering… to replace the steady stream of people leaving,” he said.
@JBellSATX replied, “Tiny crowd. People waking out while he’s talking. Hilarious.”
Good solutions to problems, good news, good story:
Since April, Denver has introduced a new program to help newly arrived migrants in the city: Instead of housing them in emergency shelters for a few weeks, the city is working with a number of nonprofits to get migrant families into apartments, with food assistance and other services, for up to six months while helping them prepare to apply for asylum and to get work.
The city says its new Denver Asylum Seeker Program (DASP) will cost less and provide more complete services than temporary shelters. Along with rent, food, and utility assistance, each family among the initial 800 migrants in the program will be provided a computer, a cell phone, and bus passes.
It’s a big change from the situation up until now, which had often been chaotic, as High Country News outlines. The city had been providing shorter-term shelter in seven hotels that it rented out, as well as in some smaller, congregate shelters, but on a very short timeframe: about two weeks for individuals, six weeks for families. Once that was up,
hundreds of immigrants began living in encampments. Others have obtained leases from city-run programs but then lost their housing because they couldn’t keep up with rent payments. The city has offered shelter to currently unhoused immigrants, but many are reluctant to re-enter the system, citing the poor conditions inside shelters. City officials have continually asked federal officials for more funding, to no avail.
That simply wasn’t sustainable, as Sarah Plastino, director of Denver’s Newcomer Program, explained.
“At our height, we were housing over 5,000 people in hotel rooms. That was on track to be over 10 percent of the city’s budget. Any unbudgeted money we spent had to be cut elsewhere.”
The number of new arrivals in Denver began easing this year, making the “wraparound services” of DASP more manageable, in coordination with nonprofits. As the Associated Press explains, those services continue after participants are settled in apartments.
Then, the city working in coordination with several nonprofits plan to provide courses on English language, computers, financial literacy, and workers rights, while also assisting migrants in getting credentialed in specific industries, like construction, retail, hospitality, healthcare and early childhood education. […]
The support will also include help with the paperwork for asylum applications, and eventually work authorization.
Under the rules for migrants granted humanitarian parole to stay in the US while they pursue asylum, they must wait for six months after applying for asylum before they can get a work permit. The Denver program is designed to help them get ready to live on their own once they get that permit. Participation is limited to those who were already in Denver’s shelter system as of April 10, when DASP began, and who don’t yet qualify for a work permit.
[…] Sounds like socialism to us, and that’s pretty awesome. Especially since it’s less expensive and more practical than just shoving people into shelters for a short time and then hoping they do OK after that.
Plastino explained to High Country News that the existing shelter services will remain available for migrants who don’t qualify for DASP because they already have work authorization, or who arrived in Denver after DASP slots were filled. […]
Shelter stays for those who don’t qualify for DASP are now limited to 24 to 72 hours, but Plastino said that’s usually enough time to help new arrivals either connect with family elsewhere in the US (Denver pays for transportation) or to get them set up with services if they’re staying in Denver.
She noted that the city’s nonprofits can now better help newly arrived migrants get shelter by the time they leave city shelters, largely because the numbers are more manageable:
Currently we’re receiving about one to two buses a day, around 20 to 30 people. The vast majority of almost everybody that arrives on the bus figures out their situation within the afternoon. Currently, there are only 31 individuals in short-term shelter.
And if the numbers start increasing again, she said, the city is much better prepared to get them into DASP or other services if needed.
The AP notes that the anticipated costs of assisting migrants through the new program will be about half of what was initially estimated in January, allowing Denver to restore some services, like recreation centers, whose funding had to be shifted to cover shelter services.
I think this is some more good news, in California at least:
Of all the truly, truly grotesque developments in the anti-LGBTQ+ hysteria of recent years, some of the most abjectly cruel are the laws requiring schools and teachers to out kids to their parents. According to an analysis by PEN America, these and other educational intimidation policies have exploded in popularity over the last four years and have been introduced or passed in all but four states.
It’s hard to fathom how or why anyone could have so much hate in their heart that they would want to put kids in danger of being thrown out of their homes, hurt or even killed by their parents — or even why they would want to deprive a child of the agency to come out on their own terms.
That is why California Assemblymember Chris Ward has introduced a bill that would not only bar districts from enacting rules forcing teachers and administrators to out kids to their parents without the child’s consent, it would keep those teachers and administrators from deciding to do so on their own accord as well — unless the child’s safety is at risk.
Assembly Bill 1955 will also keep judges from blocking policies meant to protect student privacy in this regard, as one San Diego judge did last year.
Via Encinitas Advocate:
In that case, two teachers had sued because Escondido Union School District’s policy barred them from telling parents if students were or might be transgender or gender-nonconforming.
The two teachers, who identified as Catholic and as Christian respectively, argued it violated their First Amendment rights.
The judge, Roger Benitez, also said in issuing his temporary injunction that the policy violates parents’ Fourteenth Amendment right to care, guide and make health care decisions for their children.
You might not think that this would be an issue in California, but since July of 2023, more than a dozen school districts there have passed statutes requiring schools to tell parents if a child wishes to change their pronouns, use a different restroom, etc.
Disingenuous advocates of these rules claim that they protect children’s “health and well-being” by informing parents of what’s going on with them. That would be a lovely sentiment, save for the fact that we have all seen what can happen when parents who are bigots find out that their kid is gay or trans. They have been known to kick their kids out of their homes, physically hurt or even kill them, and send them to conversion therapy or to those truly horrifying Christian “troubled teen” boarding “schools.” There is a reason why teen runaways are disproportionately members of the LGBTQ+ community.
[…] if they want their kids to come out to them, it’s their job to be the kind of parents those kids feel safe coming out to. It’s not the job of school districts to presume they know better than students do on this front.
We need to start getting bills like this going in every state. These people are bound and determined to make life hell for all the LGBTQ+ teens out there and they are not going to back off any time soon.
Rishi Sunak has had a disastrous start to his doomed re-election campaign. After making the announcement outside 10 Downing Street in a downpour and competing against a protestor playing the Labour Party anthem from 1997, D:Ream’s “Things Can Only Get Better”, he got caught out answering softball questions from two planted Tory local councillors disguised in hi-vis jackets, asked an audience in Wales whether they were looking forward to the “Euros” (European soccer tournament, for which Wales failed to qualify), and visited the “Titanic Quarter” in Belfast (the Titanic was built there), leading to hm being asked if he was captaining a sinking ship. He’s now taking a day off campaigning! He seems intent on making the whole Tory campaign about himself, despite having terrible approval ratings. Since the announcement, two senior Tories (Michael Gove and Andrea Leadsom – don’t bother looking them up if you don’t know them because they won’t be of any future significance except to historians of the collapse of the most successful political party in electoral history) have announced that they are not standing. One begins to wonder if there will actually be any Tory candidates at all, since those who put themselves forward as such do so for selfish reasons or at best because they think they will be good at governing, not to spend 5 years in opposition even if they win a seat.
The bodies of three more hostages who were killed in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks were recovered from the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said Friday, as the CIA chief headed to Europe in a bid to revive cease-fire talks and as the top United Nations court ordered Israel to halt its offensive in Rafah.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to eastern Europe next week as concerns mount about Russia’s advances in Ukraine, potential Russian interference in neighboring Moldova and pro-Moscow legislation being promoted in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, the State Department said Friday.
Associated Press:
The United States is expected to announce an additional $275 million in military aid for Ukraine on Friday as Kyiv struggles to hold off advances by Russian troops in the Kharkiv region, two U.S. officials say.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will undergo a medical procedure at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center Friday evening and will transfer power temporarily to his deputy, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement. Austin is continuing to deal with bladder issues that arose in December following his treatment for prostate cancer, Ryder said.
A new measure signed into law Thursday temporarily allows Arizona abortion providers to perform the procedure in neighboring California. California Gov. Gavin Newsom enacted the bill, which takes effect immediately, in response to a recent Arizona Supreme Court ruling that said a near-total abortion ban from 1864 is enforceable in the state.
KGsays
birgirjohansson@106,
That’s a very tendentious headline. There is no evidence at all that “golden rice” would be lifesaving. It is very much a solution for a problem that already has perfectly viable solutions – most simply, food supplementation with vitamin A – which raises the question of why the project was launched in the first place. One possible answer, of course, is that it was intended as a “wedge” to open markets for other GM foods. Some of the arguments against “golden rice” are given in the article itself:
“There are specific problems with golden rice,” said Wilhelmina Pelegrina, head of Greenpeace Philippines, last week. “Farmers who brought this case with us – along with local scientists – currently grow different varieties of rice, including high-value seeds they have worked with for generations and have control over. They’re rightly concerned that if their organic or heirloom varieties get mixed up with patented, genetically engineered rice, that could sabotage their certifications, reducing their market appeal and ultimately threatening their livelihoods.”
Pelegrina added that relying on a single-crop system to alleviate malnutrition reduced resilience and increased vulnerability to climate impacts – a serious problem in one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries. “If things don’t work out, it’s the farmer and the consumers who pick up the tab.”
Norfolk Southern Corp. on Thursday agreed to spend about $1 billion on cleanups, monitoring and compensation to victims to settle lawsuits by the Justice Department and affected residents over the railroad operator’s February 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. That includes the proposed resolution of a class action suit, in which Norfolk Southern promises to pay $600 million for compensation for injuries resulting from exposure to harmful chemicals. […]
In his bid to become North Carolina’s first Black governor, Republican Mark Robinson assails government safety net spending as a “plantation of welfare and victimhood” that has mired generations of Black people in “dependency” and poverty.
But the lieutenant governor’s political rise wouldn’t have been possible without it.
Over the past decade, Robinson’s household has relied on income from Balanced Nutrition Inc., a nonprofit founded by his wife, Yolanda Hill, that administered a free lunch program for North Carolina children. The organization, funded entirely by taxpayers, has collected roughly $7 million in government funding since 2017, while paying out at least $830,000 in salaries to Hill, Robinson, and other members of their family, tax filings and state documents show.
The income offered the Robinsons a degree of stability after decades of struggle that included multiple bankruptcies, home foreclosure and misdemeanor charges—later dropped—for writing bad checks. […]
“Yolanda’s nonprofit was providing a salary for her that was enough to support us,” Robinson wrote in his 2022 memoir, noting its growth gave him the freedom to quit his furniture manufacturing job in 2018 and begin a career in populist conservative politics.
[…] in the closing months of a swing state campaign, the nonprofit that provided the family a vital lifeline has become a political liability. In March, state regulators launched a probe of the organization’s finances after flagging years of financial irregularities, including over $100,000 in unaccounted spending.
[…] Robinson’s already has drawn negative attention for his history of inflammatory comments that include calling former first lady Michelle Obama a man and using the word “filth” when discussing gay and transgender people.
Robinson, who would oversee a state budget of more than $30 billion if elected governor, has denied any wrongdoing and blasted the inquiry as politically motivated. […] campaign spokesman Michael Lonergan defended Balance Nutrition’s work, citing a routine audit that didn’t find any “material weaknesses” in the organization’s 2021 finances. […]
Robinson’s brash talk has endeared him to supporters of Donald Trump, who endorsed Robinson at a March rally. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee often refers to Robinson as “Martin Luther King on steroids.” [That’s offensive.]
“I grew up poor,” Robinson says frequently, […] Indeed, from the 1990s until recent years, Robinson and Hill endured extended financial struggles, but one that’s more complicated than what he usually tells voters.
The couple declared bankruptcy three times from 1998 to 2003 and failed to file federal income taxes for five years until compelled to do so during bankruptcy proceedings.
They’ve left behind a trail of aggrieved creditors, including the Girl Scouts, court documents show. Among them was a former landlord whose wife was dying of cancer when the Robinsons shorted him $2,000 in rent, according to local news accounts and documents from a 2012 case.
A bankruptcy judge rejected their 2003 bankruptcy case after the Robinsons failed to make payments to their creditors that they’d agreed to in court. The case ended with Robinson and Hill having paid about $9,000 on about $71,000 in debt payments negotiated in bankruptcy court.
[…] Hill founded her nonprofit in 2015 and soon gained approval to administer a joint state and federal program that reimburses day cares for feeding low-income children. The program requires detailed records of operations and spending.
Starting in 2020, state officials noticed problems with Balanced Nutrition’s paperwork and nearly placed the organization on the Department of Health and Human Services “seriously deficient” list. A major issue, according to government emails obtained by The Associated Press, was a lack of documentation: missing menus, timesheets, prior approval for some expenses, and confirmation of income eligibility for children receiving aid.
Another issue flagged in those emails: $134,729.23 in spending from last year that was not explained in documents Hill submitted to the state as part of annually required paperwork. As state regulators ramped up scrutiny, Hill moved in April to shutter her nonprofit while suggesting that state officials were pursuing “some type of vendetta, be it personal or political,” according to her email correspondence.
Documented clearly, though, is a series of raises Hill gave herself with the blessing of a Balanced Nutrition board that included her family members.
[…] Records also show a $5,600-a-year raise given to the couple’s son in 2023 for his part-time work, while their daughter was paid $83,000 that year. […]
Robinson himself appears to have been paid through the nonprofit in 2018 […]
In 2021, after he won statewide office and started drawing a public salary that is now $157,000 a year, Balanced Nutrition stopped reporting specific compensation information for members of Robinson’s family on its annual tax forms. The Internal Revenue Service requires such figures to be provided. […]
Balanced Nutrition’s accounting irregularities are not the only aspect of the Robinsons’ finances to be scrutinized since he first sought public office.
After his 2020 campaign, Robinson drew attention to how he used campaign funds. Some expenses became the subject of a state ethics complaint that Robinson’s campaign says is still pending. […]
There are indicators the Robinsons are again facing financial pressure as the state conducts its probe of Balanced Nutrition.
Federal and state regulations bar the nonprofit from using public funding, its sole source of revenue, for legal fees. Earlier this month, the couple took out a $96,000 line of credit on their home, according to public lending records.
[…] “Truth be told,” Robinson wrote, “when you go to Washington, D.C., you will find people who have done way worse.”
Not sure the “other people have done way worse than me” is a good excuse for wrongdoing.
KGsays
MAGA Communism. This sounds perfect for The Vicar, beholder, drew…!
KGsays
birgerjohansson@106, me@111,
The Graun has now quite rightly put “lifesaving” in quotes.
Regarding “golden rice,” it looks like an issue with many sides, including environmental concerns.
I am not fully informed, but will say that it looks like possible effects on the genetic diversity of thousands of other rice varieties should be more thoroughly investigated.
Are the beta carotene levels high enough to make a real difference in people’s health? Probably.
Yes, I do think there is a knee-jerk response against all genetically modified crops that is too broadly applied.
The FDA approving Golden Rice as safe to eat, and as non-toxic is the not the same as saying that other foods rich in beta carotene do not provide the needed nutrition.
Donald Trump won’t be speaking to his usual self-selected crowd of adoring red-hatted MAGA fans when he addresses the Libertarian National Convention on Saturday.
As delegates gathered at the Washington Hilton on the eve of his speech, the party’s decision to host the former president, which had split the organization, erupted Friday into open revolt. Fuming delegates at the convention said they plan to protest Trump’s speech, and one group sought unsuccessfully to remove the former president along with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., from the agenda — a move that resulted in thrown punches and obscenities between supporters and opponents of the move.
“I would like to propose that we go tell Donald Trump to go fuck himself!” Kaelan Dreyer, a Libertarian from New Mexico, yelled into a microphone, winning cheers from the crowd. After shouting vulgarities at the convention’s chair and fending off punches, he was led out of the convention hall.
The raucous opening to the convention reflects the pockets of hostility that Trump faces as he appeals to the Libertarians to help him box out a growing, third-party threat from Kennedy’s independent presidential campaign.
“The vast majority of Libertarian Party members are not happy with this invitation,” said Bill Redpath, a 40-year veteran of the Libertarian Party and a former national party chair who’s helped organize their presidential ballot access for decades. “There are some people who call Trump the most Libertarian president of our lifetimes. That’s utterly ridiculous.”
Suburban Philadelphia options trader Jeff Yass, a libertarian and one of the GOP’s biggest donors, who was not in attendance at the convention, said it was “unclear” whether Trump could make inroads with libertarian voters. Yass, who bankrolled an effort to stop Trump from winning the Republican nomination and financed several of his primary opponents, has said he doesn’t plan to contribute to Trump, but will vote for him. [Oh FFS]
[…] Trump advisers say they plan to use his Saturday speech to highlight the overlap in Trump’s policies with those embraced by right-leaning libertarians. Richard Grenell, a former Trump cabinet official who is widely expected to play a role in a potential second Trump administration, has been reaching out to Libertarian Party leaders and activists, as has Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a libertarian-leaning Republican. Trump allies say the goal isn’t necessarily to dominate among libertarian voters, but rather minimize defections to a third-party candidate. […]
The infighting over the speaking invites to Trump and Kennedy reflect a civil war within the Libertarian Party. […]
“The credentials committee and the people who took over do not want a real Libertarian party. They want to kneecap the Party and knock us out of the race, and basically force us to have a Trump rally.”
@nsarwark ahead of Trump’s address to the Libertarian National Convention
KGsays
I largely agree with Lynna, OM@116.
There have been plenty of unfounded anti-GMO claims, but also many unfounded pro-GMO claims, among which those made for “golden rice” are prominent. My main concerns about GMOs are not around food safety (which was the basis of the court case in the Philippines), but wider effects on complex socio-ecological systems – reducing biodiversity (e.g. by creating varieties resistant to a pesticide which will kill most other plants) and reinforcing the power of the few huge agiibusinesses which dominate agricultural trade and very often, agricultural trade rules, health-and-safety rules, anti-monopoly rules…
The Washington Post just published a new story on the growing Alito flags scandal in which it reveals that the paper knew about the Alitos flying an upside down American flag back in January 2021 when it happened but decided not to publish the story. The paper’s reasons for killing the story are as ridiculous as the Alitos’ excuse for flying two – and counting – flags that are symbols of fascism.
WaPo explains that in January 2021 its Supreme Court reporter, Robert Barnes, got a tip about the Alitos flying the upside down Ametican flag, so he paid a visit to the Alitos on Biden’s inauguration day to follow up. He found the Alitos coming out of their house, and Martha-Ann Alito in particular seemed visibly upset and annoyed by Barnes’ presence. She yelled for him to “get off our property” and engaged in other petulant and whacko behavior, so much so that her husband asked her to get in the car to try to shut her up. Martha-Ann explained to Barnes that they flew the upside-down flag as “an international signal of distress!” Huh? Huh?
Despite WaPo noting in this very article that the upside-down American flag is a “politically charged symbol” and is used as a symbol.by the anti-democratic “Stop the Steal” movement, here’s the paper’s pathetic explanation for why it sat on this story for more than three years:
The Post decided not to report on the episode at the time because the flag-raising appeared to be the work of Martha-Ann Alito, rather than the justice, and connected to a dispute with her neighbors, a Post spokeswoman said. It was not clear then that the argument was rooted in politics, the spokeswoman said.
Not rooted in politics?? WTF?!? It was clear from the start that this incident was about politics, but WaPo gave a pass to Alito because of who he is, thereby enabling our country’s growing fascism.
Democracy indeed dies in darkness, Washington Post.
Special Counsel Jack Smith is asking the federal judge overseeing the Mar-a-Lago documents case to make clear that former President Donald Trump is prohibited from making false statements that endanger law enforcement officers. Trump and his campaign have recently made several false and inflammatory claims about the FBI that Smith says have put federal agents and officials at risk.
The request came late Friday in the federal case over Trump’s willful retention of classified documents and attempts to obstruct justice after leaving the White House.
In a fundraising email and social media posts earlier in the week, Trump claimed that, when the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago to retrieve classified documents it believed Trump was illegally keeping there, the agents were empowered—and even wanted—to kill him. “BIDEN’S DOJ WAS AUTHORIZED TO SHOOT ME!” a fundraising email stated. “You know they’re just itching to do the unthinkable … Joe Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger.”
This is untrue. The warrant included standard language about use of force that is in fact meant to avoid violence. Further, the FBI took significant steps to avoid a confrontation with Trump, including waiting for him to leave the state to conduct the raid when he and his family would not be on the premises.
Trump’s statements “create a grossly misleading impression about the intentions and conduct of federal law enforcement agents—falsely suggesting that they were complicit in a plot to assassinate him—and expose those agents, some of whom will be witnesses at trial, to the risk of threats, violence, and harassment,” Smith’s filing states.
Smith asks federal Judge Aileen Cannon to modify Trump’s conditions of release to prohibit the ex-president from making “public statements that pose a significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger to the law enforcement
agents participating in the investigation and prosecution of this case.” The motion mentions that a Trump supporter attacked an FBI office in Ohio in 2022 after Trump made inflammatory statements about the agency.
Trump’s legal team opposes the motion. Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, has repeatedly made decisions that have stymied the prosecution and have delayed a trial indefinitely. Experts say her conduct indicates a lack of impartiality, and some have suggested she could eventually be removed from the case.
The Biden administration said Saturday that U.S. officials are “deeply concerned” about the extensive military drills in the Taiwan Strait, putting pressure on China to “act with restraint.”
“The United States is deeply concerned over the People’s Liberation Army joint military drills in the Taiwan Strait and around Taiwan,” a Saturday statement from State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller reads. “We are monitoring [People’s Republic of China] activities closely and coordinating with allies and partners regarding our shared concerns.”
“We strongly urge Beijing to act with restraint,” Miller continued. “Using a normal, routine, and democratic transition as an excuse for military provocations risks escalation and erodes longstanding norms that for decades have maintained peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, which is critical for regional and global security and prosperity and a matter of international concern.”
[…] Beijing, which accused President William Lai Ching-te of heightening tensions in his inaugural address, ran the drills — code-named Joint Sword 2024A — from Thursday until Friday, according to state-run Chinese news agency Xinhua.
While the U.S. has been seen as a major ally to Taiwan, it does not recognize the island as a separate state from the mainland. President Biden and the White House have emphasized their commitment to the One China policy.
[…] Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said earlier this week that the exercises were “jeopardizing peace and stability.”
“We seek no conflicts, but we will not shy away from one. We have the confidence to safeguard our national security,” the ministry wrote on social media platform X.
In his inauguration speech, Lai Ching-te said Taiwan “is a sovereign, independent nation in which sovereignty lies in the hands of the people.”
“The future of cross-strait relations will have a decisive impact on the world,” he added. “This means that we, who have inherited a democratic Taiwan, are pilots for peace. Our government will uphold the Four Commitments, neither yield nor provoke, and maintain the status quo.”
The United States and its Western allies took a key step Saturday toward using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s war effort, moving closer to providing another key financial stream for Kyiv.
Russian officials have suggested they could retaliate by confiscating U.S. and European assets in Russia, although it’s unclear how much impact such measures could have.
Meeting in northern Italy this week, the top financial officials of the Group of Seven nations agreed in a joint statement to tap the investment returns of “immobilized Russian sovereign assets” to support Ukraine. The Kremlin has been blocked from accessing hundreds of billions of dollars held in Western financial institutions after invading Ukraine in 2022, and European and U.S. officials have for months debated whether or how to unlock these funds to help fight off the invasion.
Russia has roughly $280 billion in sovereign assets stashed in Western financial institutions, the majority of which is held by European firms. Those funds are now frozen under the U.S.-led sanctions effort.
Under the emerging plan, the Western allies would essentially use the interest and other investment returns accruing on these assets to pay themselves back for money they give to Ukraine in the near term. The exact amount of the money that could be raised this way could vary, depending on interest rates and other financial conditions, and finance leaders are working out a thicket of complicated legal and financial questions.
Western leaders believe the plan could yield as much as $50 billion in short-term or medium-term funding for Ukraine, although key details need to be worked out. President Biden and other heads of state will aim to ratify the plan during subsequent meetings of the G-7 in Italy this June. […]
[…] Initially, Ukraine’s boosters called for confiscating and transferring the entire pool of Russian sovereign assets to Kyiv. That plan was scuttled, however, as Germany, France, and other U.S. allies had expressed unease about a plan that they feared could compromise the financial stability of the euro zone by leading investors to put their money elsewhere. The new plan would leave Russia’s underlying assets untouched. The European Union voted earlier this month as well to move forward with using the profits of the frozen Russian assets.
Russia has strongly condemned all attempts to confiscate or repurpose its financial assets as a violation of international law. President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Thursday authorizing the confiscation of assets held by U.S. citizens and companies in Russia, in response to the West’s proposal.
[…] “This is an assured source of financing,” Yellen told reporters earlier in the week. “It’s important that Russia realize that we will not be deterred from supporting Ukraine for lack of resources.”
[…] Louisiana wasted no time in passing a bill to reclassify mifepristone and misopristol as controlled substances. The two medications are taken orally and commonly used to induce abortion.
In a medication abortion, mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone, which is needed for a pregnancy to continue. Misoprostol is then taken within the next 24 to 48 hours. Misoprostol causes the uterus to contract, causing cramping and bleeding. Approved for other uses, such as miscarriage management, inducing labor, and preventing stomach ulcers, the drug has been available at pharmacies for decades. http://www.msn.com/...
I am an RN, not an MD. But I know that in every state I ever worked in, (MA, CA, ME, WA, and FL) the MD or NP or PA who prescribes narcotics needs to also specifically register and be assigned a DEA number that is included on every prescription. The federal government and state law enforcement agencies can use this number to access a database that tells exactly what each prescription includes and who it went to. It makes it easier for The Authorities to create a profile for each person who prescribes these. The cumulative data can be used to assess whether the prescriber is following The Rules.
In Florida my primary care provider made it clear to every new patient that they never prescribed narcotics. “Too much hassle,” he told me. […]
Commentary on the porn star hush money/falsifying business records/breaking election laws trial of Trump in NYC, (as well as commentary on other issues):
[…] I understand the Dotard is down to whatever attorneys happen to pop up in Cracker Jack boxes now, but was the Costello creep really the entire plan? “Here’s the most aggressively dislikable cretin we could find, to confirm several of the prosecution’s points!”
[…] I bet when you’re that guilty (and that cold) you just want to get things over with. “Ladies and gentleman, you’re either afraid of the hammer and/or nail gun-wielding psychos we’ll send to your house if you acknowledge the obvious, or you’re not; let’s get this feeble old man someplace he can warm up, huh?”
In a fantastic detail that very nearly shattered what’s left of my mind into ten thousand brainworm bite-sized pieces, it’s apparently NOT EVEN COLD in the fucking courtroom.
One wonders, is this another manifestation of the accelerating decay of a body ravaged by hamberders, hydroxychloroquine, and hate? Will he show up to the debates in some biologically disconcerting breathing apparatus […]
Or is he doing that thing where he asserts dominance over objective reality just cuz he can?
Because at his command, at least a dozen sitting U.S. Congressmen would march straight into a sauna, and sit there, sweating through their matching suits, insisting they’re freezing, until somebody passed out. Gaetz would order coffee, and the other lackeys would kick themselves for not thinking of it first.
It’s not even cold. Dear god.
By this time next week, Byron Donalds’ll be workshopping a whole new myth on the hate rally circuit, wherein the Turd Emperor got marched to his trial at the point of Hunter Biden’s bayonet, through six feet of snow, five miles uphill both ways, jauntily taking and “acing” cognitive tests all the while, just to pass the time.
[…] wily Marjorie Taylor Greene discovered the Jewish lasers we worked so hard to smuggle into orbit, now she’s uncovered our assassination plot! She is simply too intelligent a foe, comrades! […]
[…]Only your NFT purchase keeps that golf cart fueled, y’know, but your Trump Buxxwill be worth their weight in unobtainium in the Reich to come.
Hey, speaking of reichs…
I confess, I’m no fan of the way this ongoing flirtation with open Nazi rhetoric paired with the entirely fabricated yet swiftly disseminated assassination conspiracy theory. Especially with refined plans for mass deportations and detention camps making the rounds, as tried-and-true racist fearmongering bits return to fat, Elvis’ set list.
Sure, he talks an awful lot like Hitler, but he hangs out with indicted rappers and Joe Piscopo, so we really oughta let him outlaw birth control, and rape whoever he wants, really, that’s what Nikki Haley thinks, anyway.
Nikki didn’t mean all those reasonable, objectively accurate criticisms of your many shortcomings, Mr. Rapist, Sir! She’s being measured for her too-long red necktie as we speak, and would make an ideal Secretary of Something You Don’t Want to Pay Attention To.
At least they’re still reliant on astroturfing and post-production propaganda wizardry to generate the illusion of real-world support. […]
Also, the Shart of the Deal claims to’ve worked out an agreement with his genocidal benefactor to swap Ukrainian sovereignty for kidnapped American journalist Evan Gershkovich […]
The cast of Vetting the Republican Senate Candidates may’ve stumbled onto the breakout weirdo they needed to anchor an otherwise bland slate of lumbering carpetbaggers plus Kari Lake in her Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? period.
Thanks to his long history of anti-Semitic rants and trademark fondness for the c-word, Royce White rose to something resembling prominence as a frequent guest of and even occasional substitute host for Alex Jones, so naturally the Minnesota Republican Party endorsed him to take on Amy Klobuchar.
[…] Ron DeSantis bleated out an edict, banning all non-Ron-Ron-approved colors from nighttime bridge lighting throughout the land, so as to outlaw Pride displays, you see, for he is the pettiest authoritarian brat who ever lived. He’s branded this little tantrum his “Freedom Summer,” which no doubt triggers that nearly human laugh of his.
Kristi Noem has now been banished from all tribal lands in Whichever Dakota, more than 20% of the state she governs, for dirtbaggery unrelated to any pet homicides you may’ve read about elsewhere. […]
Seems like as good a time as any to mention Trump Media, which reported $327.6 million in net losses against just $770,500 in revenue, although that figure doesn’t include the break room Diet Coke machine. […]
Starting July 1st, the Donnelly, Idaho Public Library will ban unaccompanied minors, in compliance with a terrifying state law passed by regressive thugs. Me, I think a culture that hangs No Kids Allowed signs on libraries has maybe lost its way a little. […]
ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – The Fulton County district attorney who filed a series of historic indictments last year against former President Donald Trump easily defeated a challenge from within her own Democratic party on Tuesday.
Fani Willis defeated Christian Wise Smith in Georgia’s general primary, setting up a Nov. 5, 2024, race against Republican Courtney Kramer. Willis was declared the night’s first winner by the Associated Press, which called the race shortly after 7:30 p.m.
“We’re in this fight for the long haul,” Willis said in a Tuesday night victory speech. “This election is bringing into focus very important matters.”
birgerjohanssonsays
The film ‘Anora’ won the prize at the Cannes film festival.
Also, today is the 45th anniversary of the premiere of ‘Alien’.
Quote from the SF novel System Collapse (the Murderbot novels by Martha Wells)
“So the next time I get optimistic about something I want one of you to punch me in the face”.
I will totally steal this and make it my motto.
John Moralessays
Oh, Birger, you sure can pick’em.
“Ryan McBeth is an intelligence analyst, software architect, cybersecurity guy, and YouTube content creator of military, intelligence and disinformation topics. He appears on NEWSMAX as an intelligence consultant and consults for Veloxxity on OSINT and information warfare.”
Red Lobster was America’s largest casual dining seafood chain, with almost 600 locations across the United States and Canada. Its bankruptcy was announced earlier this week.
The bankruptcy declaration insinuates that the chains equity owner who was also their biggest seafood supplier might have decided that their equity stake in the business was worthless, but that they could extract some extra value from the company before it declared bankruptcy by selling them a lot of extra shrimp, leading to the uneconomical “Endless Shrimp” deal at Red Lobster.
The decision to make the $20-dollar endless shrimp deal a permanent menu item is said to have led to an $11 million dollar loss.
The bankruptcy declaration says that “the Debtors are currently investigating the circumstances around these decisions.”
The salient nugget (transcribed):
“if you remember, Red Lobster is 100% owned by a seafood supplier Thai Union, and things had not been going well at Red Lobster for quite some time.
The bankruptcy declaration insinuates that Thai Union, Red Lobster’s controlling shareholder might have “exercised an outsized influence” on its shrimp purchasing and “circumvented its normal supply chain and demand planning processes.” The implication is that the equity owner might have decided that their equity stake in the business was worthless and that the company would soon be owned by its lenders, but that they could extract some extra value from the company before it declared bankruptcy by selling them a lot of extra shrimp.
The decision to make the $20-dollar endless shrimp deal a permanent menu item is said to have led to an $11 million dollar loss. The bankruptcy declaration says that “the Debtors are currently investigating the circumstances around these decisions.” “
Pierce R. Butlersays
birgerjohansson @ # 134: This should be safe from controversy.
That sounds like optimism (vide your # 132).
Fortunately for all concerned, I have no plans to travel to Sweden. (Can’t speak for everyone else here, however. Keep an icepack handy!)
John Moralessays
Friends don’t let friends go unpunched in the face.
John Moralessays
Here’s how it is between me and Youtube.
I never, ever, ever log in — and they never, ever, ever let me see stuff that’s rated 18+, because I have to log in so they can verify I’m not a beardless youth.
Every 6 weeks (sometimes more, I like to do it after a Windows update so my context-sig changes) I delete every single cookie I have of theirs and reboot my modem to get a new dynamic IP address.
They, of course, know full well who I am, and I know full well they know who I am, but we play this game.
Kinda works — the algorithm sure ain’t happy with me, because each time I deliberately go to places I didn’t go before to put some seeds into its O so clever and recondite back-propagation. So, no more bodybuilding videos, no more watchmaking videos, no more [blah].
Heh.
(Only works because I don’t give a shit whether or not something is available; if I can’t get it for free and without logging in and without ads, I’m not gonna log in or pay or suchlike just to watch that. Plenty other stuff out there)
whheydtsays
Re; John Morales @ #138…
For that sort of thing, and for sites that limit the amount you can read (“semi-paywalled”), I use a seconday machine (currently a Pi5-8GB) with the browser set to delete all cookies on exit.
John Moralessays
Whatever works. :)
KGsays
Pierce R. Butler@121,
Tomotoes too, I’ve heard!
birgerjohanssonsays
KG @ 115.
Thanks. I am not familiar with vegetation zones / staple crops in the Philippines.
birgerjohanssonsays
Meidas Touch:
‘Yikes! Trump Lawyers Biggest Fail Ever at Trial’
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=NXFJ6PhbN1g
What the hell went through their minds when they accepted the biggest narcissist in the world as client? He would naturally order them around, because he always knows best.
If he ever needs surgery he is dead, because he will interfere with how the surgeon wants to do the job.
KGsays
… and even tomatoes!
KGsays
The Graun (well technically the Observer, the Graun’s Sunday version, published a pro-“golden rice” piece, repeating the unevidenced claims that preventing its cultivation in the Philippines would cost “thousands of lives”. I made the following comment:
Where is the evidence that “golden rice” (what a neat piece of PR that name is!) would actually save lives? The effects of any technological innovation, particularly in agriculture, need to be considered in the context of the complex socio-techno-environmental systems in which they will be used. Your piece waves vaguely in this direction by mentioning that opposition to “golden rice” is “in part fuelled by fears for farmers’ crops and their livelihoods”. To the best of my knowledge, there have been no independent studies looking at whether such fears are justified – certainly I have seen none referenced by the proponents of “golden rice”. You also somehow fail to mention that a rather simple alternative method of improving vitamin A levels in vulnerable populations exists: food supplementation. This is used in many other contexts, and was well known 2 decades ago when the “golden rice” project (which was always at best going to take a long time to come to fruition) was begun. So one must ask: why was it begun? I’m sure many of those directly involved had the best of humanitarian motivations, but there must be a suspicion that it was intended, by its agribusiness backers, to act as a “stalking horse” for purely commercially motivated GMO foods. The technology for developing these foods is dominated by a handful of huge agribusiness corporations: the greatest risk is that this technology will serve to increase even further these megacorporations’ unhealthy control of global food supplies. Indeed, “golden rice” itself is the subject of multiple patents owned by agribusiness – a fact that for some reason generally goes unmentioned by its proponents.
This was moderated out “because it didn’t abide by our community standards.” I can only conclude that among the unmentioned “community standards” is either “making a coherent case against our expressed view” or “criticisng agribusiness corporations, even if you don’t name them”.
“Most of us can show a few spider bites after cleaning the picker down at night, but it’s always a good sign,” he says.
Prior to 1996 Mr Armitage would have had a hard time finding a spider in his paddocks or on many other Australian cotton farms.
Stuart Armitage is getting bitten by spiders more and more as the years go on, but he doesn’t mind — it’s a small price to pay for progress at his Queensland cotton farm.
“Most of us can show a few spider bites after cleaning the picker down at night, but it’s always a good sign,” he says.
Prior to 1996 Mr Armitage would have had a hard time finding a spider in his paddocks or on many other Australian cotton farms.
That is because farmers would spray insecticides multiple times a season to kill heliothis, or cotton bollworm, which is the crop’s major yield-reducing pest.
The pesticide killed other life forms too, but with the invention of insect-resistant, genetically modified cotton – Bt cotton – the plant was able to produce a protein to kill the worm and spraying was significantly reduced.
Now the thousands of white bolls at his farm at Cecil Plains, 80 kilometres west of Toowoomba, are swarming with spiders of many sizes and colours and keeping other damaging insects in check.
birgerjohanssonsays
Footage of israeli soldiers setting fire on a library in Gaza and of burning korans cause additional controversy. BTW earlier Israeli reprisals killed 3-5 times the number of israelis killed by Hamas.
By now they must be approaching a ratio of 30:1. And Biden is snoozing on, pretending his tiny reduction of weapons sales makes a difference.
birgerjohanssonsays
Two researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology have started a very ambitious project to reproduce/simulate the function of a nematode ‘brain’.
[…] Peter Meijer paused as he considered what to say to the man in the “Stand for God” shirt who had just called for his bodily harm.
It was a snowy morning in February. Meijer was the keynote speaker at a coffee-and-donuts meeting hosted by the Republican Party chapter in Kent County, Michigan, the most populous county on the west side of the state. Dressed in a candidate-casual uniform of jeans, a flannel shirt and an outdoorsy blazer, Meijer was seeking the Republican nomination for an open U.S. Senate seat, a race that could determine control of Congress’s upper chamber, in a state that could decide the presidential election. If Republicans wanted to win in November, Meijer told the 40-odd people in attendance, they needed to move on from the past and focus on their shared enemy.
“Is there anyone who thought that Jan. 6th was good for the Republican Party?” he asked. “Did it help us win in 2022?”
“We weren’t gonna win,” someone yelled. “It was rigged.”
“The election was stolen,” another person said. “It doesn’t matter.”
I watched this exchange from a table near the back of the room. Until that moment, the crowd met Meijer’s stump speech with polite nods and gentle applause. But when he brought up elections and Jan. 6th, the mood turned from Midwest nice to hostile.
[…] For decades, voters here rewarded sensible, pro-business, avowedly conservative politicians. Meijer fit the archetype of a West Michigan Republican when he first ran for Congress in 2020. He was also basically Michigan royalty as an heir to the Meijer grocery store fortune. In one of the state’s most competitive districts, he won his debut congressional race by a comfortable 6-point margin.
At the Kent County event, however, many attendees seemed to feel nothing but scorn for him. That anger flowed from a single decision Meijer had made in Congress: He voted to impeach then-President Donald Trump. […]
“How did you vote to impeach Trump when he said in his [Jan. 6] speech, ‘I want a peaceful demonstration,’” a man angrily asked. “You don’t have to go any further than that to know that he was right and that he shouldn’t have been impeached.”
“I was there,” another man called out. “We were peaceful.”
[…] One audience member accused Meijer of taking a bribe in exchange for his impeachment vote.
Another challenged him to name five “political prisoners from Jan. 6” who were “sitting in prison and falsely accused.” […]
[…] An older woman asked, in a gentler tone, if Meijer would redo his impeachment vote if he could. Would he at least have abstained instead of voting “yes”?
Meijer responded by saying that when he was in Congress, someone had once joked that they’d throw him off a bridge if he ever voted “present.”
A deep voice rang out on the far side of the room. The man in the “Stand for God” shirt. […] The man repeated himself: “You should’ve gotten thrown off the bridge.”
[…] Today’s Republican insurgents believe democracy has been stolen, and they don’t trust the ability of democratic processes to restore it.
This phenomenon is evident across the country, in Georgia and Nevada, in Arizona, Idaho and Florida. But it’s perhaps the starkest in Michigan, […] Over several decades, Michigan’s dynastic families — the DeVoses and Meijers and Van Andels on the west side, the Romneys and Fords on the east — poured money and manpower into the Michigan Republican Party, building it into one of the most vaunted political operations in the country. […]
thousands of political newcomers, whose sole qualification appeared to be fervor of belief, declared war on the Republican establishment that had been so dominant. Calling themselves the “America First” movement […]
I found chaos, incompetence, strife, a glimpse of a future post-Trump Republican Party and, all around me, danger for our system of government and the state of the country.
“We can’t keep going through election after election like this where a large plurality of the country just does not accept the outcome of the majority and refuses to abide by it,” said Jeff Timmer, a former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party who now works with the anti-Trump Lincoln Project. “That’s when the system falls apart.”
[…] After Peter Meijer’s event in Kent County, I drove west toward Lake Michigan to meet a plumber named Ken Beyer for lunch […] Like many of his “America First” allies, he questions whether democracy still exists in this country. “I don’t know if any election is fair anymore,” he said.
[…] Beyer, a church-going Christian, told me about a series of what he saw as divine revelations […] Because he was convinced that Democrats stole the White House from Trump, he had gone to Washington to make his voice heard and show support for the president [on January 6]. Standing on the steps of the Capitol, he encountered a reporter with the conservative outlet Newsmax who needed help carrying gear. Beyer grabbed a tripod and backpack and filled in as a makeshift field producer for one of the biggest events of the 21st century. “What God wanted me to do,” he later said, “was help capture the history of what’s happening and get the truth out of what really was going on there.”
[…] Beyer couldn’t understand it. “Why weren’t they [some other Republicans like Meijer] fighting for Trump?” he said.
[…] According to more experienced people in the party, there was a simple answer: Many of the claims brought forward weren’t true. A long-awaited investigation by a Republican-led state Senate committee found “no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud” in Michigan.
[…] A solution arrived in the form of the “precinct strategy.” It was a plan promoted by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon to ensure that the political establishment in both parties didn’t “steal” future elections. Precincts are the smallest geographical unit in American elections. In Michigan, there are roughly 4,700 precincts typically made up of a few thousand active registered voters. Each precinct elects at least one delegate as its representative to a county convention, and sometimes three or four. In all, there are upwards of 8,000 delegate positions in Michigan.
If a state political party is a pyramid with a chairperson at the top, precinct delegates occupy the lowest, broadest tier. Until recently, it was an obscure position. Thousands of the seats often sit empty. If enough Trump supporters filled them, Bannon said, they could form a majority within the party, elect allies to leadership positions and, eventually, take control.
Ken Beyer had never heard of a precinct delegate until he stumbled across the website for MI Precinct First, a group inspired by Bannon’s plan. He decided to run. He believed that this, too, must be part of God’s plan for him. “I believe that He’s using people like me throughout the United States to become the re-founding fathers,” he told me.
The precinct strategy proved successful. In Michigan, thousands of new activists, many recruited by “America First” groups, became precinct delegates in 2022. In Ottawa County, a deeply conservative enclave along Lake Michigan, the number of delegates leapt from 170 to 330. The same trend played out in other battleground states. “The Trump apparatus did very little correct except infiltrate the party right down to the precinct level,” said Timmer, the former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party. “Not just in Michigan but all over.”
[…] for two key positions with oversight of elections — attorney general and secretary of state — the precinct delegates decide the party’s nominees at a statewide convention. These conventions were often sleepy affairs, the outcome predetermined. But this time, when the party’s chair, a wealthy donor and former U.S. ambassador named Ron Weiser, took the stage, the cavernous ballroom filled with boos and jeers.
“How many of you believe we can sweep in November?” Weiser asked.
“With the new people!” a woman wearing a “Keep America Great” hat yelled. “With ‘America First’!”
Over the opposition of Weiser and other longtime party operatives, the “America First” contingent nominated two election deniers for attorney general and secretary of state. […]
As a show of political force, nominating DePerno and Karamo was impressive. As an electoral strategy, it was disastrous. Both candidates were trounced in November, and Michigan Democrats won control of all three branches of government for the first time in more than 30 years.
DePerno conceded defeat right away. Karamo did not. To outside observers, her stance was laughable: She had lost by 615,000 votes, roughly the population of Detroit. But Beyer and many other “America First” delegates saw Karamo’s actions as brave and principled, the opposite of DePerno’s cowardly and hypocritical concession. Several months later, she and DePerno ran against each other to be the next chair of the Michigan Republican Party. DePerno won endorsements from Trump and Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO and a funder of the election-fraud movement. But the delegates rallied behind Karamo and delivered her the victory. In just two years, Bannon’s precinct strategy had gone from a quixotic scheme to a reality.
[…] Karamo showed little interest in the day-to-day work of running the party. Bills went unpaid, emails unanswered. When members of the party’s state committee, in effect the board of directors, questioned her, she ignored them or removed them from leadership positions. […]
Much more at the link, including details showing Trump wading into the mess to support U.S. representative Pete Hoekstra to replace Karamo, and other moves by Trump that disappointed the rabid America First doofuses in Michigan.
[…] some of Trump’s most ardent supporters saw his support for Hoekstra as a betrayal. “I’m not happy with Mr. Trump right now,” one voter said at a Republican town hall I attended. “I think he should keep his nose out of Michigan politics.” When I asked Beyer what he thought, he said he suspected Trump was playing a double game. “If you know anything about election integrity, you know it’s a rigged program here,” he said. For Trump to win, “he’s gotta join the riggers.” I heard a Karamo supporter say she had read on “Truth” — meaning Truth Social, the social media platform partly owned by Trump — that Trump hadn’t even written the endorsement of Hoekstra that appeared on his account. [Sheesh, one mind fuck after another.
[…] In one of our last conversations, Beyer laid out a more religious, more uncompromising version of the “America First” movement. He had started his own PAC called Faith Family Freedom and he planned to target the precinct delegates around the state who had opposed Karamo and replace them with “America First” allies in the next round of delegate elections this August. He had already signed up 350 supporters in various counties, he said, to help with his efforts. […]
Oh, yeah, add more religion and more purity tests … that will work no doubt.
p.s. the sign in that article is way to mild, it misses a lot of the rtwingnut xtianterrorism prager pushes. And, prager poison is being successfully sold to schools everywhere, even in Scarizona.
Severodonetsk. Bakhmut. Mariupol. When Russia can get a Ukrainian city in range of artillery, the result seems almost inevitable: weeks of crushing destruction followed by “meat waves” of Russian forces climbing over the rubble. Cities with centuries of history, treasured architecture, and tens of thousands of inhabitants are left as empty, blackened wastelands marked by the burned-out shells of fractured apartment buildings standing like oversized headstones in an abandoned cemetery.
For an authoritarian nation led by a brutal dictator who has no concern about civilian deaths, the destruction of culture, or how many of his own forces have to die to advance the lines by a single meter, it’s an almost perfect strategy
Russia’s idea of “liberation” isn’t the kind of celebration that greeted Ukrainian forces as they marched into the city of Kherson. It’s the silence of the streets of Bucha. Since Vladimir Putin’s illegal, unprovoked invasion began in February 2022, Russia has brought this result to dozens of towns and hundreds of villages across Ukraine.
Three weeks ago, Russian troops began a renewed push toward Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Now Ukraine has slowed Russia’s progress and is holding Russian forces away from the city.
It seems like every time Russia has difficulty winning a battle, it turns out they didn’t mean to win it in the first place. They didn’t mean to take Kyiv, they claim. Surrendering Kherson was all part of the plan, military commanders insist.
This time, Putin isn’t even waiting to be chased back across the border. He’s out front with a claim that just because tens of thousands of Russian forces are driving toward Kharkiv, it doesn’t mean they’re trying to take it. That must be comforting to the thousands of Russian soldiers who have died not trying to take Kharkiv. [LOL, black humor … and it hits the mark.]
Russia’s renewed push into the Kharkiv region initially met with apparent success. However, since those first days, the pace of the Russian advance has slowed. [map at the link]
There’s no sign that Russian troops are simply digging in and trying to secure the border area, as Putin claims. In the past week, Russia has broadened its area of control west of Vovchansk and expanded into the area immediately north of Lyptsi, but the major areas of fighting have moved only a little. According to CNN, Ukraine has rushed battle-hardened units to the front lines north of Kharkiv. Their goal is to keep the fighting from reaching places like Nove, Male Vesele, and Shestakove—all positions from which artillery could easily fire into the city.
As a secondary objective, Ukrainian forces are trying to hold on to Vovchansk. The area includes a road and rail hub that Russia previously exploited to support its troops throughout the region. If Ukraine loses control of Vovchansk, it becomes more difficult for them to hold positions south and east.
The fighting in the Vovchansk area has been difficult, but some claims go beyond the normal course of battle. According to those on the ground, the town is becoming another Bucha, its streets scattered with civilian bodies.
Fifty kilometers away, life in Kharkiv proceeds with a shocking level of normality, but that could change at any moment. Any slip by Ukraine could leave the city subject to the kind of bombardment that has marked Russia’s idea of “liberation”
Ukraine could shift more forces to defend the northern border, but doing so might mean weakening the defenses in the Bakhmut area, where Russia has an equally large push aimed at the town of Chasiv Yar.
Compared to the city of Kharkiv, Chasiv Yar is tiny. However, it sits on high ground at a highway intersection and offers a commanding view of the area in all directions. Russia has been trying hard to take it, and this week Russian forces advanced south of the town. Russian troops are still at the bottom of the bluffs that make Chasiv Yar so valuable, but the fighting is happening close to critical locations.
The result has been a widening area of evacuations as Russian artillery, MLRS, and drones bring misery to one village after another. [video at the link]
As with many other fights in this war, Ukraine’s defense of Chasiv Yar has been stubborn, brave, and tough. Russia has lost an incredible number of forces in trying to reach that high ground. [video at the link]
But the same thing was true of the iron-willed defense in Bakhmut, Mariupol, and Avdiivka. Ukraine made Russia pay a price, but Putin paid that price without question. It’s not as if any of his family is out there on the front lines.
This is a very difficult moment for Ukraine in a war made of nothing but difficult moments.
For Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the frustrations of trying to fight off a multi-year invasion by a much larger nation using erratic supplies from allies are clearly growing. This week, Zelenskyy spoke to The New York Times to ask Western allies why they were so reluctant to engage in a fight against an enemy that so clearly means to bring harm to them all.
With his army struggling to fend off fierce Russian advances all across the front, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine urged the United States and Europe to do more to defend his nation, dismissing fears of nuclear escalation and proposing that NATO planes shoot down Russian missiles in Ukrainian airspace.
[GOOD POINTS] At this point, the decisions the West needs to make are no longer about whether Ukraine gets a certain model of tank, or just what range of artillery shells to deliver. What Ukraine is asking for at this point, and what may be necessary to end this war, is direct involvement.
That doesn’t necessarily mean “boots on the ground” in terms of positioning Western troops on the front line. But it may very well mean NATO forces inside Ukraine to position and operate missile defenses.
“So my question is, what’s the problem?” Zelenskyy asked New York Times reporter Andrew Kramer. “Why can’t we shoot them down? Is it defense? Yes. Is it an attack on Russia? No. Are you shooting down Russian planes and killing Russian pilots? No. So what’s the issue with involving NATO countries in the war? There is no such issue.”
France has been vocal about the possibility of sending some forces into Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz nixed the idea of sending German forces in February, but in the past month members of the German parliament have argued in favor of sending some sort of force.
As with every step that came before, this may be necessary for the survival of Ukraine. If it is, the best thing that the West can do is make that decision before it’s too late.
[X post and image showing confirmation of the sinking of a missile carrier in Crimea] Tsiklon was a relatively new addition to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and was capable of firing the most modern Zircon missiles. “Was” is the operative word.
[Video of an improvised Ukrainian armored recovery vehicle based on the T-64 tank with anti-drone protection.]
Russia hit 500k CASUALTIES, not deaths. Deaths are more on the order of something like 175k. Ukrainian military deaths are in the 35-40k range (according to what Zelenskyy said a few weeks ago). Civilian deaths seem to be about 20k. All of these numbers are from Ukrainian government sources. Using these and rounding up a bit puts the total deaths toll around a quarter million.
Don’t look now, but several ill omens point to the possible return of Javanka […]
Ivanka Trump and her alabaster beau Jared Kushner are nothing if not opportunists, and while they might have been temporarily put off by Donald Trump’s fascistic, Reich-wing ambitions […] Ivanka might be hearing that jackboots are in vogue again and is ready to dip a single toe back into the fire swamp. If she relaunches her lifestyle biz and releases a new line of Hers and Himmler’s bath towels, you’ll know for certain she’s all in.
In a new column for The Guardian, Awra Mahdawi points to several recent developments that augur a potential sequel to the four most irritating years […]:
While “Javanka” kept their distance from the former president during Trump’s lows, there are signs Ivanka might be thinking of coming out of political retirement. Last summer, just as Trump started doing well in the polls, Ivanka started being spotted with Dad again. Now that a second Trump term is a serious possibility, an Ivanka comeback is being more prominently teased. A few weeks ago, the media outlet Puck reported that Ivanka is “warming to the idea of trying to be helpful again … She’s not like ‘Hell no’ any more.” Last week, an anonymous “friend of Ivanka” told Business Insider that the former first daughter has softened her stance on avoiding politics for ever. While a spokesperson for the couple told Puck these rumours were nonsense, it does feel as though Ivanka is testing the political waters.
Of course, while the thought of another Trump term is horrifying enough […] it will be a real trip if the kakistocratic Katzenjammer Kids are in tow. No one wants to see that, do they?
Of course not. Then again, there could be an upside. After all, Republicans have spent years harassing Joe and Hunter Biden over Hunter’s business activities—which reached a concerning climax when Joe, as a private citizen, loaned his son $4,140 to buy a truck. So what will they do when they discover that Ivanka snagged 34 Chinese trademarks while her dad was cosplaying as president, and Jared took a cool $2 billion from Saudi Arabia after he departed the White House? And what will they do when they find out both were official White House advisers despite having zero qualifications? […]
Or not—because the answer, of course, is that House Republicans will do nothing. That said, Ivanka and Jared’s presence on the campaign trail would not only provide a clear contrast to the manufactured Hunter drama, but it could also help draw attention to the serial iniquities of the Trump family […]
In February, Hunter name-checked Jared during a House deposition, asking, “How come [Republicans are] not curious about the $2 billion Jared Kushner got from the Saudis?”
And while whataboutism is rarely a good look, in this case Hunter surely had a point. […]
On Feb. 29, the day after Hunter’s deposition, Rep. Robert Garcia of California pointed out the absurdity of holding Hunter’s feet the the fire while Kushner skates: [video at the link]
[…] I want to remind everyone about the real White House crime family. Why did Saudi Arabia give Jared Kushner $2 billion—billion with a ‘b’—just months after he left the Trump White House? And why did the Saudis spend hundreds of thousands of dollars at Trump properties while he was still the president? We also know that Jared Kushner used his cushy White House job to secure a $100 billion arms deal for Saudi Arabia and did other favors as well. Now, some members of the majority actually agree that this was unethical. And, in fact, a few weeks ago, Jared Kushner was asked by a reporter about his grift. He responded, ‘Are we still really doing this?’ Yes, Jared, we are still really doing this. The American people deserve answers. I rise yet again to urge my colleagues across the aisle to answer our calls and subpoena Jared Kushner’s companies once and for all. We are not stopping, and we demand answers
While that sounded pretty righteous, Garcia was actually being kind—because his mention of “other favors as well” does a lot of heavy lifting.
As Vanity Fair reports:
[…] shortly after he left the White House—where he went to bat for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman following the murder of Jamal Khashoggi—Kushner’s investment firm received a whopping $2 billion from the Saudi Public Investment Fund. That may have struck some people as eye-brow-raising on its own, but making things even more comically corrupt-looking was the fact that the panel that performs due diligence for the Saudi fund concluded Kushner’s firm was “unsatisfactory in all aspects,” and that the country shouldn’t give the former first son-in-law a dime. And then those unequivocal warnings were overridden by the fund’s board, which just so happens to be led by MBS.
Kushner, The Times reported, “played a leading role inside the Trump administration defending Crown Prince Mohammed” after Khashoggi’s murder, and urged Donald Trump to support the crown prince, arguing that the whole situation would blow over.
How can House Oversight Chair James Comer possibly ignore that swampy mess? It’s almost as if Republicans don’t actually care about corruption at all!
Then again, Kushner—who reportedly scrapped a national testing program during the early days of the pandemic because COVID-19 was disproportionately hitting blue states at the time—isn’t exactly a moral paragon. Pocketing $2 billion just for helping an autocrat get away with literal murder is a pretty sweet deal. And Trump no doubt thinks it makes his son-in-law smart.
[…] if voters are somehow fooled into thinking that President Joe Biden has participated in even minor corruption, it would considerably damage his brand, whereas the Kushner stuff is just another twig tossed onto the bonfire of the Trump team’s venality.
And while it’s unlikely either of these twits would move the needle all that much—will Ivanka’s presumed appeal with suburban women actually make any difference now that their basic reproductive rights have been vaporized? […]
After reeling from three intense heat waves, Mexico and Central America will experience the highest recorded temperatures for the next few weeks. Mexico City residents are used to more temperate temperatures, so many homes and businesses lack air conditioning. The situation of our southern neighbors is quite grim. […]
[…] “In the next 10 to 15 days, the country will experience the highest temperatures ever recorded,” researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) said in a statement. […]
Most of the metropolitan area’s 21 million residents – accustomed to more temperate weather – lack air conditioning. Earlier this month, the capital was one of at least ten cities in Mexico that registered their hottest day on record. […]
[…] The past 7 years have seen a near-fivefold increase in documented child labor violations by employers. States have responded to this alarming trend in two ways: Democratic-controlled states are putting more teeth into their laws and upping enforcement; Republican-controlled states are loosening their laws and cutting back on enforcement so children can drop out of school and go to work.
[…] Meanwhile, Republican-controlled states are waging war against universal quality public education for their children. The first shots were fired in efforts to strip schools of books and curricula referencing America’s history of slavery, Jim Crow, Native American genocide, and brutality against the queer community. Those were followed by often-violent threat-filled appearances at school board meetings by militia members and other white supremacists “calling out” teachers and school administrators for “woke indoctrination.”
Most recently, multiple Red states moved to kneecap public schools by removing their funding and reallocating it to families who can afford private academies, religious schools, and home schooling. Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah, and West Virginia have all instituted universal or near-universal school voucher programs in the past few years.
These programs, advocated by rightwing billionaires, are designed to ghettoize Red state public schools by subsidizing middle- and upper-class children’s tuition while leaving poorer students — who can’t afford the costs beyond the vouchers — stuck in defunded and thus failing public schools. […]
Finally, Republican-controlled states go out of their way to make it difficult for workers to unionize or for existing unions to succeed and expand. The immediate result of this “right to work for less” mentality and activity is that social mobility — the ability of a person to move from being the working poor into the middle class, or from the middle class into the upper middle class — is largely frozen.
[…] Social mobility in America today is lower than in any other developed country, a huge change since the 1950-1980 decades before the Reagan Revolution when we led the world in social mobility. Most American children today are locked into the social and economic class of their parents; the opportunity for advancement that union jobs used to provide is half of what it was when Reagan became president.
[…] On March 4, 1858 slave plantation owner and South Carolina Senator James Henry Hammond rose to speak before his peers in the US Senate. […]
“In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties,” Hammond proclaimed, “to perform the drudgery of life. That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill. Its requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity.
“Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement. It constitutes the very mud-sill of society and of political government; and you might as well attempt to build a house in the air, as to build either the one or the other, except on this mud-sill.”
[…] To stabilize society, he additionally argued, such a group of people must be locked rigidly into their mudsill class.
[…] Hammond’s mudsill theory was quickly embraced by the southern plantation owners as well as many northern industrialists and newspaper owners, although progressive politicians and spokesmen for labor were outraged, particularly at the idea that social mobility must be denied to the laboring class.
President Abraham Lincoln jumped into the debate with a speech on September 30, 1859 in Milwaukee. […]
“They further assume that whoever is once a hired laborer, is fatally fixed in that condition for life; and thence again that his condition is as bad as, or worse than that of a slave. This is the ‘mud-sill’ theory.”
[…] When president, Lincoln followed up with his goal of promoting social mobility; he signed legislation creating over 70 Land Grant colleges, including my mother’s Michigan State University, where tuition was free or very affordable until the Reagan Revolution.
These days, Republicans generally take Hammond’s point of view, while today’s Democrats embrace Lincoln’s perspective.
— This is why today’s “conservative” advocates of the mudsill theory argue that “lower class” children shouldn’t be “over-educated” but, instead, sent into the workplace as early as practical. Thus, the Red state movement to gut child labor laws.
— Quality education paid for by the state, they assert, should be kept out of reach of the mudsill class and only available to genetically “superior” students who are the children of the upper classes. […]
— And G-d forbid mudsill laborers should ever have a union represent them: that sort of empowerment may cause them to enter the middle class and then rise up in rebellion against their superiors. Thus, the multi-billion-dollar union-busting industry embraced by Republican politicians across the nation.
[…] Ronald Reagan came into office with the mandate to save American society from collapse. To that end, he set out to reestablish a mudsill class in America by ending free college and gutting public schools, destroying the union movement, and weakening enforcement of child labor laws.
Thus, today’s Republicans — from Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas to Mike Johnson, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Donald Trump — are finally close to fulfilling Hammond’s and Reagan’s vision of an America built on mudsill labor […]
An NBC News journalist witnessed at least one rocket being intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.
The Israeli military sounded sirens in Tel Aviv for the first time in months on Sunday, warning of possible incoming rockets after Hamas’ military wing announced it had launched a fresh attack on the city.
Al-Qassam Brigades announced it was bombing the city with a large missile barrage in response to what it called the “Zionist massacres against civilians.”
The Israel Defense Forces said eight projectiles were identified crossing from the area of Rafah into Israeli territory, and that a number of projectiles were intercepted by the IDF Aerial Defense Array. […]
Pierce R. Butlersays
John Morales @ # 146: …with the invention of insect-resistant, genetically modified cotton – Bt cotton – the plant was able to produce a protein to kill the worm and spraying was significantly reduced.
Temporarily.
This is the equivalent of treating farm animals with preventive antibiotics on a massive scale, and will – guaranteed! – lead to the evolution of Bacillus thuringiensis resistance in the pest population and the uselessness of Bt in spot applications, which might otherwise aid farmers and gardeners for centuries more.
Certainly the geneticists who helped produce this variety of cotton know enough biology to predict this very-obvious effect – but they take their orders from MBA types (who, if they somehow had any ethics classes in their training, cheated in them).
[…] in one sense it might not matter too much what sacrificial candidate Minnesota Republicans run against Amy Klobuchar. But as the Daily Beast reports, the guy the party endorsed at its convention last week, one Wayne Royce, appears to be a Herschel Walker-level train wreck, and we say that not only because he’s a former sportsball player […] Like Walker, Mr. White has never held office, although he at least appears to live in the state where he’s running. Also like Walker, White is a fierce abortion foe who has been accused of being a whopping hypocrite who tried to pressure a woman to get an abortion, an accusation he denies.
And then there are the conspiracy theories, a few of which White’s campaign site references in passing, noting that he is unafraid to discuss “taboo topics” like “Gain of Function Research, The Federal Reserve … The Great Reset, Ivermectin, Me Too, etc.” In case you were wondering, that “gain of function” stuff is part of the conspiracy theory blaming Anthony Fauci for inventing COVID in a Chinese lab, very serious congressional stuff. And as the Daily Beast article notes, White also dabbles in antisemitism. If he’s going to be a full on MAGA asshat, how could he not?
But the real sleazy stuff was right there all along in White’s campaign filings from his previous primary run in 2022, when he lost a bid for a seat in the House. At five a.m. the morning after he lost,
his campaign shelled out more than $1,200 in donor funds to a vendor 1,800 miles away not typically associated with political expenses—an all-nude strip club in Miami, Florida, called “Gold Rush Cabaret.”
Oh, there’s so much more, some of it not merely violating Federal Election Commission rules but potentially breaking federal law, as if that’s a bar to success for Republicans at all.
The Daily Beast reviewed White’s 2022 primary campaign reports and found numerous items that boggled legal experts. The unusual expenses include a total of more than $100,000 in mysterious wire transfers and checks reported as paid to the campaign; hefty tabs at spicy nightspots; getaways at posh hotels in at least seven states; thousands of dollars in limousine services; unexplained cash withdrawals; eye-popping purchases from electronics, sporting goods, clothing, and musical instrument retailers; and the DribbleUp smart basketball training app that White himself admitted might be personal use.
[All the stuff you need to run a Republican campaign, no doubt.]
In addition, the story notes, White has also acknowledged that he used campaign funds to cover — to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars — the expenses of a “campaign entourage” that accompanied him “during the 2022 season of Ice Cube’s ‘Big3’ three-on-three professional basketball league,” because how is an ex-NBA player supposed to be in a pro league while campaigning without an entourage?
As with the strip club visit, a fair chunk of the big spending happened after White lost the 2022 primary, which should make for some interesting stories about how those were totally cromulent campaign expenses.
The campaign also laid out tens of thousands after the primary on luxury lodging, car service, airline tickets, meals, and other costs across half a dozen states. In all, White’s campaign appears to have spent around $30,000 on hotels, many outside of the state where he was running.
Also concerning are the more than $100,000 in outgoing wire transfers and checks with no stated recipient or purpose. Those payments, all experts said—coupled with multiple unexplained cash withdrawals—raise concerns about whether White or staffers treated campaign donations like personal funds. [Questions?]
The article is a pretty fun read, with all sorts of campaign finance experts explaining exactly how several of the expenses violate laws against using campaign funds for personal use, which is something people still have to leave office for.
Then again, White is a pal and frequent guest of Steve Bannon, which may explain how he won the endorsement of the GOP state convention with two-thirds of the vote. Royce White doesn’t seem especially worried. He insisted to the Daily Beast that “That’s all campaign stuff” and that “Every dollar was spent on the campaign for campaign reasons.” […]
As for Minnesota GOP chair David Hann, does this sound like a party chair who’s bothered by a little illegal campaign spending?
Asked whether he was aware of the outrageous 2022 spending, Minnesota GOP chair David Hann told The Daily Beast on Wednesday that he was not in his office at the moment and could not comment, then hung up.
Fine, maybe a little bothered. This should get interesting. If nothing else, the primary isn’t until August, so there’s still some time for the Minnesota GOP to decide just how aggressively it wants to stand up for its endorsed candidate.
The settler groups use a web of publicly accessible WhatsApp groups to track the trucks and coordinate attacks, providing a window into their activities. [video at the link]
Radical Israeli settlers have expanded their attacks on aid trucks passing through the West Bank this month, blocking food from reaching Gaza as humanitarian groups warn that the enclave is sinking deeper into famine.
Groups of settler youth are tailing relief convoys, setting up checkpoints and interrogating drivers. In some cases, far-right attackers have ransacked and burned trucks and beaten Palestinian drivers, leaving at least two hospitalized.
The assailants use a web of publicly accessible WhatsApp groups to track the trucks and coordinate attacks, providing a window into their activities. Working off what they say are tips from Israeli soldiers and police, in addition to the public, members pore over photos to work out which vehicles might be carrying aid to Gaza and mobilize local supporters to block them.
An attack on Thursday showed the system in action: Users in one WhatsApp group with more than 800 members began posting about a flatbed truck loaded with sugar, sharing photos from the road as they followed it.
[…] The flatbed was ransacked, its load strewn across the road, according to images posted later in the group, one of two sugar trucks vandalized by settlers that day. De Bresser said the waybills — which did not show a destination — prove that the truck was headed to Gaza.
Fahed Arar, who owned the cargo, said the 30-ton load of sugar was actually destined for Salfit, a Palestinian town in the West Bank. The driver escaped unharmed, he said, but the Israeli military wouldn’t let him reload the goods.
Instead, soldiers removed the sacks with a bulldozer and destroyed them, Arar said, putting his loses at $30,000. [Israeli military is complicit?]
[…] The Israel Police, largely responsible for enforcing the law when crimes are committed by Israeli citizens, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The violence and vandalism, committed with near-total impunity, raises questions about the willingness of Israel’s security forces to restrain extremist settlers and protect Palestinians. It also challenges the Israeli government’s claim that it is doing all it can to ensure that aid flows to Gaza, where the humanitarian situation has deteriorated rapidly since IDF forces moved into the southern city of Rafah. [True!]
[…] Under pressure from the United States, Israel opened the Tarqumiyah crossing in the West Bank earlier this month for aid trucks traveling to Gaza from Jordan and for Palestinian businesses exporting food. The routes to the crossing take them by Israeli hilltop outposts where settler violence against Palestinians has spiked dramatically in recent months.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan has called the targeting of aid trucks “a total outrage,” and the Biden administration is considering imposing sanctions on people involved in the attacks, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
[…] More than a million Palestinians have been displaced this month, the United Nations says, after Israel began its assault on Rafah and sealed the enclave’s most vital land crossing for aid. The northern part of the territory is already in a “full-blown famine,” the World Food Program said recently, and aid officials warn it is spreading south.
[…] The opening of the Tarqumiyah crossing on May 13 was part of an effort by the IDF to increase the flow of aid to Gaza. But one of the first convoys from Jordan was immediately set upon by Israeli protesters, who tossed boxes of food on the ground and stomped on them. Several trucks were torched.
[…] De Bresser denied that his group was responsible for burning trucks but said he could not condemn the violence.
“I’m happy for every truck that doesn’t enter Gaza, and I’m also happy to see it catch fire,” he said.
The We Won’t Forget movement supports “dismantling” trucks and sometimes takes action based on “inside” information, he said, including from transport workers, police officers and soldiers he says are against sending “supplies to Hamas.”
A recent incident illustrated the Israeli authorities’ hands-off approach to enforcement. In the early hours of May 17, about two dozen far-right youths set up a makeshift blockade at Tarqumiyah; soldiers and police officers drove past the group multiple times without stopping them.
[…] “It’s not our job to stop them, it’s our job to protect them,” said a female soldier of the young settlers. She declined to give her name.
In recent days, there have been more efforts to protect the trucks. Left-wing counterdemonstrators have created a “humanitarian guard” at the crossing, which has put pressure on the police to ensure it is functioning, said Alon-Lee Green, head of Standing Together […]
Some aid convoys from Jordan are now traveling under police escort. But other commercial trucks are afforded no security at all.
Ibrahim al-Razem, 35, was driving a load of Coca-Cola to Kafr Aqab on the outskirts of Jerusalem when he ran into a roadblock on the night of May 16.
“They asked me if I was going to Gaza,” Razem, a Palestinian resident of Jerusalem, said of the crowd of settlers that stopped him. He provided the group documentation showing the goods were headed somewhere else, he said.
But they weren’t satisfied. “Are you a Jew or Arab?” Razem recalled them asking right before they attacked.
“They really wanted to kill me,” he said, adding that military officers at the scene did little to control the crowd. Razem said he hid under an IDF vehicle to shield himself from the blows.
“If the army really wanted them to leave, they could have shot in the air,” said Razem, who suffered three fractured vertebrae, broken ribs and a broken nose.
The truck, which he had decorated with keepsakes from his sons, was set on fire after he was taken to the hospital.
“This was my source of income,” he said, estimating his losses at around $200,000. “I was broken.”
Cryptocurrency companies and investors have spent at least $149 million over the past four years to thwart tough regulation, elect new allies to Congress and defeat lawmakers seen as potential threats, a campaign that culminated this week with a House vote to soften federal oversight of the embattled industry.
The wide array of financial backers include Coinbase and Ripple, which the U.S. government recently sued for allegedly violating federal rules meant to protect investors from harm. Even as they have come under withering scrutiny, these and other major crypto firms have fought not only to rebuff the charges but to remake the laws entirely, mounting an expensive lobbying effort that has left no part of Washington untouched.
On Capitol Hill, the industry has shelled out more than $60 million to shape federal policy since the start of 2021, according to filings analyzed by The Washington Post and data from OpenSecrets and Public Citizen, two money-in-politics watchdogs. The lobbying campaign helped spur the House on Wednesday to advance the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, the first major piece of legislation on cryptocurrency to clear either chamber of Congress.
[…] The spending estimates are an undercount, partly because federal campaign finance laws do not require companies and executives to disclose donations to certain nonprofit groups. Even so, the figures suggest the crypto industry now belongs to a category of Beltway powerhouses that regularly shell out massive sums to influence U.S. policymaking.
[…] “The crypto industry’s record of failures, frauds, and bankruptcies is not because we don’t have rules or because the rules are unclear,” SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in a statement. “It’s because many players in the crypto industry don’t play by the rules.”
[…]\ Some lawmakers feared the FIT21 bill could open the door for other financial institutions to evade SEC regulation, a charge that House Republicans deny.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, said she believed the legislation “would allow [cryptocurrency companies] to absolutely ignore a lot of the compliance that others have to be responsible for,” creating a lapse in oversight that could ultimately “catch up with us.”
[…] Many Democrats said the dynamic recalled the 2008 financial crisis, when Washington failed to prevent the country’s largest banks from underwriting risky mortgages. Roughly 6 million people lost their homes in the resulting financial crisis and recession, while the U.S. government spent trillions of dollars digging the nation out from the wreckage.
“Before the 2008 crash, when I talked about how inadequate our oversight of the banks was, I kept saying, it all looks okay today, but this will end badly,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said in a recent interview. “I feel that way today. It may look okay out there right now, but inviting crypto deeper into our economy without putting adequate regulations in place will end badly.” […]
Cryptocurrency companies strongly resist those comparisons, arguing that members of Congress simply do not understand the new, fast-paced industry.
[…] Many supporters of the House bill long have benefited from cryptocurrency cash.
“All these crypto guys,” Steve Wendelin said, “are trying to buy up all these politicians.”
John Moralessays
Pierce, the better than bad news is that, instead of spraying tonnes of poison over vast areas and hammering all insect life therein (and thus species that live on those insects), the plants themselves generate the poison and only insects that munch on them are affected. That also causes selection pressures that promote resistance.
In short, the poison would be there in any case, and indeed was for decades prior.
KGsays
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan has called the targeting of aid trucks “a total outrage,” and the Biden administration is considering imposing sanctions on people involved in the attacks, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. – Lynna, OM@163 quoting the Washington Post
Oh good! So Biden will be sanctioning the Israeli police, the Israeli army, the Israeli war cabinet, and Netanyahu! And not a day too soon!
John Moralessays
PS
This is the equivalent of treating farm animals with preventive antibiotics on a massive scale
It’s not.
The equivalent would be breeding transgenic farm animals so that they don’t need external antibiotics.
Um, Pierce, again: the pesticides were there since the farming began.
Used to be sprayed over huge fields, by the tonne.
Now, no more spraying it by the tonne.
Built into the plant.
Are you getting the vibe?
Before, much, much poison, but poison nonetheless, used rather by machinery and sprayed indiscriminately.
Now, much, much less poison, but poison nonetheless, built into the crop.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Opening Words
00:00:59 — What Am I Talking About?
00:02:56 — The Russian Political Context
00:14:01 — The Military Context
00:17:17 — A Quiet Front
00:19:34 — Buildup And Operations
00:32:21 — The Operation Unfolds
00:37:07 — Purpose And Value
00:44:19 — Observations – Russia
00:54:10 — Observations & Recriminations – Ukraine
01:00:56 — What Next?
01:03:04 — Channel Update
John Moralessays
In culture news, there’s a new movie out: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Apparently, there’s a shot of an interceptor (car) in the distance that has the image of Max Rockatansky (portrayed by stuntman Jacob Tomuri) in it.
So.
A bit like a King Arthur movie without, um, King Arthur.
A James bond movie without, um, James Bond.
A Ghengis Khan movie without, um, Ghengis Khan.
(etc)
—
Now, I can tell it’s a fine movie, critics I respect respect it.
Still.
A bit like a Lord of the Rings movie without, um, Lords or Rings.
—
Ah well. Works for the masses.
John Moralessays
Just now, my pooch (Igor) did some wriggling and writhing on his back on the grass of my back yard, luxuriating intensely, and then proceeded to swim across the recently-mown grass in a side-stroke, grunting happily all the while.
But then, there’s Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ which became the 1959 movie.
Definitely A Tale of the Christ movie without, um, the Christ.
Not at all about the Christ, but technically the Christ is there.
(Good movie, that one)
John Moralessays
The Middle East has been no less peaceful ever since.
birgerjohanssonsays
When the libertarian party nominated their candidate for the presidency in 2024, Donald Trump got 6 votes which amounts to 0.65 % of the votes cast.
For comparison, he got five votes more than Stormy Daniels… and an actual cat.
Cats are nice. I would have voted for it, if I could.
birgerjohanssonsays
The dude who spent GOP funds on strip clubs at least had his priorities right. When Trump dies, this guy can take over. Better than spending cash on bad lawyers, the dancers need the money.
birgerjohanssonsays
John Morales @ 174
A bit like a Disney Star Wars film?
birgerjohanssonsays
John Morales @ 175
Maybe your pooch can join this competition?
“Much ado about nothing”: world’s most relaxed people gather in Seoul for ‘space-out’ competition | South Korea | The Guardian
Wikipedia:
“Gammon is a pejorative popularised in British political culture since around 2012. The term refers in particular to the colour of a person’s flushed face when expressing their strong opinions, as compared to the type of pork of the same name.”
Brexit was the work of gammons. The tory party is kept in power by angry gammons.
And your US MAGA cultists are gammons without knowing it, as were the tea party crowd before them. Gammons are an absolute necessity for populist demagogues.
Russia Steps Up a Covert Sabotage Campaign Aimed at Europe.
U.S. and European security officials say Russia’s military intelligence arm is leading the campaign of arson attacks to slow arms transfers to Ukraine. New York Times link
U.S. and allied intelligence officials are tracking an increase in low-level sabotage operations in Europe that they say are part of a Russian campaign to undermine support for Ukraine’s war effort.
The covert operations have mostly been arsons or attempted arsons targeting a wide range of sites, including a warehouse in England, a paint factory in Poland, homes in Latvia and, most oddly, an Ikea store in Lithuania.
But people accused of being Russian operatives have also been arrested on charges of plotting attacks on U.S. military bases.
While the acts might appear random, American and European security officials say they are part of a concerted effort by Russia to slow arms transfers to Kyiv and create the appearance of growing European opposition to support for Ukraine. And the officials say Russia’s military intelligence arm, the G.R.U., is leading the campaign.
The attacks, at least so far, have not interrupted the weapons flow to Ukraine […] But some security officials say Russia is trying to sow fear and force European nations to add security throughout the weapons supply chain, adding costs and slowing the pace of transfers.
[…] Amid the growing concern about sabotage, NATO ambassadors are set to meet next month with Avril D. Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence. Ms. Haines will provide an intelligence briefing on Russia’s war in Ukraine, but she will also discuss Moscow’s covert sabotage campaign in Europe.
Security officials would not describe their intelligence linking the sabotage to the G.R.U., but American and British spy services have penetrated the G.R.U. deeply. Before the war in Ukraine, the United States and Britain released declassified pieces of intelligence exposing various G.R.U. plans to create a false pretext for Russia’s invasion.
[…] “Russia’s strategy is one of divide and conquer,” said Ms. Kendall-Taylor, now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “Right now, it’s not a very costly strategy for Russia because we are all responding separately. That is why it is important that over time, we collectivize the response.”
[…] One of the first of the recent sabotage acts attributed to Russia was a March fire at a warehouse in London. Authorities say the warehouse was connected with the effort to supply Ukraine but have provided few details.
Security officials briefed on the incident said G.R.U. operatives used a Russian diplomatic building in Sussex, England, to recruit locals to carry out the arson. Four British men have been charged with arson in the attack, and one of them has been charged with assisting a foreign intelligence service.
In response, Britain expelled a Russian military officer working for intelligence services and closed several Russian diplomatic buildings, including the G.R.U. operations center in Sussex.
The use of local recruits, security officials said, has been a hallmark of the recent sabotage campaign. U.S. and European officials said that is partly to make attacks more difficult to detect, and to make them appear to be the result of domestic opposition to supporting Ukraine. […]
More at the link.
“They want to take the war to Europe, but they don’t want a war with NATO,” Ms. Kendall-Taylor said. “So they are doing all these things that are short of conventional attacks.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor reflected Friday on her time on the Supreme Court, admitting that some of the high court’s decisions have driven her to tears. “There are days that I’ve come to my office after an announcement of a case and closed my door and cried,” Sotomayor said Friday at an event honoring her at Harvard University.
Pierce R. Butlersays
John Morales @ #s 167 & 169-172 – I suspect if someone were to criticize Donald Trump, you’d post critiques of Hillary Clinton’s emails and Joe Biden’s age.
Your “… people attempt to patronise me having never got the actual point” illustrates this quite aptly.
In the abstract, it was difficult to see how the plan was supposed to work. Donald Trump, the presumptive nominee of one political party, apparently thought it’d be a good idea to appear at the national nominating convention of a different political party, seeking its support for his 2024 candidacy.
It seemed like the sort of strategy that wouldn’t work. After having seen the reception Trump received at the Libertarian Party’s event, the results were even worse than expected. NBC News reported:
Insults were hurled at former President Donald Trump when he took to the stage Saturday night to address the Libertarian National Convention. The crowd’s hostility to the former president was especially pronounced when Trump directly solicited their votes. Each time Trump asked attendees at the Washington Hilton for their votes or the party’s nomination, he was met with loud boos.
In case this isn’t obvious, the former president isn’t generally accustomed to speaking to audiences that jeer him relentlessly. On the contrary, Trump tends to speak at rallies where attendees have an almost religious-like reverence for him.
[…] when the presumptive GOP nominee heard the unmistakable booing from delegates to the Libertarian gathering, he responded by insulting the party.
“If you want to lose, don’t [nominate me],” Trump said. “Keep getting your 3% every four years.”
This, naturally, generated even more vociferous booing. [video at the link]
[…] As a New York Times report noted, “Mr. Trump’s speech was without modern precedent: the presumptive nominee of a major political party giving a prime-time address at another party’s convention.”
It also appeared to fail spectacularly. Evidently, the delegates to the Libertarian National Convention thought it’d be preferable to nominate a Libertarian — and Trump is clearly not that.
[Trump] didn’t even bother to submit the paperwork to compete for the Libertarian Party’s nomination, and delegates ended up nominating party activist Chase Oliver for president.
Soon after, Trump turned to his social media platform to claim, “The reason I didn’t file paperwork for the Libertarian Nomination, which I would have absolutely gotten if I wanted it (as everyone could tell by the enthusiasm of the Crowd last night!), was the fact that, as the Republican Nominee, I am not allowed to have the Nomination of another Party.” [oh my … that was good for a laugh]
[…] the idea that the Libertarian nomination was his for the taking is ridiculous to anyone who actually saw and heard the reception Trump received at the convention.
[…] “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears,” George Orwell wrote in his dystopian classic, 1984. “It was their final, most essential command.”
As India nears the end of the world’s largest election process, extreme heat may be keeping voters from showing up at the polls.
Temperatures soared as high as 113 degrees Fahrenheit on Saturday in New Delhi, as the capital and other parts of the country voted in the sixth phase of the seven-phase election, in which almost 970 million people are eligible to vote. […]
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party are expected to win a third consecutive term. […]
many voters arrived at their polling stations shortly after voting began at 7 a.m. to avoid the midday heat. But even then there was little respite from the oppressively hot and dry winds buffeting the city, with forecasters issuing a “severe heat wave warning” for the weekend.
India and other parts of South and Southeast Asia have been experiencing deadly heat waves this spring that international scientists say are being made more frequent and extreme by climate change.
Last week, at least nine people in the western Indian state of Rajasthan died from heat-related conditions as temperatures surpassed 120 degrees. Two others died of suspected heat stroke in the state of Gujarat, where Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan was reportedly hospitalized for the same reason. […]
Here are some of my thoughts on the UK general election, in “horserace” terms. Yes, I know it’s policies that should be the focus of discussion, but as far as those are concerned, I’d simply say “vote Green if there’s a candidate standing in your constituency” – they are the only parties with reasonably sound policies on climate, other environmental issues, and social justice. If there’s no Green, look at the candidates individually to see how close (or far) they are from Green policies and vote for the closest. There’s no need to vote for the “lesser evil”, as a defeat for the “greater evil” (the Tories) is as near certain as anything can be in electoral politics – a very different situation from that in the USA, or most of Europe.
Here’s a breakdown of the current state of the Commons (taken from Wikipedia):
• Conservative Party (346)
HM Most Loyal Opposition (this is an official role, accorded to the opposition party with most seats)
• Labour Party (205)
Other opposition
• Scottish National Party (43)
• Liberal Democrats (15)
• Democratic Unionist Party (7)
• Plaid Cymru (3)
• Alba Party (2)
• SDLP (2)
• Alliance Party (1)
• Green Party (1)
• Reform UK (1)
• Workers’ Party of Britain (1)
• Independents (15)
Abstentionists
• Sinn Féin (7)
Presiding officer
• Speaker (1)
A few notes:
1) Sinn Fein, who want northern Irleand to become part of the Irish Republic, and deny the legitimacy of UK rule there, stand for election but if they win, refuse to take their seats. That means slightly less than half the total seats are needed for an effective majority.
2) Unlike in the US House of Representatives, the Speaker is supposed to be strictly neutral. They come from one of the parties, but are supposed to suspend that allegiance as long as they are Speaker. They don’t take part in votes unless there’s a tie, when they will by convention vote for the status quo.
3) Among the larger parties, we know in practice that the Tories will lose a lot of seats, Labour will gain a lot, the SNP will lose a lot, the Liberal Democrats will gain a lot — but as in any First-Past-The-Post election, small changes in vote share can mean big changes in seats won.
4) This is an unusually fragmented House. IIRC all the independents left or were expelled from either the Labour or the Conservative parliamentary party. None of the main British parties stand candidates in northern Ireland. The northern Ireland parties other than Sinn Fein are the Democratic Unionists (hard right conservatives, determined that northern Ireland should remain in the UK); the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), roughly the local equivalent of Labour (although with Labour’s plunge to the right under Starmer, that may no longer be accurate), favouring Irish unity but less militant in this regard than Sinn Fein; and Alliance, formed in an attempt to overcome the Protestant-Unionist vs Catholic-Nationalist divide, with policies similar to the Liberal Democrats. Plaid Cymru are the Welsh counterparts to the SNP in Scotland, the Green Party is the Green Party of England and Wales – separate green parties stand in Scotland and northern Ireland. Alba are a right-wing breakaway from the SNP, loyal to the former SNP leader Alex Salmond — their two MPs were elected as SNP candidates. The sole Reform UK MP was elected as a Conservative. The “Workers’ Party of Britain” would be more accurately called the George Galloway Party. Galloway, once a Labour MP, won a recent by-election in a constituency with a large Muslim minority and where Labour disowned their candidate for antisemitism (with some justification) at the last moment, campaigning mostly on Gaza (where Labour has slavishly followed Biden’s line, only daring to criticise Israel when he has done so first). Galloway’s another narcissist, with an odd mixture of left populist and socially conservative policies, and a homophobe, transphobe, sexist and antisemite.
5) The outcome will be less fragmented, but the share of the vote won by the Conservatives and Labour together may be a post-WW2 low, emphasising the undemocratic nature of the electoral system. My guess is that there will be no more than a couple of independents elected at most, including few if any of those currently in the house: the most likely is Jeremy Corbyn, standing in the constituency he currently represents, where he has a large personal following — by all accounts, he’s a good constituency MP. He may be joined by Diane Abbott, who is currently suspended from Labour, supposedly for some ill-advised comparisons between antisemitism and other forms of racism, in reality because Starmer hates her. She was the first Black woman to be elected as an MP, back in 1987. A decision on whether to lift her suspension, imposed a year ago, is expected in the next few days. If it is not lifted, she may decide to run as an independent – my hunch is that a decision not to allow her to stand was taken a year ago, and the intervening time has been spent combing through every possible source to find things to discredit her when the decision is announced. My guess is also that Alba and Reform will have no MPs (I don’t think Reform will do as well in vote share as their poll ratings suggest, as they have very little on-the-ground organisation, but even if they do, they are unlikely to win any seats), but that Galloway may well hold his seat — he’s a very effective campaigner. Of the other small parties, the Greens could either lose their single seat (their current MP, Caroline Lucas, is retiring from the Commons: she is widely liked and respected across parties both nationally and in her Brighton constituency), or hold that seat and win one or even two more. Plaid Cymru could lose a seat or seats to Labour, but might gain one or two from the Tories. Among the northern Ireland parties it’s possible the Democratic Unionists will lose seats (their leader recently had to resign as he’s awaiting trial on charges of rape!), and Sinn Fein, SDLP andor Alliance gain seats from them. The Speaker is by convention not opposed by any of the main parties.
6) All these small parties and independents will be of limited significance unless Labour fall short of an overall majority, which is unlikely but not impossible if Reform flop badly and the Liberal Democrats, SNP, Plaid Cymru and Greens do well. In realistic terms, it is impossible that the Tories will get enough seats to remain in power, despite rather frantic efforts by Starmeroids to suggest otherwise in order to deter voters from supporting Green or independent candidates; no other party, apart from the Democratic Unionists, would even think of supporting the Conservatives to form a government, except conceivably the SNP in return for a new referendum on independence — and I think even that is unlikely even if the arithmetic allowed it, which it almost certainly won’t.
On a personal note, the electoral system presents me with a dilemma. As a member of the Scottish Greens, I am expected to vote for our candidate, and will loyally do so (she’s a good candidate, too, but realistically, won’t win). But the current MP is one of the best of the SNP’s cadre, a member of SNP Socialists, and I don’t want him defeated by a Starmeroid clone because we’ve taken votes from him. So I’m intending to do any campaigning in a nearby constituency. Possibly one which is currently held by a Starmeroid clone, who will win agian — but we might just save our deposit (it costs £500 to stand a candidate, and you need 5% of the vote to get it back — a very undemocratic system, requiring a certain number of signatures would be much better). Or possibly one we might have an outside chance of winning from the SNP.
On May 30, 1937, the temperature in Chicago reached a balmy 88 degrees: a “perfect day for a picnic,” as some would later describe it. But 1,500 steel workers hadn’t gathered with their wives and children inside a dilapidated dance hall called Sam’s Place to enjoy a relaxing Memorial Day celebration. Sam’s was the headquarters of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, an arm of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and the workers were organizing a peaceful strike.
They were striking because Republic Steel, the plant where they worked, had declared it would not recognize their new union. Unlike his counterparts at U.S. Steel, Republic’s president, Tom Girdler, felt no obligation to mollify the outrageous and insulting demands of his workers. A 40-hour work week? An eight-hour day? Time-and-a-half wages for overtime? That was preposterous. It was communism, and there was no way he’d stand for it. The country was still in the midst of an economic catastrophe, after all. Those people were lucky to have jobs in the first place.
Instead, he called on his friends in the Chicago police force, arming them with submachine guns, wooden ax handles, and tear gas, and let them set up a command post inside the gates of his massive steel plant on Chicago’s southeast side. If the workers tried to picket his plant, they’d be stopped before they even started. The beatings his cops had inflicted on a smaller group of strikers only a few nights prior should have given them a little taste of what to expect.
What happened next is now regarded as one of the ugliest episodes of anti-worker violence in American history. One lone cameraman, an employee of Paramount News, filmed what actually occurred that day, and the footage he took is the only reason that any national memory of the actual event still survives.
The space between Sam’s Place and the Republic Steel plant, where the steel workers intended to picket, was a wide, grassy prairie. As they marched across this field, those in front suddenly encountered a line of police officers, forbidding them from approaching the plant any further. All of the police were armed with revolvers. When the workers protested that they had every legal right to picket, the police opened fire. Accounts dispute whether someone may have thrown a ”branch” or another object which may have angered the police, or whether some of the workers were pushed into the police by the crowd. Other accounts suggest the police intentionally provoked the incident by prodding and then hammering the workers with their nightsticks when they refused to turn back.
“An estimated 40 marchers were shot within seconds,” recounted filmmaker Greg Williams, writing for the Los Angeles Times. “Doctors later determined that the majority were wounded in the back or in the side. Dozens more were sent to hospitals with severe head wounds after police chased, caught and clubbed retreating marchers.”
Ten unarmed steel workers were killed that day, most of them shot in the back while attempting to flee the phalanx of 300 Chicago police officers that had been fingering their weapons, preparing for violence from the outset. About 90 more people were wounded. Of those, many were roughly stuffed into police paddy wagons and taken to a distant hospital to treat their wounds.
The police later tried to justify their actions by claiming the marchers were “communists.” Nearly all of the national media fell in line, referring to the march as a “riot” and the strikers as “agitators.” As Mitchell notes, “For three weeks, newspapers across the country almost invariably described the unionists as ‘rioters’ who left the police no choice but to use deadly force to keep them from attacking the plant.”
But then the Paramount film footage was discovered, which, as Mitchell observes, depicted “almost the entire confrontation and aftermath.”
That film footage, of course, was very inconvenient for the police and for Republic Steel. So in solidarity with the steel tycoon and his police thugs, Paramount, a leading producer of newsreels commonly screened in theaters at the time, had created a three-minute newsreel depicting the events that day—then suddenly refused to release it […]
Fortunately, Paramount News’ insidious move did not sit well with certain progressive members of the U.S. Senate, and after prodding from Illinois labor activists, the footage was subpoenaed by a Senate subcommittee led by Robert M. La Follette Jr. As detailed in Williams’ PBS documentary, “Memorial Day Massacre: Workers Die, Film Buried,” the entire film was then privately screened for Paul Anderson, a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Anderson also interviewed survivors of the police massacre, who in turn provided testimony to the Senate subcommittee.
[…] a clean, unedited copy of the original newsreel prepared after the fact by Paramount News is unavailable on YouTube. However the British press presented edited (and misleading) segments of it upon its initial public release. That video, accompanied with some commentary, is below: [video at the link]
[…] As Williams’ documentary shows, senators were able to create a slow-motion version of the footage that enabled them to track the movements of certain individuals within the film. One of the striking workers, a woman who was five months pregnant, was observed being “brutally clubbed” by police before being “pushed into a police van” along with other victims. Another man was identified as being bludgeoned by two police officers who wielded ax handles supplied by Republic Steel. Another, later identified as Alfred Causey, 43, of Chicago, was carried away after receiving four bullet wounds, then left to lay on the ground without treatment before being pronounced dead “a few hours later.”
And then there was Earl Handley. Initial newspaper reports claimed he was assisted by police after being shot and apparently placed in a private car to be taken to the hospital. But the Senate testimony revealed what the footage did not: […] police pulled Handley out of the car and dragged him to a paddy wagon. A tourniquet that had been applied to stop his bleeding from a bullet wound was allowed to fall off, and, as the PBS documentary notes, he then bled to death.
Williams’ film highlights testimony that nearly all those killed had been shot “in the back, or in the side.” In other words, they were fleeing, unarmed, and had therefore presented no significant threat to the police. Multiple witnesses described pleading with the police to stop and being attacked in response.
[…] police witnesses echoed Mooney, blaming the violence not only on “communists” but “foreigners who work in factories.” One described them as “foreign savages.” Still another blamed “Mexicans” who were “high on marijuana.” These racist tropes and lies did not sway the Senate subcommittee, which condemned the police for the massacre of these innocent American workers.
Williams explains that after the hearings concluded, Paramount finally released the film footage to news organizations. But the first 15 seconds, which clearly showed the police were culpable in starting the violence, were conveniently omitted. […] workers who had participated in the strike were “fired or blacklisted” […]
No one was ever prosecuted for this violence. Williams’ documentary concludes by noting that four years later, after pressure from the National Labor Relations Board and a White House suddenly concerned about worker productivity for the war effort, the unionization effort succeeded at Republic Steel, and Steel Workers Organizing Committee changed its name to the United Steel Workers of America. Blacklisting and firing of striking workers was made illegal, and unions began to flourish.
Why this event, which involved far more dead and wounded Americans than even the Kent State massacre, seems to have been dropped from the nation’s collective memory is not difficult to understand. The police were revealed as liars, serving a big corporation that was transparently malevolent, and the media were largely complicit tools in the story. […] The only people that come off well in the entire saga are the leftist workers and the progressive politicians and activists who exposed the truth.
[…] yet again, it appears that there’s no one left, except liberals and “leftists,” to do anything about it.
Paul Ksays
KG @ 191: Thanks for that clear and concise analysis! As an American, I am not very knowledgeable about the nitty gritty details and workings of UK politics, and your comments often help me gain insight into what otherwise seems obscure to me. I have a question that will show just how ignorant I am. Maybe you could point me to some link that can go into more detail, but, why has Labour moved to the right when, at least from my cloudy view, people want to the UK to move leftward?
Lynna @ 192: Reason number, oh, who knows, why America disgusts me: the absolute lack of knowledge about labor history, the reason for us ever having a middle class. I knew about this massacre, though many of the details you posted were new to me. I have relatives who work in trades, and most of them are completely anti-union. When I try to talk about the history of sacrifice that labor gave in order to give them pretty much everything that makes their jobs and lives possible, they scoff, and spout lies placed in their heads by the propaganda paid for by corporate union busters. And these aren’t Trumpy republicans, either.
birgerjohanssonsays
FUUUUUUUCK this confirms my worst expectations about the next prime minister.
🤮
“Starmer’s macho talk on asylum seekers will only lead to more tragedy. Where is his humanity?” | Maya Goodfellow | The Guardian
John Morales @ #s 167 & 169-172 – I suspect if someone were to criticize Donald Trump, you’d post critiques of Hillary Clinton’s emails and Joe Biden’s age.
Your “… people attempt to patronise me having never got the actual point” illustrates this quite aptly.
What a silly, unwarranted suspicion!
You know, there have been multiple posts here criticising Donald Trump over the years, and I’ve yet to post critiques of Hillary Clinton’s emails and Joe Biden’s age in response.
So… what made you imagine such a ridiculous thing?
And no, my observation about your imagined jab to the effect that I am ignorant about resistance does not illustrate that at all, never mind aptly.
Heh.
—
Anyway. Don’t just insinuate and speculate. Commit! Address the issue!
Do you or do you not think that it’s better to have transgenic crops to deal with pests than to spray pesticides all over the paddocks?
Remember my point: in either case, that poison is there and the species that chomp on the plants will therefore be subject to selection pressure, but in one case only those bugs are affected and the local ecosystem is less disturbed.
—
Ah well.
Obviously, the topic of pesticide use is less interesting to you than my supposed responses to Trump criticism or making a misaimed objection to the article I adduced.
Your supposed objection has been put down to rest, and you can’t even try to resuscitate it.
Obviously.
GM Crops Food. 2022; 13(1): 262–289.
Published online 2022 Oct 13. doi: 10.1080/21645698.2022.2118497
PMCID: PMC9578716
PMID: 36226624
Genetically Modified (GM) Crop Use 1996–2020: Environmental Impacts Associated with Pesticide Use Change
This paper assesses the environmental impacts associated with changes in pesticide use with GM crops at a global level. The main technologies impacting on pesticide use have been crops modified to be tolerant to specific herbicides so as to facilitate improved weed control and crops resistant to a range of crop insect pests that otherwise damage crops or typically require the application of insecticides to control them. Over the 24 year period examined to 2020, the widespread use of GM insect resistant and herbicide tolerant seed technology has reduced pesticide application by 748.6 million kg (−7.2%) of active ingredient and, as a result, decreased the environmental impact associated with insecticide and herbicide use on these crops (as measured by the indicator, the Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ)) by a larger 17.3% between 1996 and 2020. The technology that has delivered the largest change in pesticide use has been insect resistant cotton, where a 339 million kg of active ingredient saving has occurred and the associated environmental impact (as measured by the EIQ indicator) has fallen by about a third.
(my emphasis)
Tethyssays
Of course you could eliminate the need for all those pesticides and the GM technology by growing hemp for fiber instead of cotton. Things made from hemp also last much longer than cotton or synthetics, which is why DuPont worked so hard to get it classified as an illegal drug despite its very low THC levels.
KGsays
John Morales@196,
The two cases of inserting genes for pest resistance (e.g. Bt cotton), and genes for herbicide resistance are very different. In the former case there should indeed be less disturbance to the local ecosystem (although this is only the first stage in assessing whether the introduction of these crops is a net positive – e.g., do they tend to assist agribusiness in displacing small farmers?), while in the latter, the short-term expected result is to drench the land with the pesticide concerned, killing all other plants than the GM crop – and of course the insects that depend on those plants, the birds that depend on those insects…, while the longer-term expected result is to encourage the evolution of tolerance to the pesticide concerned among weed species. Above all, remember that this technology is almost entirely under the control of huge corporations motivated solely by profit: they will introduce those GM crops which they think will maximise their profits, irrespective of the effect on ecosystems or people.
John Moralessays
Yes, I know, KG.
There was much discussion about that sort of stuff in the early years of the blog, mostly when it was hosted by SB.
You were there, so you should have been aware I am quite familiar with the issues at hand.
Still.
Spiders and froggies, better than no spiders or froggies.
That was my original better than bad news.
KGsays
Paul K@193,
Thanks!
Starmer’s supporters will tell you the shift to the right is essential to persuade Tory voters to switch, and will blame Labour election defeats, particularly that of 2019, on the leftish policies introduced under Corbyn (really quite mildly leftish for the most part, and in many cases popular if presented in polls without linking them to Labour or Corbyn). But in my view it was a combination of the desire to “Get Brexit Done”, Johnson’s (to me, inexplicable) charisma, and Corbyn’s lack of support among his parliamentary colleagues and of the political skills a party leader needs, that produced the 2019 result. I think the polls over the past two years indicate that the scandals around Johnson that led to him being forced out by his own party colleagues and the disastrously incompetent 45-ish day premiership of Liz Truss in 2022, led a large chunk of the electorate to make a near-irrevocable decision that the Tories have to go – and Labour is the only party with a credible chance of replacing them in government. Labour’s appeal now, I believe, is almost entirely that of not being the Tories, so they would win with almost any policies and leader; and the shift is entirely unforced, deriving from the personal political preferences of Starmer and more particularly the advisors he has surrounded himself with (notably Lord Peter Mandelson, the extremely rich and indeed corrupt advisor to Blair when he was PM), and the businesspeople Starmer thinks he needs to attract and from whom he and his circle draw funding (Starmer and the shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, have both taken funding from private health corporations, for example). Evidence for my view is that Starmer’s approval rating has been negative throughout most of the 18-monthish period during which Labour has held a big lead over the Tories (this combination of a huge lead for the opposition party and a negative view of its leader is unprecedented); and that Labour’s lead has remained roughly the same over that period, while Starmer has made numerous U-turns on previously announced policies – most people simply aren’t paying attention to those changes.
Believe it or believe it not, I don’t carry around in my head a portfolio of “What John Morales knew and thought a decade ago”! You didn’t make any distinction between pesticide-resistance and herbicide-resistance, or note the importance of considering a broader context than the local effects of agricultural innovations on this thread, or, as far as I recall, any recent one.
KGsays
John Morales@201,
Indeed. The European Commision are of course entirely objective and unbiased in their assessment of whether EU environmental policies have been successful.
John Moralessays
You didn’t make any distinction between pesticide-resistance and herbicide-resistance
I was specifically referring to the actual story I adduced @146 (Cotton farms crawling with spiders and frogs as industry cleans up its act), and have been doing so since Pierce responded to me by pointing out any poison will inevitably select for resistance. I then noted he was entirely missing the point, because that resistance would occur in either case.
So, yeah, I didn’t go on about the generalities, because I was specifically talking about the story I posted.
Believe it or believe it not, I don’t carry around in my head a portfolio of “What John Morales knew and thought a decade ago”!
Believe it or believe it not, I well remember discussing the topic, and I also remember you were there.
Apparently, you’re further into your dotage than I am.
Anyway, now you are aware of it. I know that stuff.
I was not talking about that stuff.
I was talking about the post that so confused Pierce.
I mean, come on! Please educate yourself on pesticide resistance. is attempted patronisation if I ever saw it.
Like Reginald some time ago telling me that “if I knew anything about Catholicism, [blah]”.
I tend to respond to such attempted jibes, and those to whom I respond tend to react just like Pierce has.
Snide allusions and pompous backstepping and vague insinuations.
Bluster, in short.
[…] or note the importance of considering a broader context than the local effects of agricultural innovations on this thread
No. No, I didn’t cover those facets. Or global food poverty, or stuff like that.
So.
I posted a story that was supposed to be feel-good and better than bad news, and retorted to someone who quite evidently missed the significance of the froggies and the spiders. Someone who imagined I need to be educated about resistance.
(Talk about scope creep!)
John Moralessays
KG:
The European Commision are of course entirely objective and unbiased in their assessment of whether EU environmental policies have been successful.
Ah yes, the classic poisoning of the well technique. No actual substance there.
So… what is incorrect about the featured case studies?
I note you utterly ignored the explicit and direct question: “Is this or is this not better than bad news?”
(I suppose it’s a bit much to ask that someone actually commit an opinion)
KGsays
John Morales,
You really are a stupid shit sometimes. Of course I’m not going to commit myself to an opinion on case studies presented by an organisation with an obvious motive to shade the results (if no more) positively, and of course it would take hours or more likely days of work to do even an initial assessment – time which I don’t have to spend at present.
John Moralessays
Of course I’m not going to commit myself to an opinion on case studies presented by an organisation
Well, you did commit yourself to insinuating that it is not the case that “The European Commision are of course entirely objective and unbiased in their assessment of whether EU environmental policies have been successful.”
It becomes apparent that, in your opinion, The European Commission (singular) lacks credibility.
Whether or not restoration projects even existing is good news, well… too time consuming to make that determination.
Got it.
KGsays
John Morales@204
You didn’t make any distinction between pesticide-resistance and herbicide-resistance – Me
I was specifically referring to the actual story I adduced @146
You quoted @196 a paper which (in the quoted extract) lumped together pest resistence and herbicide resistance. If you choose to quote something as supporting your case, it is entirely reasonable for someone else to point out the limitations of what you have quoted.
Believe it or believe it not, I well remember discussing the topic, and I also remember you were there.
Apparently, you’re further into your dotage than I am.
A silly insult. If you have a near-perfect memory of everything discussed on Pharnygula – and who said what – for the past 10 years or so, good for you. I don’t.
KGsays
John Morales@207,
Reluctance to take at face value any assessment of any policy or programme by the organization responsible for producing it or carrying it out is simply commoonsense scepticism. If you are naive enough to assume that the European Commision are able and willing to be entirely objective in marking their own homework, that’s on you.
KGsays
John Morales,
It might be worth recalling (I must have mentioned this at some time on Pharyngula, so of course you’ll know it), that I headed a European Commission research project, and took part in two others, so I have some actual experience of its assessment processes.
John Moralessays
You quoted @196 a paper which (in the quoted extract) lumped together pest resistence and herbicide resistance.
Well, yes. Specifically to post the bit I emphasised and show the source of the claim.
This bit: The technology that has delivered the largest change in pesticide use has been insect resistant cotton, where a 339 million kg of active ingredient saving has occurred and the associated environmental impact (as measured by the EIQ indicator) has fallen by about a third.
Right? 339 million kg of active ingredient saving. Cotton farming.
I assure you, I myself am in my dotage — yet, I don’t fail to recall your presence in the early days of SB.
Or those discussions.
You claimed you do, so… gotta face the facts. Your memory is going.
—
Reluctance to take at face value any assessment of any policy or programme by the organization responsible for producing it or carrying it out is simply commoonsense scepticism.
Right. The source is sus, so no determination can be made without close examination, and your time is precious.
How about the principles at play, then? (One level up on the site)
”
Nature Restoration Law Objectives
The proposal aims to restore ecosystems, habitats and species across the EU’s land and sea areas in order to
— enable the long-term and sustained recovery of biodiverse and resilient nature
— contribute to achieving the EU’s climate mitigation and climate adaptation objectives
— meet international commitments
”
Is this or is this not better than bad news?” :)
(There, I made it easier for ya; I know your time is very valuable)
If you are naive enough to assume that the European Commision are able and willing to be entirely objective in marking their own homework, that’s on you.
Good grief!
Those projects probably exist, no? Bioremediation.
Pierce R. Butlersays
John Morales @ #s 195-196 – You continue to exhibit a knack for point-missing, & another for false dichotomies.
While reading up on pesticide resistance, you may possibly run into mentions of integrated pest management & related strategies.
Follow up on those, and then maybe you’ll realize that flooding the fields with pesticide (whether by crop duster or DNA) leads to resistance to said pesticide and constitutes a crude, unnecessary, counterproductive and unintelligent approach.
Which perhaps you will find appealing on exactly those grounds.
John Moralessays
John Morales @ #s 195-196 – You continue to exhibit a knack for point-missing, & another for false dichotomies.
Heh.
It appears to you that I continue to exhibit a knack for point-missing, & another for false dichotomies.
What points do you imagine I am missing, and what false dichotomies do you imagine I am knackfully performing?
—
Follow up on those, and then maybe you’ll realize that flooding the fields with pesticide (whether by crop duster or DNA) leads to resistance to said pesticide and constitutes a crude, unnecessary, counterproductive and unintelligent approach.
And yet, froggies and spiders.
I get it.
For you, 339 million kg of active ingredient saving is a crude, unnecessary, counterproductive and unintelligent approach.
Froggies and spiders, bah. Other bugs, bah.
Which perhaps you will find appealing on exactly those grounds.
Heh. Why do you imagine that?
I’m not irrational, so obviously I don’t find a crude, unnecessary, counterproductive and unintelligent approach appealing.
Why you use that very approach when you interact with me is something about which I can only speculate.
Feel free to elucidate.
Tethyssays
The original GMO news item was about the boondoggle known as golden rice. The problem of diets that are deficient in Vitamin A is due to insufficient fats in the daily diet, which are critical to absorbing the nutrient. I’m sure there are plenty of leafy green vegetables, papaya, and mango which are good sources of A and beta carotene in tropical rice growing regions.
The US routinely adds both A and D to milk to ensure that growing children get adequate amounts.
A spendthrift young man hired a wizard to make him a ring that bound an angelic spirit to help him win at cards. A woman threw a closed lock into one well and its key into another well, intending to cause the man who jilted her to become impotent with his new wife. Bizarre practices like feeding a man with a fish that had been inserted in the cook’s vagina before she prepared it, or with bread that the baker had kneaded with her buttocks, were meant to make him fall in love with the woman who did so. “Magic in all its forms,” Stanmore writes, “is ultimately the expression of a desire to have power in a situation that may feel outside one’s control.” And what predicament feels more uncontrolled than love?
Ah, days of yore!
Pierce R. Butlersays
John Morales @ # 213: What points do you imagine I am missing…
The ones I’ve pointed out, which you continue to miss. [Hint.]
… obviously I don’t find a crude, unnecessary, counterproductive and unintelligent approach appealing.
Ya think?
KG @ # 208: … lumped together pest resistence and herbicide resistance.
As a point of terminology, the umbrella term “pesticide” includes “herbicide”, “insecticide”, “fungicide”, “nematicide”, and just about every other biological nuisance elimination a farmer/gardener/etc might want, with the possible exception of homicide.
John Moralessays
Hm.
Perhaps my mention of worse than good news will not be so disparaged.
Let’s see.
Scores were killed in the camp for displaced Palestinians which Israel says targeted “senior Hamas terrorists”.
10 mins ago
John Moralessays
Pierce, your evasiveness avails you not.
The ones I’ve pointed out, which you continue to miss. [Hint.]
I’m not missing that, you puffed-up mistaken opinionator about me and my motives.
I am entirely aware of all of that stuff.
What made you imagine I missed that “point”, which has zero to do with the spiders and the froggies coming back to the cottonfields? Before, not there, now, yes there. That was the news that was better than bad.
So, in that specific claim, you are entirely mistaken.
Right? It is better now than it was. That it’s not perfect does not negate that, does it?
Me: Things are better now than they were.
You: <grouch grouch grouch>
So. Again.
Dare to try to specify one out of your alleged multiple points that you claim I am missing?
Just one.
Also, remember the claims about my knackiness for untrue disjunctions?
(I notice when people ignore offers to sustain their obviously bullshit claims)
Ya think?
You certainly lack a knack and aptitude at this stuff.
You are the one who thought that, remember?
You asserted that perhaps I liked it. Your own claim.
So, before you thought I might like it, now you think I obviously don’t like it.
Heh.
John Moralessays
Maybe better for birdies, too. I think some of them eat bugs.
John Moralessays
I’ve got a photo on my phone of a butcherbird chomping on a huntsman(?) spider.
Taken from a bit under two meters away.
So I know some eat arachnids.
Tethyssays
I have little trust in the environmental science that is produced by the corporations who create GMO’s for the same reason I don’t trust the owner of xitter to implant things in people’s brains.
It’s great that some farmer is no longer dousing entire fields in pesticides due to Bt Cotton, but the same thing could be achieved using the IPM system that Pierce mentioned earlier. Grow something else that doesn’t require any pesticides or chemical fertilizers in the first place is generally far more cost effective for small scale farmers.
Browse through the module information of the BMP Program
Biosecurity
Energy Efficiency
Fibre Quality
HR & WHS
IPM – Insects, Weeds and Diseases
Pesticide Management
Petrochemical Storage & Handling
Soil Health
Sustainable Natural Landscape (Natural Assets)
Water Management
Tethyssays
Hemp has few pest problems that can’t be managed by using crop rotation and allowing grassy margins to grow as permanent habitat for the beneficials. It also doesn’t require fertilizer, which further reduces the costs of growing it and the need to burn fossil fuels to run sprayers and fertilizer spreaders.
The problem that everyone in this thread keeps pointing out is the ethics of Agri-Business Corporations, as regards GMO technology.
Very few farms are able to monopolize the taxpayer funds allocated to Federal agricultural price supports.
The problem that everyone in this thread keeps pointing out is the ethics of Agri-Business Corporations, as regards GMO technology.
The boon that everyone in this thread keeps pointing out is the advancement of more enlightened farming practices.
(Imperfect as they yet remain)
—
“Very few farms are able to monopolize the taxpayer funds allocated to Federal agricultural price supports.”
I know you didn’t intend to express that it was only a very low proportion of farms that are able to monopolize the taxpayer funds allocated to Federal agricultural price supports even though that is what you literally expressed.
Anyway. Federal agricultural price supports are economic policy, not ecological policy.
Politics, not agriculture.
Different categories. District-dependent, since political realities differ in different parts of the globe, whereas agricultural realities do not.
Milling wheat, Triticum aestivum L., infested with low densities of internal feeding insects can result in flour containing insect fragments. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) enforces a standard or defect action level stating that a maximum of 75 insect fragments per 50 g of flour is allowed. However, the relationship between level of infestation and number of resulting fragments is not well documented, and a more rapid method for enumerating insect fragments is needed. We characterized the number of insect fragments produced from milling small lots of wheat spiked with known densities and life stages of Sitophilus oryzae (L.) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae). Insect fragments were enumerated with near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), a quick nondestructive procedure, and with the industry standard flotation method. Results showed that an individual small larva, large larva, pupa, or adult produced 0.4, 0.7, 1.5, and 27.0 fragments, respectively. NIRS-predicted counts of < or =51 (from small larvae), < or =53 (from large larvae), < or =43 (from pupae), or 0 (from adults) indicated that there were or =98, > or =117, 108, or > or =225 fragments (same life stages as above) signaled that these flour samples contained >75 actual fragments. These data suggest that NIRS could be adopted for rapid assessment of insect fragments resulting from relatively low levels of infestation with immature life states, but that it was not accurate enough for enumerating insect fragments, relevant to FDA standards, resulting from adults.
—
Gotta say, I like how ‘fragment’ is an unit of measurement, here.
(Presumably, an entire bug is not merely one fragment)
Anyway, here’s an utterly irrelevant point I did not ignore, unlike the other irrelevant points about resistance and its categories for treatment and so forth.
(“This time, we didn’t forget the gravy.”)
Tethyssays
IPM is Integrated Pest Management, which seeks to reduce the use of pesticides using various low input and low environmental impact techniques such as planting rotations and permanent habitat.
There is a lot of insect monitoring involved, including releasing various beneficial insects into any pest populations.
Using pesticides in limited locations as a last resort is cost effective, and greatly reduces pesticide usage without the sledgehammer method of engineering a bacillus into the DNA of the seeds.
John Moralessays
IPM is Integrated Pest Management, which seeks to reduce the use of pesticides
Yes, reduce, not replace. As per the current state of affairs.
Again: “That is because farmers would spray insecticides multiple times a season to kill heliothis, or cotton bollworm, which is the crop’s major yield-reducing pest.
The pesticide killed other life forms too, but with the invention of insect-resistant, genetically modified cotton – Bt cotton – the plant was able to produce a protein to kill the worm and spraying was significantly reduced.”
Again: 339 million kg of active ingredient saving
Not only does it seek to reduce, it has in fact reduced.
—
BTW, sprayed insecticide has rather low concentrations of the active ingredient, for obvious reasons.
So does the engineered organism, for similarly obvious reasons.
Tethyssays
Anyway. Federal agricultural price supports are economic policy, not ecological policy.
Politics, not agriculture.
You need to read my link, because I did indeed mean that eight farms get 80% of all Federal agriculture tax dollars. Capitalism took over way back in the 80’s, just as the Oil companies have exerted an out sized influence with environmental regulations and policies.
US agriculture money doesn’t make it to small family farmsteads, but Dupont and Monsanto made huge profits and merged into a mega-corporation.
Tethyssays
Eight farms get 80% of all US cotton subsidies.
John Moralessays
You need to read my link, because I did indeed mean that eight farms get 80% of all Federal agriculture tax dollars.
I don’t need to read your link, because that’s not a monopoly.
Nor do I care what the funds distribution for one country’s handouts to farmers may be, in particular.
Again: those dollars will be allocated according to some rules that are ostensibly socioeconomic but in reality political.
Cultural too, no doubt, but that’s beyond my level of expertise.
Point being, whence once was a worse monocultured desert, now there are froggies and spiders. And probably birdies.
That was it.
But, because it was due to a GM crop, O woes!
—
In passing, I am old enough to remember hippies since the 70s extolling the virtues of dope hemp.
Brilliant stuff, rope, clothing, foodstuff, oil… a true cornucopian blessing for humanity.
Looks like the USA is getting there… :)
John Moralessays
No worries what with the worse than good news, but.
IPM also has a full complement of the native flora and fauna, without the need for GM crops that can be sprayed with Roundup. (Which is bad for birds and spiders and humans.) Monsanto was instrumental in creating the pesticides, the herbicides, the seeds, etc
Since half of the US is agricultural, with about 330 million acres in row crops, any widespread agricultural practices will have ecological impacts.
John Moralessays
Tethys @236, “without the need for GM crops that can be sprayed with Roundup”
KG @198: “The two cases of inserting genes for pest resistance (e.g. Bt cotton), and genes for herbicide resistance are very different.”
Pierce @216: “Ya think?”
Me: (heh)
Tethyssays
Hemp is a fiber and seed oil plant, and is a different variety than the Medicinal Cannabis.
Both types were widely grown circa 1900. Hemp can be made into anything from cordage and ropes to fine fabrics similar to linen that last for decades.
John Moralessays
[meta]
There are times when I get travelling salespeople spruiking a donation for whatever worthy cause come knocking at my door. I have a knack for those, too.
So, they initiate their pitch by claiming they’re there to raise awareness, after due oleaginous salutations and assorted flattery.
Gets pretty desperate, but hey, the formula.
When I say I am aware, you can almost see the resigned deflation in their posture.
Obs, I’m not the only difficult prospect.
When I feel it appropriate, I will point out to them that since I am already aware, it is pointless to try to raise my awareness further.
—
This is kind of the opposite, no?
I’m selling nothing, I’m soliciting nothing.
Yet, now all recent readers have the opportunity to be aware of the issues relating to GM crops, how they have been implemented and by whom, and how various groups react to their existence, and so forth.
That GM is a thing, and how it works, those things are information.
And, as some hippies once said, information wants to be free.
(And technology advances evermore, hitherto, if not inevitably)
John Moralessays
Hemp is a fiber and seed oil plant, and is a different variety than the Medicinal Cannabis.
<snicker>
“Cannabis (/ˈkænəbɪs/)[2] is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: Cannabis sativa, C. indica, and C. ruderalis. Alternatively, C. ruderalis may be included within C. sativa, all three may be treated as subspecies of C. sativa,[1][3][4][5] or C. sativa may be accepted as a single undivided species.[6] The genus is widely accepted as being indigenous to and originating from Asia.[7][8][9]
The plant is also known as hemp, although this term is often used to refer only to varieties of Cannabis cultivated for non-drug use. Cannabis has long been used for hemp fibre, hemp seeds and their oils, hemp leaves for use as vegetables and as juice, medicinal purposes, and as a recreational drug. Industrial hemp products are made from cannabis plants selected to produce an abundance of fibre. Various cannabis strains have been bred, often selectively to produce high or low levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a cannabinoid and the plant’s principal psychoactive constituent. Compounds such as hashish and hash oil are extracted from the plant.[10]”
(Care to guess my O so very obscure source? ;) )
John Moralessays
I remember not that long ago one such travelling salesperson got quite upset.
I pointed out that he was being paid to solicit money from me, and that they had come to my dwelling and knocked on my door to try to get me to give money to their particular employer. That, of course, means they were a travelling salesperson.
I pointed out that they didn’t have to charge for their services, and that they could volunteer their labour, and that by so doing they would be providing the equivalent of their wage as income to the charity for which they were soliciting.
They made noises about how terrible a person I was, and I made noises about how I didn’t charge the charity money so I could spruik for it. They made noises about not having to take it, and I made noises about how they were the one who knocked on my door.
Anyway. I get that a lot.
John Moralessays
Of course, different people, different reactions to my approach.
Some understand it’s a person talking to a person, and an amicable exchange ensues.
Once, when it was rather nasty stinky hot and humid, I invited the person in and offered them some cold water from the fridge.
They appreciated that.
Turns out he was from South America (Colombia? It was some time ago) and was just trying to get on. Nice guy.
—
Anyway. Raising awareness, that’s the thing.
(But it’s only the first thing)
Tethyssays
Nettles are another fiber plant that is literally a perennial weed that needs no pesticides or chemical fertilizer to produce a crop.
Why is cotton (which requires heavy fertilizing and water, and is susceptible to multiple devastating pests) the heavily subsidized fiber crop of choice?
Cotton (and tobacco) is only grown in the SE states that not coincidentally, were slave holding states.
Cotton (and tobacco) is only grown in the SE states that not coincidentally, were slave holding states.
The USA’s states. Queensland is not one of those.
Tethyssays
I don’t know why you’re being snide, or why I would care what your source might be on the difference between C. sativa and C. indica. The plant grown for fiber is a very common roadside weed worldwide due to humans spreading seeds. It has very low levels of cannabinols but any cultivation was outlawed sometime after WW1. Sailors were known to smoke hemp ropes, and those Jazz era musicians were the people who smoked the potent type.
Tethyssays
Why would I consult Wikipedia about a basic horticultural fact? I know it by heart but it’s so annoying to write the proper Latin names on this infernal device.
John Moralessays
Tethys,
I don’t know why you’re being snide
That’s alright; I don’t know why you imagine I am being snide, either.
… or why I would care what your source might be on the difference between C. sativa and C. indica
Don’t have to use my source (it was Wikipedia), you can use any other.
Point remains.
Sailors were known to smoke hemp ropes
So, buggery, the lash, and hemp rope. Yay!
Here, when I was a barely post-pubescent boy, I was exposed to the habit of mallee root smoking.
(I done it!)
Why would I consult Wikipedia about a basic horticultural fact?
Because it has a fact about which you are (or were) hitherto ignorant: “The plant is also known as hemp, although this term is often used to refer only to varieties of Cannabis cultivated for non-drug use.”
“Hemp is a fiber and seed oil plant, and is a different variety than the Medicinal Cannabis.”, quoth you.
(I did like the capitalisation of Medicinal, there)
I know it by heart but it’s so annoying to write the proper Latin names on this infernal device.
I infer you are using a mobile phone to compose your messages.
(You have my sympathy)
—
Anyway, point is moot. cf. my #235.
Now that getting high on dope is legal in much of the USA and big, big agribusiness is getting in on the act, there’s hardly any point distinguishing between varieties.
I assure you, the stalks “Medicinal Cannabis” are rather fibrous.
Why grow a crop with juicy heads but non-stringy stems, or one with stringy stems but juiceless heads, when one can $profit$ from both in one plant?
And, hey, right there incentives to not use pesticides that might leave residues, right?
Fibrous, it is. Fucks people’s hands up, it does. Was nasty work to get it.
Really, really nasty.
“Oakum was at one time recycled from old tarry ropes and cordage, which were painstakingly unravelled and reduced to fibre, termed “picking”. The task of picking and preparation was a common occupation in prisons and workhouses,[1] where the young or the old and infirm were put to work picking oakum if they were unsuited for heavier labour. Sailors undergoing naval punishment were also frequently sentenced to pick oakum, with each man made to pick 1 pound (450 g) of oakum a day.
The work was tedious, slow and taxing on the worker’s thumbs and fingers.[2] In 1862, girls under 16 at Tothill Fields Bridewell had to pick 1 pound (450 g) a day, and boys under 16 had to pick 1+1⁄2 pounds (680 g).[4] Over the age of 16, girls and boys had to pick 1+1⁄2 and 2 pounds (680 and 910 g) per day respectively.[4] The oakum was sold for £4 10s (equivalent to £559 in 2023) per hundredweight (112 lb, 51 kg).[4] At Coldbath Fields Prison, the men’s counterpart to Tothill Fields, prisoners had to pick 2 lb (910 g) per day unless sentenced to hard labour, in which case they had to pick between 3 and 6 lb (1.4 and 2.7 kg) of oakum per day.[5]”
(Guess the source I quoted?)
John Moralessays
“”‘Tisn’t, no; an’ often that sour you can ‘ardly eat it. When first I started I couldn’t eat the skilly nor the bread, but now I can eat my own an’ another man’s portion.”
“I could eat three other men’s portions,” said the Carter. “I ‘aven’t ‘ad a bit this blessed day.”
“Then what?”
“Then you’ve got to do your task, pick four pounds of oakum, or clean an’ scrub, or break ten to eleven hundredweight o’ stones. I don’t ‘ave to break stones; I’m past sixty, you see. They’ll make you do it, though. You’re young an’ strong.”
“What I don’t like,” grumbled the Carter, “is to be locked up in a cell to pick oakum. It’s too much like prison.”
“But suppose, after you’ve had your night’s sleep, you refuse to pick oakum, or break stones, or do any work at all?” I asked.
“No fear you’ll refuse the second time; they’ll run you in,” answered the Carpenter. “Wouldn’t advise you to try it on, my lad.” ”
Turns out he was from South America (Colombia? It was some time ago) – John Morales@242
And you can’t be sure??? Clearly, dementia is setting in!
John Moralessays
KG, heh.
Exactly.
John Moralessays
[do you rate my anecdotal parable, KG? Grok the essence?]
birgerjohanssonsays
The band Vitalic is making music videos that appear deliberately trashy or even transgressive. I think the latest one might partly have been made using AI.
KG, way back at comment 200. Thanks again. What you wrote made sense from all I’ve gathered, but it isn’t typically addressed in the stories I read; I imagine because folks in the UK are just more aware of these things than I am.
It all sounds so much like the divide between our own two parties here in the USA, especially back in the Clinton days, but still true now. Only here, folks on the left have nowhere else to put their support. Then, there’s money involved, and more is invested to right-wing candidates — even if they are certifiably insane and proud of it — just because they will give the rich whatever they want. It used to be a little less blatant, but now it’s all out in the open. I hope this leads to more people on the left running for office and getting sane people out to vote for them, but there is so much working against that. The supreme court, gerrymandering, dark money….
StevoRsays
The sunspot group (AR3664*) that caused those recent stunning aurora is probly about to come around the solar globe and face us again soon :
On Proposal 21 which, surprise non-surprise is anti-democratic blatant election fixing. Seems democracy ain’t so big in Texas.
KGsays
do you rate my anecdotal parable, KG? Grok the essence? – John Morales@256
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t routinely follow your links (or most other commenters’), so you’ll have to tell me where to find the parable if you want a response.
President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has had effectively nothing to say about Donald Trump’s ongoing criminal trial, which made it all the more notable when actor Robert De Niro and some police officers who served at the Capitol on Jan. 6 addressed reporters this morning at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse.
[snipped details of Trump’s past praise for foreign dictators]
[…] At a rally in New York last week, Trump again expressed his admiration for a variety of foreign dictators, including North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. It was against this backdrop that the Republican sat down with podcaster Tim Pool and elaborated on his pal in Pyongyang. [video at the link]
“There was certainly hostility when I first started,” the GOP candidate said, “and all of a sudden, it boiled down to something that was very beautiful, the way it happened. And I got along with him very well. … I got along great with him.”
Trump added, in reference to the North Korean dictator, “Very smart guy, very strong guy. He’s the absolute leader of that country.” [snipped more details]
Excerpts from live coverage of closing arguments in Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan:
Hello From the Overflow
It’s a swampy morning in New York City.
My overlords at TPM were kind enough to spring for a line waiter this morning; he arrived at 3:30 a.m. ET, and told me that he was 40th in the press line when he got there. By the time I arrived at 6:30 a.m., the number of press waiting wrapped around the entire block.
Trump has been crowing about this, saying in his inimitable style that it’s “VERY UNFAIR” for the DA to have the last word.
This is a feature of New York State law: that during closing arguments in a criminal trial, the defense goes first, and the prosecution goes next, with no rebuttal. [The prosecution has the burden of proof]
Today, we have both Don Jr. and Eric appearing together. Each alone is common, but it’s the first time that they’ve been seen together at the trial. A rarer sighting is that of Trump’s daughter Tiffany, in attendance with her husband Michael Boulos.
Will Scharf, a Trump attorney and Missouri AG candidate, is also here. Deroy Murdock, a conservative media figure, and Steve Witkoff, a Trump real estate friend, are also here.
I wrote about the phenomenon of GOP power players appearing at the trial here, though elected officials are notably absent today.
Speaking of Trump’s entourage, the former President and current defendant attacked Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) on Truth Social just now.
Good made the pilgrimage last week to Manhattan in a show of support for Trump.
That, perhaps, wasn’t enough. Good, chair of the Freedom Caucus, is in a difficult primary. MAGA celebrities are campaigning for his opponent after Good supported DeSantis in the GOP presidential primary.
Merchan says he will ask jurors if they can stay late today — beyond 4:30 p.m. ET — to ensure that summations can conclude today.
Merchan is instructing the jury on how to treat summations. He reminds them that they are the sole finders of fact in the case, and reminds them that they must apply the law as the judge describes it, not as attorneys for either of the parties interpret it.
Blanche outlines the big hits that the defense landed on the prosecution’s main witnesses, giving the jury a classic defense’ summation line: Trump “did not commit any crimes and the district attorney did not meet their burden of proof. Period.” […] adds that it’s about whether Trump was at all involved in the payments to Cohen while living in the White House “as leader of the free world.” [scoff … obviously kissing Trump’s ass]
Blanche asks jurors directly to disbelieve Cohen. He says that Cohen’s story is far too complicated.
Blanche seems to recognize that the lack of a written retainer agreement between Cohen and Trump is a problem for his argument: that the payments were properly catalogued as for legal expenses.
So, he’s taken to claiming during his summation that there was a retainer, be it “oral,” or reflected in separate retainers that Cohen signed with his own clients. It feels a little like using the sheer volume of information in this summation to play a shell game with the jury.
The issue that Blanche seems to be trying to raise here is that the Trump Org had become such a thicket that Trump could not have intended to commit a records violation. [Scoff]
Blanche tried to blame all of this just now on the ledger software that the Trump Org used. It had a drop-down menu for how to catalogue payments that included a “legal expenses” category.
Did it not have a “hush money payment to Stormy Daniels” category? [LOL]
Trump was “busy,” Blanche says. He was “constantly multitasking. He was President of the United States.” [scoff]
“If this is some document, some evidence of a crime, how come, as you heard from Mr. McConney, he took this documents and kept them as payroll records?” Blanche asks. “He didn’t destroy them,” before expressing shock that Trump’s accountant would store evidence of a supposed criminal scheme in perpetuity. [Heh. All of Trump’s cronies are capable of some level of stupidity.]
Blanche started off strong, with a clear structure and emphasis on the weakest points in the DA’s case. But as he gets into the weeds, he keeps trying to undermine damaging pieces of evidence in ways that end up highlighting the evidence itself.
The DA had also posited that positive stories in the National Enquirer about Trump were part of the conspiracy.
Blanche says that it’s ridiculous that people as “sophisticated” as Trump and Pecker believed that the National Enquirer’s positive coverage could influence the 2016 election.
This might make sense to relatively cloistered Manhattan urbanites, but much of Pecker’s testimony went to how untrue that is, about how influential tabloids still are in spreading information and impressions across the population. Trump’s entire image was build in tabloid media, his presence at the apex of power in the GOP is a result of that. [True]
In addition to there never having been a catch and kill agreement, Blanche says that there’s “nothing wrong” with catching and killing a story. […] National Enquirer was in the business of truth: it didn’t publish the stories simply because they were false.
Blanche plays a portion of the secret recording that Cohen made of Trump in which he appears to talk about the McDougal payment.
He tries to suggest that the recording itself may be inauthentic (as you may expect, no reason is offered as to why that may be the case), and that the moment on the recording in which Trump referenced paying in “cash” was innocuous.
“President Trump is in the real estate business,” Blanche says. “It doens’t mean that you go into the closing with a duffel bag full of green.” [bullshit]
Trump’s defense’s use of this proceeding as an opportunity to try Michael Cohen is really coming through at the close of Blanche’s summation.
It’s been about a month since the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Trump v. United States, with an important underlying question on the line: Does a former president have immunity from criminal prosecution for acts taken while in office?
We don’t yet know how the justices will answer that question — though the sooner they decide, the better it will be for prosecutors and the justice system — though it appears much of the public has already come to their conclusions.
Marquette Law School conducted a national survey this month, asking respondents, “The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a case concerning whether former presidents have immunity from criminal prosecution for official actions while in office. Which comes closer to your view: [former presidents] should be immune from criminal prosecution for their official acts [or] should not have immunity from criminal prosecution for their official acts?”
The results were rather one-sided:
Former presidents should be immune from criminal prosecution: 16%
Former presidents should not be immune from criminal prosecution: 71%
At first blush, the data suggested that Trump’s repeated claims only persuaded a modest sliver of the American electorate. But in this instance, the pollster took an interesting extra step. From the Marquette Law School report:
To understand how former President Donald Trump’s involvement affects views of presidential immunity, the poll asked a random half of the sample if “former presidents” should have immunity and the other half if “former President Donald Trump” should have immunity. Of those thus asked, 16% said “former presidents” should have immunity, while 71% said they should not. Of those asked about “former President Donald Trump,” 30% said he should have immunity, while 60% said he should not. The effect of mentioning Trump almost doubles support for immunity.
If you’re thinking that the shift was the result of self-identified Republicans changing their minds, you’re right: When asked about “former presidents,” only 29% of GOP voters said they supported immunity. When Trump’s name was added to the mix, support for immunity among GOP voters more than doubled to 61%.
[…] a timely reminder about partisan and tribal loyalties, principles and the degree to which many find it easy to prioritize the former over the latter.
A case study illustrating just how much Republicans despise democracy is now unfolding in the state of Ohio. It has the full-throated support of that state’s GOP-controlled legislature—and now, apparently, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine.
Stung by their failed attempt last August to stymie the ability of Ohio citizens to pass a referendum enshrining abortion rights in the state’s constitution, and still smarting at the subsequent success of Ohioans in passing a ballot initiative that did exactly that, Ohio Republicans are now employing a strategy designed to prevent a repeat.
They are attempting to draft a new law restricting citizen initiatives such as the 2023 abortion referendum, in exchange for allowing President Joe Biden to be listed on Ohioans’ ballot this November. They are also attempting to condition Biden’s access to the ballot on passage of a law that would allow the Ohio Supreme Court to more swiftly impose new abortion restrictions. […]
Not coincidentally, what they are proposing is the work of Christian activist organizations who see an opportunity to reinstate their anti-abortion agenda on unsuspecting Ohio citizens. Their efforts are also being championed by the state’s Republican senator, J.D. Vance, and his colleague, Bernie Moreno, who is challenging Democrat Sherrod Brown for the state’s other Senate seat. Last week, DeWine signed onto these efforts by his GOP colleagues, calling for a special session of the Ohio legislature, set to begin on Tuesday, with a vote expected later this week.
Ohio Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose declared last month that he intends to exclude Biden from the ballot in November. This is because Biden will not be officially nominated at the Democratic party convention until two weeks after the state’s official deadline for certifying presidential nominees. As explained by Chris Cameron, writing for The New York Times, “This is usually a minor procedural issue, and states have almost always offered a quick solution to ensure that major presidential candidates remain on the ballot.” In fact, it is a technicality that has been remedied by the Ohio state legislature twice in the past, both in 2012 and 2020.
But both the state’s Senate and House are controlled by Republican supermajorities. So, rather than quickly resolving the issue, Republicans have seized on this technicality to try to force through a measure that includes two distinct ”poison pills,” both aimed directly at the heart of participatory democracy in Ohio. (A clean bill that would allow the president access to the ballot is now sitting in the Ohio House, but the GOP-dominated Senate refuses to take it up.)
[…] the bill creates an enforcement scheme that threatens supporters of these measures with the prospect of onerous investigations by GOP officials who (as we learned last year) are happy to use and abuse their offices (remember, they even manipulated the ballot language) to sink ballot initiatives they don’t agree with. In short, the combination of changes could deal a major blow to citizen-led efforts […]
[…] Aaron Baer, president of the Center for Christian Virtue, was the head of the extremist, anti-abortion group that led that effort, which would have required a 60% majority of voters to amend the state’s constitution. Baer is now backing the new Republican bill. […]
Ohio senator and vice presidential hopeful Vance chimed in, supporting his fellow Republicans’ efforts and calling them a “reasonable compromise.” [aiyiyiyi]
What the Republicans are demanding isn’t compromise, but extortion. Again, there is a clean bill ready to go in the state house, allowing Biden’s name to be added to the ballot. It’s a very simple matter to pass that bill, without any additional provisions. Republicans are simply taking advantage of the situation in order to advance their own interests to the detriment of Ohio voters.
[…] The new measure would expedite appeal of injunctions directly to the virulently anti-abortion Ohio Supreme Court […] Again, this has nothing whatsoever to do with allowing Biden on the ballot.
Plainly, very few Ohio citizens would understand the implications of either of these complex and deceitful laws. Which is why DeWine, an anti-abortion proponent who last year released a video with his wife urging Ohioans to oppose reproductive rights, came out last week to champion the Republican legislators holding Ohio voters hostage to their demands. [Post from X, with Ohio Capital Journal text]
In taking this unusual step, DeWine is playing the role of the concerned executive sternly urging his legislature to do the “right thing.” But what he’s actually doing by calling this “special session” is putting himself behind the Republican effort to choke off any further citizens’ ballot initiatives. […]
Ohio’s GOP legislature, governor, and even a member of the state’s Supreme Court are seemingly all in on the Republican scam to exact conditions before they allow Ohioans to vote for Biden. […]
This duplicitous effort by DeWine and Ohio’s GOP legislature is part of a broader national push—mainly by Republicans—to make it difficult if not impossible to get citizen-sponsored initiatives on the ballot. […]
the poison pill law also ingratiates Republicans with the anti-abortion lobby, which apparently can’t fathom the fact that citizens in Ohio have rejected its theocratic agenda. […]
What’s transpiring now in Ohio is a textbook example of how Republicans simply do not care about what the majority of their citizens want […]
CNN is reporting that Federal Judge Aileen Cannon has rejected special counsel Jack Smith’s request for a gag order barring Donald Trump from making inflammatory comments about law enforcement officers related to his classified documents case.
Trump’s campaign has falsely calimed that the FBI was authorized to assassinate Trump during the Aug. 12, 2022 search of the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home.
Cannon wrote that prosecutors’ request was “wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy.”
Her decision came unusually quickly given all the delays in considering key motions to bring the case to trial.
Just hours earlier, Law&Crime reported that Trump lawyers on Memorial Day demanded that Cannon take the prosecution to task for their filing.
While Cannon’s order on Tuesday technically amounted to a draw, since the judge denied both motions without prejudice (meaning they may be brought again), she scolded Smith’s team in no uncertain terms for poor lawyering.
“[T]he Court finds the Special Counsel’s pro forma ‘conferral’ to be wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy,” Cannon wrote. “It should go without saying that meaningful conferral is not a perfunctory exercise. Sufficient time needs to be afforded to permit reasonable evaluation of the requested relief by opposing counsel and to allow for adequate follow-up discussion as necessary about the specific factual and legal basis underlying the motion.”
“This is so even when a party ‘assume[s]’ the opposing party will oppose the proposed motion, and it applies with additional force when the relief sought — at issue for the first time in this proceeding and raised in a procedurally distinct manner than in cited cases — implicates substantive and/or Constitutional questions,” she added.
[snipped lots of details]
Legal analysts have said that if Cannon denies Smith’s request it could provide the special counsel with an opportunity to ask the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to have Cannon recused from the case.
Here’s what conservative attorney George Conway, a staunch Never Trumper, said earlier on CNN: [X post and video at the link]
The FBI executed a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8, 2022, as part of a criminal investigation into Trump’s handling of highly classified documents.
The search warrant itself became public last week. It contained standard language found in search warrants that federal agents were authorized to use deadly force if occupants of the premise use deadly force against them first.
But Trump and his MAGA acolytes turned this into a conspiracy where Biden was plotting to assassinate the former president. They blatantly disregarded the facts that the search was coordinated with members of Trump’s Secret Service detail and that the former president was not at Mar-a-Lago when the search was conducted,
In their gag order motion, Smith’s team said Trump’s false claims could expose law enforcement officers to threats of violence or harassment.
“The Government’s request is necessary because of several intentionally false and inflammatory statements recently made by Trump that distort the circumstances under which the Federal Bureau of Investigation planned and executed the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago,” the motion read.
“Those statements create a grossly misleading impression about the intentions and conduct of federal law enforcement agents — falsely suggesting that they were complicit in a plot to assassinate him — and expose those agents, some of whom will be witnesses at trial, to the risk of threats, violence, and harassment,” prosecutors added.
Trump is facing 40 separate charges of mishandling classified documents and obstructing the government’s retrieval of the records after leaving the White House. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Trump’s trial was originally scheduled to begin on May 20. But Cannon, a Trump-appointed judge, has indefinitely postponed the trial. It won’t be until late July that she will hold hearings to resolve issues related to how the classified documents would be handled at the trial.
Continuation of excerpts from live coverage of closing arguments in Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan:
The prosecution kicked off its closing arguments [shortly after noon].
Steinglass is appealing to the jury by explaining to them that it doesn’t really matter why Trump broke the law, as long as they feel he did break the law. The argument appears to be a response to the claim by Blanche, during his own closing arguments, that Stormy Daniels had attempted to extort Trump.
“In the end it doesn’t really matter, because you don’t get to commit election fraud or falsify your business records because you think you’ve been victimized,” he said.
“In other words, extortion is not a defense for falsifying business records,” he added.
“You’ve got to use your common sense, here,” Steinglass continued. “Consider the utterly damning testimony of David Pecker.”
Steinglass to jury: You don’t need to believe Cohen to find there was a conspiracy. “You don’t need Michael Cohen to prove that one bit,” Steinglass said, referring to the state’s accusation of a conspiracy.
He added that Hope Hicks, Rhona Graff, Madeleine Westerhout, Jeffrey McConney and Deborah Tarasoff were all witnesses who like Trump but confirmed Cohen’s testimony.
Steinglass displayed quotes from one of the state’s exhibits: a phone call in which Cohen — well before he started cooperating with prosecutors — tells Davidson that Trump hates the fact that his team settled with Daniels.
The quotes undercut the defense team’s insistence that Trump knew nothing about the hush money payments to Daniels.
Steinglass is laying out how “the defense has gone to great lengths to shame Stormy Daniels, saying that she changed her story” but adds that “her false denials have been thoroughly discussed and explained.”
“She lived 2017 in pure silence, Michael Cohen came out and said sex never happened” and Daniels “felt compelled to set the record straight,” he said.
Steinglass said that “parts of her testimony” were “cringeworthy” and “uncomfortable.”
But details like “what the suite” at Harrah’s “looked like” and how the toiletry bag appeared “ring true.”
“They’re the kind of details you’d expect someone to remember,” Steinglass explained, adding that, “fortunately, she was not asked or did she volunteer specific details of the sexual act itself.”
“It certainly is true you don’t have to prove that sex took place — that is not an element of the crime, the defendant knew what happened and reinforces the incentive to buy her silence,” explained Steinglass.
“Her story is messy,” he said. “But that’s kind of the point. That’s the display the defendant didn’t want the American voter to see.”
“If her testimony were so irrelevant, why did they work so hard to discredit her?” he added.
Steinglass zeroed in on an example of what the prosecution considers an inconsistency in the defense team’s case. He told the jury that if the $420,000 payment for Cohen was for legal services, as the defense argued, Cohen could not have stolen $60,000 from the Trump Organization, as the defense also argued. It’s either one or the other, the prosecutor argues — not both.
Steinglass is repeatedly referring to Trump as “the defendant” instead of “Mr. Trump” or “the former president.” This contrasts greatly from the defense’s language, as Trump’s lawyers almost always refer to him as “the president.”
Steinglass is explaining that Cohen had lied at Trump’s direction and that Trump was now using those lies to harm Cohen’s credibility in the trial.
“We didn’t choose Michael Cohen. We didn’t pick him up at the witness store. Mr. Trump chose Mr. Cohen for the same qualities his attorneys now urge you to reject.”
Cohen’s top quality was loyalty to his former boss, Steinglass said. Cohen was “drawn to the defendant like a moth to a flame, and he wasn’t the only one. David Pecker saw Mr. Trump as a mentor; Mr. Trump saw David Pecker as a useful tool.”
Steinglass is fighting back against the defense’s rhetoric that the only evidence in this case came from Michael Cohen’s testimony.
The prosecutor told the jury that Judge Merchan will say Cohen is an accomplice because he participated in these crimes, but you cannot convict Trump on Cohen’s word alone — unless there is corroborating evidence.
Steinglass said that there is a mountain of evidence in the case, saying “it’s difficult to conceive of a case with more corroboration than this one.”
Trump’s lawyers repeatedly attempted to make Cohen’s trustworthiness and motives a focal point of the trial — a strategy that Steinglass flat-out rejected in his summations. “This case is not about Michael Cohen,” Steinglass told the jury. “This case is about Donald Trump.”
Steinglass characterized a meeting at Trump Tower almost a decade ago as a “subversion of democracy.”
He said the entire purpose of the August 2015 meeting was to “pull the wool over [voters’] eyes” before they made their decisions.
He also pointed out that while NDAs are not unlawful, nor are contracts illegal, a contract to kill your wife is illegal, and therefore an NDA designed to prevent certain information from becoming public during a political campaign is also illegal.
The graphics that the Manhattan district attorney’s team is using during their summation are high-tech and modern.
In presenting them, prosecutors are isolating certain calls and using zoom functions to highlight them. The graphics offer a clean and accessible way for the attorneys to illustrate their points to the jury.
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass also noted that Daniels’ story got little to no traction until the day after the “Access Hollywood” tape became national news, with phone traffic exploding among Keith Davidson, Dylan Howard, Michael Cohen and Trump.
Judge Juan Merchan announced a short courtroom break and said the plan is to go until at least 7 p.m. and “finish this out if we can.”
[…] A new report from The Washington Post shows the extent to which Trump—who’s strapped for cash and facing mounting legal fees due to, erm, mounting legal troubles—is prepared to betray his 2016 promise to hold himself above the grotesqueries of transactional Washington politics.
The Post relates one incident in which Trump claimed he rebuffed a businessman who offered $1 million to support his reelection, insisting that the price tag for a casual lunch date was far higher.
“I’m not having lunch,” Trump claimed he told the man. “You’ve got to make it $25 million.”
Of course, it’s fair to ask what that businessman thought he was purchasing, considering the “Trump Masticating” OnlyFans account is by far the least popular feed on the platform. But Trump clearly knows the score, as do his donors. The only question is whether enough voters will catch on […]
As he closed his pitch at the Pierre Hotel, Trump explained to the group why it was in their interest to cut large checks. If he was not put back in office, taxes would go up for them under President Biden, who vows to let Trump-era tax cuts on the wealthy and corporations expire at the end of 2025. […]
Seconds after promising the tax cuts, Trump made his pitch explicit. “So whatever you guys can do, I appreciate it,” he said.
The remarks are just one example of a series of audacious requests by Trump for big-money contributions in recent months, according to 11 donors, advisers and others close to the former president, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe his fundraising. The pleas for millions in donations come as the presumptive Republican nominee seeks to close a cash gap with Biden and to pay for costly legal bills in his four criminal indictments.
[…] Of course, among the “audacious requests” the Post mentions is Trump’s offer to oil execs to help destroy the planet for good in exchange for a cool $1 billion. And now he appears to be making explicit what’s always been well understood: The money wealthy Americans funnel to Republican politicians will flow back to them manyfold in the form of corporate welfare, significantly lower tax burdens, and the wholesale gutting of regulations.
Oh, and Trump’s latest overtures may very well be illegal. Then again, so is stealing government secrets and trying to nullify a free and fair election, yet that hardly seems to matter to tens of millions of Americans these days.
The Post spoke with campaign finance lawyer Larry Noble, who said Trump can legally only ask for contributions of $3,300 or less for his campaign but “can appear at events for his super PAC where the price of admission is far higher—as long as he doesn’t ask for the money directly.”
“He can’t say, ‘I want you to give me $1 million,’” Noble asserted.
But wait—didn’t he do exactly that? Well, good luck nailing that down. As The Post notes, even if it’s abundantly clear that Trump stepped over the line in requesting the cash, the Federal Election Commission is currently composed of three Republicans and three Democrats, and those three Republicans might as well be Judge Aileen Cannon’s cats.
Of course, it’s fair to ask whether Trump is already fatally compromised given his personal money troubles, which stem from legal bills related to his four felony cases and the civil judgments connected to his confirmed sexual assaulting and business frauding.
[…] Trump willingly accepted millions of dollars from foreign governments while cosplaying as president; allowed his daughter and son-in-law to skip town with 34 Chinese trademarks and $2 billion in Saudi money, respectively; tried to force the G-7 to hold its 2020 summit at one of his properties (a move so corrupt even Fox News noticed); and attempted to extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into smearing Joe Biden in exchange for badly needed military aid.
And that’s just what we know about—and what I was able to recall off the top of my perpetually swimming drowning head.
Of course, anyone who ever believed Trump was serious about draining the Washington swamp needs to have their own head examined. After all, this is the same guy who once bragged he’d be the only president in history to make money running for president. (He didn’t achieve that dubious feat, but he did manage to funnel $12.5 million in campaign cash to his own businesses while running in 2016.)
It’s also the same dude who dishonestly promoted his 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act as a middle-class boon and rich man’s bane, before blithely telling his wealthy friends, in the hours after it was signed into law, “you all just got a lot richer.”
In other words, it’s always been abundantly clear who Trump really works for—and how far he’s willing to go to appease his real base. The fact that anyone still believes he’s a champion for workers and the middle class shows how delinquent much of the media have been in […] explaining obvious shit to a country on the brink of repeating one of the worst mistakes it’s ever made.
Again we pivot from closing arguments in Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York, down to south Florida, for an update on the case of Trump’s stolen state secrets. That case, of course, will never actually go to trial, because Judge Aileen Cannon thinks she’s part of Trump’s defense team, and appears to be angling for a Supreme Court appointment, or at least a certificate for a free soft-serve ice cream (one scoop only!) at Mar-a-Lago Sunday brunch.
Judge Cannon has denied without prejudice a motion from Special Counsel Jack Smith to amend the terms of Trump’s release to shove a gag order down his throat to prevent him from lying and saying the Biden administration tried to murder him, thereby endangering the federal personnel who lawfully and correctly conducted the search of Mar-a-Lago.
Cannon denied the motion because Smith’s lawyers didn’t discuss it adequately/nicely with Trump’s lawyers before filing it — this is called “conferral” — therefore she found Smith’s motion “wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy.”
Tut-tut and tsk-tsk, indeed! [Screen grab of text is available at the link]
[…] Blah blah blah blah blah, and so on and so forth. She even threatened sanctions against Smith, just like Trump’s team asked.
So listen, class? This is some dumb shit.
Again, the motion here from Smith was to prevent Trump from endangering federal officials by repeating the wholly disproven lie that the Biden administration had tried to have the FBI assassinate him.
Trump has been telling this lie because his voters [do not understand] when he’s lying to them, and are too ignorant of the world around them to grasp that the FBI followed its standard protocol — at Mar-a-Lago and also when it searched Joe Biden’s Delaware house — which includes boilerplate language about when and how it’s permissible to use deadly force if things somehow go awry.
But Cannon cannot be bothered to rule on the substance here, at least not until Jack Smith jumps through one million hoops to prove he has carefully conferred with Trump’s team to see if they can come to some sort of agreement on the matter. Not that any kind of careful conferring would produce anything of the sort, as one of Smith’s lawyers pointed out in an email to Trump lawyer Todd Blanche on Friday, which handily lays out exactly what they’re arguing about here:
The former President issued a statement on Truth Social on May 21, 2024 containing the false accusations and a second one on May 23. He also included similar statements in a mass fundraising email on May 21 and in a second one on May 23. In light of your client’s prior opposition in other cases to any limitation on what he can say – based on the same putative First Amendment implications you mention in your response below – we do not believe that further conferral would be productive or have any reasonable chance of resulting in your concurrence in our motion. Even were the situation otherwise, waiting until Monday afternoon to speak is unreasonable. As recently as this afternoon, Mr. Trump reposted a statement on Truth Social again making the false accusations and adding new ones. Further conferral will be a fruitless exercise and does nothing to mitigate the danger your client is creating. We will include in our motion that you do not believe we provided you an opportunity for meaningful conferral.
[…] Because Cannon has not ruled on the substance, this isn’t appealable […] Smith can try to fix it and refile, i.e. waste his time trying to do more conferrals with Trump’s idiot lawyers, which will not amount to shit.
How many more times will Trump feel like endangering FBI personnel’s lives in the meantime, by telling that lie? Who knows! Clearly not Cannon’s concern.
Now, if you could please stop bothering her, she is busy carving “AC + DT 4ever” into her gavel […]
John Moralessays
KG:
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t routinely follow your links (or most other commenters’), so you’ll have to tell me where to find the parable if you want a response.
Sure. #241, 242. No links. But too subtle, apparently.
At this year’s Oscars, Killers of the Flower Moon was one of the most lauded films, and Robert De Niro, one of the most famous actors alive, was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for that very film. He was alongside other nominees like Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr. (winner), Ryan Gosling, and Sterling K. Brown.
Today, De Niro spoke in front of the courthouse at Donald Trump’s trial, and it made MAGA very, very mad.
So Jason Miller, the MAGA thing […] commented today on how “washed up” De Niro is: [video at the link]
Here’s the text:
The best that Biden can do is roll out a washed-up actor — and don’t worry, my remarks will be shorter than The Irishman, I won’t make you suffer for three hours — but the best they can do is roll out a washed-up actor.
Ha ha, The Irishman is long.
Last week, President Trump spoke in the Bronx. Right? Over 25,000 people show up to rally around him, and the best the Biden campaign could do was put out a web video with Robert De Niro.
25,000 people did not show up for shit, but nice try. Maybe they’re using the Jersey trick of counting people who didn’t go to the rally.
There is nothing behind the Biden campaign. Their numbers are in the toilet. Kamala Harris is a terrible alternative, and it’s all an attempt to try to turn around the Biden campaign.
Okeydoke.
MAGA people were impressed enough with Robert De Niro to engage in a lot of counter programming and lies.
John Moralessays
Even to me, this news seems rather significant, and better than bad.
A First Nations lawmaker in Ontario has addressed the province’s legislature in Anishininiimowin, in a “historic” milestone that repudiates a centuries-long colonial “war” on Indigenous languages.
Sol Mamakwa, a New Democratic party member from the community of Kingfisher Lake First Nation, rose on Tuesday to give the province’s first-ever Indigenous language speech in Queen’s Park, telling colleagues the moment left him feeling “thankful and proud”.
Before speaking, Mamakwa asked for the unanimous consent of the house to speak at length in Anishininiimowin, also known as Oji-Cree, receiving applause from lawmakers in response.
“I am speaking for those who couldn’t use their language … and for every Indigenous person in Ontario,” he said. “The language was taken from us by the arrival of the settlers, colonization and residential school. This history removed the children from our ways of life.” He said that children had their mouths washed out with soap for speaking their mother tongue.
Pierce R. Butlersays
Lynna … @ # 276, quoting Wonkette: … Trump… lying and saying the Biden administration tried to murder him … the FBI followed its standard protocol …
Much as I hate to admit it, Trump has a sliver of a point here: just about any encounter with law enforcement in the United States carries a non-trivial risk of deadly violence. Trump himself faced no risk in this case, having flown over 1,000 miles away, but he and his lawyers could perform a public service by spotlighting the dangers of such “standard protocols”.
Title: “Spying, hacking and intimidation: Israel’s nine-year ‘war’ on the ICC exposed”
[Begins thus:]
“When the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) announced he was seeking arrest warrants against Israeli and Hamas leaders, he issued a cryptic warning: “I insist that all attempts to impede, intimidate or improperly influence the officials of this court must cease immediately.”
Karim Khan did not provide specific details of attempts to interfere in the ICC’s work, but he noted a clause in the court’s foundational treaty that made any such interference a criminal offence. If the conduct continued, he added, “my office will not hesitate to act”.
The prosecutor did not say who had attempted to intervene in the administration of justice, or how exactly they had done so.”
[Ends thus:]
Despite the pressure, Khan, like his predecessor in the prosecutor’s office, chose to press ahead. Last week, Khan announced he was seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant alongside three Hamas leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
He said Israel’s prime minister and defence minister stood accused of responsibility for extermination, starvation, the denial of humanitarian relief supplies and deliberate targeting of civilians.
Standing at a lectern with two of his top prosecutors – one American, the other British – at his side, Khan said he had repeatedly told Israel to take urgent action to comply with humanitarian law.
“I specifically underlined that starvation as a method of war and the denial of humanitarian relief constitute Rome statute offences. I could not have been clearer,” he said. “As I also repeatedly underlined in my public statements, those who do not comply with the law should not complain later when my office takes action. That day has come.”
Haley signed the bomb the day after an Israeli strike on Rafah killed at least 45 people after the makeshift tents that displaced Gazans were living in quickly went up in flames.
An amendment in the Federal Aviation Administration re-authorization bill that was passed last week will allow private aircraft owners to anonymize their registration information.
[…]
I am ostensibly in favor of data privacy regulations, though it’s somewhat ridiculous (if predictable) that billionaires get this sort of data privacy amendment, while regular Americans get surveillance capitalism as usual.
one of his private jets […] a 1997 Cessna […] on May 13, the aircraft’s registration changed from the Trump Organization’s DT Air Corp to a Texas entity called MM Fleet Holdings LLC. State records tie that company to Mehrdad Moayedi, an Iranian-American construction and development tycoon
John Moralessays
Elseworld:
Myanmar, the Paths of Freedom
Myanmar, once closed off by dictatorship, now reveals its stunning landscapes, including the rare giraffe women, living freely in their villages. Some have turned to tourism for income. Recently, the government allowed foreigners to explore the North. Ko Soe Moe, a tour guide, is pioneering a new tourist route from Mandalay to Rid Hill Lake, facing the challenges of monsoon-flooded roads. He discovers a semi-free elephant reserve and a crude oil camp, highlighting the resourcefulness in remote areas. In Kalé Myo, time seems frozen, with WWII trucks still in use, alongside handcrafted jeeps, a testament to local ingenuity. Amidst these, Aung Ko, a young trucker, navigates challenging roads for livelihood, illustrating the resilience and aspirations of Myanmar’s people. Ko Soe Moe’s journey through hazardous Chin mountains roads, vital for trade with India, underscores the potential and perils of opening up new tourist paths.
The capital of Nigeria, Lagos, is home to a remarkable yet starkly contrasting community known as Makoko – a floating slum that vividly embodies both the resilience of the human spirit and the dire consequences of urban poverty. Beneath the surface of Makoko’s waterborne vibrancy lies a harsher truth: the waters, a vital life source, are tainted with sewage and pollution. This environmental crisis is a daily battle for the residents, who face the constant threat of waterborne diseases. The lack of adequate sanitation facilities means that much of the waste and sewage from the densely populated settlement ends up directly in the lagoon, compounding the challenges of maintaining a healthy living environment. Poverty in Makoko is pervasive and profound. Yet amidst these hardships, the spirit of Makoko endures, presenting a deep and complex life narrative in one of Africa’s most dynamic urban landscapes. Let us journey to Makoko, and explore how people live in the largest floating slum in the world.
John Moralessays
Meanwhile, in Korea:
South Korea has warned residents living near the border with North Korea to be on alert, after accusing the regime of sending balloons containing what appeared to be rubbish and faeces into its neighbour’s territory.
GAM458 The Golden Laws
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ouvuy0kuea0
The Gang revisits the Korean ‘Happy Science’ cult with yet another “film”.
. . .
“Sending balloons containing what appeared to be rubbish and faeces into its neighbour’s territory.” Yet another day in North Korea.
The Swedish EU election campaign is very low-key. The British national election is much more fun. “Election 2024: The Conservatives have fallen apart” | Andrew Marr | The New Statesman
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ICmZ1ZoXRmE
(Purrs like a whole zoo full of pumas)
birgerjohanssonsays
Jake Broe about the premature offensive towards Kharkiv: “Putin’s Invasion of Kharkiv a Disaster for Russia”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=_MvQc6Majkc
After the Wagner group mutiny, the Russian commanders seem terrified of being seen having different ideas than their bosses; so there is no incentive to learn from mistakes. After all, Putin is infallible so dissent is treason.
It’s been a few weeks since The Washington Post first reported on Donald Trump huddling with oil industry executives and pitching a “deal”: They should raise $1 billion to return him to the White House, the Republican said, and if they did, he’d reward them by eliminating environmental safeguards and approving new tax breaks.
The transaction that Trump described, the newspaper added, “stunned several of the executives in the room.” It also generated interest from congressional Democrats, who’ve launched an official investigation.
But as brazen as this was, those representing Big Oil aren’t the only ones who’ve heard such pitches from the presumptive GOP nominee.
The Post published a related report yesterday, highlighting remarks Trump recently made to prominent donors, who heard the former president make some outrageous boasts. He claimed, for example, that a businessman offered a $1 million contribution and asked to have lunch with the candidate. “You’ve got to make it $25 million,” Trump claimed to have responded.
In the same remarks, another contributor, who generally gives $2 million to $3 million to Republicans, was told that Trump would be unhappy unless he donated $25 million or $50 million.
All the while, the Post’s report explained, the former president emphasized tax breaks that he approved while in office, which are poised to expire.
Trump sometimes makes requests higher than his team expects to receive, sometimes surprising his own advisers because he is asking for so much money. By frequently tying the fundraising requests within seconds of promises of tax cuts, oil project infrastructure approvals and other favorable policies and asking for sums more than his campaign and the GOP can legally accept from an individual, Trump is also testing the boundaries of federal campaign finance laws, according to legal experts.
[I do not like the “testing the boundaries of federal campaign finance laws” framing. Looks to me like Trump is breaking those laws.]
The appeals are lacking in subtlety: If the reporting is accurate, Trump, desperate for donations, is telling his wealthy supporters that if they put money in his campaign coffers, he’ll put money in their pockets. […]
Steve Bannon delivered an unrestrained message to his podcast audience this week, focused almost entirely on federal law enforcement. “The [Justice Department] is completely corrupt from top to bottom,” the far-right media personality said. “It’s going to have to be purged. It’s going to have to be restructured.”
After insisting that the department will need to get rid of “lots of personnel” after Donald Trump’s possible return to the White House, Bannon added that he sees the FBI as “the American Gestapo,” and he questioned whether the bureau should even exist. [video at the link]
It was, to be sure, a striking perspective, but Bannon’s rhetoric didn’t come out of nowhere. On the contrary, Reuters reported two weeks ago:
Some of Donald Trump’s allies are assembling proposals to curtail the Justice Department’s independence and turn the nation’s top law enforcement body into an attack dog for conservative causes, nine people involved in the effort told Reuters. If successful, the overhaul could represent one of the most consequential actions of a second Trump presidency given the Justice Department’s role in protecting democratic institutions and upholding the rule of law.
The report added that under Team Trump’s vision, the prospective Republican White House would “flood the Justice Department with stalwart conservatives unlikely to say ‘no’ to controversial orders” from the Oval Office. Trump and his operation would then “restructure the department so key decisions are concentrated in the hands of administration loyalists rather than career bureaucrats.”
All of which is to say, while the Justice Department’s “independence and impartiality” are its core values, that would effectively end if Americans return Trump to power.
None of this is being kept secret.[…]
At this point, I suspect some readers are thinking, “Wait, didn’t Trump and his team already do this during their time in office?” The answer is, sort of. [snipped details of past attempts to subvert the Justice Department]
why would the sequel be worse than the original? Because Trump and his team didn’t succeed in transforming the Justice Department into an arm of his political operation — though they now believe they’ve learned from their failures and know precisely what to do to complete the regressive vision.
[…] Much of the public probably doesn’t realize that federal law enforcement is supposed to operate free of partisan interference, and those voters are likely indifferent to the potential consequences of Team Trump politicizing a “purged” Justice Department.
But when it comes to the stakes in 2024, little matters more than this.
As the general-election phase of the 2024 presidential election got underway in earnest, Democratic officials noticed an unexpected administrative problem: President Joe Biden wouldn’t be formally renominated until mid-August, which means he’d miss the filing deadlines to appear on the ballot in Alabama and Ohio.
When this happened in other recent election cycles, the problems were resolved easily: State legislators simply moved the arbitrary deadlines to ensure the major-party nominees appeared on the ballot. With this in mind, no one was especially surprised when policymakers in Alabama did exactly that earlier this month.
[…] Common sense suggested that officials in Ohio would follow suit. After all, when the Republican Party’s national ticket faced a similar problem in the Buckeye State in 2012 and 2020, state officials simply tweaked their deadline — without preconditions or much of a fuss — and it stood to reason that they’d do so again this year.
Except, that’s not at all what happened. NBC News reported:
The Democratic National Committee plans to hold a “virtual roll call” to nominate President Joe Biden before the party’s August convention — a tactic meant to spare Biden the increasing danger of being left off Ohio’s general election ballot. Biden’s campaign and the DNC announced the move Tuesday as the Legislature here opened a special session Republican Gov. Mike DeWine ordered to resolve the issue.
The original plan was for the GOP-led legislature to do the same thing it did in 2012 and 2020, which is also the same thing Alabama legislators did earlier this month. Ohio Republicans, however, chose not to.
The state’s Republican governor then called a special session to resolve the mess. “This is a ridiculous — this is an absurd situation,” DeWine recently declared.
It’d be quite easy to approve a fix, but GOP legislators are approaching the matter in a transactional way: The Republican-led House and Senate will allow Biden’s name to appear on the 2024 ballot, they’ve said, but only in exchange for unrelated changes to state election laws.
Democrats “will land this plane on our own,” DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison said in a statement. “Through a virtual roll call, we will ensure that Republicans can’t chip away at our democracy through incompetence or partisan tricks and that Ohioans can exercise their right to vote for the presidential candidate of their choice.”
[…] we are watching GOP officials in Ohio make the case that they’ll only allow Biden onto the ballot if they receive a ransom. Is it any wonder that Democratic officials got creative to circumvent lawmakers in Columbus?
[…] Over the course of six weeks, after having an opportunity to hear his own defense attorneys present their best case and pitch their ostensibly strongest arguments, Trump clung to the same discredited nonsense in late May that he peddled in mid-April.
Trump claimed, then and now, that his prosecution was the result of a conspiracy orchestrated by President Joe Biden. There’s literally no evidence to support such a claim, but the defendant desperately wants it to be true, so he pretends that it is true.
Trump claimed, then and now, that Judge Juan Merchan is “corrupt” and “conflicted.” This has also collapsed under scrutiny, though the presumptive GOP nominee continues to repeat the claim on a daily basis anyway.
Trump claimed, then and now, that prosecutors should’ve brought the case sooner, which isn’t quite as absurd as his other assertions, though if the accused is looking for someone to blame for the delay, he should start with his own handpicked former attorney general.
Trump claimed, then and now, that a court-imposed gag order has prevented him from speaking out about the case, which continues to be rather hilarious, given that he speaks out about the case every day.
[…] On the one hand, there’s obviously the trial in the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse. On the other, there’s what’s known as the “court of public opinion”: Trump is, after all, a candidate for public office, trying to persuade voters as his defense attorneys try to persuade jurors.
But by most measures, Trump’s case is even weaker than his lawyers’. He packaged some lies together six weeks ago, watched the trial, and then recycled the identical lies. […]
In the up-is-down world of the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, prosecutors attempted to stanch Donald Trump’s vitriolic attacks on federal law enforcement – the kind of thing criminal defendants would not typically be allowed to engage in while on pre-trial release – and wound up themselves threatened with sanctions by the judge.
[…] the move by prosecutors to modify the terms of Trump’s pre-trial release came late Friday before the Memorial Day weekend and prompted a heated response from Trump.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon weighed in Monday, denying the prosecution motion, chastising them for playing loose with the local court rules, and threatening to impose sanctions on them in the future. One small bright spot, if you can call it that, is that she didn’t accede to Trump’s request to sanction the prosecution team immediately. Cannon’s denial was without prejudice, meaning prosecutors can refile their motion: [Text of paperless order is available at the link]
[…] Given any chance to chide the prosecution, she takes it. Given deplorable behavior by Trump that would normally never fly, she finds herself mute again and again.
The judge’s routine has become so predictable that even the analysis by legal observers bakes in a certain Cannon quotient: Anything that DOJ does that even arguably deviates from the rules leaves an opening that Cannon will take. So DOJ ends up graded on a weird Cannon curve while the Trump’s dangerous and unprecedented conduct gets set to the side.
One pattern emerging with Cannon is that when prosecutors implore her to assert herself and take more control over the case like so many judges do, she retreats to treating everything as an adversarial contest that she merely referees. But when it’s a matter of importance to Trump, she regularly asserts herself, going so far as to raise issues on her own. It’s another way in her handling of the case is imbalanced to Trump’s advantage.
Billionaire Elon Musk is among a group of wealthy Westerners who are convinced the key to saving the planet is to load it down with an ever-increasing number of people. As The Guardian reports, these “pronatalists” insist that large families are the only solution to the doom they see ahead in which “There are going to be countries of old people starving to death.”
The movement claims to be logic-based and driven by data showing a decline in global birth rates. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk, who is a father of 11, believes “population collapse due to low birthrates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming.” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is another pronatalist who has invested millions in reproductive technology startups aimed at increasing human fertility.
“Of course, I’m going to have a big family,” Altman said. “I think having a lot of kids is great.” That’s a not-so-bold declaration from someone whose wealth means his children will never want for anything—including people hired to raise them.
But it’s hard to escape the feeling that this isn’t about saving civilization: It’s about extremely wealthy people who want to spread their genes to a maximum number of offspring and establish a kind of genetic elite on a planet that already has more than enough people.
In the 1960s, the book “The Population Bomb” warned of a rapidly growing human population and the consequences of continued, unchecked growth. That book, by Stanford biologist and ecologist Paul Ehrlich, insisted that the increase in the human population was outpacing the growth of the food supply and that the result would be widespread famine and a decline in civilization.
At the time, the global population was 3.5 billion. Ehrlich noted that the number had nearly doubled in the space of a single generation, was on pace to do it again, and that the Earth was quickly approaching its capacity to feed and sustain so many people.
However, since then the Green Revolution greatly increased agricultural productivity and improving conditions around the globe helped drop the fertility rate from nearly five children to just over two children per woman. While large famines have continued, things have been much less dire than predicted—though the climate crisis is threatening that delicate balance.
It’s become popular to cite “The Population Bomb” as an example of doom-saying that didn’t come to pass, and a parallel is often drawn with predictions about the climate crisis. But Ehrlich’s prescription for avoiding his most dire forecasts was setting limits on population growth. That happened on its own, without the government intervention that Ehrlich thought would be necessary.
At the heart of the pronatalist movement is a conviction that there is no limit to how many people Earth can bear, that productivity will always outpace fertility, and that past concerns about population levels are outdated. […]
While the world population growth has slowed, it hasn’t moved into negative territory. Based on the best current predictions, the Earth’s population is expected to pass 9 billion in the 2030s and 10 billion soon after 2050. The U.S. population alone increased by 20 million in the past decade.
Assuming that these U.S. millionaires and billionaires expect their numerous offspring to live like Americans, that means each new child can be expected to kick out 16 tons of carbon dioxide per year and throw away over 450 pounds of single-use plastic per year—and that will be only part of the 1,642 pounds added to landfills each year. These are problems that seem as if they might need more immediate attention.
The ultrawealthy can pretend all they want, but the Earth does not have unlimited resources. All of this seems like nothing but an excuse to see how close each of them can come to matching the genetic footprint of Genghis Khan.
And there’s another factor that may be as ugly and threatening as any environmental concern.
See if you can spot the problem in this statement by pronatalist superstar Malcolm Collins fretting over declining birth rates. The issue of declining population is most acute, says Malcolm, in countries that are “technophilic, pluralistic, educated, where women have rights.”
Actually, that’s a lot of factors. Pronatalists view tolerance, education, and women’s rights as obstacles to their goals. The latter includes access to contraceptives, which has been one of the biggest reasons for the declining rate of fertility around the world.
According to Population Connection, women’s rights are a particular source of concern for folks fretting that women aren’t cranking out enough children. They’ve tried bribing women through “birth bonuses” without much success. Now, authoritarian governments are doing it the old-fashioned way: They’re taking away women’s rights and access to education.
This isn’t restricted to the Taliban or North Korea. Right here in the U.S., Republican lawmakers are making a connection between lower birth rates and the so-called Great Replacement conspiracy theory and using it as justification for restricting abortions.
“Our state population has not grown except by those foreigners who have moved here or refugees who have been placed here,” Nebraska state Sen. Steve Erdman said during a debate. “Why is that? It’s because we’ve killed 200,000 people. These are people we’ve killed.”
[…] While the pronatalist movement includes groups like the “Quiverfull” movement of fundamentalist Christians who insist that large families are a sign of God’s blessing, many of the tech billionaires involved don’t have any religious foundation for their claims. But no matter their background, pronatalists share a mythology that says there’s nothing to worry about, that a rising population is an inherent good, and that more people in each generation are necessary to sustain civilization.
Simone Collins, wife of Malcolm, is certainly doing her share. She’s running as a Republican for a position in Pennsylvania state government, operating the couple’s pronatalist charity, and producing a new child every 18 months—the fastest she can heal between C-sections, according to The Guardian. She doesn’t believe in maternity leave, but does believe in child care. Her children Octavian George, Torsten Savage, and Titan Invictus get that care from the couple who live next door rent-free, in a home owned by the Collinses, in exchange for dealing with the Collins kids. Simone is expecting a fourth, to be named Industry Americus, any day. The names, like everything else about their children, were selected through data analysis. [Holy fuck]
While improvements in agriculture may have largely held off predicted waves of famine, there is absolutely no guarantee that they will continue to do so, and the rising number of people comes with an incredible price for the rest of life on Earth.
[…] If pronatalists believe countries that are “pluralistic, educated, [and] where women have rights” are the problem, then what’s the solution? White nationalism, ignorance, and restricting the rights of women.
Michael Fanone, a former Washington, D.C., police officer who was attacked during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, said his mother’s home was swatted hours after he called former President Trump an “authoritarian.”
Fanone made the remark while speaking to the media Tuesday outside the courthouse where closing arguments were being conducted in Trump’s criminal hush money trial. In his statements, he called the former president “an authoritarian” with a fetish for violence.
Also on Tuesday, a fake “manifest” attributed to Fanone was sent to a number of email addresses, including some associated with his former high school. It claimed that he had killed his mother and planned to go to the recipients’ school on Wednesday and shoot more people. It provided his mother’s home address in Virginia, NBC News reported after viewing the manifesto.
Fanone told the outlet that his mother was “mortified” to find SWAT team officers at her home that night when she opened the door in her nightgown.
“How dangerous is it to send law enforcement in which you essential are describing an active shooter, in which the only person present is a 78-year-old f—ing woman,” Fanone told NBC News. “This is the reality of going against or challenging Donald Trump.”
“These swatting calls are incredibly f—ing dangerous, especially when the target is somebody like my mom,” he said.
Fanone said he understood that police received more than two dozen calls connected to the incident.
His father was also targeted at his separate home address, Fanone said, but he was out of the country.
“All I do is go out there and talk about what happened to me and so many other police officers, like I always have, and this is the recourse,” he said. “This is the direct result of that.”
Fanone has been an outspoken critic of Trump and those who participated in the Jan. 6 riot. On that day, he was beaten by people attacking the Capitol and suffered a heart attack and a traumatic brain injury after being struck by a taser. He was among several members of law enforcement that testified before the House select committee investigating the attack.
In the grand tradition of George Orwell’s 1984, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 comes an exciting new addition to the genre of dystopian fiction. Sort of! It’s actually dystopian nonfiction. And it’s not a novel or a book, it’s the Texas Republican Party’s 2024 platform.
I would love to be overstating this for dramatic effect, but I’m really not. It’s a whole goddamned world of batshit. They want to require Texas public schools to teach “the Bible, servant leadership, and Christian self-governance,” they want to ban mental health screenings in schools and gender-affirming therapy for anyone under the age of 26, and they want to disenfranchise large population centers by requiring those who run for state office to win a majority of counties rather than a majority of the vote. This would mean that Loving County, which has a population of 64 people, would have the same voting power as Harris County, population 4,731,145 and that Democrats could never win statewide office again. They want to do the same for ballot measures.
They also want to make it legal for people in Texas to use gold and silver coins in “everyday transactions,” which, I’m sorry, is fucking hilarious.
Nationally, they want to bring back machine guns (pairs nicely with ending mental health checks in schools), repeal the Lacey Act so they can hunt and trade in endangered species, they want to repeal the minimum wage, they want to repeal the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (corporate transparency) and Dodd-Frank and the 17th Amendment (so that Senators will be appointed by state legislatures instead of selected by popular vote, to ensure more GOP Senators), and the 16th Amendment in order to abolish the Federal Income Tax, they want to amend the 14th Amendment to eliminate birthright citizenship, and the Johnson Amendment in order to allow religious leaders to tell their flocks how to vote and, naturally, the “strict adherence to the original language and intent of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitutions of the United States.”
Oh! And they want to put people to death for having abortions.
That, friends, is what we are going to focus on right now. Even if my mind may keep drifting to the idea of some guy coming into a Texas gas station looking to buy a pack of gum with a fucking gold doubloon.
Plank 35 of the platform endows “the preborn” with “equal protection of the law.”
We urge lawmakers to enact legislation to abolish abortion by immediately securing the right to life and equal protection of the laws to all preborn children from the moment of fertilization, because abortion violates the United States Constitution by denying such persons the equal protection of the law.
[…] this would mean that those who have abortions or perform them could be sentenced to death under Texas law. Laws that give fetuses “equal protection” mean that those who have abortions or provide them could be charged with homicide. In Texas, homicide means the possibility of the death penalty.
And it’s not as though this just slipped in without notice or that Republican legislators are even bothering to deny that this is what they want.
Via Abortion, Every Day:
Last week, for example, Republican state Rep. Stephanie Klick attacked her primary opponent David Lowe, saying, “the legislation he prefers would give the death penalty to women who had an abortion. I don’t support that.” Lowe responded by insisting, “What I support is the Republican Party of Texas platform on abortion which is the same laws that protect you and me to protect everybody else to include pre-born children.”
Just to be very clear here … THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A PRE-BORN CHILD.
That’s not a thing.
To make matters even more abjectly horrifying, the Texas Republican Party is also very clearly affirming its desire to “protect” fetuses with fatal fetal abnormalities that are incompatible with life.
From the Texas GOP Platform:
We support legislation such as the Preborn Non-Discrimination Act (Pre-NDA) to close existing discriminatory loopholes that fail to protect preborn children suspected of having a “fetal anomaly” or disability, and we support legislation to enact anti-discriminatory language to apply additional protections to preborn children at risk of being aborted because of their sex, race, disability, or age of gestation, in addition to providing families with information about life affirming social and medical services available to them in Texas, such as perinatal palliative care. We support protecting preborn children and their mothers by stopping abortion pill distributors from sending and trafficking these lethal and illegal drugs into Texas and holding those accountable who break state Pro-Life laws by selling and trafficking illegal abortion pills.
Truly, these people live in a fantasy world.
The platform also includes a provision that would require Texas students to be taught a bunch of insane anti-abortion propaganda, because of course it does.
We support requiring Texas students to learn about the humanity of the preborn child, including life-affirming definitions of life and the study of life, the concept that life begins at fertilization, milestones of fetal development at two-week gestational intervals, use of fetal baby models, witnessing of a live ultrasound, viewing the following videos: Meet Baby Olivia, A Glimpse Inside, and Miracle of Life, and (for high school students) the contents of the Woman’s Right to Know booklet. In addition, students should receive instruction on the dignity of human life and the principles of equal protection that were instituted in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” as well as that “no State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
These absolute creeps know they are in the minority. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t need to force their grotesque beliefs on school children, they wouldn’t need to gerrymander the vote like that. Everything they are doing and asking for here comes with the understanding that there are a hell of a lot more of us than there are of them, even in Texas.
We have to admit we’re impressed by Donald Trump’s apparent ability to manipulate the brains of impressionable MAGA voters […]
We of course are talking about impressionable voters like Eric Trump and Fox News’s Judge Jeanine Pirro. […] believe anything Donald Trump says about the big scary city.
Yesterday afternoon, it was [Pirro’s] turn to blabber-slosh her anger around her glass about Robert De Niro campaigning for Joe Biden in front of Trump’s trial. MAGA is VERY MAD about that.
Listen to the [her] and then we have a couple questions: [video at the link]
She said:
“You know, my question for Robert De Niro is what have YOU done for New York City, Robert De Niro? What have YOU done? Is there a building with your name on it? Have you built skyscrapers? Has the skyline of New York changed because of all of your vision? NO!”
Y’all. Wow, y’all.
First of all, we can take Judge Five-O’Clock-Somewhere’s question at face value and answer, and note that De Niro cofounded the Tribeca film festival in 2002, which was specifically about helping lower Manhattan just after 9/11. […]
De Niro is a really big New York investor, actually. And De Niro didn’t brag, on 9/11, that any of his investments were now the tallest building in lower Manhattan, now that terrorists had destroyed the Twin Towers. (When Trump did that, his building wasn’t actually the tallest in lower Manhattan. And he doesn’t even actually own that building, just the ground lease.)
But, and we mean this sincerely: What does [Pirro] think Donald Trump did to change the New York skyline? You know, aside from plastering his dumpy, classless name on a couple buildings through licensing agreements? (Which, incidentally, people who live in those buildings are always trying to get removed, because it makes their property values trash just like him?)
Eric Trump has been saying this recently. He told squawking anger muppet Maria Bartiromo in March that his father “built the skyline of New York.”
We don’t know how to say this gently, but no, Eric. Daddy did not do that. None of those really big buildings […] were built by Daddy. He’s actually built … maybe one or two not very tall things in the city?
We know Eric is […] scared of the CVS, having his panic attacks because he thinks you’re not allowed to buy Tylenol anymore, […]
And of course, Eric has been extremely confused and upset and angry about Daddy being indicted, and the only person who could possibly maybe make him feel less scared is six feet under somewhere on the golf course in New Jersey.
We know all these things.
But we are just marveling at the bullshit Trump has gotten these people, who live in New York City, to believe about New York City, and his minimal influence on it.
“Donald Trump is not a major player in New York City real estate,” said a director of the family-run Durst Organization real estate company in 2013, according to this Curbed article.
Why else would Daddy be liable for hundreds of millions in fraud for YET AGAIN inflating the size of his, ahem, assets?
It’s because there’s not much there there, Eric and Judge [Pirro]. It turns out Daddy isn’t very impressive after all.
How the U.S. used Indian boarding schools to destroy culture, seize land. Washington Post link
From 1819 to 1969, the U.S. government separated Native American children from their families to eradicate their cultures, assimilate them into White society and seize tribal land. [Slide show at the link]
European settlers waged war against Native Americans for centuries, decimating tribes through violence and spreading disease. By the 1800s, the U.S. government continued to grapple with what it called the “Indian problem.”
American settlers embraced Manifest Destiny — the belief that they had a divine right to seize all of North America. But the Native Americans already inhabiting the land stood in their way. Historians note that pre-Columbus there were several million people in what’s now North America who spoke more than 300 languages. By the start of the 20th century, there were about 200,000 Native Americans left in the United States, and they had lost control of roughly 1 billion acres of land. [maps at the link]
George Washington believed that forcing Native Americans to assimilate to White culture would reduce bloodshed and expand the new country’s territory. He wrote a letter to a member of the New York state Senate in 1783, six years before he became the first president of the United States:
“The gradual extension of our Settlements will as certainly cause the Savage as the Wolf to retire; both being beasts of prey tho’ they differ in shape.”— George Washington
The Declaration of Independence, whose primary author was Thomas Jefferson, referred to Native Americans as “merciless Indian Savages.” As the nation’s third president, Jefferson sought to persuade Native Americans to abandon their way of life and, by extension, their land. “Encourage them to abandon hunting, to apply to the raising stock, to agriculture … the extensive forests necessary in the hunting life, will then become useless, & they will see advantage in exchanging them for the means of improving their farms, & of increasing their domestic comforts,” he wrote in a message to Congress in 1803.
Jefferson also wanted to force Native Americans into debt so they would sell their land. In an 1803 letter to William Henry Harrison, who governed what was then the Indiana territory, he wrote:
“We shall push our trading houses, and be glad to see the good & influential individuals among them run in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop [them off] by a cession of lands.”— Thomas Jefferson
The government wanted tribal land for settlers and needed to justify taking it. If Native Americans adopted Western ways of education and farming, officials said, they would need less land.
As Native Americans were forced off their land and onto reservations, the government established day schools for their children. But U.S. leaders concluded they needed to be more aggressive to fully eradicate their cultures.
“The idea was to transform Indian children so they’d have a different set of values,” said Brenda Child, a Native American historian who is Red Lake Ojibwe and whose grandparents were sent to Indian boarding schools. “They’d speak English, be Americanized and not live as their grandparents.”
But since children still lived with their families, officials were concerned that their cultures and languages persisted.
Carl Schurz, the U.S. interior secretary at the time, wrote in 1879:
“It is the experience of the department that mere day-schools, however well conducted, do not withdraw the children sufficiently from the influences, habits, and traditions of their home-life, and produce for this reason but a comparatively limited effect.”— Carl Schurz
An 1886 annual report from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs drew a similar conclusion: “Only by complete isolation of the Indian child from his savage antecedents can he be satisfactorily educated.”
[…] At least 523 Indian boarding schools were established in the United States. Religious groups received federal contracts to operate about a third of them. Families were often coerced by federal agents or priests to send their children.
Physical abuse, disease and malnutrition were widespread in the schools. Many children were sexually abused by the priests, sisters or other members of religious orders charged with their care.
An unknown number of children died at the Indian boarding schools. Many of them were buried in unmarked graves. […]
Justice Alito tells Congress he will not recuse from Jan. 6-related cases. Washington Post link
Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. announced Wednesday that he will not recuse himself from Jan. 6-related cases at the Supreme Court after Democratic lawmakers questioned whether he could be impartial following reports that an upside-down flag flew at his home in the weeks after the attack on the U.S. Capitol in 2021.
In a letter to Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, Alito said that flag and a second, religious-themed flag were raised by his wife, without his knowledge, and the incidents do not meet the conditions for recusal outlined in the Supreme Court’s code of conduct.
Alito disclosed for the first time that he was not aware of the upside-down flag until it was called to his attention and that his wife initially resisted taking it down.
“As soon as I saw it, I asked my wife to take it down, but for several days, she refused,” Alito wrote in the letter to Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
The upside-down flag — long used as a sign of distress, especially by the U.S. military — has become a symbol of the “Stop the Steal” movement that falsely claims the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.
Another flag carried by Jan. 6 rioters, this one embraced by Christian nationalists who want to find a greater place for religion in public life, was flown outside Alito’s vacation home in New Jersey last summer. Alito said in the letter that the second flag was also raised by his wife, Martha-Ann Alito.
“My wife is fond of flying flags. I am not,” he wrote. […]
Donald Trump and Elon Musk have discussed a possible advisory role for the Tesla leader should the presumptive Republican nominee reclaim the White House, the latest sign that the once-frosty relationship between the two men has thawed.
The role hasn’t been fully hammered out and might not happen, people familiar with the talks said, but the two men discussed ways to give Musk formal input and influence over policies related to border security and the economy, both issues on which Musk has grown more vocal.
Musk, along with the billionaire investor Nelson Peltz, has also briefed Trump on a plan they’ve developed to invest in a data-driven project to prevent voter fraud, according to some of the people. Peltz and Musk also told Trump of an influence campaign in elite circles that is already under way, in which Musk and his political allies host gatherings of powerful business leaders across the country and try to convince them not to support President Biden’s re-election campaign….
Musk and Peltz have told acquaintances they are working on a massive data-driven project to ensure votes are fairly counted, echoing Trump’s accusations of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Trump’s own attorney general, Bill Barr, has rejected those claims about the 2020 election. Trump’s campaign and its allies lost dozens of lawsuits challenging the results.
Musk and Peltz described the initiative to Trump in the March meeting, according to a person familiar with that discussion.
A new report from a media watchdog connects John Mark Dougan, who now lives in Russia, to scores of fake news sites. [Florida Man!]
More than 150 fake local news websites pushing Russian propaganda to U.S. audiences are connected to John Mark Dougan, an American former law enforcement officer living in Moscow, according to a research report published Wednesday by NewsGuard, a firm that monitors misinformation.
The websites, with names like DC Weekly, New York News Daily and Boston Times, look similar to those of legitimate local news outlets and have already succeeded in spreading a number of false stories surrounding the war in Ukraine. Experts warn they could be used to launder disinformation about the 2024 election.
In an interview over WhatsApp, Dougan denied involvement with the websites. “Never heard of them,” he said.
Dougan, a former Marine and police officer, fled his home in Florida in 2016 to evade criminal charges related to a massive doxxing campaign he was accused of launching against public officials and was given asylum by the Russian government. Most recently, Dougan has posed as a journalist in Ukraine’s Donbas region, testifying at Russian public hearings and making frequent appearances on Russian state TV.
He’s now part of a small club of Western expats who have become purveyors of English-language propaganda for Russia. Researchers and cybersecurity companies had previously linked Dougan to the sites. The NewsGuard report published Wednesday is the latest to implicate him in the fake news ring.
Academic research from Clemson University linked Dougan to the network of fake news websites last year after one of them was found to share an IP address with other sites he ran, including his personal website.
[…] the fake news websites had lately veered away from the narrow focus of undermining support for Ukraine. Recent fake articles include the false claims that the FBI wiretapped former President Donald Trump’s office at Mar-a-Lago, his estate in Florida, and that the CIA backed a Ukrainian plot to rig the election against Trump.
[…] Posing as local news, the sites host articles about crime, politics and sports, most of which seem to have been generated with artificial intelligence tools and are attributed to journalists who do not exist. Interspersed within the general news are articles that disparage the U.S., exalt Russia and spread disinformation about topics from the wars in Ukraine and Gaza to Covid vaccines.
Researchers say sites attributed to Dougan are marred with telltale signs of his signature, including early website registration records, IP addresses, similar image headers and layouts, being built with WordPress software, seemingly AI-generated prompts mistakenly left in copy and error messages at the ends of articles.
[…] several recent posts using forged documents that falsely claimed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was improperly using foreign aid to enrich himself. Last month, a story on the fake news site The London Crier said Zelenskyy had spent 20 million pounds on a mansion previously owned by King Charles III.
It followed a story posted to DC Weekly in November that falsely claimed Zelenskyy had used American aid money to buy two yachts.
[…] The rumor about Zelenskyy’s buying yachts was later promoted by Republican members of Congress, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Sen. JD Vance of Ohio.
[…] sophisticated use of AI to produce content and make narratives seem credible. “In the wrong hands, this technology can be used to spread disinformation at scale,” Sadeghi said. “With this network, we’re seeing that play out exactly.”
[…] the fake local news ring “appears to involve remnants” of the Internet Research Agency, the troll factory created by the late Putin associate Yevgeny Prigozhin to influence the 2016 presidential election. […]
Dougan was an early creator of fake websites. After he resigned from his job as a sheriff’s deputy in Palm Beach County, Florida, and was fired months later from a subsequent one in Windham, Maine, over sexual harassment claims, he built a network of websites that focused on what he claimed was widespread corruption in Windham, naming local police and town officials in articles. He also reportedly launched a campaign doxxing thousands of federal agents, judges and law enforcement officers, posting their home addresses and salacious allegations online. […]
YouTube banned Dougan last year. On Telegram, he attributed the ban to videos he uploaded alleging a Russian mission to destroy U.S.-run bioweapons labs in Ukraine, a false narrative that would take hold as a justification for Russia’s invasion. […]
There is no evidence NewsGuard acted in concert with or on behalf of the U.S. government when it investigated Dougan. Asked for proof of such a partnership, Dougan sent a link to his own video, a 31-minute monologue laden with conspiracy theories. He’d reposted it to YouTube.
Donald Trump now insists that his hush-money trial is “rigged,” which is wrong for a variety of reasons — including his yearslong overreliance on the term.
Bits and pieces of campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
* In Texas, Donald Trump and his allies went all out in the hopes of defeating state House Speaker Dade Phelan in a Republican primary. It didn’t work: Phelan narrowly prevailed yesterday.
* In case there were any doubts about the Democratic campaign’s focus on Black voters, the Associated Press reported that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are launching a new outreach effort today at Girard College, an independent boarding school in Philadelphia with a predominantly Black student body, and visiting a small business to speak to members of the Black Chamber of Commerce.
* The House Majority PAC, aligned with House Democratic leaders, is reportedly launching a $100 million fund focused on abortion rights. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Reproductive Freedom Accountability Fund “will be spent in swing districts across the country for advertising and voter mobilization. The fund will also focus on voter outreach in House districts where there aren’t competitive presidential or Senate races, such as in New York, California, Oregon, Washington and Virginia.”
* In Georgia, a member of the Fulton County elections board is reportedly refusing to certify primary election results unless she’s given access to detailed voting data. The matter appears to be headed to court.
* After weeks in which Republican Sen. Tim Scott refused to say whether he’d vote to certify the 2024 election results, the South Carolina Republican told CNN yesterday, “We expect a fair and honest election, and as a result of that expectation, we will certify the election — and certify President Donald Trump as our 47th president.”
* In the 2022 elections, Republicans nominated several right-wing secretary of state candidates who’d earned reputations as ardent election deniers. In 2024, it’s happening again, as evidenced by the new GOP nominee for secretary of state in Oregon.
New information shows that everything Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has said about the reason an American flag was flown upside down over his home appears to have been a lie. Alito blamed the flag on a dispute with neighbors. Unfortunately for the prevaricating justice, his wife’s altercation with the neighbors became so extreme that those neighbors called the cops. The police report shows that the altercation came weeks after the upside-down flag was hoisted over Alito’s home.
[…] The upside-down flag, long used as a signal of distress, was appropriated by Donald Trump supporters following Jan. 6, 2021, to express their solidarity with the insurrectionists who had smashed their way into the Capitol building.
Alito denied any connection to the flag and claimed that his wife had put up this symbol in response to an altercation with a neighbor. He also claimed those neighbors had placed an offensive sign about Trump where it was near children waiting to board a school bus. But that excuse always had problems.
Now everything about Alito’s story is falling apart.
The story that Alito told Fox News reporters was that his wife flew the flag because neighbor Emily Baden placed a “Fuck Trump” sign in her yard that was within 50 feet of where children were waiting for the school bus in January 2021. Alito said that his wife had tried to talk to the neighbors about having a vulgar sign so close to where children waited for the bus, but that the conversation ended in an argument.
Alito then claimed that Baden put up a sign that personally insulted Martha-Ann Alito and blamed her for the Jan. 6 assault. Finally, Alito said that he and his wife were walking through the neighborhood, ran into a man who lived at the property, and he called Martha-Ann Alito a number of disparaging terms, including the c-word.
So she went home and raised a flag in support of insurrection. As one does.
However, even a cursory look at Alito’s claims shows that they’re simply not true. In January 2021, area schools were still dealing with Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic. Children would not return to the classroom until March. So no children were waiting for the bus for Alito’s wife to be concerned about.
The latest information paints a very different picture of the interaction between Baden and the Alitos. Baden and her then-boyfriend, now husband, reported that Martha-Ann Alito was repeatedly harassing them to the point where they called the police and asked them to intervene.
“Aside from putting up a sign, we did not begin or instigate any of these confrontations,” Baden told Times reporters.
At some point in January, the original “Fuck Trump” sign blew over. Martha-Ann Alito approached Baden thinking that the sign had been removed, but according to Baden, this encounter didn’t end in an argument. It was the first time Baden could ever recall speaking to either of the Alitos.
Following the Jan. 6 insurrection, Baden added two new signs. One of these read “Trump is a fascist.” The other said, “You are complicit.” Neither mentioned Martha-Ann or Samuel Alito, and Baden says that the signs were not aimed at them. Baden’s mother took the signs down out of concern that the same kind of people who attacked the Capitol might bring that kind of violence to their home.
Sometime after the signs had been removed, Baden and her boyfriend saw Martha-Ann Alito sitting in a car outside their home and glaring at them in a way notable enough that they mentioned it to friends. A few days after President Joe Biden’s inauguration—which Samuel Alito skipped—the couple was driving past the Alito home when Alito’s wife ran toward their car, yelling something they couldn’t hear. She then appeared to spit in their direction.
It wasn’t until Feb. 15, a month after the upside-down flag flew over the Alito home, that the Alitos walked past Baden’s home while she and her boyfriend were bringing in the trash containers. Martha-Ann Alito then “used an expletive” and called them “fascists,” Baden told Times reporters. This event was also noted in texts that Baden sent at the time.
At that point, Baden said she snapped.
She does not remember her precise words, but recalls something like this: How dare you behave this way. You’ve been harassing us, over signs. You represent the highest court in the land. Shame on you.
Her boyfriend admitted that he chased this statement with the use of the C-word. The incident was also observed by a neighbor.
Following this exchange, the boyfriend went inside and called the police, confirming that it happened on Feb. 15, not before the flag was flown on Jan. 17, as Alito told Fox News reporters.
Alito’s excuse about the kids and the school bus was a lie. His claim that the flag was flown following a dispute with the neighbors is inaccurate. And none of it explains why he flew another pro-insurrection flag over his vacation home.
The Supreme Court is currently considering Trump’s motion for absolute legal immunity for his actions to interfere with the 2020 election while in office. It’s also determining whether the insurrectionists involved in the attempted coup on Jan. 6, 2021, can appropriately be charged with obstruction.
Alito has not recused himself from either of these cases. And on Wednesday, he stated in a letter to Congress that he will not recuse himself. […]
The idea that Alito should be involved in considering any case connected with Trump, Jan. 6, or the 2020 election completely violates any concept of judicial ethics. This isn’t just the appearance of a conflict. It’s a conflict.
[…] The revelation that Alito had flown a pro-Trump flag at a second location sparked renewed pressure in the Senate. Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin has been calling for Alito to recuse himself—which he’s now outright rejected—and for Chief Justice John Roberts to call this rogue justice into line.
“[Chief] Justice Roberts has to step back and realize the damage that’s being done to the reputation of the court,” Durbin told The Washington Post.
The Senate Judiciary Committee needs to open an investigation into Alito’s partisan support for the pro-Trump insurrection. They need to do it immediately.
Two other members of the committee, Sheldon Whitehouse and Richard Blumenthal, have been pressing Durbin to take action. That includes Blumenthal noting that while the Senate can’t regulate the actions of the Supreme Court, it isn’t without power—including the ability to set the number of justices on the court. And outside groups, like Indivisible and Demand Justice, as well as legal experts have also demanded an investigation into Alito’s leanings.
The new information showing that Alito’s claims about the flag incident were simply untrue only reinforces the need for the Senate to move. An impeachment of Alito is fully warranted, but with Republicans holding a narrow margin in the House and anxious to show their allegiance to Trump over the nation, an impeachment seems next to impossible.
There’s no time like the present to dilute Alito’s toxic presence by adding more seats to the Supreme Court.
KGsays
John Morales@277,
Now I have, if possible, even less of an idea what you’re on about.
This is a remarkable graph. You might have heard that “EV sales are slumping”, “people are starting to avoid EVs”, etc. That’s not what’s happening.
What’s happening is “Tesla is cratering so hard that it’s skewing the aggregate market data.” Or, put differently, “Tesla is failing harder than the entire rest of the market is succeeding, combined.”
Re: Compulsory Account7746 @ #313:
A few months ago I saw a bumper sticker on a Tesla that said:
We bought before
we found out Elon is an asshole.
John Moralessays
CA7746, it is most amusing that, cratering as they may allegedly be, that “remarkable” graph (list, actually) shows Tesla sold at least an order of magnitude more than any other brand.
The biggest single player in the market.
140487 sales vs the next biggest-seller, that being Hyundai with 22936.
(And Musk remains officially the richest person in the world, too)
birgerjohanssonsays
Jimmy Kimmel: Trump wants a hung jury snd Mike Pence.
Mediazona, a Russian outlet that tracks war casualties using open sources, has identified nearly 5,000 Russian soldiers under the age of 24who have died in the war,including 1,400 under the age of 20. The real toll is likely to be much higher, the outlet says. Pjotr Sauer has some of their stories.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito told lawmakers he won’t recuse himself from cases involving the 2020 presidential election or the Jan. 6 Capitol riot despite concerns about two flags associated with far-right causes that have flown over his properties. Alito said his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, was responsible for flying the flags. Geoff Bennett discussed more with Kathleen Clark.
Is it ironic that the word ‘phonetically’ isn’t spelled how it sounds?
StevoRsays
A primary election in Texas got national attention for what it could mean for the future of the Republican Party and incumbents facing far-right challengers. Incumbent GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales, who has worked across the aisle on several issues, narrowly defeated a far-right YouTube personality. Laura Barrón-López discussed these growing divides with former Republican Congressman Joe Walsh.
There’s at least some evidence that many Black voters are prepared to give Donald Trump a second look ahead of the 2024 elections. The former president appears to be aware of the opportunity, and it’s leading him to make some outlandish claims.
“Honestly, there’s been no president since Abraham Lincoln — and perhaps, in a certain way, including Abraham Lincoln — but there’s been no president since Abraham Lincoln that has done more for the Black individual in this country than President Donald J. Trump,” the Republican declared at an event two weeks ago. “There’s been nobody. Not even close.”
A week later, President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign unveiled an ad emphasizing the presumptive GOP nominee’s history of racism, and yesterday the Democratic incumbent spoke at an outreach event in Philadelphia where he kept the offensive going. From the White House transcript:
“Let me ask you, what do you think would have happened if Black Americans had stormed the Capitol [on Jan. 6]? I don’t think he’d be talking about pardons. This is the same guy who wanted to tear gas you as you peacefully protested George Floyd’s murder. The same guy who still calls the Central Park Five “guilty,” even though they were exonerated. He’s that landlord who denies housing applications because of the color of your skin. He’s that guy who won’t say ‘Black lives matter’ and invokes neo-Nazi, Third Reich terms. And we all remember Trump is the same guy who unleashed birthism — the birtherism lie against Barack.”
As for the Lincoln reference, Biden went on to say, “I love this one. He says he’s the greatest president for Black people in the history of America, including more than Abraham Lincoln.” After making the sign of the cross, the incumbent Democrat concluded, “I mean, can you fathom that? … I think he injected too much of that bleach into his brain.”
To be sure, much of Biden’s speech was devoted to his own accomplishments and the promises to Black voters that he’s delivered on over the last three and a half years.
[…] Trump’s lengthy record of overt racism is impossible to defend. But the matter is not entirely retrospective.
Last month, Axios reported that in a prospective second term, Trump and his team intend to “dramatically change the government’s interpretation of Civil Rights-era laws to focus on ‘anti-white racism’ rather than discrimination against people of color.” Asked for comment, the Republican’s campaign didn’t exactly deny its interest in rolling back policies designed to address systemic racism.
A few weeks later, Trump sat down with Time magazine’s Eric Cortellessa and said, “I think there is a definite anti-white feeling in this country and that can’t be allowed either.” The Republican added that he hopes to focus on the “problem” related to the “bias against white.”
Trump hopes Black voters will overlook his racist record and vision, and Biden hopes to remind Black voters why they shouldn’t. It’s unlikely that the public has heard the last of this.
[…] Elon Musk already has a prominent role in American politics. The controversial billionaire owns a prominent social-media platform, on which he often uses his account to promote conspiracy theories and far-right myths.
[…] The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk and Donald Trump have “discussed a possible advisory role” in the event that voters return Trump to the White House.
The role hasn’t been fully hammered out and might not happen, people familiar with the talks said, but the two men discussed ways to give Musk formal input and influence over policies related to border security and the economy […]
The Journal’s report […] added that Musk has also partnered with billionaire investor Nelson Peltz “on a plan they have developed to invest in a data-driven project to prevent voter fraud.”
Trump, evidently, has been briefed on their plan to address the problem that doesn’t actually exist in any meaningful way in reality.
(Incidentally, the day after Jan. 6, Peltz called the insurrectionist violence a “disgrace” and said he was “sorry” to have voted for Trump. He’s since changed his mind again.)
“Peltz and Musk also told Trump of an influence campaign in elite circles that is already under way, in which Musk and his political allies host gatherings of powerful business leaders across the country to try to convince them not to support President Biden’s re-election campaign,” the Journal added.
[…] “Trump has told Musk … he wants to find a way to get him more involved if he wins in November,” the Journal reported.
[…] None of this has escaped the attention of the Biden campaign, which issued a written statement in response to the Journal’s reporting.
“Despite what Donald Trump thinks, America is not for sale to billionaires, oil and gas executives, or even Elon Musk […] Trump is selling out America to pay his legal bills and put himself in power […]”
The Florida Board of Education approved several tweaks Wednesday to the state’s standards for teaching social studies, but left intact controversial pieces on Black history that sparked widespread backlash last year.
The updated standards include new required instruction surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks and the history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, as well as several other more subtle changes. Opponents, though, including Florida’s largest teachers union and free speech advocates, slammed the state for sticking by its “warped” telling of Black history.
Florida’s new teaching standards include the same language that scored national blowback last year for requiring middle school students to learn “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” […]
Illinois has taken a significant step in safeguarding reproductive rights by passing legislation that prohibits state authorities from aiding investigations into individuals seeking abortion services within state borders. This decision comes in response to red states either passing or considering anti-abortion legislation that threatens people who seek abortions in other states.
The new law prevents Illinois authorities from complying with out-of-state subpoenas, summons, or extradition requests related to abortion. It also allows individuals to sue for civil damages if their information is improperly disclosed, a direct repudiation of a proposed law in neighboring Missouri that would have allowed private citizens to sue anyone who helps a Missouri resident obtain an abortion in another state.
While the Missouri law didn’t pass, [Bad News in Tennessee and Idaho] other bills like one in Tennessee that bans adults from assisting minors in obtaining abortions are moving ahead. The Tennessee bill is similar to an already enacted Idaho law that swiftly came under opposition from 20 other states.
[Good News] At least 14 states have now moved to help protect abortion providers from lawsuits and prosecution in other states.
[Bad News] Texas’ six-week abortion ban has not only generated devastating results, it also allows private citizens to sue anyone who performs an abortion or who “aids and abets” the procedure. The law does not explicitly cover out-of-state abortions, but its broad language has raised concerns about the potential for lawsuits against individuals or organizations that assist Texans in obtaining abortions out of state. […]
StevoRsays
Dunno about the “misstep” part sicne Tingle was actually correct in her words but still, good :
The ABC’s managing director David Anderson has defended high-profile journalist Laura Tingle over comments she made about Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, telling a parliamentary committee though her remarks lacked context, her reporting for the public broadcaster “stands the test of scrutiny”. Speaking on a panel at the Sydney Writers’ Festival last weekend, the 7:30 chief political correspondent criticised Mr Dutton’s language on migration policy, as he had suggested migrants were to blame for shortages in housing and services and for putting pressure on infrastructure.
… (Snip!)… There has been significant coverage of Ms Tingle’s remarks in the media this week, covering both her comments about Mr Dutton and about racism in Australia.
“We are a racist country, let’s face it. We always have been and it’s very depressing,” she said at the festival. Mr Anderson clarified that the counselling Ms Tingle had received was not related to those remarks, which had been the focus of a number of articles in News Corp publications. “Australia is not unique in coming to terms with issues such as racism, the cost of living, or immigration. They are issues being debated around the world, as they should be,” he said.
Specifically Dennis Ross – not to be confused with the red & white dwarf stars with the same name minus a numerical designation or hundred..* (The Ross part that is although there are some labelled DENIS too eg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DENIS_J1048%E2%88%923956 )
Using the Euclid space telescope, scientists have discovered a staggering 1.5 trillion orphan stars drifting through a massive cluster of thousands of galaxies, one of the largest structures in the cosmos. These orphan stars, ripped free from their own galaxies, are filling the space between the galaxies of the Perseus cluster with ghostly blue light. This so-called “intracluster” light is so faint that it is many thousands of times darker than the night sky over Earth. By observing this intracluster light in the Perseus cluster, which is located 240 million light-years away from Earth and has a mass equivalent to around 650 trillion suns,
when it comes to the contemporary private spaceflight boom, these lush mountains are about as far removed as one can get from the bustling spaceports of Florida’s Space Coast. That’s why it was such a shock to discover a large chunk of space debris had been identified near Canton, NC — just outside of the city of Asheville, where I live. I had to go see it for myself.
..(Snip).. As it turned out, the piece of debris likely came from the reentry of the SpaceX Crew-7 mission to the International Space Station, which returned to Earth on March 12, 2024, according to astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “This definitely looks consistent with being a bit of the Crew-7 Dragon’s trunk which reentered on a path right over this location on Tuesday,” McDowell wrote on X after news of the debris began circulating.
The astrophysicist also posted a map tracking the reentry path of the piece of Crew-7’s trunk suspected to be responsible for the debris, which shows the spacecraft hardware passing directly over Canton, NC — right where Clontz found the specimen (and, unsettlingly, also almost directly over my house).
@ Canton NC i.e. North Carolina Obvs those in Canton PRC speak Cantonese version of Chinese – & v likely English as second language in many cases too. Some English speakers as first language in Canton too I’d expect.
Boeing Starliner spacecraft apparently launching on the 1st of June (USA time) and now learnt that Space X’s Starship is set to blast off again soon too
SpaceX has fueled up its Starship megarocket again, ramping up preparations for the huge vehicle’s upcoming test flight.The operation, known as a wet dress rehearsal (WDR), occurred on Tuesday (May 28) at SpaceX’s Starbase site in South Texas. The company pumped huge quantities of liquid oxygen and liquid methane into Starship’s first and second stages, which are known, respectively, as Super Heavy and Starship (or just “Ship” for short).
… (snip).. The tests are part of prelaunch prep for Starship’s fourth-ever flight, which, as SpaceX noted in the X post, could launch as soon as June 5. (The company still needs approval from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration for a proposed modification to its Starship launch license, to be clear.)
[…] We learn that Trump, Musk, and Peltz were among many “wealthy and powerful friends,” who gathered at Peltz’s “sprawling oceanfront estate in Palm Beach” to discuss Musk’s possible advisory job, the voter-fraud detection project, and for all we know how all three will conquer the world just as soon as Musk’s secrete submarine base under a volcano is completed.
In what has to be the greatest paragraph published in the Wall Street Journal since its 2011 editorial decrying “Lucky Duckies” who are too poor to pay income tax, we learn that
Musk and his young son X, who often joins him at events, were part of a group that also included Trump and his 18-year-old son, Barron. Musk and Peltz know each other in part through Peltz’s son Diesel, a tech entrepreneur who is friendly with Musk. Diesel Peltz was at the breakfast as well.
[…] If Musk were to get a job working for — err, independently advising — Trump, one of the insiders told the Journal, the position would be something like the role handed to Trump confidant and Mar-a-Lago club member Isaac Perlmutter, who along with two other Mar-a-Laganns was deposited in the Department of Veterans Affairs, where the trio made a nuisance of themselves and made up policy off the tops of their heads despite never having worked in government before.
Except Musk would no doubt be even better, because unlike Perlmutter, he would come with his very own huge Twitter following and would no doubt chafe at being limited to just one Cabinet agency.
As for the great idea Musk and Peltz have for elections, it sure sounds like some impressive vaporware, as far as the Journal report goes. They have “told acquaintances they are working on a data-driven project to ensure votes are fairly counted,” and apparently Trump is pretty enthusiastic about this new weapon against voter fraud, which is extremely rare in the first place. That’s honestly the deepest level of detail the Journal could come up with, but that phrase “data-driven” was enough all by itself to set off warning lights for the Washington Post’s political data nerd Philip Bump, who points out that attempts to use algorithms to detect “voter fraud” are a mug’s game, albeit one that’s very popular with rightwing mugs who think cherry-picking is a legitimate method of statistical analysis.
One of the many problems with just crunching a bunch of voting data and declaring something has to be hinky, Bump says, is that these would-be Sherlocks tend to flatly dismiss the many checks that states already have in place to prevent multiple votes from one person (and to detect it when it does occur, a handful of times every election).
The thing that believers in massive in-person voter fraud always miss, Bump notes, is that it’s incredibly difficult to convince enough real people to commit a felony for the sake of giving a candidate one extra vote each. Sure, there are sometimes larger fraud schemes, but once you start mucking with lots of ballots — hi, corrupt Republican scheme in North Carolina a few years back! — it’s also very likely to be spotted.
None of that matters to Trump or Musk, of course, since they start with the assumption that in-person voting fraud is rampant, then work backwards to create “evidence.” […]
Dr Lawrence said around 270 staff in metropolitan hospitals were currently off sick with COVID and more than 140 patients were in hospital with COVID and flu.
“What he wants is to be able to stop the Israeli offensive, pop up from the rubble, and say ‘I’m still here’,” says veteran Israeli political commentator Ehud Yaari.
“For him, this is victory.”
Few people have seen Sinwar since October 7, which makes Yaari’s next statement so incredible.
“I’m in indirect, let’s put it like this, communication with him,” Yaari told 7.30.
Three black men in the US have filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against American Airlines, alleging they were ejected from a flight following a complaint about “body odour”. Complaint documents state on January 5 of this year, the three plaintiffs, alongside five other black passengers were approached by a representative from the airline and one by one, were ordered off the plane bound for Phoenix. “American Airlines singled us out for being black, embarrassed us, and humiliated us,” the three men said in a statement. “Clearly, this was discrimination.” The case brought by Alvin Jackson, Emmanuel Jean Joseph and Xavier Veal in the US District Court in New York is being funded by consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.
[…] Republicans have convinced themselves […] that the votes of people who live in rural areas should obviously count more than those who live in urban areas, even if there are many times more of us. It’s just what’s fair. Obviously.
One major example of this is prison gerrymandering — which occurs because the Census counts prisoners as residents of the district where their prison is located instead of where they would normally live under other circumstances. Earlier this month, after 14 years of intense deliberation, Governor Tim Walz signed legislation making Minnesota the 19th state to end this practice and to instead count incarcerated people as residents of their own home addresses. What a concept!
It’s quite the scam. Most of the prison populations come from more urban areas, as this is where most of the people live, but when those people get moved to prisons in rural areas, they are counted in the Census as part of the population of the rural area. Prisoners are not allowed to vote — except in Maine and Vermont — so this then gives prison districts more influence than they ought to in the state legislature, while diluting the power of major population centers. This then incentivizes these areas to want to keep a whole lot of people in prisons, in order to hold on to their power.
It’s basically the same deal as the Three-Fifths Compromise, in which enslaved people were counted as 3/5 of a person for the purposes of the Census, in order to give rural areas more voting power so that they could continue to vote to keep slavery legal. […]
In many rural county and city governments, substantial portions of individual districts consist of incarcerated people, not actual residents. In a number of places, we’ve found elected officials who owe a majority of their clout to prison populations.
[…] It helps that more people are finding out about this and how obviously unfair it is, although naturally, in most cases, Republicans have pushed back because they see no reason to end something that is working so well for them.
Perhaps someday we can put an end to all affirmative action for white, rural Republican voters (like the Electoral College, maybe?) and finally have a government that actually represents most of the people who live here.
A Labor senator who accused Israel of carrying out genocide on the Palestinian people has resigned from her position on two parliamentary foreign affairs committees. Fatima Payman broke ranks from her party earlier this month, demanding her own government to sanction and cease trade with Israel. Senator Payman urged her colleagues, including the prime minister, to “stand for what is right” and said that her conscience had been “uneasy for far too long” as she watched the war in Gaza from afar. “This is a genocide, and we need to stop pretending otherwise,” the senator said.
t’s been 10 years since a massive pest eradication program removed all rabbits and rodents from Macquarie Island.
Scientists say the World Heritage-listed area is returning to its former glory, with a resurgence in vegetation allowing nesting seabirds to flourish. What’s next? While the island remains pest-free, new threats are on the horizon, including climate change and avian influenza.
Did I share this Ëchidnapus” one here already? Apologies if so and apologies if I’ve been beaten to it as well..
An ancient monotreme dubbed the “echidnapus”, which shares platypus- and echidna-like characteristics, is one of three extinct species of egg-laying mammal unveiled by palaeontologists today. Another of the creatures shares close similarities with modern platypus, and could represent the oldest-known monotreme to have a platypus-like body. The trio of fossils are between 100 and 96 million years old and were found in the opal fields of Lightning Ridge, New South Wales. This discovery brings the tally of monotreme species found at Lightning Ridge to six, making the area the most diverse monotreme site on Earth.
^ What rhe fuck happened to my first quote mark and the E there?
StevoRsays
As an increasing number of satellites blanket Earth’s orbit, a $3 billion radio telescope being built in Western Australia’s outback may need to find new ways to listen for faint radio signals in the universe. The number of satellites is expected to increase significantly in coming years and for scientists who need the ground and the space above to be quiet, satellites and their booming loud radio interference are a significant challenge.
.. (Snip!).. t is expected to be operational by 2030, when some experts are predicting up to100,0000 satellites will be orbiting Earth and emitting both intentional and unintentional radio noise.
The Louisiana legislature this week gave final passage to HB71 (full text) which requires all public schools to display the Ten Commandments in each classroom. The bill specifies the Ten Commandments text which must be used– choosing the text that appeared on the Ten Commandments marker at the Texas State Capitol that was the subject of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Van Orden v. Perry. The Louisiana bill requires:
The nature of the display shall be determined by each governing authority with a minimum requirement that the Ten Commandments shall be displayed on a poster or framed document that is at least eleven inches by fourteen inches. The text of the Ten Commandments shall be the central focus of the poster or framed document and shall be printed in a large, easily readable font.
A specified “context statement” that details the appearance of the Ten Commandments in public school textbooks since 1688 must be displayed along with the Ten Commandments. It permits, but does not require, public schools to also display the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence and the Northwest Ordinance along with the Ten Commandments.
Public colleges must display the same text of the Ten Commandments (but apparently not the context statement) in each classroom on their campuses.
The bill’s substantive provisions are preceded by legislative findings, including the following:
Recognizing the historical role of the Ten Commandments accords with our nation’s history and faithfully reflects the understanding of the founders of our nation with respect to the necessity of civic morality to a functional self-government. History records that James Madison, the fourth President of the United States of America, stated that “(w)e have staked the whole future of our new nation . . . upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments.
The bill now goes to Governor Jeff Landry for his signature. CNN reports on the bill.
wanted to share a few thoughts about the Sam Alito problem. I don’t want to preach to the choir on this but there are two points which should be highlighted. The first is that even on its own terms Alito’s rationale for not recusing himself doesn’t hold up. His argument is essentially this: My wife is her own person with her own views and ways of expressing herself. I asked her to stop but she refused to do so and I couldn’t compel her. He notes that they co-own the properties in question. So even in the narrow sense of control over a piece of property he couldn’t dictate. It was his wife, not him. He did what he could, but couldn’t do more. End of story.
This is not how federal ethics guidelines work. They make very clear that the appearance of a conflict of interest or impropriety, for these purposes, counts as much as actual ones. They also make clear that the actions of a spouse count toward creating such appearances even though, certainly in the early 21st century, a judge can’t dictate a spouse’s actions. The ethics guidelines specifically deal with the spouse issue. And they say ‘it’s my spouse not me’ isn’t a defense.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t about Martha-Ann Alito’s behavior. She is entitled to say and act however she wants. She doesn’t have to abide by her husband’s orders. But in a situation like this it is incumbent on Alito to say he can’t ethically carry out the assignment and recuse himself. It’s not Martha-Ann Alito’s problem or the American public’s problem. It’s Sam Alito’s problem. He has to recuse himself. Or, to be more precise, maybe there’s some explanation that excuses him from recusing himself. But ‘it was my wife not me’ can’t be it.
Whatever else he is, Alito is a smart guy. He knows this. But he said it anyway. That’s because no one can force his hand and he doesn’t care what anyone thinks. He is not accountable. And he knows it.
[…] Alito has now told multiply versions of his story, each of which have been debunked by subsequent reporting. To put it more baldly, Alito has now repeatedly lied about what happened. The contradictions aren’t just about details or things liable to incomplete memory. They’re basic issues of order of events which make his explanations of one thing causing another thing impossible.
There’s the additional matter that Alito provided his only substantial response about this story to a favored reporter at Fox News. Going to Fox as opposed to CNN or the Times or the news desk at The Wall Street Journal might not appeal to Alito’s Democratic critics. But that’s not the point. A politician might do this, looking for a sympathetic ear to hear his story. But that’s precisely the issue. Justices aren’t supposed to be politicians. […] Justices are supposed to maintain the trust of reasonable observers that they are operating with a basic integrity and fairness. Lying and rapidly getting caught out in those lies doesn’t meet that standard. Nor does offering your explanation to a rabidly partisan news organization. […]
It’s worth remembering how limited the ask is here. Alito has violated basic guidelines of ethics, though technically he appears to claim these don’t apply to the High Court. He has willfully lied to the public. He has certainly acted in a partisan and polemical manner unsuitable to a Justice. But no one of any stature has asked more than that he recuse himself from cases tied to the January 6th insurrection.
Let’s zero in on this. He is only being asked to recuse himself because there is an appearance of a conflict of interest whether he can fairly adjudicate cases tied to the insurrection as an apparent supporter of the insurrection! Or to be very generous as the spouse of an apparent supporter of the insurrection. […] Any colorable suggestion that you support or supported the overthrow of the government should obviously be a deal killer for being anywhere near the Supreme Court. And yet, no one of any stature is even asking for that – just not sitting on cases where his apparent support for the insurrection might represent a conflict.
At this point the scandal is less his conflicts or his lying or even his apparent support for the insurrection. It’s the confident imperviousness to any accountability in itself.
[…] they are energetic and inspiring! And because we love them, we worry. We worry about their health, especially when we are successfully emotionally manipulated by news stories, like this one from the New York Times!
In an online survey of more than 1,000 people published this month by the American Academy of Dermatology, 28 percent of 18- to 26-year-olds said they didn’t believe suntans caused skin cancer. And 37 percent said they wore sunscreen only when others nagged them about it.
In another poll, published this month by Orlando Health Cancer Institute, 14 percent of adults under 35 believed the myth that wearing sunscreen every day is more harmful than direct sun exposure. While the surveys are too small to capture the behaviors of all young adults, doctors said they’ve noticed these knowledge gaps and riskier behaviors anecdotally among their younger patients, too.
[…] What’s different for this generation, though, is that TikTok, Instagram, and even that old dinosaur YouTube are chock-full of pseudo-organic, faux-expert back-to-earth types and conspiracy theorists who claim that all sunscreen is actually worse for your human skin than the UV rays from the sun. […]
Do not get the skin cancers (there are a few)! And if you think only pale people get it, think again: Skin cancer can occur in people of any skin color or tone, even on places like the scalp, ears, toes, or nail beds. Doctors often aren’t trained to evaluate patients of color for skin cancer, which can lead to higher rates of mortality when these patients are diagnosed later.
Also, if you, like me, are of Middle Age or Elder Years, please do not say, “Well, I’ve done lots of damage already, a little more won’t hurt” or “Who cares? We all die sometime!” and throw caution to the wind. Do an extreme sport instead!
Take it from somebody who got skin cancer when she was 18 years old. (!) I say “got skin cancer” as if it only began to develop when I was 18, but that’s likely not true. What probably happened was that I got one or more bad burns in my early to middle teens, and a basal cell carcinoma began growing slowly.
Basal cell carcinoma is rarely fatal, and hardly ever metastasizes. Still, left untreated for too long, here’s what basal cell carcinoma can do:
– Grow deep, injuring nerves and blood vessels!
– Harm your muscles!
– Reach into your freaking bones!
– If it’s on your face, IT CAN GROW INTO YOUR BRAIN!
– Cause doctors to say, “Hi, we need to remove a part of your ear or nose or lip or other body part!”
Not fun, right? No! I was lucky, in that my pediatrician actually did a skin check and recommended I see a specialist even though there was a teensy tiny likelihood of me actually having a skin cancer that (according to the Skin Cancer Foundation) mostly affects pale dudes over the age of 50.
I just got stared at by a bunch of awkward medical students while my entire body was photographed with, basically, high-resolution Polaroids (ah, 1999!) after which point a surgeon took a chunk of skin out of my back and stitched me up.
It could’ve been worse, but again, I was lucky.
If you’re shopping for an image-conscious person born after 1997 who is obsessed with skincare yet somehow lacks interest in sunscreen (my friend’s kid is 12 and wants to do a 10-step skincare routine because capitalism and peer pressure have infected her brain via TikTok), buy them some overpriced organic reef-safe SPF and tell them it’ll make Olivia Rodrigo or Nicholas Galitzine or Sabrina Carpenter or Chappell Roan or Shaboozey or Blackpink love them (you do not need to know who these talented people are, just say these words at a youth).
[…] Or suggest that big floppy sun hats are chic, or that they can wear that very wild white heavy mineral sunscreen and look sort of like Chappell Roan singing about oral sex in front of the NPR staff. [video at the link]
For more information on how to check for skin cancer, visit the Skin Cancer Foundation. They are a small but mighty nonprofit, and they do good work. Also, put on your sunscreen and wear your hat and sunglasses and take a nice walk if you can. Sunshine IS still good for you, in limited quantities, particularly in the morning. Okay, rant over!
Truth, a formerly enslaved person, delivered the speech to a crowd gathered at the Universalist Old Stone Church in Akron for the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention.
Nice photo at the link.
[…] Though the church no longer exists, the Sojourner Truth Legacy Plaza and the United Way of Summit and Medina Counties now stand in its place.
[…] the plaza will honor a piece of the country’s past and help to shape its future.
[…] Before taking the name Sojourner Truth, Isabella Bomfree was born into slavery in or around 1797 in the Hudson Valley. She walked away from the home of her final owner in 1826 with her infant daughter after he reneged on a promise to free her. She went to work for the Van Wagenen family, and took their surname.
Truth is believed to be the first Black woman to successfully sue white men to get her son released from slavery, though it’s possible there were other cases researchers are unaware of.
The statue, created by artist and Akron native Woodrow Nash, shows Truth standing tall, holding a book. The monument sits on top of a [sculpture of an] impala lily, the national flower of Ghana, where Truth’s father traced his heritage. […]
[…] this week, Musk convinced investors to plow $6 billion into his new AI startup, putting Musk back at the top of Forbes’ list of the wealthiest people in the world. When it comes to convincing wealthy people how they should invest their insane amounts of money, Musk has potentially unrivaled influence. And Musk is sitting down with Trump to tell these same billionaires to cut off any funds or support for Biden.
When it comes to Musk’s new voting system, the only description is that it is intended to “ensure votes are fairly counted,” which can easily be read as exactly the kind of scheme Trump tried to implement in the conspiracy leading up to the Jan. 6 insurrection. By no coincidence at all, Musk has downplayed events on Jan. 6 and spread lies about the insurrection.
If that sounds like the nation’s wealthiest and most powerful people are getting together to engineer the outcome of the 2024 election and install a system that ensures their power is never threatened by democracy, that’s because that’s exactly what it is. And it’s also something that has happened before.
As the Brennan Center for Justice explains, in 1932, the Nazi Party was broke, in disarray, and near collapse. Then Adolf Hitler and propaganda specialist Hermann Göring called a secret gathering of Germany’s wealthiest industrialists.
“Private enterprise cannot be maintained in a democracy,” Hitler told the group. If they would support him, he would get rid of workers’ rights and unions.
The response of the business leaders was reportedly “enthusiastic.” They poured money into Hitler’s enterprise, and less than a year later the Nazi Party was in control of the German government.
Sure, it’s always easy to pull out a Hitler analogy, but sometimes the jackboot just fits too well to avoid the comparison. This is one of those times.
It’s not hard to see what Musk wants from Trump: someone who will put a stop to pesky regulations as he flies giant rockets and safety concerns that would slow his rollout of self-driving robotaxis.
Musk definitely wants to stop Biden from applying a new wealth tax to the $56 billion gift Musk is expecting from Tesla stockholders. That wealth tax is almost certainly part of his pitch to fellow billionaires.
It doesn’t matter if Trump and Musk secretly hate each other; Neither of them is interested in making friends.
They’re interested in money and power, they want more of both, and they want to lock in a plutocracy that means no one can ever get in their way.
And they’re not even bothering to be secretive about it.
Bill Pruitt was a producer for the first two seasons of Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice” reality show. His 20-year NDA has just expired and he’s now spilling the beans on Trump’s blatant racism and sexism on the show’s set. It isn’t pretty. Pruitt also shares new details on Trump’s now well-known habit of not paying his bills and reveals the big con that the show pulled off to cultivate an image of Trump that was not based in reality.
Regarding Trump’s racism, Pruitt claims that Trump casually used the N-word on the set. Trump once expressed concern that he didn’t think the show’s viewers would accept the show having a Black winner.
Pruitt recall(ed) Trump off-handily stating, “’Yeah… but, I mean, would America buy a n—-r winning?'”
Pruitt also claims that Trump’s sexism and his demeaning treatment of women was a constant presence on the set. He writes…
“While leering at a female camera assistant or assessing the physical attributes of a female contestant for whoever is listening, he orders a female camera operator off an elevator on which she is about to film him. ‘She’s too heavy,” I hear him say. Another female camera operator, who happens to have blond hair and blue eyes, draws from Trump comparisons to his own Ivanka Trump. ‘There’s a beautiful woman behind that camera,’ he says toward a line of 10 different operators set up in the foyer of Trump Tower one day. ‘That’s all I want to look at.'”
(We’ve now heard so many stories of Trump comparing women he finds attractive to his daughter Ivanka – including in Trump’s current trial – that it’s moved beyond creepy.)
Pruitt also admits unequivocally that “The Apprentice” played a big role in creating the false image of Trump as a successful businessman.
(The show) elevated Donald J. Trump from sleazy New York tabloid hustler to respectable household name. In the show, he appeared to demonstrate impeccable business instincts and unparalleled wealth, even though his businesses had barely survived multiple bankruptcies and faced yet another when he was cast. By carefully misleading viewers about Trump—his wealth, his stature, his character, and his intent—the competition reality show set about an American fraud that would balloon beyond its creators’ wildest imaginations.
Pruitt states his belief that nobody involved with the show engaged in this con with malicious intent. But he admits that they “played fast and loose with the facts, particularly regarding Trump, and if you were one of the 28 million who tuned in, chances are you were conned.”
Pruitt says he hasn’t spoken out earlier because his NDA promised a fine of $5 million and even jail time if he were to ever divulge what actually happened on the set.
You can read Pruitt’s full piece at Slate.
UPDATE
I realize that for those of us who follow politics closely, none of these revelations about Trump are surprising or shocking. But they’re still damning and we still need to share this news because it could be surprising or shocking to people who don’t pay attention to politics but who might pay attention to a story about “The Apprentice,” which apparently was quite popular.
Ever since the story broke of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s upside-down insurrection flag, Democrats have been calling on him to police himself. On Wednesday, he said nope, not gonna, you can’t make him.
And on Thursday, Chief Justice John Roberts told Democrats that’s good enough for him.
In regard to questions concerning any Justice’s participation in pending cases, the Members of the Supreme Court recently reaffirmed the practice we have followed for 235 years pursuant to which individual Justices decide recusal issues. … It is my understanding that Justice Alito has sent you a letter addressing this subject.
Yes, Alito sent a letter addressing whether he should recuse himself from cases concerning the Donald Trump-inspired insurrection on the grounds that the pro-insurrection flag at his house sure made him look pro-insurrection himself. He addressed it by saying it’s all his wife’s fault because she really loves flying all kinds of flags, and even though he told her to take it down, she’s quite insubordinate and refused.
But also, Alito has consulted himself on whether he can be impartial—and he had decided that he can, so that’s the end of that. […]
birgerjohanssonsays
Speaking about Alito and the other ghouls made me revisit a movie clip
VAMPIRES Clip – “First Attack” (1998) James Woods
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=0oj79zQnf-I
James Woods is a method actor – he actually trained as a vampire hunter for four years to make his performance as autentic as possible!
birgerjohanssonsays
NB
TRUMP TRIAL.
JURY: GUILTY ON COUNT # 1
birgerjohanssonsays
GUILTY ON ALL 34 COUNTS.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@birgerjohansson #352:
James Woods is a method actor—he actually trained as a vampire hunter for four years
Woods is hired as Apu’s replacement at the Kwik-E-Mart after he is fired for selling Homer Simpson spoiled meat […] he is playing a convenience store clerk in his next movie […] As a method actor Woods goes to very extreme lengths for parts, for example saying that for the film Chaplin he “actually traveled in time, back to the twenties.”
[…]
[Production notes]: Woods’ role in the episode is a reference to Michael J. Fox’s character Nick Lang in the film The Hard Way […] Woods’ role was originally written for Michael Caine.
an entitled Hollywood movie star […] Vying for the lead in the cop drama Blood on the Asphalt, he vows to “prepare” for the role by posing as a police officer with the NYPD.
All that’s going to happen is he’ll get is a wrist slap that will not bar him from becoming president nor result in a prison sentence.
Until Trump is rendered permanently harmless, there is NOTHING to celebrate.
tomhsays
@ #358
Typical. The same people who said, ‘oh, they’ll never convict him,’ now are saying, ‘it doesn’t mean anything, he’ll never go to jail.’ Pathetic.
First former president to be found guilty of felonies! Trump is number one!
[…] Donald Trump has racked up an amazing number of firsts. He is, for example, the first president to be impeached twice. He’s also the first candidate to ever win the presidency despite never having served the public in any way.
Trump is the first former president to have been liable for sexual abuse. He was the first president to get caught overseeing a fraudulent charity. And a fraudulent university. And a business that was found to have repeatedly committed fraud.
In 2021, Trump became the first president to deny his successor a peaceful transition of power in the wake of his defeat. He was similarly the first president to try to hold onto power in defiance of election voters.
Last year, Trump became the first former president to be indicted on criminal charges, only to soon after become the first former president to be also indicted on federal criminal charges.
The presumptive GOP nominee can now add a new first to the list: Trump is the first former president to be found guilty of multiple felonies. My MSNBC colleague Jordan Rubin explained:
Donald Trump was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. … Trump’s sentencing will happen at a later date. Incarceration is not mandatory in this case. For each count, Trump could just be fined or receive a maximum sentence of up to 4 years (though under such a sentence he could still be released in closer to a year).
An NBC News report confirmed that Judge Juan Merchan ordered a sentencing hearing to begin at 10 a.m. on July 11. The Republican National Convention is scheduled to begin on July 15. […]
It’s not the whole enchilada of holding Trump accountable. It’s not nothing either. I personally think that people should stop framing being convicted of 34 felonies as “nothing” or as “something that won’t make any difference.” Fuck that. It is something. Every Republican politician now has a convicted felon as leader of their party. Shame.
False reports about the jury instructions in former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial have been spreading across right-wing media, leading to threats against the judge overseeing the case.
The Biden administration has quietly given Ukraine permission to strike inside Russia — solely near the area of Kharkiv — using U.S.-provided weapons, two U.S. officials and two other people familiar with the move said Thursday, a major reversal that will help Ukraine to better defend its second-largest city.
First sneaker designer to be convicted of 34 felony counts.
Add Stormy Daniels to the list that includes E. Jean Carroll as women who got some kind of justice after being treated badly by Trump.
Schadenfreude moments:
[…] Even beyond a series of scandals that stretched from his time as a real estate developer, onwards through the Trump-Russia imbroglio, the first Ukraine impeachment, his attempt to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, the Mar-a-Lago records case, and more, Trump has waged a concerted attack on the concept that the law should apply to him as it does to everyone else.
The trial itself, in its processes, was a massive repudiation of that. It forced Trump to sit through one week of jury selection, more than five weeks of trial, and more than ten hours of deliberations, all under a gag order that he repeatedly sought to violate. For much of it, he complied as any other defendant in a municipal criminal case would have to, sitting silently at the defense table in a dusty old courthouse.
As the jury foreman read out the verdict, Trump sat stony-faced. As time went on, his facial expression grew into a deep grimace. […]
Steinglass told jurors about the Trump conspiracy, adding that its purpose was “to manipulate and defraud the voters.”
[…] The guilty verdict comes as the three other Trump prosecutions have stalled out. His other state-level case, the Fulton County, Georgia RICO prosecution, has not yet had a trial scheduled.
Of the two federal cases brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, the Mar-a-Lago records prosecution has been indefinitely delayed by Judge Aileen Cannon for the Southern District of Florida. The Supreme Court looks poised to ensure that the D.C. January 6 federal case does not go to trial until after the November election, by which point it may be moot.
The facts of the Manhattan hush money prosecution drew critics for falling short of the scope and stakes of these other cases — the conduct took place years ago, none of it rises to the level of Trump’s efforts to stay in power after the 2020 election or theft and retention of top secret documents.
But the conviction is a bare reminder of a truth that the former President has long fought: that he’s not the arbiter of the world around him, and is equal before the law.
Holyshitdamn, the jury came back this afternoon in Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan for falsifying business records related to his porn peener payoffs, and here is your late breaking post on the late breaking news, with very little analysis:
GUILTY ON ALL 34 FUCKING COUNTS.
That’ll be the first time Trump got all the votes in his entire life, or ever will. He can appeal, but fuck that motherfucking felon.
A jury of Donald Trump’s peers — including that one the MAGA idiots were hanging their stupid sad hopes on — found him GUILTY.
[…] Here is Fox News playing the breaking news, including the cheers outside the courthouse, courtesy Aaron Rupar: [video at the link]
[…] More analysis on Wonkette tomorrow. First, the world celebrates!
For the first time in his 77 years, Mr. Trump was a felon. Thirty-four times over, he was told. It was unambiguous. It was certain. It was happening.
Before he emerged into the dimly lit hallway on the 15th floor of that dingy Art Deco courthouse, he huddled, for a spell, with his team. There was his son Eric Trump and a longtime loyalist, Boris Epshteyn. There was one of his lawyers from a different case, Alina Habba, and also his campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung. They put their heads together, but there was little mystery as to what the message might be. For months, Mr. Trump has cast himself as a martyr. And now, the moment had come. It was 5:19 p.m.
His advisers stepped aside, and he lumbered to the middle of the hall to face the cameras arranged there. Todd Blanche, Mr. Trump’s lead lawyer, stood a half-step behind, mimicking his client’s scowl.
“This was a disgrace,” Mr. Trump began.
He went on to lay out the story at the heart of his campaign for the White House, his conviction folding neatly into the narrative. These are not his problems. They are the nation’s. This is happening not because he hid payments to a porn star but because “our whole country is being rigged” and “has gone to hell.”
“We’re a nation in decline, serious decline. Millions and millions of people, pouring into our country right now, from prisons and from mental institutions, terrorists,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “And they’re taking over our country.”
In contrast, Mr. Trump said, “I’m a very innocent man. And it’s OK. I’m fighting for our country. I’m fighting for our Constitution.”
In Mr. Trump’s telling, he was doomed from the start — a New York jury would never have acquitted him.
He had talked so differently about the city just days earlier, when he held a rally in the Bronx, calling his “hometown” the “bustling center of a confident, glamorous American culture.” On that day, he had told his supporters that to be a New Yorker meant you “had smarts, you had grit, you had energy and above all else, you had heart.” […]
To hell with him and all of his nonsensical bloviating.
Bruhat Soma, a 12-year-old from Florida, had won three consecutive bees before taking the national crown Thursday.
Bruhat Soma was unbeatable before he arrived at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, and neither the dictionary, nor his competitors, nor a lightning-round tiebreaker challenged him on the way to victory.
Bruhat spelled 29 words correctly in the tiebreaker, beating Faizan Zaki by nine, to win the title Thursday night. He receives a trophy and more than $50,000 in cash and prizes.
The 12-year-old seventh-grader from Tampa, Florida, had won three consecutive bees before arriving at a convention center outside Washington for the most prestigious spelling competition in the English language. […]
The kid is great.
birgerjohanssonsays
US state department falsified report absolving Israel on Gaza aid – ex-official | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian
I’ve grokked some essences, not others, but there’s too much sibilance for me. There should be cuts, but those are equivalent to boosts … sssss … zzzzzz. Then I try to grok out for the day, but it’s almost time to get up again, so I never know how to do the sleeping part very well. And my memory is partially wiped concerning a lot of the noisiest parts of it, whatever it was.
StevoRsays
Latest installemnt of the Gina Rinehart portrait (non) issue :
She doesn’t know much about art .. indeed Gina Rinehart knows how to be a obscenely wealthy bully who wields her undeserved inherited riches as a weapon and that seems to be about all she knows really..
StevoRsays
Another space exploration event scehduled for tomorrow here :
A couple of weeks ago, Politico published a good piece from Ankush Khardori, a former federal prosecutor, who highlighted a key mistake Donald Trump’s lawyers were making during the hush money trial. After noting that the former president appeared pleased with his defense counsel, Khardori explained:
[It’s] clear that Trump’s lawyers are pursuing a flawed and risky strategy. Why? Most likely it’s not them, but him. Trump is the client, and he gets the final word on major decisions. So far as I can tell, this team has managed to stay on Trump’s good side by indulging — perhaps necessarily — his worst traits and instincts. It may be their downfall.
The former prosecutor wasn’t the only one who noticed. TalkingPointsMemo’s Josh Kovensky wrote a similar analysis the week before the verdict was announced, noting “a pattern that emerged throughout” the proceedings, in which Trump’s attorneys “went out of their way to massage his ego, loading questions with praise for their boss or having witnesses testify to how big and successful Trump is.”
Going through transcripts, Kovensky said he identified “dozens of instances in which Trump’s legal team directed their questioning towards eliciting testimony about the greatness of their client.”
[…] Trump’s lead attorney, Todd Blanche, made some television appearances in the wake of the jury’s verdict, including a discussion with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins who asked, “Who ultimately was in charge of the defense strategy here? Was it you? Or was it Donald Trump?”
“It was both of us,” Blanche replied. [video at the link]
The defense attorney also appeared on Fox News, repeatedly saying that Trump was “very involved“ and “very much involved“ with every aspect of the defense, including jury selection.
In the same appearance, Blanche added, “[Trump] jokingly said to us a lot that he wanted to be the litigator.”
Sure. “Jokingly.”
The lawyer concluded, “We made every decision together.”
In other words, the former president, facing a felony trial and a potential prison sentence, could’ve allowed his high-priced defense counsel to take the lead in pursuit of an acquittal. Instead, the former television personality, who has no meaningful background in the law or trial procedures, insisted on partnering with his lawyers and playing a direct role in “every decision.”
The result was a legal defense that focused on what Trump wanted to hear […]
It’s nice to hear that Trump helped to defeat himself.
USA Today published a well-timed piece a couple of weeks ago, noting that Donald Trump has embraced a crew of convicted criminals as the former president’s campaign advances. The article included a memorable quote.
“With Lincoln, they had a team of rivals,” Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley told the newspaper. “With Trump, you have a team of felons.”
As my MSNBC colleague Hayes Brown noted, that team now has a new member.
For a guy who claims to love “law and order,” Trump sure does wind up with a lot of people who have been convicted (or pardoned) for crimes in his inner circle.
In fact, it’s time to update the big list.
– Donald Trump was charged, convicted, and is awaiting sentencing.
– Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was charged, convicted, and sentenced to prison.
– Trump’s former campaign vice chairman, Rick Gates, was charged, convicted, and sentenced to prison.
– Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was charged, convicted, and sentenced to prison.
– Trump’s former adviser and former campaign aide, Roger Stone, was charged, convicted, and sentenced to prison.
– Trump’s former adviser and former White House aide Peter Navarro, was charged, convicted, and is currently in prison.
– Trump’s former campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, was charged, convicted, and sentenced to prison.
– The Trump Organization’s former CFO, Allen Weisselberg, was charged, convicted, and sentenced to prison.
– Trump’s former White House national security advisor, Michael Flynn, was charged and convicted.
– Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, was charged with wire fraud and money laundering, in addition to a conviction in a contempt case similar to Navarro’s. He’s currently awaiting sentencing.
– Though he was later acquitted at trial, Trump’s former inaugural committee chair, Tom Barrack, was charged with illegally lobbying Trump on behalf of a foreign government. (Elliot Broidy was the vice chair of Trump’s inaugural committee, and he found himself at the center of multiple controversies, and also pled guilty to federal charges related to illegal lobbying.)
– Two lawyers associated with Trump’s post-defeat efforts, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, have pleaded guilty to election-related crimes.
And did I mention that former president’s business was itself found guilty of tax fraud? Because it was.
This does not include the fact that a jury held Trump liable for sexual abuse in a civil case.
To be sure, some of the aforementioned men were ultimately pardoned by Trump, who doled out pardons as if they were party favors before exiting the Oval Office, but this doesn’t change the scope of the broader picture.
The number of people in Trump’s orbit who’ve been convicted of crimes in recent years is so great, The Washington Post once described it as the “remarkable universe of criminality“ surrounding the former president.
That was five years ago. It’s even more remarkable now.
“Universe of criminality” and “team of felons” are both apt phrases.
[…] we spent two hundreds years building and refining to do more great things, to help more people in more ways, to continue to level the playing field, to expand the good things we do and minimize the bad, to try to arrest our self-inflicted climate catastrophe. But instead we looked down and discovered a real estate barker turned reality TV star had formed a cult of the disagreeable under the banner of the Republican Party, handed out pickaxes and chisels, and had proceeded en masse to begin manically chipping away at that foundation.
Not everyone saw it right away. Not everyone wanted to see it. Many still don’t see it. But in the hours since the verdict in New York City, it’s been made clear again, if there were any doubt, that they will not stop their attack. I expect you’ll see it reengaged in its fiercest form at Trump’s press conference scheduled for 11 a.m. ET. The rule of law, democracy, justice, freedom itself remain deeply in peril. […]
Trump’s conviction was a battle won. The war rages on. It’s not clear yet who will win out in the end.
Donald John Trump has now been convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying documents to cover up a scheme to defraud voters in the 2016 election. It may have seemed as if Trump would never face any consequences for his actions. That changed Thursday.
Trump’s conviction may be a singular event, but he’s certainly not alone among his friends and co-workers. From his business, to his campaign, and on into his administration, Trump has been connected with a string of crimes and a list of felons. Not all of them got their own orange jumpsuits, but some did. Maybe they can provide Trump with a few tips on how to handle the guys in the yard.
Here’s a dirty baker’s dozen of Trump pals, all of whom have been convicted or pleaded guilty to a felony charge. Any of them should be happy to commensurate with Trump over his conviction. That is, if they’re out of jail. And if they’re allowed to associate with felons.
Paul Manafort, campaign chairman: Tax fraud and bank fraud
Rick Gates, Trump’s deputy campaign manager: Conspiracy against the United States
Roger Stone, campaign adviser: Obstruction, lying to the FBI, witness interference
Steve Bannon, chief strategist: Defying a subpoena
George Nader, foreign policy adviser: Child sex abuse
Peter Navarro, trade adviser: Contempt of Congress
Michael Cohen, Trump attorney: Campaign finance fraud and tax evasion
Jenna Ellis, Trump attorney: Aiding and abetting false statements
Micahel Flynn, national security adviser: Lying to the FBI
George Papadopoulos, campaign adviser: Lying to the FBI
Kenneth Chesebro, Trump attorney: Conspiracy to file false documents
Alan Wiesselberg, Trump Organization CFO: Perjury
Elliot Broidy, top fundraiser and campaign adviser: Conspiracy to violate FISA
Trump used his extraordinary pardon authority in a very un-ordinary way the last time he had the opportunity, pardoning pals Manafort, Flynn, Broidy, and Stone so that none of them had to serve more than a fraction of their sentences. He also pardoned Bannon, who was charged with ripping off donors who thought they were helping to build Trump’s wall, before his case even went to trial. That didn’t stop Bannon from getting himself indicted a second time—and convicted—after Trump left office.
Right now, the Good Felons club doesn’t include his former attorneys Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, who have both been indicted. And Sidney Powell is only a junior member, thanks to her multiple misdemeanors.
Chief of staff Mark Meadows and deputy chief of staff Daniel Scavino didn’t face charges, though the House voted to hold them in contempt and recommended their prosecution to the Department of Justice. They got lucky.
But give it time. More Trump associates are sure to join the list.
[snipped other examples of Republicans still backing Trump] “Today’s verdict is not about justice; it’s about revenge,” Virginia Rep. Jen Kiggans thundered.
Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon also had thoughts. “This is an unprecedented prosecution for a crime very seldom charged,” he railed. Seldom, alas, but not never! There’s a reason we keep these laws on the books—which is something you’d think a member of the Congressional Law Enforcement Caucus might understand.
All of these members of Congress have something in common: They all represent districts that Joe Biden carried in 2020, and they all face very competitive elections this fall. And unlike most of their GOP colleagues in blue seats, they’re proudly speaking out on behalf of a felon their constituents have rejected.
Democrats need to gain just four seats in November. These half-dozen Republicans alone could be the difference-makers. And that would be something worth talking about.
From CTV News: Can Trump come to Canada now that he’s a convicted felon?
Short answer: No; the Convicted Felon is barred from entry into Canada.
But what if he becomes (gulp) President? Is he still barred from entry? No, he would not be barred, provided that he make some kind of showing:
He would have to show the Immigration Department, or the federal minister, that he had a compelling reason to be in Canada and that he wouldn’t commit more crimes on this side of the border.
On May 29th, 2024, the Swedish Ministry of Defense formally announced it would be transferring 2 ASC 890-equipped Saab 340 AEW&C (Airborne Early Warning and Control) aircraft to Ukraine. While this move was lauded as hugely beneficial to Ukraine, I feel that not enough ink has been spilled to explain why this move has such immense significance.
To put it shortly, these two Saab 340s, once their abilities can be combined with F-16 fighter squadrons, will likely put an end to the prolific use of one of Russia’s most potent weapons in the past year: the glide bomb.
[videos at the link]
Russian glide bombs have a release range of 35-40km under combat conditions. Far enough that Russian fighter-bombers can skim the ground to avoid radar detection, pull up into a sharp climb to “lob” the bomb at Ukrainian targets, and then rely on satellite coordinate guidance for the bomb to glide to hit its targets.
Compared to American JDAM and French Hammer glide bombs, Russian bombs are judged to have poor accuracy, but Russia makes up for this by equipping far larger bombs. While Ukraine primarily uses 230 kg bombs (they don’t need a larger size for most targets, because of their precision), Russians use 500, 1000, and 1500 kg glide bombs, with 500 and 1000kg bombs being the most commonly deployed size. The far larger destructive radius of the bombs makes up for their relative lack of precision, making them fearsome weapons.
Russians evade detection from Ukrainian air defense system’s radar using altitude and radar clutter.
From ground level, radar has trouble distinguishing between ground clutter (trees and other tall objects) which it is designed to ignore, and objects flying at low altitudes.
Additionally, the curvature of the earth makes detection of low flying aircraft difficult beyond about 30km.
[…] Using this impunity, Russia has made frequent use of glide bombs in attacking key frontline Ukrainian targets in the past year. A tactic for which Ukraine has not had any good answers.
For example, Russian forces have been engaged in a furious battle for Vovchansk in Kharkiv Oblast. You can see that on May 29th alone, Russian bombers struck 10 different Ukrainian targets with glide bomb attacks, […]
This is not atypical at all—since early 2023, Russia has rapidly ramped up production of glidebombs, to the point where it has become one of Russia’s primary weapons.
[…] It is particularly important because Russia lacks ground launched precision guided weapons in quantity, and Russian artillery volume has steadily declined since the heyday of Russian artillery bombardments in Summer 2022.
Ukrainian advantages like advanced counterbattery radar and HIMARS, as well as the declining availability of Russian artillery replacement tubes, has forced Russia to rely on more and more archaic artillery to keep its firepower at acceptable levels. Since mid-2023, glide bombs have played an increasingly crucial role in maintaining Russian firepower.
This is why the F-16, paired with the Swedish ASC 890 airborne radar, may play a massively important role.
[…] This means, Ukrainian F-16s cannot survive if they are flying 10,000 feet+. At that altitude, if they come anywhere close to the front lines, they will be engaged by Russian SAM batteries and be destroyed.
However, if a Ukrainian F-16 is relying on its own radar to detect enemy aircraft, its radar is limited also by the curvature of the earth.
[…] The higher the radar, the further the radar horizon. Being able to use radar detection while fly high in the air is a massive advantage.
That is where the two ASC 890 Radar-equipped Saab 340 AEW&C can come in.
You may wonder how far just 2 aircraft will go in such a large theater of conflict, but this image below from Noel Reports illustrates just how far the ASC 890 radar can detect. [X post and map at the link]
The ASC 890 radar can detect non-stealth enemy planes up to 400km away, and up to 350km even the target is flying at super low altitudes in high radar clutter environments with heavy electronic warfare interference.
This means a Saab 340 equipped with the ASC 890 can fly at 25,000 feet, while operating 250+km behind enemy lines, and still detect Russian fighters flying at super low altitudes over 100km behind the front.
The sheer distance by which the Saab 340 operates from the front protects it from almost all forms of anti-air capabilities, and even if a ultra-long range missile is fired at it, it has plenty of time to deploy countermeasures to protect itself.
For example, one of the longest ranged Russian anti-air missiles is the R-37M missile, with a claimed range of 400+km, but the longest recorded kill by the Russian air force has been just over 200km. Ukrainian pilots claim the missile is fairly easy to evade if the pilots see it coming and deploy countermeasures—and the Saab 340’s ASC 890 radar virtually ensures that Ukrainian pilots will see the missile coming.
What is critically important then, is that the ASC 890 has an integrated datalink that allows it to transfer missile locks to F-16 fighters. ASC 890 has Link 16 datalink capabilities, meaning its radar functionality can be fully integrated with a linked F-16, much like a NATO E-3 Sentry. […] when datalinked with the high-flying Saab 340’s ASC 890, the F-16’s “eyes” are now effectively that of the aircraft flying at 60,000 feet that can see 100+ km behind Russian lines.
[…] The ASC 890 system is capable of tracking over 1000 airborne and 500 surface targets simultaneously. It can send all that information to F-16s via datalink, while the pilot is hugging the ground in relative safety.
Ukraine’s first wave of F-16 pilots completed F-16 flight school and are undergoing final tune up training in Europe. The first of 85 F-16s pledged to Ukraine are expected to arrive this summer, perhaps as soon as within a number of weeks.
[…] Even if Ukraine doesn’t have an F-16 in range, if a NASAMS or Patriot launcher is in range, even if the SAM battery’s radar can’t see the bomber, it can radar lock and hit it with the ASC 890’s help.
Not surprisingly, congressional Republicans have responded to Donald Trump’s felony conviction with hysterics, and as my MSNBC colleague Zeeshan Aleem noted, the former president’s GOP allies on Capitol Hill have been especially fond of one deeply flawed claim.
The trial’s outcome is proof that the U.S. is actually not a modern state: House Majority Leader Steve Scalise declared the verdict proof that the U.S. has become a “banana republic.” Never mind that treating former political leaders accountable under the law is, in reality, one of the clearest indicators of robust rule of law in a democracy.
[…] this rhetorical push is not altogether new. Indeed, in the wake of Trump’s pre-conviction indictments, much of the GOP settled on this as an unfortunate talking point: Only “third world” countries allow former leaders to face criminal charges. Such indictments are common in “banana republics,” Trump’s partisan allies have repeatedly argued, but stable and mature democracies wouldn’t tolerate prosecutors pursuing a former head of state, just because there’s evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
But this has never made any sense. […] stable democracies that take the rule of law seriously hold criminal suspects accountable — even if they’re politically powerful, and even if they served in government at the highest levels. In fact, on the international stage, this has happened in recent years with some regularity.
Italy prosecuted a former prime minister. France prosecuted a former president and a former prime minister. South Africa prosecuted a former president. South Korea prosecuted a former president. Brazil has prosecuted more than one former president. Israel has prosecuted more than one former prime minister.
Germany prosecuted a former president. Portugal prosecuted a former prime minister. Croatia prosecuted a former prime minister. Argentina prosecuted a former president. Austria prosecuted a former chancellor.
These cases did not lead to violence or threats of violence. The criminal cases were tried without incident. These countries’ political systems persevered just fine, without talk of institutional breakdowns.
As far as Republicans are concerned, should Americans consider each of these countries — advanced, modern democracies, including nuclear powers and NATO members — “banana republics”? Should we see these countries as engaging in law enforcement tactics on par with what “third world” countries do? The answer should be obvious.
Last fall, as the criminal investigations into Trump intensified, former Vice President Mike Pence tried to argue that the scrutiny itself sent “the wrong message to the wider world that looks to America as the gold standard.”
But much of the wider world has shrugged its shoulders in response to the charges against Trump. The Daily Beast reported after Trump’s initial indictment, “In the eyes of the world’s media, the indictment of Donald Trump was not the big freaking deal many Americans might expect. […] the story ranked beneath most regional and local concerns […]
Around the same time, Secretary of State Antony Blinken participated in a discussion with his NATO counterparts, and he told reporters soon after that none of them brought up the criminal allegations surrounding the former president.
I’m not suggesting that it’s a good thing when a nation’s former chief executive is accused of crimes, but I am suggesting that it’s a relatively common thing in advanced democracies, Republican hysteria notwithstanding.
KGsays
Lynna, OM@371,
I read suggestions that the key defence error – undoubtedly insisted on by Trump – was the denial that the sexual encounter with Stormy Daniels took place. That was obviously false, and may have led any uncertain jurors to conclude that since he lied about that, he also lied about the reason for the payoff, his role in making it happen, etc.
Kudos to the jurors. As far as I can judge from reports of the trial, the evidence of Trump’s guilt was pretty overwhelming, but it took a lot of courage to risk being the target of Trumpist revenge – and that of Trump himself if he returns to the White House.
In the wake of Donald Trump’s first federal criminal indictment last summer, there was quite a bit of commentary about “tests.” Americans are seeing a test of our political system. A test of our judicial system. A test for the rule of law. A test of the courts. A test of the integrity of our democracy. A test of the nation itself.
Now that the former Republican president has been convicted of several felonies, the focus on “tests” is back. The New York Times reported overnight:
Whether the conviction will resonate with voters in November is impossible to predict. One thing is certain: Mr. Trump’s conviction will test the American people, and the nation’s fealty to the rule of law.
There’s a dimension to this that’s easy to overlook amidst the commentary: This is a test we already know how to pass.
[…] Trump is a scandal-plagued politician who’s now been convicted of many crimes. But in the United States, we have all kinds of experience with scandal-plagued politicians getting convicted of many crimes.
It happens all the time. It doesn’t tear at the fabric of our civic lives. It does not open the door to political violence. It is, for lack of a better word, normal.
This is not to say that the former president’s conviction is unimportant. On the contrary, it’s extraordinary, in part because of our history, in part because the Republican has gone so long evading serious legal consequences, and in part because it might affect the outcome of the 2024 election.
But it’s not as if Americans are unfamiliar with the broader dynamic at the intersection of politics and the criminal justice system. The fact that it involves a former president is unusual, but we’ve seen convictions of governors, senators, House members, state legislators, Cabinet secretaries, mayors, and city officials. Spiro Agnew, during his tenure as vice president, even pleaded guilty to a felony and resigned in disgrace.
None of these cases threatened our republic. The suspects were charged, and their cases were adjudicated. The United States endured without any trouble at all.
Our political system, in other words, should be able to handle Trump’s conviction without breaking a sweat.
What would put our political system in jeopardy, however, would be for the former president and/or his allies to reject our system of justice, and to insist that Trump must remain above the law — because they say so.
House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, for example, responded to the jury’s verdict by telling the public that “the American justice system” has become “corrupt and rigged.” The condemnation wasn’t rooted in fact, but the former president himself, among many others, has used nearly identical language.
Note, Trump and his sycophants aren’t just targeting the relevant players in the underlying case — the local prosecutors, the judge, members of the jury, et al. — they’re also telling Americans not to trust the “justice system” itself.
The Republicans’ motivations are obvious: They want to delegitimize a core American institution — not because it’s failed, but because it’s holding their leader accountable. If the justice system is holding Trump liable for his crimes, then as far as the GOP is concerned, the justice system must become a target.
[…] Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Times, “This was a conviction by a jury of Americans who listened to the evidence and made their decision. When you undermine courts the way that elections have already been undermined, there is no peaceful way to settle differences.”
The presumptive GOP nominee’s conviction is historic, but it’s not a crisis — unless Republicans decide to turn it into one.
Donald Trump’s campaign claims it raised a staggering $34.8 million from small-dollar donors — in less than seven hours — as a result of his criminal conviction in New York.
Politico:
[…] the former president’s political operation has reportedly told its Republican allies not to launch fundraising drives related to his guilty verdict, apparently because Team Trump wants all of the conviction-related money for itself.
Politico:
Six years after Trump made the curious decision to give GOP mega-donor Miriam Adelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the casino billionaire has apparently decided to bankroll a new super PAC intended to boost Trump’s 2024 prospects. The project will be called, “Preserve America.”
Sen. Joe Manchin — a lifelong Democrat, member of the Senate Democratic leadership, and a man who’s ostensibly retiring in six months — officially became an independent this morning. It’s sparking renewed discussion about the West Virginian’s future electoral plans.
One of the biggest takeaways from former producer Bill Pruitt’s new tell-all about his experience working on “The Apprentice” is that Donald Trump, as we all suspected, really did use the N-word while filming the reality show that launched his yearslong campaign to make us all rue the day our parents met.
And, to be clear, that’s a damn big takeaway.
Pruitt’s nondisclosure agreement with the show expired this year, freeing him up to spill the tea on Trump in the digital pages of Slate. And as Pruitt recounts in his consistently eye-opening, occasionally eye-gouging essay, Trump had some very specific thoughts on race and how it pertained to one of the show’s contestants.
Forced to decide between two finalists—Kwame Jackson, who is Black, and Bill Rancic, who’s white—Trump eventually asked the burning question no one but the blathering Fred Trump homunculus in his head was asking:
“Yeah, but, I mean, would America buy a n—— winning?”
As gobsmacking and disgusting as that is, it’s not actually the biggest takeaway from Pruitt’s essay.
[snipped lots of details]
Pruitt gives several examples of the myth-making necessary to make their star appear more potent and palatable than he really was—Trump’s actual offices were “cramped” and shabbily appointed with chipped or peeling wood furniture, for example—but the following excerpt seems especially chilling given the kid-glove treatment much of the media continue to give the three-time chaos candidate:
If you listen carefully, especially to that first episode, you will notice clearly altered dialogue from Trump in both the task delivery and the boardroom. Trump was overwhelmed with remembering the contestants’ names, the way they would ride the elevator back upstairs or down to the street, the mechanics of what he needed to convey. Bienstock instigated additional dialogue recording that came late in the edit phase. We set Trump up in the soundproof boardroom set and fed him lines he would read into a microphone with Bienstock on the phone, directing from L.A. And suddenly Trump knows the names of every one of the contestants and says them while the camera cuts to each of their faces. Wow, you think, how does he remember everyone’s name?While on location, he could barely put a sentence together regarding how a task would work. Listen now, and he speaks directly to what needs to happen while the camera conveniently cuts away to the contestants, who are listening and nodding. He sounds articulate and concise through some editing sleight of hand.
Well, doesn’t that sound familiar? Indeed, it’s a bit too reminiscent of the American media’s infuriating tendency to cover for an oft-indicted insurrectionist and confirmed sexual assaulter who can’t speak for more than five minutes without saying something that’d make David Duke barf up a lung.
There are oh-so-many examples of this—and y’all probably have your own favorites—but the part where Pruitt talks about Trump sounding “articulate and concise through some editing sleight of hand” is particularly galling, given that the media continually circle like vultures waiting for President Joe Biden to stutter, fall off his bike, or put on a tan suit, while ignoring (or using “editing sleight of hand” to conceal) endless barmy bon mots from Trump.
This happens all the effing time, of course, but here’s just one example of the media eliding Trump’s unhingery while stuck in full “Biden is too senile and old” mode. It comes in the form of two succinct but telling tweets:
In a single speech tonight, Trump has:
• confused Friday with Saturday
• said that Pennsylvania will cease to exist because “they” will change the name
• said he charged China hundreds of millions in dino-dollars
• claimed he saw someone shoplift a refrigerator
He confused Friday with Saturday? Really? (Actually, he confused Friday night with Saturday afternoon, but that’s just nitpicking, isn’t it?)
Meanwhile, here’s what The New York Times editorial page featured the day after Trump debuted his impression of a one-winged bumblebee trying to navigate its way out of a Coke bottle: [X post at the link, with a whole bunch of nonsense about how Biden should step aside, etc.]
And … scene.
Then there was the time the press weirdly downplayed what should have been yet another disqualifying black mark for Trump: the discovery of still more classified documents at Mar-a-Lago months after the initial FBI search. […]
And remember when the Times tried to explain why Biden’s age was a bigger problem than Trump’s, even though Trump is just four years younger than Biden?
Mr. Trump, by contrast, does not appear to be suffering the effects of time in such visible ways. Mr. Trump often dyes his hair and appears unnaturally tan. He is heavyset and tall, and he uses his physicality to project strength in front of crowds. When he takes the stage at rallies, he basks in adulation for several minutes, dancing to an opening song, and then holds forth in speeches replete with macho rhetoric and bombast that typically last well over an hour, a display of stamina.
[…] Oh, and did you know Donald Trump is a sexy beast of an “outlaw” who’s captured the imagination of the public, much like Butch Cassidy and Jesse James?
The New York Times. Again.
Trump Leans Into an Outlaw Image as His Criminal Trial Concludes
Over the past week, Donald J. Trump rallied alongside two rap artists accused of conspiracy to commit murder. He promised to commute the sentence of a notorious internet drug dealer. And he appeared backstage with another rap artist who has pleaded guilty to assault for punching a female fan.
As Mr. Trump awaits the conclusion of his Manhattan trial — closing arguments are set for Tuesday and a verdict could arrive as soon as this week — he used a weeklong break from court to align himself with defendants and convicted criminals charged by the same system with which he is at war.
See, it’s not enough to say Trump is likely or almost certainly a criminal. He has to be portrayed—in headlines, at least—as a hale and hearty folk legend who’s fighting The Man on behalf of the downtrodden and persecuted. […]
So whaddya say, media muckety-mucks? Wanna help save democracy and the free press? It starts with treating Trump as a real threat instead of a previously vetted reality star. And all you have to do is consistently and confidently report the unvarnished truth! Should be easy, right? Right?
Sen. Susan Collins released a statement yesterday denouncing the Manhattan trial verdict and in the course of that claiming that District Attorney Alvin Bragg “campaigned on a promise to prosecute Donald Trump.” I and others have looked in vain for any evidence of this. My assumption going in was that this was false and all research supports that contention.
It is always hard to prove a negative. But there’s some paradoxical assist in this from a year old article by Byron York in which York tries to sustain this claim by noting what other candidates said and trying to stitch together disparate statements from Bragg that he says amounts to a pledge or even claiming that Bragg had resorted to a progressive code to make such a pledge without using any of the normal English words. According to York, when Bragg said “people in power” he meant Trump and when he said he would hold people “accountable” that was code for prosecuting Trump. (I’m not making this up or exeggerating. He says all of this.) In other words, York labored to susain this claim by every strategy other than providing any evidence for the claim.
Clearly York was extremely focused on proving the Bragg had made such a campaign promise. The fact that York, an able researcher and reporter, wasn’t able to come up with any evidence of that at all and had to rely on these arguments about secret progressive codes and stitching together disparate lines of text like he was assembling a kidnap ransom letter gets us about as close to proving the negative as is humanly possible. In that sense this was true service journalism, albeit somewhat unintentional, on Byron’s part.
What Collins stated unambiguously and declaratively was clearly false. Whether she was just going on false GOP claims or confused Alvin Bragg with Tish James I do not know. But she really needs to retract this false claim and apologize to Bragg. As far as I know, no reporter has yet pressed her on this false claim.
Speaker [Mike] Johnson on Fox says “Supreme Court should step in” as Trump eyes long appeals battle for hush money verdict
“I think that the justices on the court,I know many of them personally,I think they’re deeply concerned about that as we are. So I think they’ll set this straight”
President Biden announced the terms of an Israeli-led proposal Friday that includes a three-part road map toward an end to fighting and the release of all remaining hostages taken Oct. 7, giving the strongest indication yet of a potential end to the war between Israel and Hamas.
“After intensive diplomacy carried out by my team, my many conversations with leaders of Israel, Qatar and Egypt, and other Middle Eastern countries, Israel has offered a comprehensive new proposal. It’s a road map to an enduring cease-fire and the release of all hostages,” Biden said.
He said that while the proposal has been transmitted to Hamas via Qatar, he indicated the U.S.-designated terrorist organization that runs the Gaza Strip had not yet formally accepted the plan.
[…] Biden also pleaded from the White House podium for Israelis to back the deal, arguing they have devastated Hamas since the war began in October following the attack on Israel.
“The people of Israel should know, they can make this offer without any further risk to their own security because they’ve devastated Hamas … for the past eight months. At this point, Hamas no longer is capable of carrying out another Oct. 7, which is one of Israel’s main objective of this war […]
[…] he warned against allowing an indefinite war.
“I know there are those in Israel who will not agree with this plan and will call for the war to continue indefinitely. Some are even in the government coalition. They’ve made it clear they want to occupy Gaza, they want to keep fighting for years, the hostages are not a priority for them,” he said. “I urge Israel to stand behind this deal, despite whatever pressure comes.”
Biden laid out the proposal in three phases. An initial phase would include a six-week cease-fire, then a withdrawal of Israeli forces from all populated areas of Gaza, and the release of all remaining hostages taken from Israel on Oct. 7. It also includes parameters for internally displaced Palestinians to return to their homes and reconstruction efforts of the devastated coastal enclave.
During the six-week break in fighting, Israel and Hamas would negotiate the necessary arrangements to get to phase two, but if those negotiations lasted longer than six weeks, the cease-fire would continue while plans were hashed out, Biden said.
[…] “As long as Hamas lives up to its commitment, a temporary cease-fire would become, in the words of the Israeli proposal, a cessation of hostilities permanently.” […]
Sounds more like a proposal from Qatar and the USA, than from Israel, but maybe there is some diplomatic reason to give Israel credit.
Ivanka Trump is speaking out publicly for the first time since her father, former President Trump, was found guilty of all 34 counts in his hush money criminal case.
[…] posted an Instagram Story on Thursday.
“I love you dad,” the message said, with a throwback photo of Trump’s eldest daughter as a toddler posing with her father. […]
Doesn’t sound like “speaking out publicly.” Looks more like doing/saying as little as possible while pretending to support dear old Dad.
“I think we’ll likely see a lot of Trump supporters reflecting on those chants [of “Lock her up!” references to Hillary Clinton] now. As a whole, his base is very self-aware and empathetic.”
Excerpt from a longer article posted by Wonkette:
[…] In another novel thought experiment, Alan Dershowitz went on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, which we believe runs 26 hours a day, via witchcraft, to explain that, sadly for Trump enthusiasts, the Great Man’s felony convictions are unlikely to be overturned. But that’s not because the case was so well-proved, or because an appeal would fall short of showing the prosecution was unfair, or any of those troublesome law-knowin’ things.
Nope, Dersh said with an apparently straight face that no judge would be willing to overturn Trump’s conviction because then they’d be shunned by all their peers, just as Dershowitz became a pariah in the Martha’s Vineyard social scene when he stood up for Trump on Fox News, and also when Trump was on trial in the Senate (same thing) during his first impeachment.
“He has to appeal first through the New York system and the New York system are all judges that don’t wanna be responsible for freeing Donald Trump. These are people with their families. These are people who don’t wanna be Dershowitzed.”
You were aware that’s a verb, right? It’s absolutely a thing that human beings other than Alan Dershowitz say, all the time!
“People know what happened to me when I defended Donald Trump on the floor of the Senate. Nobody on Martha’s Vineyard would speak to me, Harvard Law School canceled me after I’d been there for 50 years, and judges don’t want that to happen to them. So I am not encouraged that he’ll get a fair appeal.”
That is exactly how the law works in America today […]
“Any Republican elected official, candidate or party committee siphoning money from President Trump’s donors are no better than Judge Merchan’s daughter,” said Trump co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita. “We’re keeping a list, we’ll be checking it twice and we aren’t in the spirit of Christmas.”
Stephen Thomas Farrea, 34, of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, has been very concerned these last few years about Drag Queen Story Hours. He’s shown up on multiple occasions to protest them, along with his friends in the Nationalist Social Club-131 (NSC-131) — a club for literal neo-Nazis that, notably, The Dropkick Murphys filed a cease and desist order against.
Now, take a moment and imagine literal neo-Nazis thinking that they are the authority on what children ought to be exposed to, when I think we’d all hope that most parents in these United States would far prefer their children going to a Drag Story Hour than a KKK rally.
As it turns out, Stephen Thomas Farrea is the last goddamned person you would want anywhere near your children, and not just because of the whole thing of being a Nazi who belongs to a neo-Nazi club, but also because he was arrested and arraigned last week after police found piles of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) on his various electronic devices. [snipped details of some white supremacist activities]
Farrea is far from the first neo-Nazi or Drag Queen Story Hour protester to be caught with CSAM. In fact, a number of minor and prominent white supremacists have been arrested for the same thing, or for actually grooming or molesting children over the years. In fact, he’s not even the first from that particular group.
Andrew Hazelton, an NSC-131 member from Maine, was arrested for possession of CSAM after the FBI discovered that he had been attempting to groom a 10-year-old girl over Instagram.
Kevin Alfred Strom, the founder of National Vanguard, was arrested in 2007 for possession of child pornography. You may remember him from the time Elon Musk shared a quote by him — “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize” — and attributed it to Voltaire.
Jared Boyce of Patriot Front pleaded guilty last year to nine felony counts of sexual exploitation of a minor after police found numerous examples of CSAM on his electronics after he was arrested for trying to start a riot at a Pride event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
Less than 24 hours after being found guilty on 34 felony counts, Donald Trump stood in front of a backdrop of American flags and was ready to get weeks of frustration off his chest. The pugilistic former president spent 40 minutes unloading rambling comments peppered with mistruths and distortions to defend himself in news conference Friday at Trump Tower in Manhattan.
NBC News:
President Joe Biden took a thinly veiled swipe at the former president’s attacks on the justice system. ‘It’s reckless, it’s dangerous, it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict,’ Biden said, speaking to reporters at the White House.
The Texas Supreme Court on Friday rejected a challenge to the state’s abortion ban — a response to a lawsuit filed last year by a group of women who had serious pregnancy complications. The ruling from the nine justices, who are all Republicans, was unanimous.
[…] no group is more craven than Trump’s desperate cohort of vice presidential wannabes, all of whom made sure to react loudly to the verdict and rush to the felon’s defense.
[…] “I think what we need to fear now is that there are plenty of Democrat, Soros, left-wing, Marxist prosecutors prepared to charge people on the right with crimes in order to get them out of politics, and that’s a very scary place to be,” Marco Rubio whined. [video at the link]
[…] “More black voters will flock to Trump in droves & for good reason,” Ramaswamy tweeted. “I didn’t think the Democrat Party would be so dumb, but here we are.” I didn’t think you could be more of a racist asshat, but here we are, Vivek.
[…] Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina released a cringe-tastic video where he painfully attempted to incorporate Trump’s catchphrase from “The Apprentice” at the end. (Warning: Embarrassing to watch.) [video at the link] […]
[…] Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, now a Republican Senate nominee, became the first high-profile defector to cross the new line Thursday when he urged Americans to “respect the verdict and the legal process.” Hogan’s betrayal drew the immediate wrath of Trump’s campaign manager, who quote-tweeted Hogan, writing, “You just ended your campaign.” […]
A disciplinary board associated with the D.C. Bar recommended disbarring Rudy Giuliani Friday, over efforts he took to prevent the transfer of power after former President Trump lost the 2020 election.
The recommendation — which must still be approved by the D.C. Court of Appeals — offers a scathing review of Giuliani’s efforts to fight Trump’s loss in Pennsylvania.
Giuliani “urged a federal judge to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania voters even though he had no objectively reliable evidence that any such scheme existed,” the Board of Professional Responsibility wrote.
The board noted disbarment is not often proposed for filing frivolous lawsuits, but wrote that no other cases “involve the aggravating factors” seen in Giuliani’s case.
“No prior disciplinary cases involving frivolous litigation are remotely comparable to this case. We conclude that disbarment is the only sanction that will protect the public, the courts, and the integrity of the legal profession, and deter other lawyers from launching similarly baseless claims in the pursuit of such wide-ranging yet completely unjustified relief.” […]
A spokesman for Giuliani asserted without evidence that the determination was the result of “partisan Democrats.” […]
I’ve been thinking about the paperclip maximizer thought experiment ever since I found out on Thursday morning that Vox Media, the company to which Future Perfect and Vox belong, had signed a licensing deal with OpenAI to allow its published material to be used to train its AI models and be shared within ChatGPT.
The precise details of the deal — including how much Vox Media will be making for licensing its content, how often the deal can be renewed, and what kinds of protections might exist for specific kinds of content — are not yet fully clear. In a press release, Vox Media co-founder, CEO, and chair Jim Bankoff said that the deal “aligns with our goals of leveraging generative AI to innovate for our audience and customers, protect and grow the value of our work and intellectual property, and boost productivity and discoverability to elevate the talent and creativity of our exceptional journalists and creators.”
Vox Media is hardly alone in striking such a deal with OpenAI. The Atlantic announced a similar agreement the same day. (Check out Atlantic editor Damon Beres’s great take on it.) Over the past several months, publishing companies representing more than 70 newspapers, websites, and magazines have licensed their content to OpenAI, including Wall Street Journal owner News Corp, Politico owner Axel Springer, and the Financial Times.
(Generative Pre-trained Transformer)
John Moralessays
[Alas, though the article mentions the allegorical thought experiment, it does not point to the game made of it]
The conservative media company behind the book and film “2,000 Mules,” which alleged a widespread conspiracy by Democrats to steal the 2020 election and was embraced by former president Donald Trump, has issued an apology and said it would halt distribution of the film and remove both the film and book from its platforms.
In a statement posted to their website, Salem Media Group, Inc. apologized specifically to Mark Andrews, a voter from Georgia falsely depicted illegally voting in “2,000 Mules.” …
StevoRsays
A couple of space exploration events happening this weekend with the Chang’-e -6 spacecraft scheduled to land on the Moon :
If all goes to plan, it will be humanity’s first sample from the region, representing an important symbolic, scientific and possibly strategic win for the rising space power. Although this is not even China’s first sample-return mission to the Moon.
On 16 December 2020, the return capsule of the Chang’e 5 mission landed in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. It had travelled hundreds of thousands of miles from the Moon, carrying 1,731g (61 oz) of precious lunar dust. Remarkably, this represented the first lunar sample return mission since the USSR’s Luna 24 brought back 170g (6 oz) in August 1976. There’s no 44-year wait this time though, as China’s next lunar sample-return is already underway.
“Cowboy Action Shooting: The Frontiersman Category”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=UG_8oLkwkGI
(Karl Kasarda et al are among the most reasonable gun enthusiasts. I have not found anything objectionable about his content)
As soon as Judge Merchan announced on Thursday that the jury had reached a verdict, you could feel the collective heart rates of those in the room skyrocket. Court security officers appeared out of nowhere; a dull roar began to waft up from the crowds outside of the building.
It was a long road to get to that point. Most of the reporters who had covered the trial waited hours each morning to enter the courthouse. The building itself alternated between stiflingly hot and extremely cold, with court security randomly giving and then taking away the right to eat in the hallway.
And while a few weeks at the beginning of the trial saw diminished interest (I was able to show up at 7:00 a.m. ET for Keith Davidson’s testimony), that changed once Stormy Daniels appeared. That’s when multi-day waits for members of the public began, and regular 5:00 a.m. ET start times for members of the press. A small secondary market in line-waiting developed toward the end of the trial, with prices going into the upper hundreds of dollars or more to pay for someone to hold your spot.
Covering it felt like completing a marathon — exhaustion peaked towards the end, held in abeyance only by the excitement of nearing the finish line.
Amid all of that, my fundamental impression is that Trump got a fair shake. His attorneys had an opportunity to shape the jury pool; they used it. The result was a jury featuring people who expressed ambivalence about politics generally or positivity about Trump’s policies specifically. Judge Merchan removed potential jurors who had expressed negative opinions about Trump on social media.
Throughout testimony, Merchan went out of his way to rule in the defense’s favor on gray area issues. He lost his temper a few times. One was when the former President repeatedly violated a gag order; another was when Bob Costello, a defense witness, was openly hostile to and defiant of Merchan. As the trial wore on, it seemed to me that Merchan ruled more often in favor of the defense than not. He chastised them at one point for not being more active in their use of objections.
We’re already hearing a lot about how the trial was unfair and that the judge was in the tank for Trump. That is just fundamentally not true. The trial was fair; Trump had his day in court.
What’s telling to me in this is that some of the more reality-based conservatives spend less time on the inherent bias of the trial, and instead on criticizing Trump himself and his influence on the defense. Attorney Todd Blanche said last night that Trump wanted to be a “litigator;” that led to a series of tactical moves that were disastrous for the defense.
But even that isn’t the core of the criticism from the MAGA right. What they seem to really hold in contempt with Merchan is, in fact, how he applied the law: fairly and indifferently. You can’t argue with that; all you can do is chip away.
Trumpian thugs are going after the jurors in Trump’s trial:
[…] In the hours after Trump was convicted, his diehards have gone as far as to attempt to doxx the jurors. Nonprofit public interest research firm Advance Democracy flagged several posts on pro-Trump platforms targeting jurors.
“Dox the Jurors. Dox them now,” one user wrote after Trump’s conviction on a website formerly known as “The Donald,” which was popular among participants in the Capitol attack. (That post appears to have been quickly removed by moderators.)
“We need to identify each juror. Then make them miserable. Maybe even suicidal,” wrote another user on the same forum. “1,000,000 men (armed) need to go to washington and hang everyone. That’s the only solution,” wrote another user. “This s— is out of control.”
“I hope every juror is doxxed and they pay for what they have done,” another user wrote on Trump’s Truth Social platform Thursday. “May God strike them dead. We will on November 5th and they will pay!”
There was a significant uptick in threats against Judge Juan Merchan and Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. That in and of itself amounts to domestic terrorism of the worst type. But that was to be expected, knowing what we know about Trumpers. Doxxing 12 ordinary people is another thing altogether. It also says a lot about the mentality of Patriots.win—the new name for TheDonald—and Truth Social that these posts were even allowed to be made.
[…] if Trump’s diehards are threatening jurors, Merchan would be grossly derelict not to order Trump to shut this down. This is fundamentally undemocratic behavior that has no place in any civilized society. […]
Special Counsel Jack Smith has resubmitted a request to so called Judge Aileen Cannon to issue a gag order against Donald Trump in the MAL documents case. You all may remember that Donald Trump claimed that the FBI had “shoot to kill” orders from President Biden when they searched Mar-A-Lago for missing national security documents. Needless to say, Trump’s lie paints a target on the FBI agents who are a part of the MAL document case, and Jack Smith is seeking a gag order to stop Trump from further endangering the agents and any potential witnesses. Judge Cannon got pissy with Smith and threatened to sanction him because, supposedly, Smith did not confer with Trump’s lawyers first (This was NOT true).
[…] And for good measure, Smith’s team did reach out to Pretrial Services before submitting this new request:
Finally, the new version also adds a footnote about attempting to get the opinion of pre-trial services officials on the gag order request.
“The Government contacted the Probation Office to ascertain its position on the relief the Government seeks,” the new filing reads. “The Probation Office advised that because Trump was released on a bond that does not have pretrial supervision as a special condition, that office is not supervising him and it would be outside the scope of the office’s authority to take a position on this motion without a request from the Court.”
More BS and delay by Trump and his lawyers.
As to the rest of the new submission, it is almost VERBATIM to the original request that was rejected by Her Pissiness.
I’m betting she doesn’t rule on this new submission. If she rejects it, Smith will appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, and Cannon knows this. Instead, she will continue to delay by not making a decision. It will then be up to Smith to decide when too much time has been alloted for another delay before making an appeal to the 11th Circuit.
The launch of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft has been delayed. Ground controllers called a hold with 3 minutes and 50 seconds left in the countdown. No reason for the delay was immediately given. There is another launch opportunity Sunday. […]
One of the first polls conducted since a New York Jury found Donald Trump guilty of falsifying business records find that a significant minority of Republicans and Independents want him to drop out and a majority of registered voters approve of the jury’s decision.
The Morning Consult poll conducted on Friday offers some of the first clues about how voters are reacting to the unprecedented situation.
By the numbers: 54% of registered voters “strongly” or “somewhat” approve of the guilty verdict compared to 34% who “strongly or “somewhat” disapprove.
49% of Independents and 15% of Republicans said Trump should end his campaign because of the conviction.
The polls found the race effectively tied nationally in a 1-on-1 with Biden at 45% and Trump at 44%.
While they may agree with the guilty verdict, the poll found that more voters think Trump should get probation (49%) rather than go to prison (44%)….
Excerpts from a longer article written by Susan B. Glasser for The New Yorker:
“Guilty.” Donald Trump had avoided the word for so long that it was understandable to think he might never face it. When he was finally hit with a criminal conviction, soon after 5 p.m. on a sunny late-May afternoon, he had to sit and listen inside a New York courtroom as the label he so dreaded was directed at him again and again—thirty-four guilties, one for each of the thirty-four felony counts against him. Too bad the television cameras weren’t able to record this historic moment. We the people will be left to imagine what it looked like when the only former American President to go on trial became the only ex-President to bear the title of “convicted felon.”
Trump himself seemed a bit stunned—deflated, even. Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom, he offered a lacklustre rant, a sort of mashup of his greatest hits: “This was a rigged, disgraceful trial”; “I’m a very innocent man.” Soon, he was complaining about “millions and millions of people pouring into our country right now, from prisons and from mental institutions.” Was his standard-issue inflammatory anti-immigration diatribe related to his falsifying of business records in a 2016 hush-money payoff to the adult-film star Stormy Daniels? Trump didn’t care. “We have a country that’s in big trouble,” he said, before returning to the matter at hand. “This is long from over.” Then he turned his back and left.
What Trump lacked in truly incandescent rage, however, was soon supplied, in excess, by his followers—a backlash that unfolded as a carefully choreographed and truly unprecedented assault on the legitimacy of the American legal system. It struck me as no less threatening for having obviously been planned largely in advance. “Kangaroo court. Banana republic,” one social-media post from the Trump White House veteran Nick Ayers read—a pithy summation of much of the maga response. Senator Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican, called the verdict “the most egregious miscarriage of justice in our nation’s history,” proving both that he does not know our nation’s history and that hyperbole in defense of their leader is considered the most forgivable of G.O.P. sins.
Rewriting history—and, at times, even outright inverting it—is one of the signatures of Trumpism, as it is of so many authoritarian political movements. In Washington on Thursday morning, hours before the verdict, Senator Marco Rubio posted on social media an old newsreel video of revolutionary justice being meted out in front of thousands of spectators at a sports palace in Fidel Castro’s Cuba. “The public spectacle of political show trials has come to America,” he wrote. A day earlier, in another social-media post, he had compared Trump’s hush-money case to “the kind of sham trial used against political opponents of the regime in the old Soviet Union.”
Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, surely knows better: Trump will not be summarily executed, as so many hundreds of thousands were in the Soviet purges. He won’t even have to wear an orange uniform if he does, in fact, end up serving time—inmates in New York are actually banned from doing so. After the verdict came out, on Thursday evening, Rubio complained again about “a political show trial.” Like Trump himself and many of his followers, and with no apologies to Woody Allen, he blamed Joe Biden for the whole travesty of a mockery of a sham. […]
More at the link, including the details behind the House Republican majority declaring that even mentioning Trump’s trial(s) on the House floor was forbidden. Note that “Republicans regularly take to the House floor to inveigh against the “sham” legal proceedings.” Only Democratic Party representatives are prohibited from speaking.
Now that Trump has become the first former President in American history to be convicted of a crime, will the maga Congress ban that information, too? What happens when McGovern, or one of his Democratic colleagues, goes to the floor to read out Thursday’s stunning news, all thirty-four counts of it? […]
StevoRsays
Well, the Starliner launch attempt has been scrubbed. computer glitch with a few minutes to go.
United Launch Alliance has called an official scrub while engineers work to understand why a Ground Launch Sequencer called an automatic hold 3 minutes and 50 seconds before liftoff. There will be no Starliner launch today. Boeing and ULA may attempt another launch try on Sunday, June 2, if they can clear the issue in time.
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa won’t shoot for the moon on SpaceX’s Starship after all.
Maezawa, who booked a private trip around the moon on SpaceX’s Starship megarocket in 2018, has now scrapped the project — which he called dearMoon — after the rocket wasn’t ready to fly him and eight hand-picked artists in 2023.
“I signed the contract in 2018 based on the assumption that dearMoon would launch by the end of 2023,” Maezawa said in a statement on X (formerly Twitter). “It’s a developmental project so it is what it is, but it is still uncertain as to when Starship can launch.”
Next Starliner launch attempt opportunity Sunday 2nd June @ 12.03 EDT – according to info on the youtube clip linked at #405.
birgerjohanssonsays
StevoR @ 415
June 2nd? That is a nice birthday present for me.
.
‘It was all a lie:’ Arizona GOP official on his defamation case against Kari Lake
.https://youtube.com/shorts/pQaT1kMiy1I
Still, at least I was able to wake up to the news that Changé-6 has suceeded :
China has landed on the moon’s mysterious far side — again.
The robotic Chang’e 6 mission touched down inside Apollo Crater, within the giant South Pole-Aitken basin early at 6:23 a.m. Beijing Time on Sunday (June 2) , according to Chinese space officials. It was 6:23 p.m. EDT (2223 GMT) on June 1 at the time of the landing. The probe “successfully landed in the pre-selected area,” China’s space agency said. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) now has two far-side landings under its belt — this one and Chang’e 4, which dropped a lander-rover combo onto the gray dirt in January 2019. No other country has matched such a feat.
There’s another analysis of the Starlineron youtube here (8 mins long) – ‘Why Was Starliner’s First Crewed Launch Scrubbed Again?’ by TheSpaceBucket. (Hoping Scott Manley would have an updated video on that & Chang’e-6 too but seems not yet.)
If local Republicans knew what was good for them, they would now move to drop Donald Trump from Washington’s fall ballot.
I know, they won’t. They’re in too deep. Trump won 76% of our state’s GOP presidential primary vote. It’s become like a cult, as the party seems eager to debase itself by shedding all its longstanding talk about the rule of law and personal responsibility — as well as any chances of winning here in Washington — to sink ever deeper into the muck of Trump.
So here’s another reason to dump Trump from the Washington ballot. If Republicans don’t do it, somebody else probably will.
It turns out Washington has a law on the books against convicted felons running for office.
It was first established back when Washington was a territory, in 1865, that anyone convicted of “infamous crimes” could be blocked from holding elected office. That was modified in 1959, and then again more recently, to the scheme we have today.
Any registered voter can “challenge the right of a candidate to appear on the general election ballot” for any of five causes, state law says. One of those causes is flashing in bold neon lights today: “Because the person whose right is being contested was, previous to the election, convicted of a felony by a court of competent jurisdiction, the conviction not having been reversed nor the person’s civil rights restored after the conviction.”
How about 34 felonies?
“I have clients lined up who are going to be all over pursuing a ballot challenge in this case,” says David Vogel, a Seattle attorney and former deputy prosecutor for King County who was briefly involved in an earlier ballot challenge against Trump before the presidential primary.
I asked the Secretary of State’s Office if there was some reason this provision allowing ballot challenges against convicted felons might not apply in this case. For example, is it only for state and local candidates, not federal?
They answered: “Whether that provision applies would be a question for courts to decide.”
States do have latitude to control the ballot. Candidates for president are excluded from Washington’s ballot all the time, though typically it happens to minor-party candidates who didn’t follow filing deadlines or didn’t meet the requirements to hold the office.
Ohio has been debating whether to bar President Joe Biden from its ballot over a filing deadline issue, so it’s clear states can do such a thing.
Washington law says a voter can file a challenge once candidates are certified to appear on the fall ballot, which for presidential races typically occurs after the parties’ national nominating conventions in late summer. That voter challenge goes to “any justice of the supreme court, judge of the court of appeals, or judge of the superior court in the proper county,” who, according to state statute, can potentially strip a candidate’s name from ballots prior to the election if they have a felony conviction. […]
The most important thing Ukraine needed to protect its second-largest city wasn’t more missiles, more artillery, or even F-16s. It was permission to use weapons from the United States on targets across the border in Russia.
Ukraine quietly got that permission this week, as President Joe Biden agreed to allow Ukraine to target Russian forces near the northern border where Russia is making its latest push into the Kharkiv district. But officials told The Associated Press that this permission is conditional, as medium- and long-range weapons like ATACMS are only to be used for “counterfire purposes in the Kharkiv region.”
That’s a long way from ideal. It means Ukraine still can’t use these weapons to go after critical infrastructure used to position and support Russian forces. And Ukraine can’t use them to attack Russian forces assembling beyond its border for attacks on other regions of its country.
But it’s certainly better than not being able to use these weapons on forces that were firing into Kharkiv from the Russian side of the border. Until this week, Ukraine was aware of Russian positions that were directing missiles, aircraft-launched weapons, and MLRS fire into towns and villages along the northern border. Still, Ukraine’s leaders couldn’t do anything about it.
Now they can.
For more than six months, Republicans blocked funding and access to American weapons that Ukraine needed to sustain its fight against a much larger Russian opponent getting a fresh stream of supplies from China, Iran, and North Korea. That finally changed, and the effect can be seen in the drastic slowing of Russian advances on every part of the front. [Map at the link]
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin had planned to capture the critical town of Chasiv Yar, near Bakhmut, in time for Russia’s May 9 Victory Day military parade. That didn’t happen. In fact, the front line near Chasiv Yar has barely shifted in the last week. The original push down the highway to the east hasn’t moved in two weeks. To the south, Russia has secured positions taken around Ivanivske on May 20, but that’s the extent of their advance.
Ukrainian forces continue to use artillery and drones to protect their position on high ground from Russian forces attempting to press in from the east and south. Russia is still pounding this area, and the troops defending Chasiv Yar are in a tough position, but they are holding on. [video at the link]
The same pattern holds in the villages north of Kharkiv. Russia still hasn’t managed to capture the critical road and rail crossroads at Vovchansk. Elsewhere on the northern front, Russia hasn’t made a significant advance since May 18. Ukraine has even managed to claw back control of some of the disputed areas.
What looked like a potentially devastating assault by a large mass of Russian soldiers pouring across the border on May 10, now appears to have made very few gains after the first few days of fighting. Russia is still on the offensive, but for the moment, at least, that offensive appears to be stalled.
Russian forces have not reached the point where they can pump conventional artillery into the city of Kharkiv, though they continue to attack the city with missiles, drones, and aircraft-launched glide bombs. Overnight, the Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russia attacked the city of Kharkiv with C-300 missiles from the Belgorod region, Iskander short-range missiles from the Kursk region, and Iranian Shahed drones from the Yeysk region. It’s unclear which of these areas could be targeted for a counterstrike based on the revised U.S. policy.
However, if Ukraine can’t use ATACMS and other long-range weapons in Russia at its discretion, it can make good use of these weapons on Russian-occupied positions inside Ukraine.
On Wednesday evening, Ukraine launched an attack near Kerch. At first, there was excitement that this might be another attack on Putin’s favorite bridge as early reports indicated traffic across the bridge had been halted. Analysts were disappointed when the bridge reopened after only a brief outage, assuming that Ukrainian missiles had missed their target. But it seems the real target was a pair of rail ferries that have been particularly important since the rail line on the bridge was damaged in 2022.
Ukraine also took out four Russian patrol boats in the area using its increasingly effective fleet of sea drones. The Russian boats were small but important for protecting Russian assets and helping Russia spot Ukrainian drones. [video at the link]
Attacks in the area continue, with drones reportedly taking out a Russian oil depot near Kerch. [video at the link]
Meanwhile, Russia continues to throw men and machines at Ukraine in an effort to capture the remainder of the Donbas, racking up more huge losses including tanks that had been modified into “moving sheds.” This is Russia’s latest attempt at building armored vehicles that are attack-proof against FPV drones. It doesn’t seem to be working. [List of losses available at the link]
The losses of tanks and artillery remain high, but one striking feature of recent lists from both Andrew Perpetua and the Ukrainian General Staff is the scarcity of MLRS systems. Is Russia doing a better job of protecting these systems and using them at a distance, or have they become much more rare? It’s hard to tell based on looking at the broken remains of equipment that has been smashed. Maybe these statistics will change now that Ukraine can direct fire over the border near Kharkiv and search out nests of Russian troops firing into Ukrainian towns. [List of Ukraines official tally of Russian losses]
Soon. Very soon now. [video of Ukrainian pilot talking about how he loves the F-16 and how it compares to flying MIGs] [video of Ukrainian fighter pilots escorting President Zelensky's plane, using F-16s.] [Homecoming video and photos]
From his booth in the exhibit hall of the Texas GOP’s 2024 convention, Steve Hotze saw an army of God assembled before him.
For four decades, Hotze, an indicted election fraud conspiracy theorist, has helmed hardline anti-abortion movements and virulently homophobic campaigns against LGBTQ+ rights, comparing gay people to Nazis and helping popularize the “groomer” slur that paints them as pedophiles. Once on the fringes, Hotze said Saturday that he was pleased by the party’s growing embrace of his calls for spiritual warfare with “demonic, Satanic forces” on the left.
“People that aren’t in Christ have wicked, evil hearts,” he said. “We are in a battle, and you have to take a side.”
Those beliefs were common at the party’s three-day biennial convention last week, at which delegates adopted a series of new policies that would give the party unprecedented control over the electoral process and further infuse Christianity into public life.
Delegates approved rules that ban Republican candidates—as well as judges—who are censured by the party from appearing on primary ballots for two years, a move that would give a small group of Republicans the ability to block people from running for office, should it survive expected legal challenges. The party’s proposed platform also included planks that would effectively lock Democrats out of statewide office by requiring candidates to win a majority of Texas’ 254 counties, many of which are dark-red but sparsely populated, and called for laws requiring the Bible to be taught in public schools.
Those moves, delegates and leaders agreed, were necessary amid what they say is an existential fight with a host of perceived enemies, be it liberals trying to indoctrinate their children through “gender ideology” and Critical Race Theory, or globalists waging a war on Christianity through migration.
Those fears were stoked by elected officials in almost every speech given over the week. “They want to take God out of the country, and they want the government to be God,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Thursday morning.
“Our battle is not against flesh and blood,” Sen. Angela Paxton, Republican of McKinney, said Friday. “It is against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
”Look at what the Democrats have done,” U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, said Saturday. “If you were actively trying to destroy America, what would you do differently?”
[…] This year’s convention was also sparsely attended compared to past years, which some longtime party members said helped the Dunn and Wilks faction further consolidate their power and elect their candidate, Abraham George, for party chair. […] “[…] leadership, decision-making process, power and influence are being controlled by a small group of people.” […] a series of changes to the party’s rules that further empower its leaders to punish dissent. The party approved changes that would dramatically increase the consequences of censures—which were used most recently to punish House Speaker Dade Phelan for his role in impeaching Paxton, and against U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales for voting for gun safety legislation.
[…] The convention came amid a broader embrace of Christian nationalism on the right, which falsely claims that the United States’ founding was God-ordained and that its institutions and laws should reflect their conservative, Christian views. Experts have found strong correlations between Christian nationalist beliefs and opposition to migration, religious pluralism and the democratic process.
[…] “God wants it, so we can rewrite the rules.”
THE “RABBIT HOLE”
Bob Harvey is a proud member of the “Grumpy Old Men’s Club,” a group in Montgomery County that he said pushes back against Fox News and other outlets that he claims have been infiltrated by RINOs.
“People trust Fox News, and they need to get outside of that and find alternative news and like-minded people,” Harvey, 71, said on Friday, as he waited in a long line to meet Kyle Rittenhouse, who has ramped up his engagement in Texas politics since he was acquitted of homicide after fatally shooting two Black Lives Matter protesters.
Rather, Harvey’s group recommends places such as the Gateway Pundit, Steve Bannon’s Breitbart News or the Epoch Times, a far-right website that also had a booth at this year’s convention and is directly linked to the Falun Gong, a hardline anti-communist group.
Such outlets, Harvey said, are crucial to getting people “further down the rabbit hole,” after which they can begin to connect the dots between the deep-state that has spent years attacking former President Donald Trump, and the agenda of the left to indoctrinate kids through the Boy Scouts of America, public schools, and the Democratic Party.
Harvey’s views were widely-held by his fellow delegates, many of whom were certain that broader transgender acceptance, Critical Race Theory, or “diversity, equity and inclusion” initiatives were parts of a sinister plot to destroy the country and take over its churches.
[…] In the 1950s, such claims were the driving force behind the emergence of groups such as the John Birch Society, a hardline anti-communist group whose early members included the fathers of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Trump. After decades of dwindling influence, the society has seen a revival since Trump’s 2016 election. And in the exhibit hall last week, so-called Birchers passed out literature and pamphlets that detailed the New World Order’s secret plans for “world domination.”
[…] Ella Maulding has been particularly vocal about her support for Great Replacement Theory, a conspiracy theory that claims there is an intentional, often Jewish-driven, effort to replace white people through migration, LGBTQ+ acceptance or interracial marriage. Once a fringe, white nationalist worldview, experts say that Great Replacement Theory has been increasingly mainstreamed as Republican leaders, including some who spoke last week, continue to claim that migration is part of a coordinated effort to aid Democrats. The theory has also been cited by numerous mass shooters, including the gunman who murdered 22 Hispanic people at an El Paso WalMart in 2019.
Five hours after Paxton and Patrick spoke, Maulding took to social media, posting a cartoon of a rabbi with the following text: “I make porn using your children and then make money distributing it under the banner of women’s rights while flooding your nation with demented lunatics who then rape your children.” [Yeah, now that is “sinister.”]
[…] Since the late 1980s, David Barton has barnstormed the state and country claiming that church-state separation is a “myth” meant to shroud America’s true founding as a Christian nation. Barton, a self-styled “amateur historian” who served as Texas GOP vice chair from 1997 to 2006, has been thoroughly debunked by an array of historians and scholars—many of them also conservative Christians.
Despite that, Barton’s views have become widespread among Republicans, including Patrick, Texas Supreme Court Justice John Devine and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson. And his influence over the party was clear at last week’s convention, where his group, WallBuilders, maintained a booth and delegates frequently cited him.
[…] “God was not only used as a tool at this convention, but if you didn’t mention God in some way, fake or genuine, I did feel it was seen as distasteful,” he said. “There is a growing group of people who want to turn this nation into a straight-up theocracy. I believe they are doing it on the backs of people who are easily manipulated.”
Ophir Falk, chief foreign policy adviser to Netanyahu, said that it was “a deal we agreed to — it’s not a good deal but we dearly want the hostages released, all of them.”
An aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had agreed to the framework for President Joe Biden’s plan to bring an end to the war in Gaza, though he said it was “not a good deal.”
Biden announced Friday that Israel had proposed a three-part plan that would ultimately lead to a complete cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, as well as the release of all hostages who have been held there for the last eight months. […]
A deal is yet to be finalized, and while Biden initially called it an Israeli proposal, Israel’s official position remains unclear. NBC News has reached out to the Israeli prime minister’s office for clarification.
Appearing on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby reiterated Biden’s message, calling it an “Israeli proposal, one that they arrived at after intense diplomacy with our own national security team, and over at the State Department.”
Netanyahu appeared to undermine the plan, releasing a statement on Saturday that called a permanent cease-fire in Gaza a “nonstarter” until long-standing conditions for ending the war are met, reiterating that “Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.”
In an interview Britain’s Sunday Times, Ophir Falk, chief foreign policy adviser to Netanyahu, emphasized that Israel was not rejecting the deal, saying that it was “a deal we agreed to — it’s not a good deal but we dearly want the hostages released, all of them.”
He added that Israel’s conditions “have not changed” — the release of the hostages and the destruction of Hamas.
Biden’s plan recast the end to the war, not with the destruction of Hamas, as Israel seeks, but with a degraded Hamas “no longer capable” of carrying out a large-scale attack on Israel like the one by the militant group on Oct. 7.
[…] Far-right factions within Netanyahu’s Cabinet reacted strongly to the proposal laid out by Biden, exposing the competing domestic pressures Netanyahu faces.
Bezalel Smotrich, finance minister and chairman of the far-right Religious Zionist Party, said on X that he would “not be part of a government that agrees to the proposed outline and ends the war without destroying Hamas.”
Itamar Ben Gvir, national security minister and leader of the far-right Jewish Power Party, called the proposal “a victory for terrorism” that would mean “absolute defeat,” and threatened on X “to dissolve the government” should Netanyahu agree to the proposal.
[…] “There is a deal on the table and it needs to be done. I remind Netanyahu that he has a security network from us for the hostage deal if Ben Gvir and Smotrich leave the government,” Lapid [Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid] said.
For his part, “Netanyahu can’t wax enthusiastic about a plan that fails to achieve ‘absolute victory,’” Laura Blumenfeld, a Middle East analyst at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies in Washington, said. “That’s OK, as long as he avoids one word: ‘no.’”
Meanwhile, international pressure continued to build [supporting] the U.S. [U.S. led plan] as Spain, France, Germany and Belgium each backed the deal. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made calls to Arab leaders on Saturday affirming their commitment to a cease-fire. Qatar, Egypt and the U.S. released a joint statement backing the peace plan.
A spokesperson for Hamas released a statement shortly after the announcement, saying the group “views positively what was included in U.S. President Joe Biden’s speech.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Cairo confirmed to NBC News Sunday that there is a U.S delegation in Egypt, but did not elaborate.
The plan’s first phase includes six weeks of a complete cease-fire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from populated areas, and the release of women and children being held hostage. The second phase would see the release of all living hostages in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, before a major reconstruction in Gaza and the return of the remains of deceased hostages to their families in the final phase.
[…] On Saturday night, tens of thousands of Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv to urge the government to accept a cease-fire. […]
The top Israeli court heard responses by the state on Sunday to challenges against exemptions granted to ultra-Orthodox Jews from military conscription, a long-standing source of friction with more secular citizens now inflamed by the long Gaza war.
In the name of equality, the Supreme Court in 2018 voided a law waiving the call-up for ultra-Orthodox men who want to study in seminaries instead. Parliament failed to come up with an alternative arrangement, and a government-ordered stay on a mandatory mobilization of ultra-Orthodox expired in March.
That has left Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scrambling to agree with ultra-Orthodox coalition partners on a military service compromise that might preempt any Supreme Court ruling that Israel’s fast-growing minority must be forcibly drafted.
[…] many Israelis resent their fellow citizens being spared their share of the risk.
The ultra-Orthodox claim the right to study in seminaries instead of serving in uniform for the standard three years. Some say their pious lifestyles would clash with military mores, while others voice ideological opposition to the liberal state.
The ultra-Orthodox make up 13% of Israel’s population, a figure expected to reach 19% by 2035 due to their high birth rates. Economists argue that the draft exemption keeps some of them unnecessarily in seminaries and out of the workforce.
The government’s lawyer, Doron Taubman, said it placed a high priority on increasing ultra-Orthodox enlistment. […]
The right-wing United Conservative Party, currently at the reins of Alberta, Canada, is for all intents and purposes Little MAGA on the Prairie.
Formed seven years ago after a marriage of convenience between the oxymoronic Progressive Conservatives and the weedier, wackier Wildrose Party, the UCP gained power in most of Canada’s version of Texas in last spring’s provincial election outside of key major cities Edmonton and Calgary.
Their supporters love to label anyone who disagrees with them on any given issue as groomers and pedophiles, not unlike their unified reich counterparts do south of the border. [link to Trump sharing video promising “Unified Reich” available at the main link]
Since typically every accusation is a confession with these freaks, you can probably guess where this post is heading.
In May, the UCP’s constituency association in Lacombe-Ponoka announced they were canceling their upcoming “youth dance and spring social” open only to people between the ages of 14 and 25 after receiving a collective eww on social media.
One of the widely spread hot takes came from an RCMP sergeant named Kerry Shima, who didn’t appreciate a political party’s party plans adding to his potential workload, tweeting:
This right here is a problem. 1) 25-year-olds are NOT youths. 2) Who planned this wanting to see 14-year-olds and 25-year-olds dancing together? 3) The ICE Unit is overworked with cases & the last thing my teams need is a sanctioned dance encouraging adults to cavort with teens.
(It’s worth noting the law enforcement acronym ICE stands for something different in Canada than in America. The Mounties’ Internet Child Exploitation division is dedicated to protecting children from predators, while US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is best known around the world for kidnaping and locking kids in cages. Interagency cooperation would surely be awkward as fuck.)
Leaving the creep factor aside, you have to wonder how this would’ve even worked. We’re all used to showing identification at the door but normally it’s to prove you’re old enough to get in, not too old to get in.
[…] The age of consent in Canada is 16 although it’s legal for someone to have sex with a 14- or 15-year-old so long as one isn’t more than five years older or in a position of authority.
[…] we all know damn well the idea was to aid awkward white dudes get laid while ideally not ending up charged with statutory rape.
No word on if alcohol was going to be served at the mixer in a province where the legal drinking age is 18 but, if not, hopefully these Harrison Butker types wouldn’t have spiked the punch with anything stronger than vodka. [Harrison Butter is the Kansas City Chiefs kicker: “Beards are a sign that you are the patriarch of your wife and children.”]
The cancellation was announced on Facebook, […] and the president of the UCP’s board of directors, Rob Smith, defended the party’s pure intentions shortly afterward:
[Fourteen] to 17 year olds look to the 21 to 25 years old for inspiration, mentorship, and leadership generally more than they do 56-year-old geriatrics like me!! This is how we grow our next generation station of political activists and community leaders. There is structure and support for our youth in the United Conservative Party of United Conservative Party of United Conservative Party of Alberta [sic] and we are working to grow this demographic of our movement.
[Sounds vaguely Mormon to my ears.]
Which, apart from the hilarious and quite possibly drunken redundancy, comes off more as a bitter GenXer whining […]. Smith also pointed to the 4-H Club, a century-old youth leadership organization with an agricultural bent, as a healthy example of intergenerational mingling […] 4-H’s motto is “learn to do by doing,” which is as good a description for most normal people’s adolescent sexual development as any.
The central electoral district of Lacombe-Ponoka — located a half-hour drive from the city of Red Deer if you’re old enough to drive — isn’t technically UCP territory, or at least not on paper. UCP candidate Jennifer Johnson won in a landslide last year with nearly 68 percent of votes but she was barred from joining the caucus by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith a week before the election due to a leaked audio recording where she claimed the province’s highly ranked public education system would be even better if it weren’t for all the trans kids and compared their presence to adding shit to a batch of cookies.
“We can be top three percent but that little bit of poop is what wrecks it,” Johnson can be heard saying amongst other awful things, which was a bridge too far for the newly minted premier if not for voters. Or at least being dumb enough to say the quiet part out loud within range of a recording device was a bridge too far. Johnson currently sits in the legislature wearing a duncecap in the corner as an Independent, although the party is currently pressuring the premier to welcome her back with open arms because of course they are.
The news of the canceled party comes as the UCP’s Calgary-Lougheed wing is sponsoring a different kind of shindig without age-restrictions for wingnuts who believe against all evidence that COVID vaccines are deadly for children and hope to “persuade the UCP Alberta caucus to declare the moratorium on all COVID mRNA vaccines.” [WTF?]
An event billed as “An Injection of Truth” is set for June 17 at an undisclosed Calgary location, although the CBC has confirmed it will be held and livestreamed at Southside Victory Church, which drew headlines for ignoring public safety restrictions during the pandemic. […]
Never mind that the Public Health Agency of Canada, which keeps track of reported bad reactions, say there’s an average of 40 cases per 100,000 doses for kids four and under, with even lower rates for kids aged five to 17. Or that, of the more than 100 million shots in Canadian arms since vaccines hit the shelves, there’s only been 488 deaths reported shortly afterward, with just four found to have a potential link to getting the jab.
Choosing June 17 for the big day was a gamble though as there’s a chance the Edmonton Oilers might still be competing in the Stanley Cup playoffs by then. If the team manages to dispatch the Dallas Stars in the ongoing NHL Western Conference Final, a potential Game 7 against the New York Rangers or Florida Panthers could mathematically occur on the same date and, if so, pretty much guarantee all of Alberta (or all Canada for that matter) is going to be glued to the TV that night instead.
Which frankly is the sort of thing they would know if they did their own research.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Hypersonic Weapons
00:01:24 — What Am I Talking About?
00:02:33 — What Are They?
00:11:44 — Advantages & Defensive Challenges
00:19:26 — The Problems & Costs (Technical)
00:28:08 — The Problems & Costs (Mission)
00:38:01 — Defensive Options
00:45:15 — National Programs: Russia
00:55:06 — National Programs: PRC
00:58:43 — National Programs: USA
01:06:07 — The State of Competition
01:10:45 — Conclusions
01:11:51 — Channel Update
KGsays
Lynna, OM@422,
It looks as if, perhaps, Biden has realised the continuing genocide is bad for his chances of re-election, and is trying to force Netanyahu to end it. Netanyahu is famously slippery, but the failure to crush Hamas swiftly has now left him under pressure from Biden, his own swivel-eyed loons (of both ultra-orthodox and fascist varieties), and the relatives of the hostages, their supporters, and a growing number who simply don’t believe Netanyahu can eliminate Hamas and want the war to end – if only because it takes up resources, or because Israeli troops are being killed as well as much larger numbers of Hamas fighters, and much larger numbers again of Palestinian non-combatants.
John Moralessays
Nice to see competent people at work, at the top of their game, who know their business:
The Economic Studies and Foreign Policy programs at Brookings will consider the effectiveness of the sanctions and ways to tighten them with the release of a series of essays and a conversation. Daleep Singh, deputy White House national security advisor for international economics, will deliver keynote comments. His remarks will be followed by a panel with economist Yuriy Gorodnichenko of the University of California-Berkeley, who wrote one of the essays, Agathe Demarais of the European Council on Foreign Relations, and Brookings Senior Fellow Fiona Hill. The panel will be moderated by Reuters Diplomatic Correspondent Arshad Mohammed.
One and a half hours’ worth, but can be sped up somewhat.
And it’s kinda official — though, of course, information space is part of the geopolitical battlefield.
Less than an hour after a jury convicted Donald Trump of 34 felonies, Sen. Tim Scott released a one-minute video of himself condemning the outcome. That wouldn’t be especially notable — the South Carolina Republican clearly wants to be his party’s vice presidential nominee, making such antics unavoidable — except the senator blamed President Joe Biden for the prosecution.
“Joe Biden’s injustice,” Scott claimed. “Joe Biden’s two-tier injustice system. Weaponizing the justice system of the United States of America against a political opponent? Un-American.”
The rhetoric was plainly nonsensical, even by 2024 standards. There’s literally no evidence of the White House being involved in the case, just as there’s literally no evidence of the White House weaponizing the justice system. Scott is hardly the only Republican peddling this ridiculous and borderline dangerous rhetoric, but the repetition only makes it worse.
As HuffPost noted over the weekend, even one of Trump’s former lawyers marveled at the inanity.
Former Trump attorney Joe Tacopina knocked Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) for his “uneducated, unintelligent” claim that President Joe Biden is “weaponizing the justice system” on Saturday.
Asked to respond to Scott’s absurd claims, Tacopina, during an appearance on MSNBC, specifically said, “I sort of lost a lot of respect from what I just heard because he sounded so uneducated, unintelligent and made no sense at all.”
Trump’s former lawyer went on to say, “So to say that Joe Biden brought this case is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard. We know that’s not the case, and even Trump’s lawyers know that’s not the case.”
Tacopina added that Biden and officials from the Justice Department have “absolutely zero to do with the Manhattan district attorney’s office.” [video at the link]
Complicating matters for Republicans, this isn’t the first time a former Trump lawyer has said the opposite of what the party wanted to hear. Ty Cobb, for example, has spoken out in ways the former president hasn’t liked; Timothy Parlatore has publicly strayed from the GOP script […]
Tacopina, in other words, has plenty of company.
Link
Tacopina may have plenty of company, but a significant number of Trump followers still think President Biden prosecuted Trump.
The trial in Manhattan was a state case. It wasn’t even a federal case. Trump committed crimes in New York. Trump was convicted of those crimes by a jury.
In April, Donald Trump claimed that he could’ve prosecuted Hillary Clinton during his presidency, but he generously decided not to. It would’ve been “a terrible thing” if he’d taken such a step, the Republican claimed. In May, he repeated the claim. [eyeroll]
In his latest Fox News appearance, for the third time in as many months, the former president once again said he could’ve locked up his former Democratic rival, but thanks to his gracious magnanimity, that didn’t happen.
This remains a bizarre lie. […] Trump publicly and privately begged prosecutors to charge Clinton. Ahead of Election Day 2020 — nearly four years after Clinton’s defeat — Trump again publicly called for the Democrat’s incarceration and lobbied then-Attorney General Barr to prosecute the former secretary of state for reasons unknown.
None of this was kept secret. It happened out in the open. We all saw it play out in public — all of which makes it a strange thing for the presumptive GOP nominee to keep lying about.
But that wasn’t the only Clinton-related comment of note from Trump’s latest Fox interview. When one of the co-hosts noted the Republican’s “lock her up” chants, the former president claimed, “They always said, ‘Lock her up.’”
He quickly added, “I didn’t say, ‘Lock her up,’ but the people said, ‘Lock her up, lock her up.’” It was at that point, according to Trump, that he told his followed to “just relax” and move on from Clinton. [video at the link]
For one thing, Trump didn’t “just relax”; he instead spent four years in the White House trying to prosecute Clinton. For another, the idea that Trump was some how detached from the “lock her up” mantra is every bit as ridiculous. As a Washington Post report summarized:
[T]here are several instances in which Trump called explicitly for Clinton’s jailing and others in which he agreed with his supporters’ chants.
For now, let’s put aside the oddity of seeing the Republican blame his followers, as if they lack the class that he pretends to represent. [LOL] Instead, what’s striking about his rhetoric is the degree to which Trump keeps trying to rewrite his own recent history.
Before getting elected, he told Clinton during one of their 2016 debates that if he were running the country, “You’d be in jail.” Around the same time, the future president told a group of supporters, “Lock her up is right.”
A month earlier, responding to “lock her up” chants in Pennsylvania, Trump also told followers, “I agree.”
There are plenty of other examples along these lines.
To be sure, I understand the motivation behind the lies. Trump now wants the public to believe he took the high road against his former rivals, unlike the rascally Biden administration, which is imposing legal crises on him now.
In reality, Trump desperately tried to weaponize federal law enforcement against his perceived foes, and the Biden administration appears to have literally nothing to do with the former president’s prosecutions.
After weeks of unnecessary drama, Republican policymakers in Ohio have changed their ballot deadlines, ensuring that President Joe Biden will be on the Buckeye State’s 2024 general election ballot.
Musk and X’s CEO Linda Yaccarino confirmed the plans Friday.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk confirmed Friday that his X app is planning to host a livestreamed town hall-style event with former President Donald Trump.
[…] Plans for the event were reported Thursday by Axios, which said X was planning a similar video event with independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
President Joe Biden will not be participating in an X town hall, according to a person familiar with the campaign’s plans.
[…] X CEO Linda Yaccarino celebrated the announcement, posting that it would be “The People’s Town Hall!” and adding a fire emoji.
The planned event is a continuation of Trump’s courtship of Musk, who is one of the world’s wealthiest people. The two men met in March along with a group of wealthy Republican donors, and Trump later said that he liked Musk and had helped him in unspecified ways while he was president.
The event would also represent Trump’s return to the platform formerly known as Twitter that he was once ubiquitous on. Twitter’s previous management banned Trump after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a group of his supporters, and although Musk reinstated his account in 2022, Trump has rarely posted since.
Earlier Friday, Musk posted that he was alarmed by a jury finding Trump guilty on 34 felony counts in his New York hush-money trial on Thursday, calling Trump’s conduct a “trivial matter.”
Musk has not yet endorsed any candidate but his leanings are closely watched because of his wealth, media influence and roles in highly regulated businesses as CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. […]
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Musk and Trump have grown increasingly friendly, talking by phone several times a month.
Musk has positioned X as a crucial part of the right-wing media, posting conservative positions on subjects such as immigration and earlier hosting the presidential campaign launch of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who later dropped out of the race.
In Florida’s 11th congressional district, Republican candidate Anthony Sabatini published an item online last week that read, “I’m running for Congress to imprison as many Democrats as possible. Vote for me if you believe Democrats are the enemy and must be jailed & removed from public life.”
Former President Donald Trump on Sunday said he thinks there would be a “breaking point” for the public if he is sentenced to house arrest or imprisonment after he was found guilty on all counts in the hush money trial last week. […]
“I don’t know that the public would stand it. You know, I don’t — I’m not sure the public would stand for it,” Trump said. “I think it would be tough for the public to take. You know, at a certain point, there’s a breaking point.” […]
Excerpt from Trump’s comments last summer:
I think it’s a very dangerous thing to even talk about [convicting him], because we do have a tremendously passionate group of voters, much more passion than they had in 2020 and much more passion than they had in 2016. I think it would be very dangerous.
It’s plain as day that Trump is hoping for violence. Reuters reported:
[Trump’s followers] flooded pro-Trump websites with calls for riots, revolution and violent retribution. […] called for attacks on jurors, the execution of the judge, Justice Juan Merchan, or outright civil war and armed insurrection.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, circulated his own letter in which he suggested it was the White House that “made a mockery” of the rule of law and altered politics in “un-American” ways. He and other senators threatened to stall Senate business until Republicans take action. “Those who turned our judicial system into a political cudgel must be held accountable,” Lee said.
It is, by any fair measure, a curious document. The day after a jury of Trump’s peers held him accountable for his crimes, Lee took the lead in circulating this one-paragraph statement. […] “Strongly worded statements are not enough. … We are no longer cooperating with any Democrat [sic] legislative priorities or nominations, and we invite all concerned Senators to join our stand.”
[…] The procedural nuances matter. The Senate, on a day-to-day basis, functions in large part by unanimous consent. Yes, the institution often appears slow and sclerotic, but determined members still have the capacity to make matters even worse through tactical delays.
And it appears that Lee and his far-right colleagues intend to do exactly that — not because Senate Democrats have done anything wrong, and not because the White House was responsible for Trump’s prosecution, but because of an imaginary conspiracy that Republicans prefer to treat as true.
Or put another way, Lee and nine other Senate Republicans will deliberately stand in the way of their institution doing the people’s business because local prosecutors held a private citizen accountable for his crimes. These GOP senators apparently believe their job is to elevate Trump’s interests above the nation’s interests.
What’s less clear, however, is the possible remedy. What, exactly, do Lee and his cohorts expect to happen? What ransom do they expect to be paid in order to allow the Senate to function as it should?
If the answer is that federal officials will somehow meddle in a local criminal matter, intervening to free Trump from accountability for his felonies, that isn’t going to happen — because it can’t.
Republican Senators are throwing childish, ill-informed or deliberately misleading tantrums because they too want Trump’s followers to erupt in violence … and they also want to impress Hair Furor.
I alternate between mocking the shattered remnant of the Republican Party and soberly treating it like foreshadowing of what Trump wants to do to America. Both are true.
A proud party of self-avowed institutionalists is reduced to dressing like their cult leader, excusing his crimes, minimizing his criminal conviction, and engaging in elaborate displays of abject loyalty to him.
If there was one abiding theme in the 72 hours after Trump’s first criminal conviction, it was the harshly enforced rallying around the felon by Republicans, a dynamic Chris Hayes called “totalitarian unanimity”: [video at the link]
I’ve written before about how the Republican Party is a useful microcosm for what Trump wants to do to America. Almost every repugnant thing that Trump has done to the country writ large followed a corresponding move he had done to the GOP. So as much as it warrants mockery and derision, the Republican Party serves as a warning, a wake-up call, an object lesson in what re-electing Trump will look like. Be warned.
Republicans are really hoping that Hunter Biden’s trial will distract from their criminal nominee
Jury selection begins Monday in Hunter Biden’s trial for three felony indictments all related to his purchase of a gun while allegedly making false claims to the dealer and on his federal firearms application. And Fox News will begin continuous live coverage of trial proceedings, including the jury selection.
The trial dominates the top of Fox News’ homepage, with multiple front page stories. It is also currently on the front page of The New York Times and Washington Post, and the Post is even providing live updates. […]
A year ago, the gun charges were to be wiped from the record as part of a plea deal between Hunter Biden and U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Delaware prosecutor appointed by Trump. However, that deal fell apart after Noreika—also appointed by Trump—expressed concerns that ultimately resulted in the deal being withdrawn.
On Sunday, Norieka blocked a key piece of evidence that Hunter Biden’s legal team had hoped to use in his defense. The judge also granted a request from Weiss to block a defense expert witness from appearing.
The blocked evidence is reportedly an altered version of the form that Hunter Biden filled out in 2018, which the defense believes is exculpatory and shows that the form was changed at a later date.
Unlike Trump’s trial in New York, in front of a judge and prosecuted by an attorney who had nothing to do with Joe Biden, Hunter Biden actually is being tried before a Trump-appointed judge by a Trump-appointed prosecutor.
Despite the way that Republicans are hoping to use this trial to tarnish Joe Biden, the president has not shied away from spending time with his son and has repeatedly expressed pride in his son and made it clear he supports him as this trial begins.
By now, everyone is familiar with how easy it is to spread conspiracies through social media, and … hang on a second.
Me: Hey there, ChatGPT. Create a new conspiracy theory, please.
ChatGPT: A new theory suggests that smart garden tools, such as automated sprinklers and robotic lawnmowers, are secretly gathering data on homeowners’ habits and preferences. The collected information is allegedly sent to large corporations and governments to influence consumer behavior and monitor private lives. Proponents of this theory claim that these devices, under the guise of convenience, are part of a broader scheme to control and surveil the public.
Wait … are we sure that’s not a real thing? Anyway, a preprint paper from a trio of research psychologists indicates that AI can do more than just speed up the propagation of conspiracy theories. It could also be employed to bring people back to reality.
Here, we raise the possibility that previous attempts to correct conspiracy beliefs have been unsuccessful merely because they failed to deliver counterevidence that was sufficiently compelling and tailored to each believer’s specific conspiracy theory (which vary dramatically from believer to believer). To evaluate this possibility, we leverage recent developments in generative artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver well-argued, person-specific debunks to a total of 15N= 2,190 conspiracy theory believers.
Participants in the study went through three rounds of chats with an AI debunker based on GPT-4 Turbo. The results showed that “conversation with the AI reduced belief in conspiracy theories by roughly 20%.”
It’s unclear exactly what it means to be 20% less sure that smart garden tools are coming to get you, or that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. But if it’s the difference between quietly grumbling at home and shopping for an additional AR-15, maybe it’s enough.
News also covered by Mark Sumner (link in comment 441):
New antibiotic treats tough infections but spares gut biota
Researchers have developed a new antibiotic, lolamicin, that targets notoriously antibiotic-resistant gram-negative bacteria. That wouldn’t be that unusual. Several dozen new antibiotics are tested each year, though only 12 have become available for broad use since 2017.
What makes lolamicin special is that it can tackle infections elsewhere in the body while sparing the beneficial microbes in the gut microbiome. As a new paper in Nature explains, lolamicin has demonstrated efficacy against an astonishing 130 multidrug-resistant bacterial strains and proved effective in mouse models of pneumonia and sepsis.
But the ability to avoid disrupting the gut flora may be the most exciting feature. This not only avoids issues like follow-up infections with Clostridioides, which can happen when gut bacteria are wiped out by other antibiotics, but it should also mean that treating an infection doesn’t lead to weeks of discomfort.
tomhsays
Re: #419 “WA has a law against felons running for office”
This Seattle Times column has become widespread, but I’m afraid it’s much ado about nothing. It may (and does) apply to state offices, but states can’t add stricter qualifications to federal offices than are specified in the Constitution. This was definitively decided in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton(1995) which invalidated laws in 23 states that attached term limits to U.S. Congressional offices. Presidential qualifications are specified in the Constitution and that’s it.
Well it is irrelevant anyway because even the US constitution is ignored by the supreme court when it comes to Trump disqualification (and accountability). Section 3 of the 14th amendment should be applied but the MAGA justices decided otherwise.
The bad faith non-citizen voting bills being proposed by Republicans in state legislatures around the country serve to bolster the voter fraud myth Trump is poised to push if he loses in the fall — but the bills themselves may also disenfranchise actual eligible voters if passed.
[…] Ahead of the 2024 election, Republican state lawmakers are mirroring an ongoing national campaign that’s been pushed by Donald Trump and his allies in recent weeks: proposing laws that perpetuate the false narrative that non-citizens have been and will continue to vote in federal elections.
These bills, however, not only threaten to create a general sense of distrust in the election system, — they also threaten to potentially disenfranchise voters ahead of November by creating additional bureaucratic hurdles for eligible voters or by requiring election officials to rely on outdated voter data to determine citizenship.
[…] The push is mostly a messaging effort: It is already illegal for non-citizens to vote and it’s something that rarely happens in U.S. elections.
[…] Since 2020, according to reporting from Voting Rights Lab, nine states have successfully enacted laws to prevent non citizens from voting, and similar legislation is currently active in sixteen states.
[…] Most recently, North Carolina Republicans introduced a non-citizen voting bill that, if passed, would change the wording of the state constitution to read: “Only a citizen of the United States who is 18 years of age and possessing the qualifications set out in this Article, shall be entitled to vote at any election by the people of the State.”
[…] In New Hampshire, GOP lawmakers are pushing for legislation requiring documentary proof of citizenship. The proposed bill would require proof of citizenship in order to register to vote in New Hampshire — it would also remove crucial exceptions to the state’s voter identification law.
[…] And in Indiana, a similar bill passed by the legislature this year, is also designed to prevent non citizens from voting. The legislation creates proof of residency requirements for new registrants registering in-person and requires election officials to confirm citizenship status by comparing the statewide voter registration system with DMV data. But this means any normal data entry errors or discrepancies in possibly outdated data from the DMV could result in eligible voters being wrongly disenfranchised.
It’s also a lot more paperwork for those seeking to register, Ron Hayduk, political science professor at San Francisco State University, noted in conversation with TPM. “Folks don’t readily have such documents on hand or would not be able to obtain them in a timely manner to provide such proof, and that would therefore end up disenfranchising eligible voters,” he said.
[…] “It can create voter intimidation, especially for voters who are naturalized citizens and who are eligible to vote, but may still identify with an immigrant community and may feel that they could get in trouble when in reality they have every right to vote,” Garber said.
And, as Diaz points out, these laws give local election administrators a lot of discretion in terms of how they are enforced, which increases the risk of racial profiling. […]
It’s sounding like the Colorado 4th Congressional District primary election is not going to be a happy ending for Lauren Opal Boebert!
The gropin’ granny switched from running in Colorado’s 3rd District to carpetbagging in the 4th, Colorado’s very reddest district, because God told her to, or maybe to get further away from her ex-husband Jayson, or maybe because all signs pointed to her losing what should have been a safe Republican seat, after she scraped by in 2022 by fewer than 600 votes. But perhaps God has a plot twist in mind, because polls are showing the pistol-packin high-school dropout trailing potential Democratic challenger Ike McCorkle 27 percent to 41 percent, with one-third of voters undecided, in a district Donald Trump won by 16 points in 2020.
Colorado’s primary is June 25, so Beetleboobs has been hitting multiple Republican debates with five other candidates — Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling; Richard Holtorf, R-Akron; state Rep. Mike Lynch, R-Wellington; former talk radio host and nonprofit founder Deborah Flora; and business consultant Peter Yu — for a spot on that ballot. But last Friday night’s debate turned into a cringefest-gone-viral, with the debate moderator, 9News Denver’s Kyle Clark, not letting her get away with dodging questions using that whole “speak over the question loudly and change the subject” thing Republicans love to do so much.
Clark asked her about that time she went to Beetlejuice and vaped, groped her date’s boner and acted like a certified asshole to theater employees when they tried to remove her, then lied that it didn’t happen, and only apologized after footage got out. Things got awkward! [video at the link]
The very classy transcript:
CLARK: But you want to talk about the theater thing?
BOEBERT: Uh sure. So Kyle I, I certainly have owned out, uh, I owned up to my night out in Denver. I’ve gone on that public apology tour, and I’m grateful for the mercy and grace that has been shown, but I’m not going to continue to live life in shame and be beat up by this.
Feeling shame? That would be a first. L-Bert sputtered and tried to go back to her legislative record, but moderator Kyle wasn’t having it.
CLARK: Did you apologize for lying to voters about what you did that night, and the disrespect you showed to service workers that night? What specifically were you apologizing for?
BOEBERT: I don’t believe there was disrespect, there were things that were absolutely taken out of context.
CLARK: There’s video of your interactions with service workers.
BOEBERT: It’s been reported that I flipped service workers off and I did not. I’m apologizing for you, Kyle Clark getting footage and releasing that — people seeing this in a very private moment … you’ve said how disgusting it is to record someone without their knowledge.
HAHAHA, her private dick-grabbing moment in a theater with like a thousand people in it, including children! Won’t somebody please respect the privacy of the woman trying to ban abortion? Poor Lauren!
Clark also honed in on Boebert using the GOP’s trademark maneuver of voting against projects in Congress, then taking credit for the pork when it rolls in.
“You’ve repeatedly taken credit for projects in Colorado that you asked for funding for, but then you voted against the bill in the end. [He names some examples.] You’re able to vote no and get the praise for voting no, because you know that there are enough other Republicans willing to vote for those bills because they’ll pass. If you were the deciding vote, would you have voted no?”
After squawking and trying to dodge the question, she said that yes, she would have voted no on the very public works projects she’s been congratulating herself for.
When asked about electability, the perpetual victim blamed voters: “We did have a very close election but we also had 50,000 Republicans not show up to vote. Maybe because the voters were frustrated by other Republicans.”
Asked Kyle, incredulously, “You blame Republican voters for the fact that you nearly lost a safe seat, and not your own conduct?”
She got further grilled by creep Republican state Rep. Richard Holtorf, who’s previously complained that Boebert dresses “like a prostitute,” who’s called a colleague “Buckwheat,” and who is perhaps best known for claiming to be “pro-life” while financing a girlfriend’s abortion. He asked, “How many bills did you sponsor that were signed by the President of the United States?” Boebert admitted that the number is one.
It’s been a crappy year for Boebert, to be sure. She divorced Jayson and they got into a slapfight in a restaurant. Her son Tyler, the one who made her a grandma when he was 18, got arrested on 14 charges after breaking into cars on a wallet-stealing spree, while wearing his mom’s “Shooter’s Grill” sweatshirt. Highlights included stealing a cancer patient’s last $75, and charging gas, egg sandwiches and $717 at Shein. Junior was eventually identified with the help of an underage girl he had allegedly shared nudes of, whose friend Tyler tried to run over with a truck. [OMFG]
Tyler faces years in jail, but his parents, who make $175K and $400K a year, won’t help him pay for a lawyer, and his mommy has not bothered to show up with him to any court dates, though she skipped work to stand outside the lower Manhattan courthouse and say rah-rah words about how she’ll never stop fighting for convicted felon Donald J. Trump.
Boobert’s Friday night was so bad that she skipped a debate Saturday night hosted at by the Republican Women of Weld and the Lincoln Club of Colorado. Rather incredibly, all four of her rivals bagged on her in her absence for saying that she wanted to overturn the 2020 election. How weirdly sane of them.
[…] She’s got Trump’s support in Trump’s district, she should be blowing this thing out of the water. Instead sounds like she’s darn close to turning a red seat blue. […]
The infectious-disease expert said Republicans have distorted emails between scientists as they discussed whether a lab leak of the coronavirus was possible.
Anthony S. Fauci defended himself Monday against claims that he orchestrated a coverup of the coronavirus pandemic’s origins, with the former government official rejecting some allegations as “simply preposterous.”
The prominent infectious-disease expert, who served as a senior leader at the National Institutes of Health for four decades before leaving government at the end of 2022, said Republicans have distorted emails between himself and other scientists as they discussed whether a laboratory leak of the coronavirus was possible.
“We spend our whole life trying to determine the causes of infectious diseases, and stop them to protect the American people,” Fauci said, adding that he did not pressure colleagues to reach a conclusion about the origins of the virus and disputing other Republican charges.
The former health adviser in the Trump and Biden administrations is testifying Monday before the House panel investigating the nation’s coronavirus response. The hearing is unfolding amid a battle between the panel’s Republican and Democratic leaders over whether its focus on Fauci is necessary to understand the virus’s possible origins, or a waste of time that is propagating unproven theories about the pandemic and damaging confidence in public health.
It is the first time Fauci has faced a GOP-led panel to publicly answer questions about the covid-19 pandemic, which is linked to the deaths of more than 1 million Americans. Leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees U.S. health agencies, also joined the hearing. Fauci privately testified before the lawmakers for 14 hours in January.
The panel has not found evidence that Fauci led a coverup or that the virus leaked from a laboratory. Most U.S. intelligence entities probing the pandemic favor the theory that the virus emerged naturally, via animal-to-human transmission.
[…] The hearing with Fauci, widely viewed as the face of America’s coronavirus response, drew a circus-style environment to a covid panel that has often struggled for attention as the public has moved on from the pandemic. A line of would-be spectators snaked around the Rayburn House Office Building, seeking a seat in the standing-room-only hearing; a person sitting in the front row wore a T-shirt emblazoned with “JAIL FAUCI.”
Lawmakers also packed the roster, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a member of the covid panel who skipped seven of its last 10 hearings. Greene also briefly brought the hearing to a halt by accusing Fauci of wrongdoing with lab experiments on beagles and other matters, saying the doctor should be in prison. Democrats protested Greene’s accusations, and Wenstrup rebuked her for violating decorum.
Republicans also pressed Fauci on broader pandemic issues, such as when he privately told the panel in January that the federal government’s recommendation for six-foot social distancing “sort of just appeared” in early 2020 and that the choice of distance “wasn’t based on data.”
Fauci said Monday that he meant that there was no clinical trial to settle on the distance of six feet, and that officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who crafted the recommendation were basing the distance on early expectations of how the virus spread. The answer did not satisfy Republicans, asking why Fauci did not push CDC officials to change the recommendation as it became clear that virus particles could float in air for hours, particularly in enclosed environments, and that six feet of social distancing alone would not be sufficient to protect against infection.
“This six-foot rule crippled businesses, it allowed students to stay at home and not learn,” Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.) said.
Some prominent scientists have accused Congress’s covid panel of feeding conspiracies and intimidating virologists, saying that Republicans are damaging a workforce that will be needed when the next pandemic inevitably arrives. [Professor Peter Hotez also characterized it as “anti-science”]
[…] Thorp [Holden Thorp, editor of the journal Science] testified before the panel in April about how academic journals had approached their coronavirus coverage and whether officials such as Fauci had pressured them to downplay the lab-leak theory, a charge that Thorp denied. Like many of the coronavirus panel’s recent hearings before Monday, it drew scant attention, including from Republicans who had called the hearing; just three of the panel’s nine GOP members attended.
The rapid expansion of state voucher programs follows court decisions that have eroded the separation between church and state.
Billions in taxpayer dollars are being used to pay tuition at religious schools throughout the country, as state voucher programs expand dramatically and the line separating public education and religion fades.
School vouchers can be used at almost any private school, but the vast majority of the money is being directed to religious schools, according to a Washington Post examination of the nation’s largest voucher programs.
Vouchers, government money that covers education costs for families outside the public schools, vary by state but offer up to $16,000 per student per year, and in many cases fully cover the cost of tuition at private schools. In some schools, a large share of the student body is benefiting from a voucher, meaning a significant portion of the school’s funding is coming directly from the government. […]
The programs, popular with conservatives, are rapidly growing in GOP-run states, with a total of 28 states plus D.C. operating some sort of voucher system. […]
The growth follows a string of recent victories in the Supreme Court and state legislatures by religious conservatives who have campaigned to tear down what once were constitutional prohibitions against spending tax money directly on religious education. […]
In Florida, several programs combine to make every student in the state eligible for vouchers, with more than 400,000 participating this year. At least 82 percent of students attend religious schools, The Post found. Florida is first in the nation in both the number of enrolled students and total cost of the voucher program — more than $3 billion this year. […]
A coalition of Ohio public school districts is suing the state to halt its program, charging among other things that it depletes resources meant for public schools. […]
In Arizona, for instance, the cost of universal vouchers has exceeded the $624 million budgeted for this year, contributing to a budget hole that lawmakers have not yet said how they will fill. That budget crunch could affect public school spending and certainly makes any increases unlikely at a time when public schools are struggling, said Beth Lewis, director of Save Our Schools Arizona, which opposes vouchers. […]
The fact that so much of the money is going to religious schools reflects at least in part the dominance of religious institutions among the nation’s constellation of private schools. Nationally, about 77 percent of students attending private school go to religious schools, according to federal data. But in the states with big voucher programs, the share of money going to religious schools is higher — in some cases, much higher. […] “an academically rich, Christ-centered education remains within reach for a diverse range of families.” […]
That movement got a significant boost in 2020, when the Supreme Court ruled that a Montana scholarship program that funded secular private schools had to finance religious schools as well — even though the Montana state Constitution barred it.
[…] People on both sides of the case say it could ultimately provide the U.S. Supreme Court an opportunity to expand on its recent rulings that widened the use of tax dollars in support of religious education. […]
“We are, as a society, underwriting religion,” he said. “That’s not what the public schools are supposed to be about.”
The punishing ‘heat dome’ from Mexico will expand northward, threatening records from Arizona to the Pacific Northwest.
The heat dome that produced a prolonged and brutal bout of heat in Mexico during May is expanding northward into the western United States. It is poised to bring record high temperatures from Arizona to the Pacific Northwest this week — with some of the most intense heat in California’s interior. [heat map at the link]
[…] In the Desert Southwest, the hottest locations will easily surpass 110 degrees. Phoenix is forecast to set a record high of 112 on Thursday, while Needles in eastern California near the border of Arizona is predicted to reach 114.
In Death Valley, Calif. — which is notorious for being one of the hottest places on Earth — high temperatures are likely to top 120 on several days. Forecast highs Wednesday through Saturday are 122, 124, 123 and 120. If Death Valley manages to hit 124 during this stretch, it would mark its highest temperature so early in the season.
To the north, numerous locations in the California’s Central Valley could set records by Wednesday, as highs surpass 105 degrees.
Record-challenging heat will reach Northern California by Thursday, before pushing into the Pacific Northwest briefly on Friday.
While afternoon high temperatures get most notice, the heat wave’s persistence and a lack of relief at night will make it particularly dangerous, according to the Weather Service.
[…] Just over the past week, India observed near-record heat that led to numerous deaths, while Iraq topped 50 degrees Celsius (122F) for the first time so early in the year.
Stateside, South Florida and southern Texas saw repeated episodes of record heat in May. Punta Gorda, Fla., soared to 101 degrees on May 30, southwestern Florida’s highest temperature on record so early in the year.
With high temperatures becoming more extreme, extensive and longer-lasting because of human-caused climate change, the heat building over the West is probably just a preview of even more severe conditions in the pipeline by midsummer.
John Moralessays
“Trump’s Mental State Implodes Following Conviction”;
also, credulous poster posts silly opinion fluff piece.
Four Israelis taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7 and a paramedic who was killed after he ‘left his home to save lives’ have been confirmed dead, the Israel Defense Forces said Monday. The families of hostages Nadav Popplewell, Yoram Metzger, Amiram Cooper and Haim Perry were informed that they are ‘no longer alive’ and that Hamas has their remains, the IDF said.
A man is dead and more than 20 people were injured early Sunday in a shooting at a large birthday party in a neighborhood in Akron, Ohio, according to police. Detectives believe that someone in a vehicle opened fire on partygoers just after midnight and that someone at the event may have returned fire, Police Chief Brian Harding said.
Banned from the 2024 Olympics over the war in Ukraine, Russia has mounted a secret influence campaign seeking to discredit the Games and sow fears of terrorism, according to a new report from Microsoft’s threat intelligence unit.
For decades, Catholic Charities and other faith-based organizations have played a crucial role helping federal authorities and local governments manage influxes of migrants. Their work has been funded with bipartisan support in Congress. …
But after President Biden took office in 2021 promising a more humane approach to migration, these faith-based groups have increasingly become the subjects of conspiracy theories and targets for far-right activists and Republican members of Congress, who accuse them of promoting an invasion to displace white Americans and engaging in child trafficking and migrant smuggling. The organizations say those claims are baseless. […]
Another legal disciplinary board in Washington [The D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility] has concluded that Rudy Giuliani, who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election as Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, should lose his law license.
Dr. Anthony Fauci testified Monday before the Republican-led House panel investigating COVID-19 and the government’s response. Desperate to fan the embers of COVID-19 conspiracy theories, the committee Republicans tried to rehash the long-ago debunked claims that Fauci is responsible for the Trump administration’s abominable handling of the pandemic.
But it was a failure.
Fauci responded to each attempt at a “gotcha moment” with the same calm he [showed in] 2020.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene drove the proceedings off the rails, holding up a widely circulated image of dogs being experimented on, purportedly using grant money approved by Fauci and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. As with most of the claims made by the GOP during the hearing, this was debunked years ago.
Greene: As a dog lover, I want to tell you this is disgusting and evil. What you signed off on. And these experiments that happened to beagles–”
Fauci: What does dogs have to do with anything that we’re talking about today?
Greene then refused to call Fauci a doctor, and said he should be “prosecuted for crimes against humanity.” Greene was suspended from talking while Democratic representatives tried successfully to force Greene to acknowledge Fauci’s professional title. But they were unsuccessful in having her words stricken from the record. Then Greene left.
When craven Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York implied that Fauci received big money for COVID-19 vaccines and medicines, Fauci made it very clear that headlines about pharmaceutical profits do not translate into royalties for him.
“On the record, I want to make sure that this is clear,” Fauci explained. “I’ve developed a monoclonal antibody about 25 years ago that’s used as a diagnostic. That has nothing to do with Covid, and I receive an average of about $120 a year from that.”
Since Malliotakis has no evidence that Fauci has received money, his response left her at a loss. [video at the link]
[…] Finally, Republican Rep. Debbie Lesko of Arizona failed spectacularly in her attempt to misinform the public, lying that she has a boatload of damning evidence against Fauci.
Fauci: So you said about four or five things, Congressman, that were just not true.
Lesko: Well, we have emails to prove it.
Fauci: You don’t.
[video at the link]
Allowing Fauci to remain in his position was arguably the only smart thing that Donald Trump did as president. In fact, it might be the single intelligent thing the convicted felon has ever done in his entire life.
[…] for the most rabid Trump supporters, finding an action grandiose enough to express their outrage over Trump being held accountable is a challenge. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene had a few false starts before hitting her stride.
NO Federal funding to New York!
I’m calling for it!!!
New York needs to drip their conviction of Pres Trump!
The whole thing was illegal!
Republicans should not vote to fund single penny to that corrupt state.
Going after a district attorney, a judge, or even a president is small potatoes compared to invoking group punishment on an entire state. But if the residents of New York could stop paying federal taxes that disproportionately go to red states, they might take that deal.
Still, even Greene only gets an 8 on the MAGA lunacy scale. To find the chart-toppers, you have to plumb the depths of the usual ultraconservative suspects—like the reliably unhinged Laura Loomer.
Tim Pool: “Should there be lists of Democrats who need to go to jail? One hundred percent.”
Laura Loomer: “Not just jail, they should get the death penalty.”
[Video feed abruptly stops.]
Why bother with trials or even prison when you can just make a list of Democrats suitable for mass execution? Perfect 10, no notes.
To justify their support for Trump, Republicans are willing to throw away the whole judicial system. […]
Republicans appear to have concluded that the only answer to Trump being prosecuted for his crimes is to make sure that the judicial system is as unfair and political as their dear leader claims.
The latest doxxing attempt fits into a pattern of threats against people who speak out against former President Donald Trump.
The addresses and phone numbers of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s family members were posted to a doxxing website after presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts in connection with a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election. […]
Phone numbers and addresses for Cohen’s wife and children were posted early Monday on a site that has been used to target other figures involved in Trump’s various legal issues, according to Advance Democracy, a nonprofit research group.
“What sad times we are living through when people resort to this type of doxxing stupidity to redress their grievances,” Cohen said in a statement to NBC News about the attempts to spread his family’s personal information.
[…] The individual who shared the information online, on a site known for doxxing, likely had an intent to harm Cohen— providing these personal details on the Cohen family in the context of calling Cohen a ‘lying bastard’ and identifying him as someone who ‘betrayed Trump,’ presumably for testifying for the prosecution in former President Trump’s NY criminal trial.”
KGsays
64 Kph — why a British media outlet would use archaic measuring units is unclear- John Morales@458
I don’t know the situation in Australia, but most Brits simply would not know how fast (or slow) 64Kph is. Speed limits are still in Mph, vehicle speedometers show Mph, road signs give distances in miles.
KGsays
Some less-bad-than-expected news from India, where it appears that although Hindutva-fascist Modi will remain PM, his party is not getting the landslide predicted from exit polls, it will probably fall short of an overall majority, and the alliance which it heads will be well short of the 2/3 majority needed to change the constitution.
birgerjohanssonsays
Lynna OM @ 467 I am glad the Russians see through the propaganda, the officers tell them all Ukrainans are nazis and people who surrender will meet a horrible fate.
🤔
An archaeology friend of mine ran into an absurd case of Facebook censure:
‘Tried to use the UK idiomatic expression “scream bl**dy m***er”, meaning “express great dissatisfaction”. Fb threatened to disable my account.’
Fb allows lots of awfulness to get through, but censors common ideomatic expressions…
It’s no secret that there are a variety of media outlets that many Republican officials have come to embrace, promote, and rely on. Some, such as Fox News and the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, are familiar to national audiences. Others, such as the Washington Times, Newsmax, and OAN are also widely recognized.
And then there’s the Epoch Times.
As NBC News reported last fall, Falun Gong launched the Epoch Times “as a free propaganda newsletter more than two decades ago to oppose the Chinese Communist Party.” The conspiracy-fueled outlet has since grown considerably: The report added that it “directed millions of dollars in advertising toward supporting President Donald Trump’s campaign and published dozens of articles parroting his lies about the election — resulting in huge growth to its audience and its coffers.”
Prominent Republican officials have taken note. Earlier this year, for example, the Epoch Times held a Capitol screening of a conspiratorial documentary about the Jan. 6 attack, and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin spoke at the event and peddled bizarre claims.
It was a timely reminder that the Epoch Times had quietly transformed itself into “one of the country’s most successful and influential conservative news organizations.”
That rapid success, however, is now receiving fresh scrutiny. CNBC reported:
The chief financial officer of conservative global news outlet The Epoch Times has been arrested and charged with leading a yearslong scheme to launder at least $67 million in illicit funds, federal prosecutors said Monday. The scheme — which involved cryptocurrency, tens of thousands of prepaid debit cards, fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance benefits and stolen personal information — fueled a massive increase in The Epoch Times’ reported annual revenue, prosecutors alleged.
According to a written statement from the Justice Department, Weidong “Bill” Guan has been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and two counts of bank fraud. He’s since pleaded not guilty.
The defendant “conspired with others to benefit himself, the media company, and its affiliates by laundering tens of millions of dollars in fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance benefits and other crime proceeds,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in the DOJ statement. “When banks raised questions about the funds, Guan allegedly lied repeatedly and falsely claimed that the funds came from legitimate donations to the media company,” Williams added.
CNBC’s report went on to explain the details of the alleged money-laundering network, which prosecutors believe transferred funds into bank accounts linked with the Epoch Times.
As best as I can tell, Republican officials have said effectively nothing about the indictment, though if recent history is any guide, it seems likely that GOP lawmakers and their allies will lash out at law enforcement and accuse the Justice Department of wrongdoing.
Pulling No Punches
While a debate continues about Democratic messaging strategies, Joe Biden is out there swinging.
The president laid into post-conviction Donald Trump in a more direct way than he has previously during a campaign fundraising event Monday, calling him a greater threat to the country now than he was before. “This isn’t the same Trump that got elected in 2016,” Biden said. “He’s worse.”
“For the first time in American history, a former president that is a convicted felon is now seeking the office of the presidency,” Biden said. “But as disturbing as that is, more damaging is the all-out assault Donald Trump is making on the American system of justice.”
As for Trump’s ongoing attacks on the judicial system and elections as “rigged,” Biden said: “Nothing could be more dangerous for the country, more dangerous for American democracy.”
Separately in an interview with Time magazine focused on international affairs, Biden similarly laid into Trump over Jan. 6, he refusal to concede the 2020 election, and the effect it is having on allies abroad:
And it made me realize just how fundamentally what he allowed to happen sitting in this room, looking at that television for three hours and didn’t do a damn thing, said about America, and how much confidence people lost in America. There’s not a, there’s not a…I’m gonna, say, be careful what I say…There’s not a major international meeting I attend that before it’s over—and I’ve attended many, more than most presidents have in three and a half years—that a world leader doesn’t pull me aside as I’m leaving and say, “He can’t win. You can’t let him win.”
I should note that presidential candidates attacking each other is par for the course in an election year, but we’re going to make an effort not to reduce this to pissing-match politics. We’re in an unprecedented place. The coverage needs to reflect that.
Joe Biden or anyone from his Justice Department has absolutely zero to do with the Manhattan District Attorney office, they have no jurisdiction over him, they have no contact with him, they have no control certainly over him. So to say that Joe Biden brought this case is one of the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard. We know that’s not the case and even Trump’s lawyers know that’s not the case.”
Take a propagandistic news outlet and pump it full of cash from overseas criminal scams that you laundered yourself and bingo you have a supposedly growing media property. Allegedly.
The one glitch, as Epoch Times CFO Bill Guan found out, is that the law may eventually catch up to you.
Guan was indicted in the Southern District of New York on one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and two counts of bank fraud for allegedly laundering $67 million in illicit criminal proceeds for the benefit of the Falun Gong-affiliated Epoch Times.
Among the sources of the so-called “revenue” laundered into Epoch Times were fraudulently procured unemployment insurance benefits obtained using stolen identities that were then loaded onto prepaid debit cards and sold at 70-80 cents on the dollar, according to the indictment.
“The company intends to and will fully cooperate with any investigation dealing with the allegations against Mr. Guan. In the interim, although Mr. Guan is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the company has suspended him until this matter is resolved,” Epoch Times said in a statement to TPM’s Josh Kovensky.
Former Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) reflected on his time in Congress and ultimate decision to resign earlier this year in an interview Monday, saying there’s more to life than “arguing.”
“There’s a lot of life out there besides arguing about nothing and telling lies, and so I made a choice to go enjoy what I’ve got left,” Buck said during an appearance on “The Daily Show” with host Jon Stewart.
Buck, who announced his retirement from the House in March, explained that he wouldn’t follow suit with many of his former colleagues who have pushed President Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
“I left because I couldn’t tell the lie,” Buck said, when asked by Stewart if he missed Congress or felt as if he’d left anything undone. “[The] 2020 election wasn’t stolen. The Jan. 6 defendants aren’t political prisoners.”
The Colorado Republican has often sparred with some of Trump’s closest allies in the party, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). Greene, whom he has labeled as “Moscow Marjorie” over allegations that she has spread Russian propaganda, has been fervent in her belief that the election was stolen. […]
There are some days when a person can’t even. And then there are the days that you might be able to even if only a snarling someone wasn’t determined to prevent you. Britain’s rightwing ruling Conservative Party — known as the Tories — have just handed trans kids 92 of those days, and if they get their way, they’ll give every trans kid another 6480 or so. Worse? Even if the Labour Party wins the election coming up in a few weeks, they might just give trans kids the same.
The 92 days of horror began yesterday, June 3, when an order from UK Health Secretary Victoria Atkins took effect, rendering possession of puberty blocking drugs illegal without a new prescription from a UK-based physician that specifies that the drugs are not being used for gender-affirming care and further specifies the exact qualifying, non-trans related condition for which it is being prescribed. Said Atkins in a stentorian statement to the House of Commons:
“Today, I want to set out my clear intention to introduce a banning order on puberty blockers, with limited exceptions, under Section 62 of the Medicines Act 1968. This is an extraordinary use of that power, but it is the right use of that power because we must protect our children and young people from this risk to their safety.”
A letter sent to kids on the waiting list for trans-related health care confirms the order, its date of effect, […] and the fact that only UK-based medical professionals will now be trusted. That “UK-based” bit is important, because the Tory government has long had an invisible ban on trans health care maintained through the simple expedient of underfunding services so that the wait times grew to five years before intake at a clinic able to provide care. But while this allowed the government to prevent a good deal of otherwise necessary or recommended care, families with enough money were able to pay private clinicians out of pocket to gain access to hormones, puberty blockers, therapy, and other standard forms of help. That stopped June 3.
Instead the new regulations create an exception to the laws that generally allow people to see doctors elsewhere in Europe and still fill prescriptions written by those clinicians within the UK. Under a 1960s law designed originally for the government to be able to act quickly in the case of contaminated stocks of medicines, the Health Secretary has the power to ban a drug partially or fully for three months. It has been used exactly once before when an imported herbal supplement was literally killing people because of poisons included through contaminated ingredients.
UK doctors are, of course, regulated and licensed through London, and the government has the power to remove those licenses. By threatening to “strike” doctors from the rolls — effectively ending their careers — the Tory-led NHS has a strong deterrent for any doctor thinking about fudging a diagnosis on paperwork in order to preserve access for desperate patients. That wouldn’t work for doctors licensed through other governments, of course, and this is why the new order is written to require a prescription specifically from a UK-based provider.
It doesn’t stop just there, however. As Erin Reed reports, “the order was issued just before parliament dissolved for the general election, meaning it could not be overturned.”
Jo Maugham, King’s Counsel and director of the Good Law Project, had this to say on twitter:
It is, to me, breathtaking that thousands […] of loving families are going to be criminalized by a law made by a Minister, never approved by Parliament, […] and the media is not reporting it.
If the Tories remain in power, Health Secretary Atkins plans on consulting with Parliament and passing a law to make this ban permanent. For now, though, being caught in possession of these drugs is similar in effect to being caught with cocaine.
The letter sent to children on the NHS waiting list serves to make sure that they know the government has its eyes on them, and that they are subject to two years in prison if they violate the ban. The order is written in such a way that it may or may not require children or their parents to throw away the medicines already in a home. Without (expensive) legal advice, the only legally safe plan is for a parent to undermine their own child’s medical care. […]
There is an election coming up, and with Parliament recessed for campaigning there’s no immediate risk that they’ll ratify and extend Atkins’s order. That said, no one should get comfortable. The Labour Shadow Health Secretary actually came out in support of criminalizing trans people and families possessing medicines, duly prescribed, while cis folks continue to be able to access the same drugs.
Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said he “welcomed” Ms Atkins’ approach to puberty blockers, which suppress the natural production of sex hormones to delay puberty.
Yr trans-ass Wonkette literally cannot imagine what QTs in Britain would get out of supporting Labour when Streeting is in line to become the Health Secretary should his party win this summer’s snap election.
Despite the interparty agreement that giving trans kids the same medicines as straight kids is a threat to Western civilization, god, and the village green, the actions are so extreme that Reed says,
The actions being taken by the United Kingdom government are extreme among liberal democracies. In the United States, no state has explicitly criminalized the possession of gender-affirming care medications. The closest any state has come is Texas, where in 2022, Governor Greg Abbott attempted to investigate the parents of transgender youth for child abuse.
With due respect to Reed’s reporting, yr Wonkette would argue that Louisiana came closer by criminalizing abortion medication because even though the Mif isn’t a drug specific to trans health care, the action taken (criminalizing possession) is precisely the same, and the justifications given (public safety) are nearly identical and equally false.
The Tories, Streeter, and too many others are claiming that they haven’t banned trans health care, since there’s still a path to access it, non-Euclidian though that path may be. But the gargantuan levels of anti-trans hostility in the UK are made plain. In that same statement to the House of Commons, Atkins also asserted:
The Cass Review laid bare the damaging effect that social media and degrading pornography has had on young people’s sense of self.
It shouldn’t need to be said, but the Cass Review laid bare no such thing. There is no research establishing the purported fact that social media use or pornography cause transness. And the idea that — even if they did — being rendered trans constitutes “damage” is a purely ideological assertion valuing cis bodies and lives over trans ones. Atkins isn’t engaged in child protection here. She’s embarked on a program of ostentatious moral scolding, consequences for trans kids and their families be damned. […]
[…] Biden is using executive authorities to impose the broad restrictions as long as illegal entries remain above an average of 2,500 per day, senior administration officials told reporters in advance of the president’s planned remarks at the White House Tuesday afternoon.
“President Biden will announce executive actions to bar migrants who cross our southern border unlawfully from receiving asylum,” said one of the senior officials.
The administration will send migrants deemed ineligible to their home countries or Mexico unless they express a convincing fear of persecution that would qualify them for an exemption under stringent screening procedures, the officials said.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House, said the president’s measures were made necessary by the repeated failure of a bipartisan bill this year that would have combined the asylum cap with billions of dollars in additional funding for immigration enforcement.
Republicans voted against the bill as recently as last month after opposition from former president and presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump and concerns that it would hurt him in an election year.
The American Civil Liberties Union immediately said it will challenge the Biden measures in court. The organization has led lawsuits against attempts to restrict asylum under Biden and Trump.
“We intend to sue,” ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt said in a statement Tuesday minutes after the White House announced the policy. “An asylum ban was illegal under Trump and is just as illegal now.” […]
Without additional funding, the administration’s ability to close the border to illegal crossings may face many of the same limitations that have hampered previous efforts to deter migration by curbing asylum access. U.S. border authorities lack detention space, deportation capacity and sufficient number of asylum officers to uphold the basic U.S. legal obligations to prevent someone from being sent home to face torture, death or other grievous harm.
[…] Unaccompanied minors who cross the border without a parent will be exempt from the restrictions, officials said, as well as migrants who are in medical distress or facing other immediate life threats.
[…] The Biden administration does not hold family groups in U.S. immigration detention, and family groups are generally returned and deported at lower rates than single adults.
Under U.S. law, anyone who reaches U.S. soil has the right to seek asylum or another form of protection, regardless of how they enter. Biden will rely on presidential authorities in U.S. immigration law to temporarily suspend illegal entries on a temporary basis, administration officials said, citing sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act.
[…] Biden officials have defended the president’s restrictions as part of a more balanced approach that includes a major expansion of opportunities for migrants to enter the United States legally. The president is allowing about 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to enter legally if they apply through a sponsor in the United States.
U.S. officials are also granting nearly 1,500 appointments along the southern border per day for migrants and asylum seekers who use a government mobile app, CBP One. Those appointments are unaffected by the new asylum restrictions and will not count toward the numeric threshold, Biden officials
Republicans brought Attorney General Merrick Garland in front of the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday in their latest attempt to obfuscate the reality that Donald Trump is a convicted felon.
The hearing began with Rep. Matt Gaetz bloviating conspiracy theories about Garland coordinating “lawfare” attacks on Trump.
“I’m sorry, I don’t agree with anything you just said, but I’m not going to comment on that,” Garland responded.
Then Gaetz launched into a new conspiracy that Garland “dispatched” former Justice Department official Matthew Colangelo to oversee Trump’s investigation and prosecution.
“That’s false. False!” Garland said.
A few minutes later, Democratic Rep. Steven Cohen of Tennessee reviewed the DOJ’s record of nonpartisan prosecutions, such as those of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter and Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey.
Cohen said it was “unfortunate” that Gaetz had left the chambers after questioning Garland “because he is living testament to the fact and direct evidence that you have not weaponized the Justice Department. He was investigated for sex trafficking, and while many expected a prosecution, you chose not to prosecute this very active Republican.”
Cohen then asked Garland if it was true that he did not prosecute Gaetz, who continued to face an embarrassing ethics investigation related to his sex trafficking allegations.
“I’m sorry. I’m not. I’m not sure how much, what is in the public record and what’s not. So I’m just not going to comment on that,” he said.
So Matt Gaetz sets up what he hopes will be his Fox News and NewsMax moments, then he swiftly exits the chamber before his delicate ears can be subjected to anything resembling reality. Not just a liar, but also a coward.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul filed felony forgery charges Tuesday against two attorneys and an aide who helped submit paperwork falsely saying that former President Donald Trump had won the battleground state in 2020.
The charges were filed against attorneys Kenneth Chesebro, 62, and Jim Troupis, 70, and former Trump aide Mike Roman, 51, who allegedly delivered Wisconsin’s fake elector paperwork to a Pennsylvania congressman’s staffer in order to get them to then-Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021.
All three are due in Dane County Circuit Court on Sept. 19, according to court records. They each face one felony count punishable by up to six years in prison and fines of up to $10,000. […]
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers offered a one-word response to news of the charges being filed: “Good.”
[…] The fake elector efforts are central to an August federal indictment filed against Trump alleging he tried to overturn results of the 2020 election. Federal prosecutors, investigating his conduct related to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, have also said the scheme originated in Wisconsin. Trump also faces charges in Georgia and has denied wrongdoing.
Michigan and Nevada have also criminally charged fake electors.
Chesebro and Roman were among the 18 people indicted along with Trump in August in a sprawling racketeering indictment in Georgia. They’re accused of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to try to illegally overturn the 2020 election in that state.
Chesebro in October pleaded guilty to one felony charge of conspiracy to commit filing false documents after reaching a deal with prosecutors. Roman has pleaded not guilty to racketeering and conspiracy charges related to a plan to have Republican electors meet and cast Electoral College votes for Trump even though Biden had won Georgia.
[…] Government and outside investigations have uniformly found there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could have swung the 2020 election. But Trump has continued to spread falsehoods about the election, particularly in Wisconsin.
Three white-guy Republicans will hear FANI WILLIS UNFAIR TO TRUMP October 4.
UGH, an all-white-guy-Republican three-appeals-judge panel has set a date for October 4 to hear Team Trump’s bullshit WAH UNFAIR appeal.
Five months?! Well, how nice of you to deign to set any date at all, your majesties!
This scheduling drag-assery extra-super-guarantees that even if the appeals court panel doesn’t rule in favor of 34-TIMES CONVICTED FELON Donald Trump, kicking DA Fani Willis and the entire Fulton County DA’s Office off the case and sending it to legal Siberia possibly forever, the trial will still not begin before the election.
[…] But does anyone really believe that trio of judges couldn’t fast-track the start of that mess any sooner than FIVE MONTHS from now? Not like it’s super important for voters to know if the felon convicted of 34 counts of ELECTION INTERFERENCE related crimes in New York is also guilty of running an ELECTION INTERFERENCE CRIMINAL RACKETEERING ENTERPRISE with 18 accomplices to DEFRAUD 2.5 MILLION VOTERS IN THEIR OWN STATE. Pardon our caps, but momma is pig-biting mad.
Somehow the right-wingers have managed to take the trial of a white supremacist dirty old lech who rigged one election, tried to steal another, and is working on stealing the next, and turned it into a trial about a smart, hardworking Black woman and her crime of having a boyfriend. […]
Sure, Georgia is in no big hurry to pass judgment on the fraud caught on tape asking the Georgia secretary of state to “find” him 11,780 votes out back behind the woodshed. The real crime is probably DA Fani Willis HAD DIVORCED LADY SEXXX, and that is unfair to CONVICTED FELON DONALD TRUMP.
Is this real life?
And the stench gets worse. The panel of three appeals court judges is chosen randomly by computer, and Trump lawyers drew two Republican-appointed judges Todd Markle and Benjamin Land, plus Mildred Yvette Miller, the first Black woman on the appeals court, appointed by (a previous, obviously) Democratic governor, Roy Barnes. But Miller quickly recused herself, no further explanation given. What was the potential conflict? Perhaps a desire to retire and not be targeted by death threats for the rest of her life, when she would have just been outvoted by the two fascist-huggers anyway? We may never know, but she was replaced by another Republican-appointed judge, Trenton Brown. Three Republican judges ruling on a Republican candidate, well that sure stinks of eau de mendacity, but they can’t smell it over the bouquet of $1,000 wine that a billionaire just uncorked, and the bottomless buffet of crab legs. Power smells so scintillating!
Georgia Republicans have been working to get their fix in hard, with drawling dishrag Governor Brian Kemp signing multiple laws that ensure chaos will reign at the polls in November. Sure, True The Vote was all lies, but it made a fine excuse to enact those EMERGENCY laws forbidding supplying snacks and water for voters in line, making sure lines in shall-we-say urban areas will be punishingly long by eliminating polling locations and mobile voting, making mail-in voting more complicated, and letting anybody file unlimited challenges to the eligibility of voters based on flimsy or none evidence. Plus, the State Elections Board of five Republicans and one Democrat can replace a county’s election board and certify their votes for them. […]
Georgia Republicans aren’t mad that a New Yorker tried to fricassee their elections, they just wanted to cook it up themselves in a Southern fried way, with gravy on top. That’s some damn fine election stealin!
So, here we are, not getting saved by the judiciary. The New York case is over. (Once, twice, 34-times a felon! Will it matter?) The Georgia case is a pig on a spit, the Florida nuclear-secrets-in-the-shitter case is scheduled for the 12th of “never” in a month of Sundays, and we await the late June or July ruling on the Supreme Court case of “Donald Trump is Allowed To Shoot Anybody on Fifth Avenue” vs. “No,” which you know will be a box of monkeywrenches if Ginni and Martha-Ann’s husbands get their way.
But hey, it is fuck around and find out time for those fake electors in other states! It’s gonna be hot summers for indicted fraudsters in Wisconsin, Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada. And polls seem to be shifting, with 49 percent of independent voters saying Trump should drop out of the race.
There’s reason to hope that maybe Democracy will survive. But still, ugh.
Trump supporters are trotting out any number of responses to Trump’s string of felony convictions last week. One of the most perverse and malign is the demand or “request” for jurors to come forward and explain their reasoning. Part of the idea is to suggest that the logic of the verdict is obscure or hard to justify and thus requires explanation. “Can you explain how you came to this very hard to understand verdict?” Neither is the case. The logic of the verdict is very straightforward. There may be some room for debate about how the judge interpreted the relevant law. But within those interpretations the jury verdict is elementary. The other part is to suggest something odd or suspicious in the fact that none of the jurors have yet gone public in the press.
It’s an apt illustration of the mix of disingenuousness and predation that is at the heart of Trumpism. Perhaps one of these jurors will come forward to discuss the case. It’s entirely their right to do so. But who could honestly question why they might not want to? Even by the standards of other high-profile court cases, doing so could be reasonably interpreted as an act of self-harm.
We all know that people who become publicly identified as enemies of Trump, even if only for doing an ordinary civic duty with no ill-will toward Trump at all, become subject to punishment ranging from ordinary harassment, to stalking, doxxing, various kinds of severe vilification and even terrorist violence. It’s a bit surprising the court was even able to impanel a jury given the risk of, at a minimum, having one’s life upended that came with this service.
[…] In a speech that was much more direct and confrontational than previous appearances, Biden pointed to a shift in Trump’s demeanor following his defeat in the 2020 election. “Something snapped in this guy—for real—when he lost in 2020,” Biden said.
Now Trump is “unhinged” and a much greater threat to the nation than when he ran in 2016 because he can’t admit to that loss.
“It’s literally driving him crazy,” Biden said. […]
Critics say the program’s lack of transparency and record-keeping opens it up to abuse. Matt Gaetz was the program’s top spender.
More than 300 House lawmakers were reimbursed at least $5.2 million for food and lodging while on official business in Washington last year under a new, taxpayer-funded program that does not require them to provide receipts.
The program, which kicked off last year after a House panel passed it with bipartisan support, was intended to make it easier for lawmakers to cover the cost of maintaining separate homes in D.C. and their home districts. But critics argue that its reliance on the honor system and lack of transparent record-keeping makes it ripe for abuse.
The reimbursement scheme’s lack of receipt requirements is a “ridiculous loophole,” said Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the good government group Public Citizen. “Clearly it becomes very difficult to tell whether or not it’s a legitimate payment and whether it’s proper,” Holman added.
The program has only a few strict rules: Lawmakers cannot be repaid for principal or interest on their mortgages, they can only get reimbursement for days they’re actually working or flying to D.C., and they can’t ask for more back than their actual expenses. They’re also subject to daily spending caps determined by the General Services Administration. Members are “strongly encouraged,” but not required, to keep records of their expenses, according to guidance issued by the House Committee on Administration.
[…] Of the 435 voting members of the House, 319 members — 153 Democrats and 166 Republicans — received reimbursement for some food or lodging expenses last year, alongside three delegates from U.S. territories. The other 116 members received no money from the reimbursement program, according to a Washington Post review of the first 11 months of data released by the House.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), the program’s overall top spender, was reimbursed for nearly $30,000 in lodging expenses and more than $10,000 for food in 2023. He was reimbursed for more than $4,000 for lodging in two different months and more than $3,000 in five different months.
A spokesperson for Gaetz said he was reimbursed for lodging expenses on days when the House was out of session but Gaetz remained in Washington on official business for depositions related to his post on the select committee on weaponization of the federal government.
[…] Other members of the weaponization committee expensed significantly less than Gaetz.
[…] Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) instructed her staff to seek the maximum reimbursement each day the House was in session, regardless of her actual expenses, two former members of her staff and one other person familiar with the matter alleged to The Post. Mace denies that allegation.
[…] Members of Congress make $174,000 per year, which is about twice the median U.S. household income, but they must usually maintain two households: one in Washington, an expensive metro area, and another in their home districts. Many commute long distances at great expense. […] Some lawmakers have turned to living in their own offices to defray the costs. […]
an Atlanta-based property management company, joins nine other real estate conglomerates under investigation for creating a rental monopoly, resulting in rents across Arizona going up by more than 30% since 2022. The common thread between the 10 is RealPages, a co-defendant and consulting firm whose software they utilized to determine the maximum amount rent could be raised, then doing so in tandem
[…]
The [federal] probe […] escalated to criminal in March 2024, after a series of state-level investigations into Realpages was announced in Washington, DC, Arizona, and five other states.
[…]
The heightened scrutiny of anti-competitive business practices is part of the Biden administration’s larger initiative to lower the cost of living
[…]
While most other state-level investigations are only targeting RealPage for orchestrating the scheme, […] Arizona implicates nine landlord companies representing over 400 apartment complexes as co-conspirators.
KGsays
Confirmation that Modi’s Hindutva-fascist BJP has lost its parliamentary majority. If the other components of the surrealistically-named “National Democratic Alliance” stick with him, he will be PM, but this is not a completely foregone conclusion: I’ve seen a report that one party in this alliance is demanding the removal of the vile Amit Shah as home minister. Even if a BJP-based coalition is successfully formed, there may be a reasonably effective opposition (the INDIA alliance), and Modi is not used to having to compromise with coalition partners. At any rate, Indian democracy lives to fight another day, when its demise looked almost inevitable.
birgerjohanssonsays
The next launch attempt for Starliner is set to shortly before 10 US Eastern time / 16 universal time / 17 Swedish time today.
A newly released report details how white nationalist groups and other hate groups are seeing an increase in their numbers and boldness, including Arizona.
The Southern Poverty Law Center released its year in hate and extremism report for 2023 and the organization said that 2023 marks the highest number of groups tracked by the nonprofit organization since they began tracking in 1990.
In total, the organization tracked 1,430 hate and anti-government extremist groups across the country, including 38 in Arizona. There has been a steady increase in the Grand Canyon State since 2000.
“What we are seeing now should be a wake up call to all of us,” Margaret Huang, CEO of the SPLC, said in a call with reporters Tuesday morning.
The increase is a continued trend, as last year’s report on 2022 saw similar increases.
Of Arizona’s 38 groups, 18 are hate groups aimed at minority groups or women, while the remaining 20 are classified as anti-government groups.
“Antisemitic narratives seeped into mainstream narratives at an alarming rate in 2023,” R.G. Cravens, a senior researcher for SPLC, told reporters.
[…] The SPLC noted a 50% increase in white nationalist organizations across the country, something it attributed to extremists feeling emboldened by politicians engaging with policy ideas that have long been supported by extremist groups.
In particular, white nationalist groups participated in a large number of anti-LGBTQ+ demonstrations, with nearly 50% of all their demonstrations aimed at the LGBTQ+ community.
“The mainstream right is pursuing a policy agenda that is very much in line with what the white power movement wants,” Cassie Miller, a senior researcher at SPLC, said.
Some of those policy ideas include “male supremacist” ideologies that target women and advocate taking away their reproductive rights and other forms of autonomy. Arizona was one of 10 states that introduced legislation aimed at abolishing abortion supported by these male supremacist groups.
Arizona also made news for some of its anti-LGBTQ+ demonstrations, including an assault on an ASU professor by two members of Phoenix-based Turning Point USA. A number of drag story hours were also disrupted in the state, with one receiving a bomb threat while children were actively in the building.
Huang stressed that, given this is an election year, more attention needs to be focused on these groups which are already aiming to intervene in the upcoming election and some are actively seeking office.
“We must act now to counter disinformation, radicalization and threats to voters and election workers,” Huang said. “More than ever, it is imperative that we preserve and strengthen our democracy.”
The Infinite Thread reached 500 comments … again.
The Infinite Thread automatically begins again at comment #1 once the 500-comment threshold is reached.
For the convenience of readers, here are a few links back to the previous chapter.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2024/04/07/infinite-thread-xxxi/comment-page-3/#comment-2221930
Star Trump Defense Witness Gets Into Confrontation With Judge
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2024/04/07/infinite-thread-xxxi/comment-page-3/#comment-2221924
Democrats haven’t called on Justice Samuel Alito to resign or initiated impeachment proceedings, but they’re apparently hoping to see some recusals.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2024/04/07/infinite-thread-xxxi/comment-page-3/#comment-2221920
The United States and Europe are coalescing around a plan to use interest earned on frozen Russian central bank assets to provide Ukraine with a loan to be used for military and economic assistance, potentially providing the country with a multibillion-dollar lifeline as Russia’s war effort intensifies.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2024/04/07/infinite-thread-xxxi/comment-page-3/#comment-2221855
Julian Assange wins high court victory in case against extradition to US | Julian Assange | The Guardian
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2024/04/07/infinite-thread-xxxi/comment-page-3/#comment-2221853
Happy World Bee Day everyone!
Billionaire Idiot Dan Snyder Furious To Find Out Trump/Roy Cohn Movie He Funded Not Lovable Bromantic Comedy
People are now getting screwed out of money by movies about Donald Trump.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/billionaire-idiot-dan-snyder-furious
https://www.wonkette.com/p/rural-republicans-somehow-not-interested
Senate Democrats revive bipartisan border security bill as GOP vows to block it again
The International Criminal Court announced it is seeking to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
Link
These Mexicans are trying to save the volcano axolotl, a beloved and endangered amphibian
Drying rivers threaten the endangered salamander-like amphibian, which is a crucial part of the region’s ecosystem and has been part of Mexican mythology and culture since pre-Hispanic times.
Images and details are available at the link.
Death toll grows to 8 in severe Houston-area storms
Nearly 200,000 customers remained without power in southeastern Texas, days after the deadly storm.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/fossils-4
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/sum
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/hands-down
Protesters show up at Trump’s trial, but not the ones he wanted
My bet is that the bootlickers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, are glad that the defense rested today. The trial will be over fairly soon, and the bootlickers will not have to return to NYC to be heckled. Summation by the prosecution and defense, followed by jury instructions from Judge Merchan, are scheduled for next week.
Schadenfreude moments.
The Biden administration wants to close the gun-show loophole. In Texas, a controversial Trump-appointed judge is now standing in the way.
Former Trump EPA head hopes for a second chance to destroy the planet
Cartoon: Alito’s flag
Donald Trump can’t quit his Nazi Germany obsession, as he posts an ad with the words “Unified Reich”
Trump isn’t preparing to win—he’s preparing to lose
I agree. I’ve thought that for some time. Details at the link.
Cheering for some Biden administration accomplishments and/or intentions that are good for me, and probably good for you too:
Trump chickens out after insisting he wanted to testify at his trial
“Researchers succeed for first time in accurately dating a 7,000-year-old prehistoric settlement using cosmic rays”
https://phys.org/news/2024-05-succeed-accurately-dating-year-prehistoric.html
Miyake events can ‘anchor’ dendrochronology across the world.
. . .
“Improved radiocarbon dating and understanding of Earth’s environmental processes during glacial times”
https://phys.org/news/2023-07-radiocarbon-dating-earth-environmental-glacial.html
Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire:
Biden still isn’t on the ballot in Ohio, and Republican state House Speaker Jason Stephens told reporters this morning that there won’t be a legislative fix. By all appearances, the matter is now headed to court.
Summarized from NBC News by Steve Benen:
According to Donald Trump, Ken Paxton would be in the mix for U.S. attorney general in a second term. The mere possibility of such a nomination is absurd.
Watch Rachel Maddow interview embattled Georgia DA on Trump case
Video at the link.
“Cancer drug shows powerful anti-tumor activity in animal models of several different tumor types”
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-05-cancer-drug-powerful-anti-tumor.html
Heh. Schadenfreude moment.
Trump’s social media company has lost over $300 million so far in 2024
Cartoon: Cake and summons
God Awful Movies! Expelling imagined demons.
GAM457 Come Out in Jesus Name
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=h41sL4jZNV4
Bump stock ruling could trigger booming rapid-fire marketplace
Followup to comment 23.
Video at the link.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/rachel-maddow-will-have-your-ass
Trump’s ‘Team of Felons’ isn’t done adding new members
“With Lincoln, they had a team of rivals,” Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said. “With Trump, you have a team of felons.”
What next for regime and region after Iran’s president dies in helicopter crash?
The death of Ebrahim Raisi poses significant questions, not just over his own successor but that of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
U.S. halted safety inspections of public housing for weeks after IT failure
The Department of Housing and Urban Development said the health and safety inspections resumed Monday.
“Have I Got News for You S67 E7. Jason Manford. 17 May 24”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=6r5pOz3sxtI
(For reference, Boris Johnson is another politician who was a guest at the program, which explains the joke)
WaPo – With Europe’s support, North African nations push migrants to the desert
[Gift link w/ fancy images] [Archive link]
Bah. Vox updated its website, and of course it’s shittier than before. Might give up on it, too much scrolling to see the content.
Anyway, there is this article which amused me: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/350382/gas-mileage-fuel-economy-mpg-gphm-gas-guzzlers
Well, I hope they’re not too hard on themselves for answering wrong.
Obviously, using 2 gallons to travel 100 miles saves a shitload more ‘gas’ than using 6.7 gallons to travel the same distance.
(Yes, I know what they intended to claim)
—
BTW, here in Oz, it’s ‘petrol’ or ‘gasoline’, not ‘gas’. Gas is, you know, the gaseous stuff, not the liquid stuff.
Trump promises to deport all undocumented immigrants, resurrecting a 1950s strategy
Source : https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a60819842/50000-year-old-block-of-ice/
I think that PZ and many others here will find this interesting. It reinforces what PZ has often written about science journals (I skimmed it and need to read it more carefully)
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/05/greshams-law-comes-for-science.html
Another one bites the dust!
“General election 2024: Rishi Sunak calls vote for 4 July – UK politics live”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/may/22/uk-general-election-july-2024-sunak-starmer-senior-sources-say-uk-politics-live-news
4 July? I suppose fellow tory haters that have moved to USA can celebrate two things in one day.
Wouldn’t it be sweet if Sunak is forced to leave office the same month as Trump is thrown in the slammer?
News summarized by Steve Benen:
Embedded links to the “over and over again” are available at the main link.
Link
When it comes to Donald Trump’s classified-documents scandal, discard the absurd “assassination” nonsense and consider the new revelations that matter.
RNC’s ‘election integrity’ lawyer arraigned, charged with election crimes
Aileen Cannon Gifts Trump Bogus New Fodder For His Disinformation Campaign
Biden administration suspends funding for scientist at center of COVID lab leak theory
This looks like an incomplete report to me.
GOP Leaders BLOW UP in House after Trump Facts Stated
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=dXOG-BEw_Kc
The Republican rules for the House literally bans the mention of Trump being in a court, since that is ‘negative’ speech about Donald Trump. This is Putin-level censorship.
birgerjohansson, what?
I find that hard to believe. So hard, even, that I don’t believe it.
And no, I’m not gonna watch some biased opinion piece article.
(Got an actual citation for this purported change to the rules for the House?)
—
“GOP Leaders BLOW UP in House after Trump Facts Stated”
Tells ya all you need to know about the source.
Listen to yourself.
Putin-level censorship is more about beatings, imprisonment, drafting into the army, or falling out of a window.
I know it’s hyperbole, but it’s ridiculous nonetheless.
Actually, that’s Trump-level wankery, is what it is. Ridiculous, blatantly false hyperbole.
(bah)
Re: John Morales @ #46…
Here’s a Daily Kos article on that: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/5/22/2242123/-GOP-brings-House-to-a-halt-to-debate-whether-facts-are-allowed?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_5&pm_medium=web
A Democratic member of the House read into the record a list of the charges Trump is facing. A Republican member asked that those remarks be struck from the record and the member presiding at the time agreed.
So…while the there is some hyperbole in the initial claim, what happened is pretty much what was described.
Yes, I know, whheydt.
Partisan puffery that’s almost meaningless, but clickbaited to the max, and of course bait’n switchy.
I really don’t like that stuff.
“The Republican rules for the House literally bans [sic] the mention of Trump being in a court”
Here are the rules: https://rules.house.gov/sites/republicans.rules118.house.gov/files/documents/118/Additional%20Items/118-House-Rules-Clerk-v2.pdf
What was described is a claim about the rules, which is a false claim, and hyperbole about exploding people.
Now, if you reckon what happened is pretty much what was described, fair enough.
I don’t. Obviously.
And no, it’s not being hyperliteral to point out that if a headline says “X!” and the content is “¬X”, it is not a truthful headline.
—
Indeed. I know; I did my due diligence before commenting.
But that’s a different claim, and hardly a newsworthy one.
(Politicians posturing, who’d have thought!)
—
PS I caught your comment in the other thread; condolences.
Anniversaries can be hard.
Re: John Morales @ #49…
Just responding to your very kind last point….
It all just kind of piles up this time of year. Our anniversary was 8 May. Her birthday was 6 June. She died on 28 June.
@John Morales #46:
@John Morales #49:
The chair read from a MUCH longer manual.
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/hman/118
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/HMAN-118/pdf/HMAN-118.pdf
Section XVII Order in Debate, §370. Starts at p192 (205 in pdf).
Entitled “to speak irreverently or seditiously against the King is against order.”
p192 “held […] to refer to the President”
p193 “extended to a presumptive major-party nominee”
p195 (208): “Accusations that the President has committed a crime, or even that the President has done something illegal, are unparliamentary. he following allegations are not in order: […] (2) discussing ‘charges’ leveled at the President”
/This manual also includes the numerous forbidden phrases describing Trump.
Um, Trump is not the President.
(It’s Biden)
Re: John Morales @ #52…
Clearly, you are not a Republican. Or, at least, not a “proper” Republican in the eyes those currently controlling the Republican party.
Thing is, the claim isn’t from some Republicans.
It’s from the MeidasTouch Network and was adduced by Birger.
Note, too, the conclusion: “This is Putin-level censorship.”
It doesn’t follow from the false premise, even, but the point is that’s not exactly incisive analysis, is it?
@John Morales #52:
I excerpted “extended to a presumptive major-party nominee”. Here is the surrounding text, which was introducing the section.
pgs 192,193:
CA7746, again:
(1) ; and
(2) The standards applicable to references regarding the President apply also to the President-elect. In the 102d Congress, the Speaker enunciated a minimal standard of propriety for all debate concerning nominated candidates for the Presidency, based on the traditional proscription against personally offensive references to the President even in the capacity as a candidate.
Hm. I concede Trump is the current President-elect.
Nonetheless, how (in your estimation) is merely mentioning Trump being in a court specifically proscribed thereby?
(And, of course, the rules do not mention Trump by name, because they’re not about Trump)
—
See, here’s the thing:
A palpably false headline with a bullshit claim and an opinion based on that. Video stuff, too.
Now, you want to hold that (1) and (2) are semantically equivalent (or close enough), I can’t stop you.
But you’d be wrong if you did.
I noted that.
—
It’s the lazy way of commenting, ain’t it?
Me, I prefer quality over quantity, when adducing opinion pieces.
(I obviously prefer the ones that don’t lie)
Was curious, so <clickety-click>ing:
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4666621-jim-mcgovern-rips-mike-johnson-stunt-donald-trump-trial/
by Lauren Irwin – 05/15/24 5:46 PM ET
Huh.
BTW, CA7746, re: “The chair read from a MUCH longer manual.”
The initial claim — the headline — is , in case you failed to get why I adduced the link I did. It wasn’t lazy and it wasn’t arbitrary, and thereby it was more apposite.
OK thank you.
:Lost photos suggest Mars’ mysterious moon Phobos may be a trapped comet in disguise” |
https://www.livescience.com/space/mars/lost-photos-suggest-mars-mysterious-moon-phobos-may-be-a-trapped-comet-in-disguise
If they are cometary relics, they may contain carbon, water and other substances important for in-situ resource utilization.
“Ancient Mycenaean armor is so good, it protected users in an 11-hour battle simulation inspired by the Trojan War” | Live Science
https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/ancient-mycenaean-armor-is-so-good-it-protected-users-in-an-11-hour-battle-simulation-inspired-by-the-trojan-war
Why would you concede that when it’s not true?
Heh.
Because I can afford to so so, KG. :)
(Doesn’t matter to my case, does it?)
But, yes. Republican Presidential Candidate Elect, I suppose.
Presumptive President for Republicans.
A Different Bias:
“Why Has Sunak Called the Election Now?”
Yes, let’s see why.
“An unpleasant, uncaring bumbling oaf”.
OK. That seems plausible.
Nice of Rishi Sunak to give me a birthday present yesterday! At least, that’s as rational an explanation as any for his decision to call a general election he’s bound to lose 6 months before he needed to. I have no great hopes of Starmer, but election night itself should provide a good number of “Portillo moments”* when particularly loathsome Tory MPs lose their seats (even among the utterly loathsome, some are even more loathsome than others).
*“Portillo moments” because in the 1997 election, the vile right-winger (and widely-tipped future PM) Michael Portillo’s loss of his seat, announced at 3.10a.m., gave rise to the question “Were you still up for Portillo?”. To be fair, my guess is that Portillo would regard many of today’s Tory MPs as contemptible. And following his defeat, he reinvented himself as a TV presenter of travel programmes, concentrating on rail journeys, rather than becoming a right-wing talking head.
Followup to comment 41.
In docs case, Trump doubles down on absurd ‘deadly force’ claim
The problem with Donald Trump’s “deadly force” claims about the FBI isn’t just that he’s lying. It’s also that his lies might prove dangerous.
I think violence done in his name is what Trump wants.
Followup to several comments up-thread that discuss rules about what can be said about Trump (and others) on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives:
Link
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/supreme-court-racial-gerrymander-voting-rights-south-carolina
You can read the entire ruling at the link.
Cartoon: Upside-down Supreme Court
Link
Cartoon: Tom the Dancing Bug presents RFK Jr’s brain worm’s guide to third-party voter brains
From the Steve Benen report quoted@ Lynna’s #50: Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, for example, claimed that the incumbent Democratic president “ordered the hit on Trump at Mar-a-Lago.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia added that the Justice Department and the FBI had plans to “assassinate” the former president. Even some Fox News personalities parroted the line.
I haven’t seen anything spelling it out explicitly, but it seems pretty obvious that the FBI timed their search specifically for when Trump had gone to New Jersey – precisely to minimize the theatrics and risks of reactions getting out of control. That the Congressional Chorus of Crazies drops that detail reveals just how little actual thought they expect from their followers – no doubt quite realistically.
Oops – @ my # 72, that should’ve read “Lynna’s # 41”!
Good News:
Link
Flower Moon: Full Moon in May 2024
https://www.almanac.com/full-moon-may
Whoops, a little late with this announcement, but you may want to enjoy moon watching tonight.
“The Physics of Portals (Made With Love)”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=cox7481IE6o
A pretty good summary. Every science fiction author should make a similar assessment of the plot devices to avoid paradoxes.
Here we go!
“Scathing Atheist 588 Kicker Vicar Edition”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=vgMIo9rvlVM
Britain: Vote Dalek – General Election Statement 2024
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=p4-X8-luDLc
The daleks promise to be nice to Larry the cat, and to be honest while they exterminate humanity.
birger @78, LOL.
In other news: Ron DeSantis rings in ‘Freedom Summer’ by banning rainbows
“Freedom Summer”?? Really
A little followup to the story of Justice Alito and his wife flying flags that show support for Trump/insurrection/Christian nationalism outside their homes:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/look-honey-the-alitos-put-up-another
NEWS! Fox News Reporter Tries To Gently Explain Biden Didn’t Order Trump Assassinated.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/news-fox-news-reporter-tries-to-gently
Pathetic.
Big, Huge, Golf: How Trump’s Lawyers Used The Trial To Flatter Him
More examples are available at the link.
Link
Followup to comment 83.
Link
Stephen Colbert:
‘Trump “Nearly Escaped Death” In Mar-a-Lago Raid | Biden Seeks Meme Maker | Gay Planet ‘
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=exfogQf1r-M
Slow grinding wheels; so, around now: https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/russian-assets-plan-for-aiding-ukraine-to-dominate-g7-meet/
Seems Trappist 1 c (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAPPIST-1c) might possibly have a significant atmosphere after all albeit of a different kind :
Source : https://bigthink.com/13-8/why-theres-new-hope-for-an-atmosphere-on-nearby-trappist-1-exoplanet/
OTOH this could still be true as well :
Source : https://phys.org/news/2024-02-atmospheres-trappist.html
More research, observations and studies badly needed and I’m really anxiously looking forward to the results on Trappist-1’s outer planets since the question of whether red dwarfs – the vast majority of stars can actually host habitable planets or (almost?) always strip their atmospheres away through strong stellar flares is a question with huge implications for common advanced life might be in the cosmos.
StevoR @ # 87, quoting Wikipedia: TRAPPIST-1 c hosting either a thick oxygen atmosphere or a relatively thick steam atmosphere … we might not expect either kind of world to host life …
In what kind of scenario would a planet have lots of free oxygen (not bound to hydrogen, iron, carbon, sulfur, etc) without photosynthesis (a biological process)?
Hope so! The answer does seem to be maaaybe..
(Emphasis for headline.)
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-05-14/auroras-and-solar-maixmums-explained/103838866
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-24/victoria-police-apology-stolen-generations/103888008
@ Pierce R. Butler : “In what kind of scenario would a planet have lots of free oxygen (not bound to hydrogen, iron, carbon, sulfur, etc) without photosynthesis (a biological process)?”
Not sure but obvs not necessarily a biological one. FWIW Europa has an oxygen atmosphere :
Source : https://earthsky.org/space/oxygen-on-europa-juno-ocean-moons/
Although its highly doubtful that particular mechanism is at work on Trappist 1c. Perhaps a chemical process that frees oxygen from rocks – sorta like rusting in reverse? Or maybe Trappist 1c had a vastly higher level of oxgen when it formed due to the composition of the nebula it formed from? Pure speculation on my part but who knows? Or algae inits atmosphere that are at a high enough level to have ideal conditions a la speculated Cytherean life? It certainly does raise that and other questions.
Imagines a Trappist 1 c like Venus but covered in green clouds of photosynthesising aerial lifeforms that either evolved or were engineeered to live there above a surface that’s like that of Venus .. Unlikely (highly x lots?) but who knows?
Oh and looks like another potentailly, maaaybe pomising exoplanet has been discovered the other day too :
Source : https://www.space.com/gliese-12-b-tess-exoplanet-hunt-for-life
Again, orbiting a red dwarf and so, again, depending on what happens with red dwarf suns and a planetary atmospheres highlighting again how important answering that question is. StillI, I do find this fascinating good news.
How are Trumpist traitors Alito and Thomas still on SCOTUS & not behind bars for sedition?
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/supreme-court-rejects-racial-gerrymandering-claim-in-south-carolina
How is this SCOTUS allowed to continue & not deemed illegitaimate and obvs too partisan and corrupt?
Oh & who wnats Trump appointing more “Justices” like Kavanaugh, handmaiden OffBarrett in anotheer term?
Chernobyl’s Radioactive Wild Boar Paradox
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=7fSy52SIWdg
Dang! And I was hoping the boars were developing some Godzilla-style nuclear reactor.
“Number of abortions in England and Wales hits record levels” | Abortion | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/24/number-abortions-england-wales-record-levels
This is the result of the lack of in-person appointments with health providers.
. . .
“George Harrison’s childhood home in Liverpool gets blue plaque” | George Harrison | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/may/24/george-harrison-childhood-home-liverpool-blue-plaque-beatles
The Stoned Age
Stephen Colbert: Marijuana Everywhere | Alito Flew Pro-Trump Flag At His Shore House | Trump says Biden will drop out.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=8KSKqvRXUOo
As Trump cozies up to Big Oil (again), Democrats open new inquiry
Sen. Tommy Tuberville wants people to believe the unemployment rate was better during Donald Trump’s term than Joe Biden’s. That’s demonstrably ridiculous.
Why Trump’s appalling line on Evan Gershkovich’s detention matters
Donald Trump was silent for a year about Evan Gershkovich’s detainment. It now appears the former president would’ve been better off staying silent. [Pretty much always true in Trump’s case.]
Trump just spouts whatever bullshit pops into his head. He does not care if his bullshit causes Evan Gershkovich to spend more time in a Russian prison.
Ex-GOPer puts up “Vote For Joe Not The Psycho” billboard near Mar-a-Lago ahead of holiday weekend
Photos, video with chirping birds, map, etc. available at the link. Video of Conway discussing Justice Alito flying January 6-linked flags at his homes is also available at the link.
Good solutions to problems, good news, good story:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/things-to-do-in-denver-when-youre
I think this is some more good news, in California at least:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/california-bill-will-stop-schools
Rishi Sunak has had a disastrous start to his doomed re-election campaign. After making the announcement outside 10 Downing Street in a downpour and competing against a protestor playing the Labour Party anthem from 1997, D:Ream’s “Things Can Only Get Better”, he got caught out answering softball questions from two planted Tory local councillors disguised in hi-vis jackets, asked an audience in Wales whether they were looking forward to the “Euros” (European soccer tournament, for which Wales failed to qualify), and visited the “Titanic Quarter” in Belfast (the Titanic was built there), leading to hm being asked if he was captaining a sinking ship. He’s now taking a day off campaigning! He seems intent on making the whole Tory campaign about himself, despite having terrible approval ratings. Since the announcement, two senior Tories (Michael Gove and Andrea Leadsom – don’t bother looking them up if you don’t know them because they won’t be of any future significance except to historians of the collapse of the most successful political party in electoral history) have announced that they are not standing. One begins to wonder if there will actually be any Tory candidates at all, since those who put themselves forward as such do so for selfish reasons or at best because they think they will be good at governing, not to spend 5 years in opposition even if they win a seat.
Fuck fundamentalists. Even the green ones.
‘A catastrophe’: Greenpeace blocks planting of lifesaving golden rice | GM | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/25/greenpeace-blocks-planting-of-lifesaving-golden-rice-philippines
NBC News:
Associated Press:
Associated Press:
Associated Press:
NBC News:
birgirjohansson@106,
That’s a very tendentious headline. There is no evidence at all that “golden rice” would be lifesaving. It is very much a solution for a problem that already has perfectly viable solutions – most simply, food supplementation with vitamin A – which raises the question of why the project was launched in the first place. One possible answer, of course, is that it was intended as a “wedge” to open markets for other GM foods. Some of the arguments against “golden rice” are given in the article itself:
RollCall:
Link
North Carolina GOP governor candidate blasts public spending as nonprofit rakes in taxpayer funds
Not sure the “other people have done way worse than me” is a good excuse for wrongdoing.
MAGA Communism. This sounds perfect for The Vicar, beholder, drew…!
birgerjohansson@106, me@111,
The Graun has now quite rightly put “lifesaving” in quotes.
Followup to 111 and 106.
Regarding “golden rice,” it looks like an issue with many sides, including environmental concerns.
I am not fully informed, but will say that it looks like possible effects on the genetic diversity of thousands of other rice varieties should be more thoroughly investigated.
Are the beta carotene levels high enough to make a real difference in people’s health? Probably.
Yes, I do think there is a knee-jerk response against all genetically modified crops that is too broadly applied.
The FDA approving Golden Rice as safe to eat, and as non-toxic is the not the same as saying that other foods rich in beta carotene do not provide the needed nutrition.
Vitamin A deficiency does need to be prevented.
Cartoon: The Haley endorsement
Trump speaking at the Libertarian Convention?
Politico reports:
Libertarian convention devolves into fighting, obscenities on eve of Trump’s visit
More details concerning Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s courting of Libertarians are available at the link.
Followup to comment 118.
I largely agree with Lynna, OM@116.
There have been plenty of unfounded anti-GMO claims, but also many unfounded pro-GMO claims, among which those made for “golden rice” are prominent. My main concerns about GMOs are not around food safety (which was the basis of the court case in the Philippines), but wider effects on complex socio-ecological systems – reducing biodiversity (e.g. by creating varieties resistant to a pesticide which will kill most other plants) and reinforcing the power of the few huge agiibusinesses which dominate agricultural trade and very often, agricultural trade rules, health-and-safety rules, anti-monopoly rules…
Re #s 106, 111, 1115, 116, & 120: Carrots grow in the Philippines.
KG @120, I agree.
In other news:
Link
Jack Smith Asks Judge to Limit Trump’s Lies About the FBI
Biden administration puts pressure on China to halt military drills near Taiwan
Washington Post link
An overlooked outcome of the Louisiana reclassification of abortion drugs to “controlled substances”
“Forget GPT-4o’s voice — the real problem with AI is us”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=pZVngnr8KN4
Commentary on the porn star hush money/falsifying business records/breaking election laws trial of Trump in NYC, (as well as commentary on other issues):
Link
Fanis Willis wins primary!
The film ‘Anora’ won the prize at the Cannes film festival.
Also, today is the 45th anniversary of the premiere of ‘Alien’.
American superior logistics.
‘Can Russia “Slaughter Us” as Royce Lopez Claims?’
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=4Gfux_dodlM
Quote from the SF novel System Collapse (the Murderbot novels by Martha Wells)
“So the next time I get optimistic about something I want one of you to punch me in the face”.
I will totally steal this and make it my motto.
Oh, Birger, you sure can pick’em.
“Ryan McBeth is an intelligence analyst, software architect, cybersecurity guy, and YouTube content creator of military, intelligence and disinformation topics. He appears on NEWSMAX as an intelligence consultant and consults for Veloxxity on OSINT and information warfare.”
(https://www.ryanmcbeth.com/)
—
It’s basically pabulum, BTW.
This should be safe from controversy.
“The 19th-Century Spirit Photography Grift”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=BNuV6bRStXU
Relax, Birger. No need for safety, is there?
—
Patrick Boyle’s has the driest of humour.
To share, I offer this:
The salient nugget (transcribed):
“if you remember, Red Lobster is 100% owned by a seafood supplier Thai Union, and things had not been going well at Red Lobster for quite some time.
The bankruptcy declaration insinuates that Thai Union, Red Lobster’s controlling shareholder might have “exercised an outsized influence” on its shrimp purchasing and “circumvented its normal supply chain and demand planning processes.” The implication is that the equity owner might have decided that their equity stake in the business was worthless and that the company would soon be owned by its lenders, but that they could extract some extra value from the company before it declared bankruptcy by selling them a lot of extra shrimp.
The decision to make the $20-dollar endless shrimp deal a permanent menu item is said to have led to an $11 million dollar loss. The bankruptcy declaration says that “the Debtors are currently investigating the circumstances around these decisions.” “
birgerjohansson @ # 134: This should be safe from controversy.
That sounds like optimism (vide your # 132).
Fortunately for all concerned, I have no plans to travel to Sweden. (Can’t speak for everyone else here, however. Keep an icepack handy!)
Friends don’t let friends go unpunched in the face.
Here’s how it is between me and Youtube.
I never, ever, ever log in — and they never, ever, ever let me see stuff that’s rated 18+, because I have to log in so they can verify I’m not a beardless youth.
Every 6 weeks (sometimes more, I like to do it after a Windows update so my context-sig changes) I delete every single cookie I have of theirs and reboot my modem to get a new dynamic IP address.
They, of course, know full well who I am, and I know full well they know who I am, but we play this game.
Kinda works — the algorithm sure ain’t happy with me, because each time I deliberately go to places I didn’t go before to put some seeds into its O so clever and recondite back-propagation. So, no more bodybuilding videos, no more watchmaking videos, no more [blah].
Heh.
(Only works because I don’t give a shit whether or not something is available; if I can’t get it for free and without logging in and without ads, I’m not gonna log in or pay or suchlike just to watch that. Plenty other stuff out there)
Re; John Morales @ #138…
For that sort of thing, and for sites that limit the amount you can read (“semi-paywalled”), I use a seconday machine (currently a Pi5-8GB) with the browser set to delete all cookies on exit.
Whatever works. :)
Pierce R. Butler@121,
Tomotoes too, I’ve heard!
KG @ 115.
Thanks. I am not familiar with vegetation zones / staple crops in the Philippines.
Meidas Touch:
‘Yikes! Trump Lawyers Biggest Fail Ever at Trial’
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=NXFJ6PhbN1g
What the hell went through their minds when they accepted the biggest narcissist in the world as client? He would naturally order them around, because he always knows best.
If he ever needs surgery he is dead, because he will interfere with how the surgeon wants to do the job.
… and even tomatoes!
The Graun (well technically the Observer, the Graun’s Sunday version, published a pro-“golden rice” piece, repeating the unevidenced claims that preventing its cultivation in the Philippines would cost “thousands of lives”. I made the following comment:
This was moderated out “because it didn’t abide by our community standards.” I can only conclude that among the unmentioned “community standards” is either “making a coherent case against our expressed view” or “criticisng agribusiness corporations, even if you don’t name them”.
Better than bad Australian news:
Footage of israeli soldiers setting fire on a library in Gaza and of burning korans cause additional controversy. BTW earlier Israeli reprisals killed 3-5 times the number of israelis killed by Hamas.
By now they must be approaching a ratio of 30:1. And Biden is snoozing on, pretending his tiny reduction of weapons sales makes a difference.
Two researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology have started a very ambitious project to reproduce/simulate the function of a nematode ‘brain’.
Scenes From a MAGA Meltdown: Inside the ‘America First’ Movement’s War Over Democracy
Much more at the link, including details showing Trump wading into the mess to support U.S. representative Pete Hoekstra to replace Karamo, and other moves by Trump that disappointed the rabid America First doofuses in Michigan.
Oh, yeah, add more religion and more purity tests … that will work no doubt.
Just a reminder (I know, you don’t need a reminder) of one of the thousands of crackpot organizations we face:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/5/26/2242855/-PSA-What-you-need-to-know-about-PragerU?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
p.s. the sign in that article is way to mild, it misses a lot of the rtwingnut xtianterrorism prager pushes. And, prager poison is being successfully sold to schools everywhere, even in Scarizona.
Cartoon: Trumpster fire
Ukraine Update: Putin claims he doesn’t want to capture Kharkiv anyway
Followup to comment 152.
Posted by a reader of the Ukraine update:
Link
Yeah, Ivanka will probably be back on the campaign trail at some point, trying to make her Daddy look good.
Link
Heat maps and more details at the link.
New fossils provide evidence for an ‘Age of Monotremes’
https://phys.org/news/2024-05-fossils-evidence-age-monotremes.html
Link
Over 350,000 without power in Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky as storms batter central U.S.
At least 11 storm-related deaths were reported overnight in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas after severe storms and tornadoes swept the region Saturday.
Details at the link.
Sirens sound in Tel Aviv for the first time in months as Hamas fires rockets from Gaza
An NBC News journalist witnessed at least one rocket being intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.
John Morales @ # 146: …with the invention of insect-resistant, genetically modified cotton – Bt cotton – the plant was able to produce a protein to kill the worm and spraying was significantly reduced.
Temporarily.
This is the equivalent of treating farm animals with preventive antibiotics on a massive scale, and will – guaranteed! – lead to the evolution of Bacillus thuringiensis resistance in the pest population and the uselessness of Bt in spot applications, which might otherwise aid farmers and gardeners for centuries more.
Certainly the geneticists who helped produce this variety of cotton know enough biology to predict this very-obvious effect – but they take their orders from MBA types (who, if they somehow had any ethics classes in their training, cheated in them).
“Unapproved Trial for Discredited COVID Cure: Scandal In France”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=D0ZRQuNbkMwHydroxychloroquine.Yes, it is Sabine Hossenfelder, but this video seems as legit as it gets.
Minnesota GOP Endorses Weirdo Senate Candidate Who Spent Campaign Funds On Strip Clubs, Other Sh*t
You just have to ask, “WTF??”
Far-right Israeli settlers step up attacks on aid trucks bound for Gaza
Washington Post link
The settler groups use a web of publicly accessible WhatsApp groups to track the trucks and coordinate attacks, providing a window into their activities. [video at the link]
Major crypto firms are fighting to remake federal law with an expensive lobbying campaign that has left no part of American politics untouched.
Washington Post link.
Pierce, the better than bad news is that, instead of spraying tonnes of poison over vast areas and hammering all insect life therein (and thus species that live on those insects), the plants themselves generate the poison and only insects that munch on them are affected. That also causes selection pressures that promote resistance.
In short, the poison would be there in any case, and indeed was for decades prior.
Oh good! So Biden will be sanctioning the Israeli police, the Israeli army, the Israeli war cabinet, and Netanyahu! And not a day too soon!
PS
It’s not.
The equivalent would be breeding transgenic farm animals so that they don’t need external antibiotics.
John Morales @ # 165 – Please educate yourself on pesticide resistance.
Um, Pierce, again: the pesticides were there since the farming began.
Used to be sprayed over huge fields, by the tonne.
Now, no more spraying it by the tonne.
Built into the plant.
Are you getting the vibe?
Before, much, much poison, but poison nonetheless, used rather by machinery and sprayed indiscriminately.
Now, much, much less poison, but poison nonetheless, built into the crop.
(You’ve missed the point)
Pierce R. Butler @168, – Please educate yourself on The Risks of Pesticides to Pollinators.
(Heh, I love it when people attempt to patronise me having never got the actual point)
Green froggies, too. They munch on bugs.
[to be fair, it was the discussion of the Golden Rice that impelled me to adduce that particular piece of not actually bad news]
Perun again provides his inimitable summary of what’s going on in Ukraine.
In culture news, there’s a new movie out: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Apparently, there’s a shot of an interceptor (car) in the distance that has the image of Max Rockatansky (portrayed by stuntman Jacob Tomuri) in it.
So.
A bit like a King Arthur movie without, um, King Arthur.
A James bond movie without, um, James Bond.
A Ghengis Khan movie without, um, Ghengis Khan.
(etc)
—
Now, I can tell it’s a fine movie, critics I respect respect it.
Still.
A bit like a Lord of the Rings movie without, um, Lords or Rings.
—
Ah well. Works for the masses.
Just now, my pooch (Igor) did some wriggling and writhing on his back on the grass of my back yard, luxuriating intensely, and then proceeded to swim across the recently-mown grass in a side-stroke, grunting happily all the while.
After a bit, he gets up and does the doggy shake.
(For my pooches, it’s a dog’s life)
Paws flaccid, legs akimbo, tail wagging.
(The simple things in life)
In … news … there is a movie soon to be out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_and_the_Purple_Crayon_(film)
the horror …
But then, there’s Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ which became the 1959 movie.
Definitely A Tale of the Christ movie without, um, the Christ.
Not at all about the Christ, but technically the Christ is there.
(Good movie, that one)
The Middle East has been no less peaceful ever since.
When the libertarian party nominated their candidate for the presidency in 2024, Donald Trump got 6 votes which amounts to 0.65 % of the votes cast.
For comparison, he got five votes more than Stormy Daniels… and an actual cat.
Cats are nice. I would have voted for it, if I could.
The dude who spent GOP funds on strip clubs at least had his priorities right. When Trump dies, this guy can take over. Better than spending cash on bad lawyers, the dancers need the money.
John Morales @ 174
A bit like a Disney Star Wars film?
John Morales @ 175
Maybe your pooch can join this competition?
“Much ado about nothing”: world’s most relaxed people gather in Seoul for ‘space-out’ competition | South Korea | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/27/seoul-international-space-out-competition-south-korea
Heh.
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/If-My-Dogs-Were-a-Pair-of-Middle-Aged-Men/Full
A must-know British word: “gammon”
Wikipedia:
“Gammon is a pejorative popularised in British political culture since around 2012. The term refers in particular to the colour of a person’s flushed face when expressing their strong opinions, as compared to the type of pork of the same name.”
Brexit was the work of gammons. The tory party is kept in power by angry gammons.
And your US MAGA cultists are gammons without knowing it, as were the tea party crowd before them. Gammons are an absolute necessity for populist demagogues.
Russia Steps Up a Covert Sabotage Campaign Aimed at Europe.
U.S. and European security officials say Russia’s military intelligence arm is leading the campaign of arson attacks to slow arms transfers to Ukraine.
New York Times link
More at the link.
The Hill:
John Morales @ #s 167 & 169-172 – I suspect if someone were to criticize Donald Trump, you’d post critiques of Hillary Clinton’s emails and Joe Biden’s age.
Your “… people attempt to patronise me having never got the actual point” illustrates this quite aptly.
Followup to birger @190.
Trump pretends he wasn’t booed relentlessly at Libertarian event
Link
Here are some of my thoughts on the UK general election, in “horserace” terms. Yes, I know it’s policies that should be the focus of discussion, but as far as those are concerned, I’d simply say “vote Green if there’s a candidate standing in your constituency” – they are the only parties with reasonably sound policies on climate, other environmental issues, and social justice. If there’s no Green, look at the candidates individually to see how close (or far) they are from Green policies and vote for the closest. There’s no need to vote for the “lesser evil”, as a defeat for the “greater evil” (the Tories) is as near certain as anything can be in electoral politics – a very different situation from that in the USA, or most of Europe.
Here’s a breakdown of the current state of the Commons (taken from Wikipedia):
• Conservative Party (346)
HM Most Loyal Opposition (this is an official role, accorded to the opposition party with most seats)
• Labour Party (205)
Other opposition
• Scottish National Party (43)
• Liberal Democrats (15)
• Democratic Unionist Party (7)
• Plaid Cymru (3)
• Alba Party (2)
• SDLP (2)
• Alliance Party (1)
• Green Party (1)
• Reform UK (1)
• Workers’ Party of Britain (1)
• Independents (15)
Abstentionists
• Sinn Féin (7)
Presiding officer
• Speaker (1)
A few notes:
1) Sinn Fein, who want northern Irleand to become part of the Irish Republic, and deny the legitimacy of UK rule there, stand for election but if they win, refuse to take their seats. That means slightly less than half the total seats are needed for an effective majority.
2) Unlike in the US House of Representatives, the Speaker is supposed to be strictly neutral. They come from one of the parties, but are supposed to suspend that allegiance as long as they are Speaker. They don’t take part in votes unless there’s a tie, when they will by convention vote for the status quo.
3) Among the larger parties, we know in practice that the Tories will lose a lot of seats, Labour will gain a lot, the SNP will lose a lot, the Liberal Democrats will gain a lot — but as in any First-Past-The-Post election, small changes in vote share can mean big changes in seats won.
4) This is an unusually fragmented House. IIRC all the independents left or were expelled from either the Labour or the Conservative parliamentary party. None of the main British parties stand candidates in northern Ireland. The northern Ireland parties other than Sinn Fein are the Democratic Unionists (hard right conservatives, determined that northern Ireland should remain in the UK); the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), roughly the local equivalent of Labour (although with Labour’s plunge to the right under Starmer, that may no longer be accurate), favouring Irish unity but less militant in this regard than Sinn Fein; and Alliance, formed in an attempt to overcome the Protestant-Unionist vs Catholic-Nationalist divide, with policies similar to the Liberal Democrats. Plaid Cymru are the Welsh counterparts to the SNP in Scotland, the Green Party is the Green Party of England and Wales – separate green parties stand in Scotland and northern Ireland. Alba are a right-wing breakaway from the SNP, loyal to the former SNP leader Alex Salmond — their two MPs were elected as SNP candidates. The sole Reform UK MP was elected as a Conservative. The “Workers’ Party of Britain” would be more accurately called the George Galloway Party. Galloway, once a Labour MP, won a recent by-election in a constituency with a large Muslim minority and where Labour disowned their candidate for antisemitism (with some justification) at the last moment, campaigning mostly on Gaza (where Labour has slavishly followed Biden’s line, only daring to criticise Israel when he has done so first). Galloway’s another narcissist, with an odd mixture of left populist and socially conservative policies, and a homophobe, transphobe, sexist and antisemite.
5) The outcome will be less fragmented, but the share of the vote won by the Conservatives and Labour together may be a post-WW2 low, emphasising the undemocratic nature of the electoral system. My guess is that there will be no more than a couple of independents elected at most, including few if any of those currently in the house: the most likely is Jeremy Corbyn, standing in the constituency he currently represents, where he has a large personal following — by all accounts, he’s a good constituency MP. He may be joined by Diane Abbott, who is currently suspended from Labour, supposedly for some ill-advised comparisons between antisemitism and other forms of racism, in reality because Starmer hates her. She was the first Black woman to be elected as an MP, back in 1987. A decision on whether to lift her suspension, imposed a year ago, is expected in the next few days. If it is not lifted, she may decide to run as an independent – my hunch is that a decision not to allow her to stand was taken a year ago, and the intervening time has been spent combing through every possible source to find things to discredit her when the decision is announced. My guess is also that Alba and Reform will have no MPs (I don’t think Reform will do as well in vote share as their poll ratings suggest, as they have very little on-the-ground organisation, but even if they do, they are unlikely to win any seats), but that Galloway may well hold his seat — he’s a very effective campaigner. Of the other small parties, the Greens could either lose their single seat (their current MP, Caroline Lucas, is retiring from the Commons: she is widely liked and respected across parties both nationally and in her Brighton constituency), or hold that seat and win one or even two more. Plaid Cymru could lose a seat or seats to Labour, but might gain one or two from the Tories. Among the northern Ireland parties it’s possible the Democratic Unionists will lose seats (their leader recently had to resign as he’s awaiting trial on charges of rape!), and Sinn Fein, SDLP andor Alliance gain seats from them. The Speaker is by convention not opposed by any of the main parties.
6) All these small parties and independents will be of limited significance unless Labour fall short of an overall majority, which is unlikely but not impossible if Reform flop badly and the Liberal Democrats, SNP, Plaid Cymru and Greens do well. In realistic terms, it is impossible that the Tories will get enough seats to remain in power, despite rather frantic efforts by Starmeroids to suggest otherwise in order to deter voters from supporting Green or independent candidates; no other party, apart from the Democratic Unionists, would even think of supporting the Conservatives to form a government, except conceivably the SNP in return for a new referendum on independence — and I think even that is unlikely even if the arithmetic allowed it, which it almost certainly won’t.
On a personal note, the electoral system presents me with a dilemma. As a member of the Scottish Greens, I am expected to vote for our candidate, and will loyally do so (she’s a good candidate, too, but realistically, won’t win). But the current MP is one of the best of the SNP’s cadre, a member of SNP Socialists, and I don’t want him defeated by a Starmeroid clone because we’ve taken votes from him. So I’m intending to do any campaigning in a nearby constituency. Possibly one which is currently held by a Starmeroid clone, who will win agian — but we might just save our deposit (it costs £500 to stand a candidate, and you need 5% of the vote to get it back — a very undemocratic system, requiring a certain number of signatures would be much better). Or possibly one we might have an outside chance of winning from the SNP.
The Memorial Day massacre that Americans weren’t supposed to remember
KG @ 191: Thanks for that clear and concise analysis! As an American, I am not very knowledgeable about the nitty gritty details and workings of UK politics, and your comments often help me gain insight into what otherwise seems obscure to me. I have a question that will show just how ignorant I am. Maybe you could point me to some link that can go into more detail, but, why has Labour moved to the right when, at least from my cloudy view, people want to the UK to move leftward?
Lynna @ 192: Reason number, oh, who knows, why America disgusts me: the absolute lack of knowledge about labor history, the reason for us ever having a middle class. I knew about this massacre, though many of the details you posted were new to me. I have relatives who work in trades, and most of them are completely anti-union. When I try to talk about the history of sacrifice that labor gave in order to give them pretty much everything that makes their jobs and lives possible, they scoff, and spout lies placed in their heads by the propaganda paid for by corporate union busters. And these aren’t Trumpy republicans, either.
FUUUUUUUCK this confirms my worst expectations about the next prime minister.
🤮
“Starmer’s macho talk on asylum seekers will only lead to more tragedy. Where is his humanity?” | Maya Goodfellow | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/27/starmer-macho-talk-asylum-seekers-tragedy-humanity
Pierce:
What a silly, unwarranted suspicion!
You know, there have been multiple posts here criticising Donald Trump over the years, and I’ve yet to post critiques of Hillary Clinton’s emails and Joe Biden’s age in response.
So… what made you imagine such a ridiculous thing?
And no, my observation about your imagined jab to the effect that I am ignorant about resistance does not illustrate that at all, never mind aptly.
Heh.
—
Anyway. Don’t just insinuate and speculate. Commit! Address the issue!
Do you or do you not think that it’s better to have transgenic crops to deal with pests than to spray pesticides all over the paddocks?
Remember my point: in either case, that poison is there and the species that chomp on the plants will therefore be subject to selection pressure, but in one case only those bugs are affected and the local ecosystem is less disturbed.
—
Ah well.
Obviously, the topic of pesticide use is less interesting to you than my supposed responses to Trump criticism or making a misaimed objection to the article I adduced.
Your supposed objection has been put down to rest, and you can’t even try to resuscitate it.
Obviously.
FWIW: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9578716/
GM Crops Food. 2022; 13(1): 262–289.
Published online 2022 Oct 13. doi: 10.1080/21645698.2022.2118497
PMCID: PMC9578716
PMID: 36226624
Genetically Modified (GM) Crop Use 1996–2020: Environmental Impacts Associated with Pesticide Use Change
(my emphasis)
Of course you could eliminate the need for all those pesticides and the GM technology by growing hemp for fiber instead of cotton. Things made from hemp also last much longer than cotton or synthetics, which is why DuPont worked so hard to get it classified as an illegal drug despite its very low THC levels.
John Morales@196,
The two cases of inserting genes for pest resistance (e.g. Bt cotton), and genes for herbicide resistance are very different. In the former case there should indeed be less disturbance to the local ecosystem (although this is only the first stage in assessing whether the introduction of these crops is a net positive – e.g., do they tend to assist agribusiness in displacing small farmers?), while in the latter, the short-term expected result is to drench the land with the pesticide concerned, killing all other plants than the GM crop – and of course the insects that depend on those plants, the birds that depend on those insects…, while the longer-term expected result is to encourage the evolution of tolerance to the pesticide concerned among weed species. Above all, remember that this technology is almost entirely under the control of huge corporations motivated solely by profit: they will introduce those GM crops which they think will maximise their profits, irrespective of the effect on ecosystems or people.
Yes, I know, KG.
There was much discussion about that sort of stuff in the early years of the blog, mostly when it was hosted by SB.
You were there, so you should have been aware I am quite familiar with the issues at hand.
Still.
Spiders and froggies, better than no spiders or froggies.
That was my original better than bad news.
Paul K@193,
Thanks!
Starmer’s supporters will tell you the shift to the right is essential to persuade Tory voters to switch, and will blame Labour election defeats, particularly that of 2019, on the leftish policies introduced under Corbyn (really quite mildly leftish for the most part, and in many cases popular if presented in polls without linking them to Labour or Corbyn). But in my view it was a combination of the desire to “Get Brexit Done”, Johnson’s (to me, inexplicable) charisma, and Corbyn’s lack of support among his parliamentary colleagues and of the political skills a party leader needs, that produced the 2019 result. I think the polls over the past two years indicate that the scandals around Johnson that led to him being forced out by his own party colleagues and the disastrously incompetent 45-ish day premiership of Liz Truss in 2022, led a large chunk of the electorate to make a near-irrevocable decision that the Tories have to go – and Labour is the only party with a credible chance of replacing them in government. Labour’s appeal now, I believe, is almost entirely that of not being the Tories, so they would win with almost any policies and leader; and the shift is entirely unforced, deriving from the personal political preferences of Starmer and more particularly the advisors he has surrounded himself with (notably Lord Peter Mandelson, the extremely rich and indeed corrupt advisor to Blair when he was PM), and the businesspeople Starmer thinks he needs to attract and from whom he and his circle draw funding (Starmer and the shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, have both taken funding from private health corporations, for example). Evidence for my view is that Starmer’s approval rating has been negative throughout most of the 18-monthish period during which Labour has held a big lead over the Tories (this combination of a huge lead for the opposition party and a negative view of its leader is unprecedented); and that Labour’s lead has remained roughly the same over that period, while Starmer has made numerous U-turns on previously announced policies – most people simply aren’t paying attention to those changes.
Is this or is this not better than bad news?
https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/nature-and-biodiversity/nature-restoration-law/success-stories_en
John morales@199,
Believe it or believe it not, I don’t carry around in my head a portfolio of “What John Morales knew and thought a decade ago”! You didn’t make any distinction between pesticide-resistance and herbicide-resistance, or note the importance of considering a broader context than the local effects of agricultural innovations on this thread, or, as far as I recall, any recent one.
John Morales@201,
Indeed. The European Commision are of course entirely objective and unbiased in their assessment of whether EU environmental policies have been successful.
I was specifically referring to the actual story I adduced @146 (Cotton farms crawling with spiders and frogs as industry cleans up its act), and have been doing so since Pierce responded to me by pointing out any poison will inevitably select for resistance. I then noted he was entirely missing the point, because that resistance would occur in either case.
So, yeah, I didn’t go on about the generalities, because I was specifically talking about the story I posted.
Believe it or believe it not, I well remember discussing the topic, and I also remember you were there.
Apparently, you’re further into your dotage than I am.
Anyway, now you are aware of it. I know that stuff.
I was not talking about that stuff.
I was talking about the post that so confused Pierce.
I mean, come on!
is attempted patronisation if I ever saw it.
Like Reginald some time ago telling me that “if I knew anything about Catholicism, [blah]”.
I tend to respond to such attempted jibes, and those to whom I respond tend to react just like Pierce has.
Snide allusions and pompous backstepping and vague insinuations.
Bluster, in short.
No. No, I didn’t cover those facets. Or global food poverty, or stuff like that.
So.
I posted a story that was supposed to be feel-good and better than bad news, and retorted to someone who quite evidently missed the significance of the froggies and the spiders. Someone who imagined I need to be educated about resistance.
(Talk about scope creep!)
KG:
Ah yes, the classic poisoning of the well technique. No actual substance there.
So… what is incorrect about the featured case studies?
I note you utterly ignored the explicit and direct question: “Is this or is this not better than bad news?”
(I suppose it’s a bit much to ask that someone actually commit an opinion)
John Morales,
You really are a stupid shit sometimes. Of course I’m not going to commit myself to an opinion on case studies presented by an organisation with an obvious motive to shade the results (if no more) positively, and of course it would take hours or more likely days of work to do even an initial assessment – time which I don’t have to spend at present.
Well, you did commit yourself to insinuating that it is not the case that “The European Commision are of course entirely objective and unbiased in their assessment of whether EU environmental policies have been successful.”
It becomes apparent that, in your opinion, The European Commission (singular) lacks credibility.
Whether or not restoration projects even existing is good news, well… too time consuming to make that determination.
Got it.
John Morales@204
You quoted @196 a paper which (in the quoted extract) lumped together pest resistence and herbicide resistance. If you choose to quote something as supporting your case, it is entirely reasonable for someone else to point out the limitations of what you have quoted.
A silly insult. If you have a near-perfect memory of everything discussed on Pharnygula – and who said what – for the past 10 years or so, good for you. I don’t.
John Morales@207,
Reluctance to take at face value any assessment of any policy or programme by the organization responsible for producing it or carrying it out is simply commoonsense scepticism. If you are naive enough to assume that the European Commision are able and willing to be entirely objective in marking their own homework, that’s on you.
John Morales,
It might be worth recalling (I must have mentioned this at some time on Pharyngula, so of course you’ll know it), that I headed a European Commission research project, and took part in two others, so I have some actual experience of its assessment processes.
Well, yes. Specifically to post the bit I emphasised and show the source of the claim.
This bit:
The technology that has delivered the largest change in pesticide use has been insect resistant cotton, where a 339 million kg of active ingredient saving has occurred and the associated environmental impact (as measured by the EIQ indicator) has fallen by about a third.
Right? 339 million kg of active ingredient saving. Cotton farming.
That was part of an ongoing interaction, you know.
One that began with me trying to be cheery by posting Cotton farms crawling with spiders and frogs as industry cleans up its act.
Well, that sure didn’t work so well.
(Ah well, grouches will grouch)
Heh. You imagine that was an insult?
I assure you, I myself am in my dotage — yet, I don’t fail to recall your presence in the early days of SB.
Or those discussions.
You claimed you do, so… gotta face the facts. Your memory is going.
—
Right. The source is sus, so no determination can be made without close examination, and your time is precious.
How about the principles at play, then? (One level up on the site)
”
Nature Restoration Law
Objectives
The proposal aims to restore ecosystems, habitats and species across the EU’s land and sea areas in order to
— enable the long-term and sustained recovery of biodiverse and resilient nature
— contribute to achieving the EU’s climate mitigation and climate adaptation objectives
— meet international commitments
”
Is this or is this not better than bad news?” :)
(There, I made it easier for ya; I know your time is very valuable)
Good grief!
Those projects probably exist, no? Bioremediation.
John Morales @ #s 195-196 – You continue to exhibit a knack for point-missing, & another for false dichotomies.
While reading up on pesticide resistance, you may possibly run into mentions of integrated pest management & related strategies.
Follow up on those, and then maybe you’ll realize that flooding the fields with pesticide (whether by crop duster or DNA) leads to resistance to said pesticide and constitutes a crude, unnecessary, counterproductive and unintelligent approach.
Which perhaps you will find appealing on exactly those grounds.
Heh.
It appears to you that I continue to exhibit a knack for point-missing, & another for false dichotomies.
What points do you imagine I am missing, and what false dichotomies do you imagine I am knackfully performing?
—
And yet, froggies and spiders.
I get it.
For you, 339 million kg of active ingredient saving is a crude, unnecessary, counterproductive and unintelligent approach.
Froggies and spiders, bah. Other bugs, bah.
Heh. Why do you imagine that?
I’m not irrational, so obviously I don’t find a crude, unnecessary, counterproductive and unintelligent approach appealing.
Why you use that very approach when you interact with me is something about which I can only speculate.
Feel free to elucidate.
The original GMO news item was about the boondoggle known as golden rice. The problem of diets that are deficient in Vitamin A is due to insufficient fats in the daily diet, which are critical to absorbing the nutrient. I’m sure there are plenty of leafy green vegetables, papaya, and mango which are good sources of A and beta carotene in tropical rice growing regions.
The US routinely adds both A and D to milk to ensure that growing children get adequate amounts.
Perhaps something different; a book review:
Ah, days of yore!
John Morales @ # 213: What points do you imagine I am missing…
The ones I’ve pointed out, which you continue to miss. [Hint.]
… obviously I don’t find a crude, unnecessary, counterproductive and unintelligent approach appealing.
Ya think?
KG @ # 208: … lumped together pest resistence and herbicide resistance.
As a point of terminology, the umbrella term “pesticide” includes “herbicide”, “insecticide”, “fungicide”, “nematicide”, and just about every other biological nuisance elimination a farmer/gardener/etc might want, with the possible exception of homicide.
Hm.
Perhaps my mention of worse than good news will not be so disparaged.
Let’s see.
Deadly strike on Rafah a tragic mishap, Netanyahu says
Scores were killed in the camp for displaced Palestinians which Israel says targeted “senior Hamas terrorists”.
10 mins ago
Pierce, your evasiveness avails you not.
I’m not missing that, you puffed-up mistaken opinionator about me and my motives.
I am entirely aware of all of that stuff.
What made you imagine I missed that “point”, which has zero to do with the spiders and the froggies coming back to the cottonfields? Before, not there, now, yes there. That was the news that was better than bad.
So, in that specific claim, you are entirely mistaken.
Right? It is better now than it was. That it’s not perfect does not negate that, does it?
Me: Things are better now than they were.
You: <grouch grouch grouch>
So. Again.
Dare to try to specify one out of your alleged multiple points that you claim I am missing?
Just one.
Also, remember the claims about my knackiness for untrue disjunctions?
(I notice when people ignore offers to sustain their obviously bullshit claims)
You certainly lack a knack and aptitude at this stuff.
You are the one who thought that, remember?
You asserted that perhaps I liked it. Your own claim.
So, before you thought I might like it, now you think I obviously don’t like it.
Heh.
Maybe better for birdies, too. I think some of them eat bugs.
I’ve got a photo on my phone of a butcherbird chomping on a huntsman(?) spider.
Taken from a bit under two meters away.
So I know some eat arachnids.
I have little trust in the environmental science that is produced by the corporations who create GMO’s for the same reason I don’t trust the owner of xitter to implant things in people’s brains.
It’s great that some farmer is no longer dousing entire fields in pesticides due to Bt Cotton, but the same thing could be achieved using the IPM system that Pierce mentioned earlier. Grow something else that doesn’t require any pesticides or chemical fertilizers in the first place is generally far more cost effective for small scale farmers.
Tethys, but then: https://extension.wvu.edu/agriculture/agribusiness-farm-management/pesticide-education/insecticides-for-hemp-pests
(Crops are crops)
BTW, https://www.mybmp.com.au/
IPM is already a thing.
Among others, of course.
—
Browse through the module information of the BMP Program
Biosecurity
Energy Efficiency
Fibre Quality
HR & WHS
IPM – Insects, Weeds and Diseases
Pesticide Management
Petrochemical Storage & Handling
Soil Health
Sustainable Natural Landscape (Natural Assets)
Water Management
Hemp has few pest problems that can’t be managed by using crop rotation and allowing grassy margins to grow as permanent habitat for the beneficials. It also doesn’t require fertilizer, which further reduces the costs of growing it and the need to burn fossil fuels to run sprayers and fertilizer spreaders.
The problem that everyone in this thread keeps pointing out is the ethics of Agri-Business Corporations, as regards GMO technology.
Very few farms are able to monopolize the taxpayer funds allocated to Federal agricultural price supports.
https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2023/09/pocket-pickers-eight-cotton-farms-picking-taxpayer-pockets#:~:text=Farmers%20growing%20cotton%2C%20rice%20and,lion's%20share%20of%20the%20funding.
“ Seed Money’ Explores Monsanto’s Troubling Past and its Impact on the Future of Food “
https://civileats.com/2021/12/20/seed-money-explores-monsantos-troubling-past-and-its-impact-on-the-future-of-food/
The boon that everyone in this thread keeps pointing out is the advancement of more enlightened farming practices.
(Imperfect as they yet remain)
—
“Very few farms are able to monopolize the taxpayer funds allocated to Federal agricultural price supports.”
I know you didn’t intend to express that it was only a very low proportion of farms that are able to monopolize the taxpayer funds allocated to Federal agricultural price supports even though that is what you literally expressed.
Anyway. Federal agricultural price supports are economic policy, not ecological policy.
Politics, not agriculture.
Different categories. District-dependent, since political realities differ in different parts of the globe, whereas agricultural realities do not.
Ah, commercial farming. Realities.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17972652/
—
Abstract
Milling wheat, Triticum aestivum L., infested with low densities of internal feeding insects can result in flour containing insect fragments. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) enforces a standard or defect action level stating that a maximum of 75 insect fragments per 50 g of flour is allowed. However, the relationship between level of infestation and number of resulting fragments is not well documented, and a more rapid method for enumerating insect fragments is needed. We characterized the number of insect fragments produced from milling small lots of wheat spiked with known densities and life stages of Sitophilus oryzae (L.) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae). Insect fragments were enumerated with near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), a quick nondestructive procedure, and with the industry standard flotation method. Results showed that an individual small larva, large larva, pupa, or adult produced 0.4, 0.7, 1.5, and 27.0 fragments, respectively. NIRS-predicted counts of < or =51 (from small larvae), < or =53 (from large larvae), < or =43 (from pupae), or 0 (from adults) indicated that there were or =98, > or =117, 108, or > or =225 fragments (same life stages as above) signaled that these flour samples contained >75 actual fragments. These data suggest that NIRS could be adopted for rapid assessment of insect fragments resulting from relatively low levels of infestation with immature life states, but that it was not accurate enough for enumerating insect fragments, relevant to FDA standards, resulting from adults.
—
Gotta say, I like how ‘fragment’ is an unit of measurement, here.
(Presumably, an entire bug is not merely one fragment)
Anyway, here’s an utterly irrelevant point I did not ignore, unlike the other irrelevant points about resistance and its categories for treatment and so forth.
(“This time, we didn’t forget the gravy.”)
IPM is Integrated Pest Management, which seeks to reduce the use of pesticides using various low input and low environmental impact techniques such as planting rotations and permanent habitat.
There is a lot of insect monitoring involved, including releasing various beneficial insects into any pest populations.
Using pesticides in limited locations as a last resort is cost effective, and greatly reduces pesticide usage without the sledgehammer method of engineering a bacillus into the DNA of the seeds.
Yes, reduce, not replace. As per the current state of affairs.
Again: “That is because farmers would spray insecticides multiple times a season to kill heliothis, or cotton bollworm, which is the crop’s major yield-reducing pest.
The pesticide killed other life forms too, but with the invention of insect-resistant, genetically modified cotton – Bt cotton – the plant was able to produce a protein to kill the worm and spraying was significantly reduced.”
Again: 339 million kg of active ingredient saving
Not only does it seek to reduce, it has in fact reduced.
—
BTW, sprayed insecticide has rather low concentrations of the active ingredient, for obvious reasons.
So does the engineered organism, for similarly obvious reasons.
You need to read my link, because I did indeed mean that eight farms get 80% of all Federal agriculture tax dollars. Capitalism took over way back in the 80’s, just as the Oil companies have exerted an out sized influence with environmental regulations and policies.
US agriculture money doesn’t make it to small family farmsteads, but Dupont and Monsanto made huge profits and merged into a mega-corporation.
Eight farms get 80% of all US cotton subsidies.
I don’t need to read your link, because that’s not a monopoly.
Nor do I care what the funds distribution for one country’s handouts to farmers may be, in particular.
Again: those dollars will be allocated according to some rules that are ostensibly socioeconomic but in reality political.
Cultural too, no doubt, but that’s beyond my level of expertise.
Point being, whence once was a worse monocultured desert, now there are froggies and spiders. And probably birdies.
That was it.
But, because it was due to a GM crop, O woes!
—
In passing, I am old enough to remember hippies since the 70s extolling the virtues of
dopehemp.Brilliant stuff, rope, clothing, foodstuff, oil… a true cornucopian blessing for humanity.
Looks like the USA is getting there… :)
No worries what with the worse than good news, but.
(Datum incorporated)
Oh, wow. Um, I mean “Whoa, maaaan!”
Dig this: https://companiesmarketcap.com/cannabis/largest-cannabis-companies-by-market-cap/
(TLDR: $$$)
IPM also has a full complement of the native flora and fauna, without the need for GM crops that can be sprayed with Roundup. (Which is bad for birds and spiders and humans.) Monsanto was instrumental in creating the pesticides, the herbicides, the seeds, etc
Since half of the US is agricultural, with about 330 million acres in row crops, any widespread agricultural practices will have ecological impacts.
Tethys @236, “without the need for GM crops that can be sprayed with Roundup”
KG @198: “The two cases of inserting genes for pest resistance (e.g. Bt cotton), and genes for herbicide resistance are very different.”
Pierce @216: “Ya think?”
Me: (heh)
Hemp is a fiber and seed oil plant, and is a different variety than the Medicinal Cannabis.
Both types were widely grown circa 1900. Hemp can be made into anything from cordage and ropes to fine fabrics similar to linen that last for decades.
[meta]
There are times when I get travelling salespeople spruiking a donation for whatever worthy cause come knocking at my door. I have a knack for those, too.
So, they initiate their pitch by claiming they’re there to raise awareness, after due oleaginous salutations and assorted flattery.
Gets pretty desperate, but hey, the formula.
When I say I am aware, you can almost see the resigned deflation in their posture.
Obs, I’m not the only difficult prospect.
When I feel it appropriate, I will point out to them that since I am already aware, it is pointless to try to raise my awareness further.
—
This is kind of the opposite, no?
I’m selling nothing, I’m soliciting nothing.
Yet, now all recent readers have the opportunity to be aware of the issues relating to GM crops, how they have been implemented and by whom, and how various groups react to their existence, and so forth.
That GM is a thing, and how it works, those things are information.
And, as some hippies once said, information wants to be free.
(And technology advances evermore, hitherto, if not inevitably)
<snicker>
“Cannabis (/ˈkænəbɪs/)[2] is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: Cannabis sativa, C. indica, and C. ruderalis. Alternatively, C. ruderalis may be included within C. sativa, all three may be treated as subspecies of C. sativa,[1][3][4][5] or C. sativa may be accepted as a single undivided species.[6] The genus is widely accepted as being indigenous to and originating from Asia.[7][8][9]
The plant is also known as hemp, although this term is often used to refer only to varieties of Cannabis cultivated for non-drug use. Cannabis has long been used for hemp fibre, hemp seeds and their oils, hemp leaves for use as vegetables and as juice, medicinal purposes, and as a recreational drug. Industrial hemp products are made from cannabis plants selected to produce an abundance of fibre. Various cannabis strains have been bred, often selectively to produce high or low levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a cannabinoid and the plant’s principal psychoactive constituent. Compounds such as hashish and hash oil are extracted from the plant.[10]”
(Care to guess my O so very obscure source? ;) )
I remember not that long ago one such travelling salesperson got quite upset.
I pointed out that he was being paid to solicit money from me, and that they had come to my dwelling and knocked on my door to try to get me to give money to their particular employer. That, of course, means they were a travelling salesperson.
I pointed out that they didn’t have to charge for their services, and that they could volunteer their labour, and that by so doing they would be providing the equivalent of their wage as income to the charity for which they were soliciting.
They made noises about how terrible a person I was, and I made noises about how I didn’t charge the charity money so I could spruik for it. They made noises about not having to take it, and I made noises about how they were the one who knocked on my door.
Anyway. I get that a lot.
Of course, different people, different reactions to my approach.
Some understand it’s a person talking to a person, and an amicable exchange ensues.
Once, when it was rather nasty stinky hot and humid, I invited the person in and offered them some cold water from the fridge.
They appreciated that.
Turns out he was from South America (Colombia? It was some time ago) and was just trying to get on. Nice guy.
—
Anyway. Raising awareness, that’s the thing.
(But it’s only the first thing)
Nettles are another fiber plant that is literally a perennial weed that needs no pesticides or chemical fertilizer to produce a crop.
Why is cotton (which requires heavy fertilizing and water, and is susceptible to multiple devastating pests) the heavily subsidized fiber crop of choice?
Cotton (and tobacco) is only grown in the SE states that not coincidentally, were slave holding states.
Tethys, why dribble bits at a time?
Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_crop#Fiber_crops
The USA’s states. Queensland is not one of those.
I don’t know why you’re being snide, or why I would care what your source might be on the difference between C. sativa and C. indica. The plant grown for fiber is a very common roadside weed worldwide due to humans spreading seeds. It has very low levels of cannabinols but any cultivation was outlawed sometime after WW1. Sailors were known to smoke hemp ropes, and those Jazz era musicians were the people who smoked the potent type.
Why would I consult Wikipedia about a basic horticultural fact? I know it by heart but it’s so annoying to write the proper Latin names on this infernal device.
Tethys,
That’s alright; I don’t know why you imagine I am being snide, either.
Don’t have to use my source (it was Wikipedia), you can use any other.
Point remains.
So, buggery, the lash, and hemp rope. Yay!
Here, when I was a barely post-pubescent boy, I was exposed to the habit of mallee root smoking.
(I done it!)
Because it has a fact about which you are (or were) hitherto ignorant: “The plant is also known as hemp, although this term is often used to refer only to varieties of Cannabis cultivated for non-drug use.”
“Hemp is a fiber and seed oil plant, and is a different variety than the Medicinal Cannabis.”, quoth you.
(I did like the capitalisation of Medicinal, there)
I infer you are using a mobile phone to compose your messages.
(You have my sympathy)
—
Anyway, point is moot. cf. my #235.
Now that getting high on dope is legal in much of the USA and big, big agribusiness is getting in on the act, there’s hardly any point distinguishing between varieties.
I assure you, the stalks “Medicinal Cannabis” are rather fibrous.
Why grow a crop with juicy heads but non-stringy stems, or one with stringy stems but juiceless heads, when one can $profit$ from both in one plant?
And, hey, right there incentives to not use pesticides that might leave residues, right?
Hey, Tethys, do you know about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakum ?
Fibrous, it is. Fucks people’s hands up, it does. Was nasty work to get it.
Really, really nasty.
“Oakum was at one time recycled from old tarry ropes and cordage, which were painstakingly unravelled and reduced to fibre, termed “picking”. The task of picking and preparation was a common occupation in prisons and workhouses,[1] where the young or the old and infirm were put to work picking oakum if they were unsuited for heavier labour. Sailors undergoing naval punishment were also frequently sentenced to pick oakum, with each man made to pick 1 pound (450 g) of oakum a day.
The work was tedious, slow and taxing on the worker’s thumbs and fingers.[2] In 1862, girls under 16 at Tothill Fields Bridewell had to pick 1 pound (450 g) a day, and boys under 16 had to pick 1+1⁄2 pounds (680 g).[4] Over the age of 16, girls and boys had to pick 1+1⁄2 and 2 pounds (680 and 910 g) per day respectively.[4] The oakum was sold for £4 10s (equivalent to £559 in 2023) per hundredweight (112 lb, 51 kg).[4] At Coldbath Fields Prison, the men’s counterpart to Tothill Fields, prisoners had to pick 2 lb (910 g) per day unless sentenced to hard labour, in which case they had to pick between 3 and 6 lb (1.4 and 2.7 kg) of oakum per day.[5]”
(Guess the source I quoted?)
“”‘Tisn’t, no; an’ often that sour you can ‘ardly eat it. When first I started I couldn’t eat the skilly nor the bread, but now I can eat my own an’ another man’s portion.”
“I could eat three other men’s portions,” said the Carter. “I ‘aven’t ‘ad a bit this blessed day.”
“Then what?”
“Then you’ve got to do your task, pick four pounds of oakum, or clean an’ scrub, or break ten to eleven hundredweight o’ stones. I don’t ‘ave to break stones; I’m past sixty, you see. They’ll make you do it, though. You’re young an’ strong.”
“What I don’t like,” grumbled the Carter, “is to be locked up in a cell to pick oakum. It’s too much like prison.”
“But suppose, after you’ve had your night’s sleep, you refuse to pick oakum, or break stones, or do any work at all?” I asked.
“No fear you’ll refuse the second time; they’ll run you in,” answered the Carpenter. “Wouldn’t advise you to try it on, my lad.” ”
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_People_of_the_Abyss/Chapter_8
Hey, I’m learning heaps, here!
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/marijuana-strains
(Such variety! Not so much about fibrosity — or is that fibrousness? ;)
“In modern times, the fibrous material used in oakum comes from virgin hemp or jute.”
—
I note that, here, ‘virgin’ does not mean it’s from hemp that has not, um, gone to seed — it means previously unprocessed.
(Another pointless point I did not fail to note!)
Ah yes, ye olde days in ye merry old.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rag-and-bone_man
Of course, better that than the https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pure_finder
And you can’t be sure??? Clearly, dementia is setting in!
KG, heh.
Exactly.
[do you rate my anecdotal parable, KG? Grok the essence?]
The band Vitalic is making music videos that appear deliberately trashy or even transgressive. I think the latest one might partly have been made using AI.
Vitalic – My Friend Dario
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=NOtmWxqN1fY
Algorithms could help improve judicial decisions
https://phys.org/news/2024-05-algorithms-judicial-decisions.html
A Different Bias;
“Tory Chaos With Another Defection”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=DpKdQ81QwQs
My tory voodoo doll was a good investment.
“At four, I was kidnapped and sex-trafficked for years. Now I fight for the powerless – and win every case” | Global development | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/25/at-four-i-was-kidnapped-and-sex-trafficked-for-years-now-i-fight-for-the-powerless-and-win-every-case
KG, way back at comment 200. Thanks again. What you wrote made sense from all I’ve gathered, but it isn’t typically addressed in the stories I read; I imagine because folks in the UK are just more aware of these things than I am.
It all sounds so much like the divide between our own two parties here in the USA, especially back in the Clinton days, but still true now. Only here, folks on the left have nowhere else to put their support. Then, there’s money involved, and more is invested to right-wing candidates — even if they are certifiably insane and proud of it — just because they will give the rich whatever they want. It used to be a little less blatant, but now it’s all out in the open. I hope this leads to more people on the left running for office and getting sane people out to vote for them, but there is so much working against that. The supreme court, gerrymandering, dark money….
The sunspot group (AR3664*) that caused those recent stunning aurora is probly about to come around the solar globe and face us again soon :
https://www.space.com/x-class-solar-flare-from-historic-may-solar-storms-sunspot-suggests-return?
Albeit it will now be renamed as customary.
Let’s talk about Texas removing power from GOP voters….
Beau of the Fifth Column
On Proposal 21 which, surprise non-surprise is anti-democratic blatant election fixing. Seems democracy ain’t so big in Texas.
do you rate my anecdotal parable, KG? Grok the essence? – John Morales@256
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t routinely follow your links (or most other commenters’), so you’ll have to tell me where to find the parable if you want a response.
A Huge Cosmology Problem Might Just Have Disappeared
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=S-v0CEoRWMo
Noted by Steve Benen:
Link
Video snippet at the link.
Robert De Niro addressed the press on behalf of the Biden campaign outside of Trump’s hush money trial in lower Manhattan. [posted on X]
https://x.com/jake__traylor/status/1795463767909630436
Donald Trump’s appreciation for foreign dictators remains highly unsettling. Take his latest praise for North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, for example.
Excerpts from live coverage of closing arguments in Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan:
More later.
Oh FFS.
GOP voters oppose presidential immunity, but support it for Trump
Oh FFS a thousand times over.
Ohio GOP will only let Biden on the ballot if they can restrict abortion
Cartoon: Georgia—the peach state
Link
“Scientists discover what gave birth to Earth’s unbreakable continents -”
https://studyfinds.org/earths-unbreakable-continents/
“Deep time” and recycling of material, plus heating by isotope decay.
Followup to comment 268.
Continuation of excerpts from live coverage of closing arguments in Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan:
Link
Drain the swamp? Nope.
Link
Latest Stupid Thing To Happen In Aileen Cannon’s Courtroom Real Damn Stupid
https://www.wonkette.com/p/latest-stupid-thing-to-happen-in
KG:
Sure. #241, 242. No links. But too subtle, apparently.
MAGA people were impressed enough with Robert De Niro to engage in a lot of counter programming and lies.
Even to me, this news seems rather significant, and better than bad.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/28/canada-sol-mamakwa-speech-first-nation-language
Lynna … @ # 276, quoting Wonkette: … Trump… lying and saying the Biden administration tried to murder him … the FBI followed its standard protocol …
Much as I hate to admit it, Trump has a sliver of a point here: just about any encounter with law enforcement in the United States carries a non-trivial risk of deadly violence. Trump himself faced no risk in this case, having flown over 1,000 miles away, but he and his lawyers could perform a public service by spotlighting the dangers of such “standard protocols”.
Interesting article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/28/spying-hacking-intimidation-israel-war-icc-exposed
Title: “Spying, hacking and intimidation: Israel’s nine-year ‘war’ on the ICC exposed”
[Begins thus:]
“When the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) announced he was seeking arrest warrants against Israeli and Hamas leaders, he issued a cryptic warning: “I insist that all attempts to impede, intimidate or improperly influence the officials of this court must cease immediately.”
Karim Khan did not provide specific details of attempts to interfere in the ICC’s work, but he noted a clause in the court’s foundational treaty that made any such interference a criminal offence. If the conduct continued, he added, “my office will not hesitate to act”.
The prosecutor did not say who had attempted to intervene in the administration of justice, or how exactly they had done so.”
[Ends thus:]
Despite the pressure, Khan, like his predecessor in the prosecutor’s office, chose to press ahead. Last week, Khan announced he was seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant alongside three Hamas leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
He said Israel’s prime minister and defence minister stood accused of responsibility for extermination, starvation, the denial of humanitarian relief supplies and deliberate targeting of civilians.
Standing at a lectern with two of his top prosecutors – one American, the other British – at his side, Khan said he had repeatedly told Israel to take urgent action to comply with humanitarian law.
“I specifically underlined that starvation as a method of war and the denial of humanitarian relief constitute Rome statute offences. I could not have been clearer,” he said. “As I also repeatedly underlined in my public statements, those who do not comply with the law should not complain later when my office takes action. That day has come.”
‘Finish Them!’ Nikki Haley Autographs Bomb in Israel to Be Dropped on Gaza
Congress Just Made It Basically Impossible to Track Taylor Swift’s Private Jet
Trump Just Sold His $10M Jet to One of His Megadonors
Elseworld:
Elseworld:
Meanwhile, in Korea:
(https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/29/north-korea-reportedly-sends-balloons-carrying-excrement-into-the-south)
GAM458 The Golden Laws
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ouvuy0kuea0
The Gang revisits the Korean ‘Happy Science’ cult with yet another “film”.
. . .
“Sending balloons containing what appeared to be rubbish and faeces into its neighbour’s territory.” Yet another day in North Korea.
Meidas Touch: “Trump Lawyer Screws Up Badly in Final Moments of Trial”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=SmhZd7WwZZw
Delhi temperature hits 50.5C as India’s capital records hottest day | India | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/29/delhi-temperature-hits-499c-as-indias-capital-records-hottest-day
The world is fucked. Thank you, oil conpany lobbyists. Thank you, corrupt politicians.
The Swedish EU election campaign is very low-key. The British national election is much more fun. “Election 2024: The Conservatives have fallen apart” | Andrew Marr | The New Statesman
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ICmZ1ZoXRmE
(Purrs like a whole zoo full of pumas)
Jake Broe about the premature offensive towards Kharkiv: “Putin’s Invasion of Kharkiv a Disaster for Russia”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=_MvQc6Majkc
After the Wagner group mutiny, the Russian commanders seem terrified of being seen having different ideas than their bosses; so there is no incentive to learn from mistakes. After all, Putin is infallible so dissent is treason.
Link
Team Trump plans to purge and politicize the Justice Department. Steve Bannon sketched out the plan — out loud, on the record, while looking into a camera.
When Ohio Republicans balked at a straightforward plan that would’ve put President Joe Biden on the 2024 ballot, Democratic officials had to get creative.
Same as it ever was.
Link
Aileen Cannon Threatens To Sanction Prosecutors
Why do these people think having a bunch of babies will save the world?
Cartoon: Shell game
Fanone says mother was swatted after Jan. 6 officer called Trump ‘authoritarian’
https://www.wonkette.com/p/texas-gop-discovers-most-pro-life
https://www.wonkette.com/p/how-does-trump-get-impressionable
How the U.S. used Indian boarding schools to destroy culture, seize land.
Washington Post link
More at the link.
Justice Alito tells Congress he will not recuse from Jan. 6-related cases.
Washington Post link
Election Law Blog:
Elon Musk Prepares to Join the Fraudulent Fraud Squad
Rick Hasan / May 29, 2024
WSJ
Russian disinformation sites linked to former Florida deputy sheriff, research finds
A new report from a media watchdog connects John Mark Dougan, who now lives in Russia, to scores of fake news sites. [Florida Man!]
Donald Trump now insists that his hush-money trial is “rigged,” which is wrong for a variety of reasons — including his yearslong overreliance on the term.
Link
First Week Polling Problems for Sunak
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=j9YCEFpwACk
Bits and pieces of campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
Link
Alito’s explanation for his upside-down flag has fallen apart
John Morales@277,
Now I have, if possible, even less of an idea what you’re on about.
Gnomic, I.
https://mastodon.social/@mhoye/112521995675929287
/Chart came from Bloomberg.
Re: Compulsory Account7746 @ #313:
A few months ago I saw a bumper sticker on a Tesla that said:
We bought before
we found out Elon is an asshole.
CA7746, it is most amusing that, cratering as they may allegedly be, that “remarkable” graph (list, actually) shows Tesla sold at least an order of magnitude more than any other brand.
The biggest single player in the market.
140487 sales vs the next biggest-seller, that being Hyundai with 22936.
(And Musk remains officially the richest person in the world, too)
Jimmy Kimmel: Trump wants a hung jury snd Mike Pence.
Trump Trial in Jury’s Hands, De Niro Blasts Donald & “Right in the Butt” Wheel of Fortune
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=HmPGGuWM45A
Scott Manley Explains:
“Satellites Use ‘This Weird Trick’ To See More Than They Should – Synthetic Aperture Radar Explained ”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=u2bUKEi9It4
Study of women in Sweden suggests those with premenstrual disorders twice as likely to die by suicide
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-05-women-sweden-premenstrual-disorders-die.html
. . . . .
Amino acid found in chicken feathers could deliver chemotherapy drugs and repair enzymes
https://phys.org/news/2024-05-amino-acid-chicken-feathers-chemotherapy.html
“Costa Brava town bans penis suits and sex dolls from stag and hen dos
Platja d’Aro announces fines up to €1,500 for appearing in public ‘with clothing representing human genitals’”
(https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/30/costa-brava-town-bans-penis-suits-sex-dolls-stag-hen-dos)
Eurozone unemployment falls to record low; US GDP growth revised down – business live
https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/may/30/inflation-fears-markets-ftse-uk-businesses-push-for-closer-relations-with-eu-eurozone-unemployment-business-live
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/alito-says-he-wont-recuse-himself-from-election-and-jan-6-cases-after-flag-controversies
Is it ironic that the word ‘phonetically’ isn’t spelled how it sounds?
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/far-right-challenge-to-gop-incumbent-in-texas-highlights-growing-rift-within-party
Link
Link
Salem is the new name for the asteroid moon of Dinkinesh that Lucy flew by & we know how it formed too :
Source : https://www.space.com/dinky-asteroid-selam-lucy-spacecraft-contact-binary-formation
Florida sticks by social studies standard teaching ‘benefit’ of slavery
Good news: Illinois takes a big step to protect abortion rights
Dunno about the “misstep” part sicne Tingle was actually correct in her words but still, good :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-30/abc-fronts-senate-estimates/103915582
Ex-US negotiator : ICC warrants will lead Israel to continue war | Conflict Zone -DW News
Specifically Dennis Ross – not to be confused with the red & white dwarf stars with the same name minus a numerical designation or hundred..* (The Ross part that is although there are some labelled DENIS too eg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DENIS_J1048%E2%88%923956 )
.* E.g. Ross 128, Ross 248, Ross 548 see : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_548 etc..
Source : https://www.space.com/euclid-telescope-orphan-stars
Italics orig
Source : https://www.space.com/space-debris-spacex-crew-7-reentry-north-carolina
^ Do those in Canton speak Cantonese? or at least Cantonese dialect of English? (Er*, American? Cantonese American english?)
.* Not a reference to Erbium. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erbium )
@ Canton NC i.e. North Carolina Obvs those in Canton PRC speak Cantonese version of Chinese – & v likely English as second language in many cases too. Some English speakers as first language in Canton too I’d expect.
Boeing Starliner spacecraft apparently launching on the 1st of June (USA time) and now learnt that Space X’s Starship is set to blast off again soon too
Source : https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-second-fueling-test-may-2024
Followup to comment 326.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/elon-musk-donald-trump-teamup-should
In case anyone thought Covid was over :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-30/sa-public-hospitals-in-internal-emergency/103915690
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-30/hamas-leader-yahya-sinwar-alive-israels-ehud-yaari-says/103915104
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-30/three-black-men-allege-racial-discrimination-in-lawsuit-against/103914232
Prison gerrymandering? Yep, it’s a thing.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/congratulations-minnesota-on-becoming
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-30/fatima-payman-resigns-from-foreign-affairs-committees/103915374
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-30/macquarie-island-pest-free-following-eradication-program/103908056
Did I share this Ëchidnapus” one here already? Apologies if so and apologies if I’ve been beaten to it as well..
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-05-27/meet-the-echidnapus-from-an-age-of-monotremes-in-australia/103849096
^ What rhe fuck happened to my first quote mark and the E there?
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-27/square-kilometre-array-wa-to-face-satellite-noise-interference/103830954
ReligionClause
Louisiana Legislature Requires Posting of 10 Commandments in Every Public School and College Classroom
Howard Friedman / May 30, 2024
Josh Marshall:
Link
https://www.wonkette.com/p/for-the-love-of-god-wear-sunscreen
Sojourner Truth statue unveiled where she gave her 1851 ‘Ain’t I a Woman?’ speech
Truth, a formerly enslaved person, delivered the speech to a crowd gathered at the Universalist Old Stone Church in Akron for the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention.
Nice photo at the link.
IRS announces Direct File as permanent free tax-filing option starting next year
The program was rolled out on a limited basis this year.
Followup to comments 326 and 336.
Link
With NDA expired, “Apprentice” producer reveals Trump’s appalling racism & sexism on the set
Chief Justice John Roberts tells Senate Democrats to pound sand
Speaking about Alito and the other ghouls made me revisit a movie clip
VAMPIRES Clip – “First Attack” (1998) James Woods
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=0oj79zQnf-I
James Woods is a method actor – he actually trained as a vampire hunter for four years to make his performance as autentic as possible!
NB
TRUMP TRIAL.
JURY: GUILTY ON COUNT # 1
GUILTY ON ALL 34 COUNTS.
@birgerjohansson #352:
Origin of the YouTube commenter’s joke…
SimpsonsWiki – James Woods
Wikipedia – The Hard Way (1991)
James Woods on Twitter: “I am the farthest thing from a method actor.”
Guilty on all 34 counts. Lock him up!
‘Purge’ of Labour leftwingers must end, Keir Starmer told | General election 2024 | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/30/purge-of-labour-leftwingers-must-end-keir-starmer-told
All that’s going to happen is he’ll get is a wrist slap that will not bar him from becoming president nor result in a prison sentence.
Until Trump is rendered permanently harmless, there is NOTHING to celebrate.
@ #358
Typical. The same people who said, ‘oh, they’ll never convict him,’ now are saying, ‘it doesn’t mean anything, he’ll never go to jail.’ Pathetic.
First former president to be found guilty of felonies! Trump is number one!
Link
It’s not the whole enchilada of holding Trump accountable. It’s not nothing either. I personally think that people should stop framing being convicted of 34 felonies as “nothing” or as “something that won’t make any difference.” Fuck that. It is something. Every Republican politician now has a convicted felon as leader of their party. Shame.
NBC News:
More threats, that is.
Politico:
First sneaker designer to be convicted of 34 felony counts.
Add Stormy Daniels to the list that includes E. Jean Carroll as women who got some kind of justice after being treated badly by Trump.
Schadenfreude moments:
Link
Convicted Felon Donald Trump Guilty On All 34 Counts. That’s The Headline, MFers.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/convicted-felon-donald-trump-guilty
Felon felon felon felon felon felon felon.
Yeah. You knew this was going to happen: Convicted, Trump Blames Judge, Jury and a Country ‘Gone to Hell’
New York Times link
Moments after a jury found him guilty, Donald J. Trump worked his conviction into the story of persecution at the center of his presidential campaign.
To hell with him and all of his nonsensical bloviating.
Spelling champ Bruhat Soma rides an unbeaten streak to the Scripps National Bee title, winning tiebreaker
Bruhat Soma, a 12-year-old from Florida, had won three consecutive bees before taking the national crown Thursday.
The kid is great.
US state department falsified report absolving Israel on Gaza aid – ex-official | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/30/stacy-gilbert-us-state-department-israel-gaza-aid
I’ve grokked some essences, not others, but there’s too much sibilance for me. There should be cuts, but those are equivalent to boosts … sssss … zzzzzz. Then I try to grok out for the day, but it’s almost time to get up again, so I never know how to do the sleeping part very well. And my memory is partially wiped concerning a lot of the noisiest parts of it, whatever it was.
Latest installemnt of the Gina Rinehart portrait (non) issue :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-31/gina-rinehart-gifts-different-work-to-portrait-gallery/103920396
She doesn’t know much about art .. indeed Gina Rinehart knows how to be a obscenely wealthy bully who wields her undeserved inherited riches as a weapon and that seems to be about all she knows really..
Another space exploration event scehduled for tomorrow here :
https://www.space.com/china-change-6-prepare-landing-moon-far-side
There’s ample evidence that Donald Trump micromanaged his legal defense and played a direct role in every decision. That wasn’t a smart strategy.
It’s nice to hear that Trump helped to defeat himself.
Trump’s ‘Team of Felons’ adds the most important member of all
“Universe of criminality” and “team of felons” are both apt phrases.
Link
Donald Trump’s a felon surrounded by a confederacy of criminals
Link
Link
Why the Swedish ASC 890 is a huge deal for Ukraine
According to too many Republicans, only “third world” countries and “banana republics” indict former leaders. That’s the opposite of the truth.
Lynna, OM@371,
I read suggestions that the key defence error – undoubtedly insisted on by Trump – was the denial that the sexual encounter with Stormy Daniels took place. That was obviously false, and may have led any uncertain jurors to conclude that since he lied about that, he also lied about the reason for the payoff, his role in making it happen, etc.
Kudos to the jurors. As far as I can judge from reports of the trial, the evidence of Trump’s guilt was pretty overwhelming, but it took a lot of courage to risk being the target of Trumpist revenge – and that of Trump himself if he returns to the White House.
“Former Apprentice Producer Says He Has Tape Of Trump Saying N Word”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=YCE5lUCLW8A
KG @379, I agree.
More commentary:
Link
CNBC:
Politico:
Politico:
NBC:
Bah. He should just retire.
Link
Collins Needs to Retract and Apologize for her Falsehood
Ministry: N. W. O. (New World Order)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=9ygsixNsPSc
WTF?
Text is quoted from an X post by M. Schnell.
Biden says Israel has offered road map toward lasting cease-fire in Gaza
Sounds more like a proposal from Qatar and the USA, than from Israel, but maybe there is some diplomatic reason to give Israel credit.
Doesn’t sound like “speaking out publicly.” Looks more like doing/saying as little as possible while pretending to support dear old Dad.
LOL From an X post:
Excerpt from a longer article posted by Wonkette:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/donald-trump-free-at-last-free-at
Politico reports:
Neo-Nazi Known To Protest Drag Story Hours Predictably Found With Child Pornography
https://www.wonkette.com/p/neo-nazi-known-to-protest-drag-story
The world famous Roman Baths could help scientists counter the challenge of antibiotic resistance
https://phys.org/news/2024-05-world-famous-roman-scientists-counter.html
NBC News:
NBC News:
Bad news, as reported by NBC:
Link
More at the link.
Followup to comment 395.
Link
DC attorney disciplinary board recommends Giuliani be disbarred
Nice photo: https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/may/31/thank-you-for-the-music-abba-members-get-swedish-knighthoods
“Thank you for the music: Abba members get Swedish knighthoods
Agnetha, Benny, Björn and Anni-Frid become first Swedes to be knighted by their monarch for almost 50 years”
Vox article: https://www.vox.com/technology/352849/openai-chatgpt-google-meta-artificial-intelligence-vox-media-chatbots
Excerpt:
(Generative Pre-trained Transformer)
[Alas, though the article mentions the allegorical thought experiment, it does not point to the game made of it]
https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/
Robert Pickton is dead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Pickton#Death
Yeah, chigau. Saw that on my morning browse.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/31/serial-killer-robert-pickton-dies
Also in the news:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/31/chad-daybell-doomsday-murders-death-penalty-deliberation
Publisher of ‘2,000 Mules’ election conspiracy theory film issues apology
A couple of space exploration events happening this weekend with the Chang’-e -6 spacecraft scheduled to land on the Moon :
Source : https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-missions/chang-e-6
There’s a Live tracker here by The Launch Pad channel with landing about 11 hours away now.
A bit sooner than that although still three and a half hours away is the Boeing Starliner launch attempt which can be followed ;live here – Boeing/NASA – Atlas V N22 – Starliner Boe CFT – SLC-41 – CCSFS – Space Affairs Live
“Cowboy Action Shooting: The Frontiersman Category”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=UG_8oLkwkGI
(Karl Kasarda et al are among the most reasonable gun enthusiasts. I have not found anything objectionable about his content)
Josh Kovensky reflects on “The Stormy Scales of Justice.”:
Trumpian thugs are going after the jurors in Trump’s trial:
Link
Link
Boeing Starliner set to launch its first crewed mission
Washington Post link
Axios
Poll: 49% of Independents think Trump should drop out post-guilty verdict
Alex Thompson, Hans Nichols / June 1, 2024
Excerpts from a longer article written by Susan B. Glasser for The New Yorker:
Link
More at the link, including the details behind the House Republican majority declaring that even mentioning Trump’s trial(s) on the House floor was forbidden. Note that “Republicans regularly take to the House floor to inveigh against the “sham” legal proceedings.” Only Democratic Party representatives are prohibited from speaking.
Well, the Starliner launch attempt has been scrubbed. computer glitch with a few minutes to go.
Source : https://www.space.com/news/live/boeing-starliner-live-updates
Yeah, I stayed up for it. Sigh.
Source : https://www.space.com/japanese-billionaire-cancels-spacex-starship-moon-dearmoon-flight
Bad news for SpaceX today too. Just seen.
Next Starliner launch attempt opportunity Sunday 2nd June @ 12.03 EDT – according to info on the youtube clip linked at #405.
StevoR @ 415
June 2nd? That is a nice birthday present for me.
.
‘It was all a lie:’ Arizona GOP official on his defamation case against Kari Lake
.https://youtube.com/shorts/pQaT1kMiy1I
In the news: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/01/chad-daybell-sentenced-death-murders-
@ 416. birgerjohansson : sadly it now seems ist going to be June 5th at earliest – see :
https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-astronaut-launch-abort-minutes-before-liftoff
Still, at least I was able to wake up to the news that Changé-6 has suceeded :
Source : https://www.space.com/china-change-6-lands-on-moon-far-side-sample-return-mission
There’s another analysis of the Starliner on youtube here (8 mins long) – ‘Why Was Starliner’s First Crewed Launch Scrubbed Again?’ by TheSpaceBucket. (Hoping Scott Manley would have an updated video on that & Chang’e-6 too but seems not yet.)
Plot twist: WA has a law against felons running for office
Seattle Times link
Ukraine Update: Ukraine finally gets what it needs to defend Kharkiv
“Spiritual Warfare”
Netanyahu aide says Israel agreed to Biden’s cease-fire plan for Gaza
Ophir Falk, chief foreign policy adviser to Netanyahu, said that it was “a deal we agreed to — it’s not a good deal but we dearly want the hostages released, all of them.”
Israeli justices press government on religious conscription waivers
https://www.wonkette.com/p/will-the-ucp-please-stop-thinking
The Hypersonic Arms Race: What You Need to Know
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=6IiRkeep8MU
No, Birger. What Sabine thinks you need to know. As if she were an expert.
I like to know more than that.
Lynna, OM@422,
It looks as if, perhaps, Biden has realised the continuing genocide is bad for his chances of re-election, and is trying to force Netanyahu to end it. Netanyahu is famously slippery, but the failure to crush Hamas swiftly has now left him under pressure from Biden, his own swivel-eyed loons (of both ultra-orthodox and fascist varieties), and the relatives of the hostages, their supporters, and a growing number who simply don’t believe Netanyahu can eliminate Hamas and want the war to end – if only because it takes up resources, or because Israeli troops are being killed as well as much larger numbers of Hamas fighters, and much larger numbers again of Palestinian non-combatants.
Nice to see competent people at work, at the top of their game, who know their business:
Sanctions on Russia: What’s working? What’s not?
One and a half hours’ worth, but can be sped up somewhat.
And it’s kinda official — though, of course, information space is part of the geopolitical battlefield.
“Police Officers’ Horrifying Group Chat Texts Uncovered”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=WHJoW4egmnM
“Archaeologists may have finally decoded purpose of UK’s mysterious ‘Seahenge’ structure” | The Independent
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/seahenge-mystery-uk-structure-holme-b2555477.html
The Youtube gang is back!
“Skepticrat 226 Convictory Lap Edition”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=dfcx75D-L94
The word of the day is “34”.
Link
Tacopina may have plenty of company, but a significant number of Trump followers still think President Biden prosecuted Trump.
The trial in Manhattan was a state case. It wasn’t even a federal case. Trump committed crimes in New York. Trump was convicted of those crimes by a jury.
When it comes to Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump is rewriting history so brazenly, he’s even trying to distance himself from “lock her up” chants.
Summarized from an NBC News article:
Elon Musk’s X plans livestream event with Donald Trump
Musk and X’s CEO Linda Yaccarino confirmed the plans Friday.
Summarized from X posts by Anthony Sabatini:
NBC News:
Excerpt from Trump’s comments last summer:
It’s plain as day that Trump is hoping for violence. Reuters reported:
Followup to comment 432.
Link
Republican Senators are throwing childish, ill-informed or deliberately misleading tantrums because they too want Trump’s followers to erupt in violence … and they also want to impress Hair Furor.
Link
Link.
Same link for text quoted in comment 440. Mark Sumner covered various news in that post.
News also covered by Mark Sumner (link in comment 441):
Re: #419 “WA has a law against felons running for office”
This Seattle Times column has become widespread, but I’m afraid it’s much ado about nothing. It may (and does) apply to state offices, but states can’t add stricter qualifications to federal offices than are specified in the Constitution. This was definitively decided in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton(1995) which invalidated laws in 23 states that attached term limits to U.S. Congressional offices. Presidential qualifications are specified in the Constitution and that’s it.
“New study shows ancient Europe was not all forest, half was covered in grassland”
https://phys.org/news/2023-11-ancient-europe-forest-grassland.html
This would have been the Eem interglacial.
P M Rishi Sunak Photobombed by Lib Dems
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=BkOS6sDp2WI 😄
Dutch pair face jail in Latvia after ‘helping refugees in act of compassion’ | Latvia | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/03/dutch-pair-face-jail-latvia-helping-refugees-compassion
Re: #443
Well it is irrelevant anyway because even the US constitution is ignored by the supreme court when it comes to Trump disqualification (and accountability). Section 3 of the 14th amendment should be applied but the MAGA justices decided otherwise.
MAGA State Republicans Are Helping Perpetuate Trump’s Non-Citizen Voting Lie
The bad faith non-citizen voting bills being proposed by Republicans in state legislatures around the country serve to bolster the voter fraud myth Trump is poised to push if he loses in the fall — but the bills themselves may also disenfranchise actual eligible voters if passed.
Cartoon: Cult wives club
MANU RAJU [on CNN]: Is it a good idea for the Republican party to nominate a convicted felon?
KEVIN McCARTHY [former House Speaker]: […] The answer is 100 percent yes.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/lauren-boebert-demands-privacy-for
Fauci dismisses ‘preposterous’ allegations that he led covid coverup.
Washington Post link
The infectious-disease expert said Republicans have distorted emails between scientists as they discussed whether a lab leak of the coronavirus was possible.
Billions in taxpayer dollars now go to religious schools via vouchers
Washington Post link
The rapid expansion of state voucher programs follows court decisions that have eroded the separation between church and state.
“Trump’s Mental State Implodes Following Conviction”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=mltFlN2dsQo
West faces first major heat wave of 2024 with triple digits into California.
Washington Post link
The punishing ‘heat dome’ from Mexico will expand northward, threatening records from Arizona to the Pacific Northwest.
“Trump’s Mental State Implodes Following Conviction”;
also, credulous poster posts silly opinion fluff piece.
For Birger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7WqP_MYLkM
Clickbait; once, the Beeb might have written something like ‘What is its purpose?’
Still.
[64 Kph — why a British media outlet would use archaic measuring units is unclear]
Re: John Morales @ #458….
34.6 knots.
NBC News:
NBC News:
Another mass shooting.
NBC News:
New York Times:
MSNBC:
House GOP tries to take down Dr. Fauci. It does not go well for them
Link.
Link
Followup to comment 465.
Dr. Fauci referred to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s refusal to call him “doctor”: “An unusual performance.”
Michael Cohen’s family doxxed after Trump guilty verdict in porn star hush money case
The latest doxxing attempt fits into a pattern of threats against people who speak out against former President Donald Trump.
I don’t know the situation in Australia, but most Brits simply would not know how fast (or slow) 64Kph is. Speed limits are still in Mph, vehicle speedometers show Mph, road signs give distances in miles.
Some less-bad-than-expected news from India, where it appears that although Hindutva-fascist Modi will remain PM, his party is not getting the landslide predicted from exit polls, it will probably fall short of an overall majority, and the alliance which it heads will be well short of the 2/3 majority needed to change the constitution.
Lynna OM @ 467 I am glad the Russians see through the propaganda, the officers tell them all Ukrainans are nazis and people who surrender will meet a horrible fate.
🤔
An archaeology friend of mine ran into an absurd case of Facebook censure:
‘Tried to use the UK idiomatic expression “scream bl**dy m***er”, meaning “express great dissatisfaction”. Fb threatened to disable my account.’
Fb allows lots of awfulness to get through, but censors common ideomatic expressions…
Charges against Epoch Times CFO come with political implications
Link
Former Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina
Ben Wexler, posting on X:
Followup to comment 473.
Link
Link
Britain’s NHS Bans Puberty Blockers, Threatens Children With 2 Years Gaol.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/britains-nhs-bans-puberty-blockers
So this is rubbish!
Biden announces new asylum cap in bid to deter illegal crossings.
Washington Post link
https://x.com/AccountableGOP/status/1797946404364755414
Photos at the link.
Link
So Matt Gaetz sets up what he hopes will be his Fox News and NewsMax moments, then he swiftly exits the chamber before his delicate ears can be subjected to anything resembling reality. Not just a liar, but also a coward.
Wisconsin AG charges Trump attorneys and aide for 2020 election fraud
Colbert on the Trump verdict.
Georgia Appeals Panel Slow As January Molasses On That Georgia Election Fraud Thing
https://www.wonkette.com/p/georgia-appeals-panel-slow-as-january
Three white-guy Republicans will hear FANI WILLIS UNFAIR TO TRUMP October 4.
Ken Buck – Trump’s Criminal Trial & MAGA’s Hold On The GOP | The Daily Show
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=VdL1qEHpsSg
Britain
Scandinavia ‘way ahead’ of UK in telecoms infrastructure, says BT boss | BT | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jun/04/scandinavia-way-ahead-of-uk-in-telecoms-infrastructure-says-bt-boss
🌴
‘Africa has zero PR in the west’: the Nigerian influencer using sarcasm on the clueless | Global development | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/jun/04/do-you-have-water-in-africa-charity-ekezie-nigerian-influencer
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trumpers-crocodile-curiosity
Link
More at the link, including video.
Lawmakers expensed millions in 2023 under new program that doesn’t require receipts.
Washington Post link
Critics say the program’s lack of transparency and record-keeping opens it up to abuse. Matt Gaetz was the program’s top spender.
🚨 Supreme Court drops CRUSHING ruling in long-awaited case
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z2-x62_c7ZM
Behold corruption in all its glory.
@Lynna #484:
Colbert also scored a fake interview with juror #11.
Rent monopoly crackdown continues as FBI raids corporate landlord for 18 Arizona properties
Confirmation that Modi’s Hindutva-fascist BJP has lost its parliamentary majority. If the other components of the surrealistically-named “National Democratic Alliance” stick with him, he will be PM, but this is not a completely foregone conclusion: I’ve seen a report that one party in this alliance is demanding the removal of the vile Amit Shah as home minister. Even if a BJP-based coalition is successfully formed, there may be a reasonably effective opposition (the INDIA alliance), and Modi is not used to having to compromise with coalition partners. At any rate, Indian democracy lives to fight another day, when its demise looked almost inevitable.
The next launch attempt for Starliner is set to shortly before 10 US Eastern time / 16 universal time / 17 Swedish time today.
22 minutes to launch of Starliner.
Lift Off! :-D
Staliner is flying. So far, seems good ..
wayching Starliner launch here LIVE! ULA Boeing Starliner CFT Countdown – The Launch Pad
Link
Graph showing the rise of anti-government and hate groups in Arizona from 2000 to now is available at the link.
Starliner has separsted from the upper (centaur) stage. Orbital insertion eoll happen in ten minutes, using a small engine.
This is the first time a woman astronaut has participated in the first launch of a crewed spacecraft.