Finally Friday Reads: Slow-Ride Tryptophan Edition
Posted: November 24, 2023 Filed under: Israel-Hamas war, Republican presidential politics | Tags: Dark Maga Money Donors, Hostages released, Nikki Haley 4 Comments
Margalit Moses came home today. She’s a 78-year-old retired teacher from Kibbutz Nir Oz. She has 3 children and 8 grandkids. She likes birdwatching & knitting. She just beat cancer and will now get her much-needed meds.
Good Afternoon, Sky Dancers!
Let the leftovers feast begin! Lunch today was pumpkin pie. How about you?
Thirteen Israeli women and children held hostage in Palestine made it home today. The cease-fire is holding. They were held in captivity for 49 days.
The IDF has received the first batch of hostages, 13 mothers and children who were released from after 49 days in Hamas captivity.
The released hostages will be brought to hospitals where they will meet their families. They will be released through the Rafah crossing into Egypt before being flown to Israel. The Egyptian Communications Ministry said that they are preparing for the hostage’ release at the crossing, which includes the Thai hostages.
The release of the 13 hostages is the first of four expected stages. Hamas has agreed to release some 50 hostages over the four days of the truce with Israel, all children, mothers and other women. The sides agreed that Hamas may eventually free more, in exchange for an extension of the ceasefire by a few more days.
…
The released hostages are only a small group out of some 240 held by Gaza terrorists.
Israel is set to release 150 Palestinian prisoners held for terror offenses, all of them women and minors. It will free 39 today in return for the first 13 Israelis to return.
The next group of 13 hostages is scheduled to be released on Shabbos.
Additionally, the Prime Minister of Thailand has announced that 11 Thai workers -out of 23- were released from captivity in Gaza. This comes after extensive direct negotiations between the government of Thailand and Hamas’ masters in Tehran.
Abigail Edan will spend her fourth birthday as a hostage as the White House has said she is not among the first 13 Hamas hostages released. She lost both her parents in the Hamas Raids.
Twenty-four hostages, including Israeli hostages, have been handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) before they passed into Egypt to undergo medical checks before being taken back to Israel to be reunited with their families. Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Majed al-Ansari, confirmed the news.
“Those released include 13 Israeli citizens, some of whom are dual citizens, in addition to 10 Thai citizens and a Filipino citizen,” he said. Qatar was a key mediator in the hostage release.
However, one of the youngest known to be captured, Abigail Edan, will be reportedly spending her fourth birthday as a hostage. It comes as the White House said there were no Americans among the first group of 13 hostages released today.
Abigail was kidnapped during the surprise October 7 attack by Hamas as militants stormed her kibbutz in southern Israel, murdering her parents Roy Edan, 43, and Smadar Edan, 40. The couple’s two other children, 10 and six, survived after hiding for hours inside the family home.
It’s hoped Abigail and two American women will be among the first 50 captives released by Hamas in exchange for Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners. The exchange is set to focus on women and children being held as hostages and those in Israeli jails.
Here’s a quick push for donations to the Chef and the organization that kept many of us fed here in New Orleans after Hurricane Ida. They continue to feed Ukrainians under siege also.
Don’t forget that Donald Trump negotiated for the release of 5000 Taliban. President Biden speaks on the negotiations with Hamas. I am certainly glad to see the cease-fire. Release of hostages and no more bombs dropped on innocent Palestinians is a relief.
Ohad Munder Zikhri was released today alongside his mother and grandmother Ohad turned 9 while in Hamas captivity.
Additionally, the Red Cross facilitated the release of 33 Palestinian prisoners from Ofer prison to Ramallah. This is from CNN’s website where there is a continually updating thread on the releases.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Friday it facilitated the transfer of 33 Palestinian prisoners, released as part of the Israel-Hamas truce deal, from an Israeli prison to the West Bank.
“We have now successfully facilitated the release of 33 Palestinian detainees from Ofer prison to Ramallah,” the ICRC’s Israel and Occupied Territories branch wrote on X. “We have managed to do so thanks to our neutral intermediary role.”
In total, 39 Palestinian women and minors were released from three prisons — Damon, Megiddo and Ofer – on Friday, according to the Israeli prison service.
I’m going to keep it short today. I did want to mention an essential investigation from The Daily Beast about dark money flowing to the MAGA movement and the Freedom Caucus. “The Secret Megadonor Behind the MAGA Movement’s ‘Nerve Center’. In the aftermath of Jan. 6, one conservative group has been buying up real estate around Capitol Hill and growing its influence. Much of that is thanks to this one secret donor.” This is reported by TDB’s Senior Political Reporter Roger Sollenberger.
In a few short years, the Conservative Partnership Institute has become known in Washington as the “nerve center” of the MAGA movement—an outsized power player in Congress and a hotbed of election denialism.
What hasn’t been known, however, is who exactly has underwritten the group’s rise and rapid expansion, as the conservative nonprofit buys up prime real estate on Capitol Hill and turns pricey row houses into outposts for the House Freedom Caucus—until now.
It turns out there’s one relatively unknown conservative megadonor behind much of the group’s expansion. And that donor is not on the familiar shortlist of major Republican backers. In fact, he’s not even among the top 100 political donors in the country.
His name is Mike Rydin, a retired Houston software developer. And thanks to the tens of millions of dollars he’s provided at a critical time, Rydin’s name is now all over the group.
The Daily Beast pieced together details in financial statements and other public records to identify Rydin as the largest donor by far to CPI, which Rydin confirmed in a phone call on Tuesday. In the aftermath of Jan. 6, this previously low-profile nonprofit—which has a staffing roster that reads like a Jan. 6 witness list—has found itself flush with cash and aggressively buying up ornate Capitol Hill properties. Much of that is thanks to their unsuspecting donor.
But Rydin, who gave CPI more than $25 million in the aftermath of Jan. 6, insists he doesn’t know “anything about” the Capitol attack. He also claims ignorance about CPI’s well-documented ties to central figures in Donald Trump’s attempt to reverse the 2020 election, and even total ignorance of those attempts themselves.
While those claims are difficult to accept at face value, the value of Rydin’s gift to the group, in both its size and its timing, is nothing short of incredible.
When Trump left office, CPI was a bit player in the larger ecosystem of conservative influence. But after the Jan. 6 attack, the upstart organization established itself as a safe haven for departing Trump administration staff and extremist allies, offering cush positions to figures like Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, top adviser and confidant Stephen Miller, and anti-election attorney Cleta Mitchell.
Over the last two years, CPI has undertaken an ambitious expansion. The group staffed up, creating a network of partner organizations and affiliates and stuffing their ranks with seasoned GOP operatives and green hires alike. To accommodate that growth, CPI carved out a substantial physical footprint in the D.C. area, converting swaths of prime Capitol Hill real estate into offices and VIP landing pads while building out a 2,200-acre retreat and lodge on the Maryland shore of the Chesapeake Bay.
Read more at the link.
Release hostage Aviv Katz Asher is 2. She was released with her mother Doron Katz Asher, 34, and her sister Raz, who is four,
One final article in the New York Times analyzes if the former Governor Nikki Haley–who appears to be consolidating the Never Trump Vote–can actually take down Trump in the Republican Primary. “Could Haley Really Beat Trump? Big Donors Are Daring to Dream. Powerful players in the business world have gravitated toward Nikki Haley, aware that she remains an underdog but beginning to believe she has a chance. This analysis is by Kate Kelly and Rebecca Davis O’Brien.
In recent weeks, a group of chief executives, hedge fund investors and corporate deal makers from both parties have begun gravitating toward Ms. Haley and, in some cases, digging deeper into their pockets to help her.
Her ascent in the polls and strong debate performances have raised hopes among Republicans hungering to end the dominance of former President Donald J. Trump that maybe, just maybe, they have found a candidate who can do so.
“I’m a long way from making my mind up — something could change — but I’m very impressed with her,” said Kenneth G. Langone, the billionaire Home Depot co-founder, who has donated to Ms. Haley’s campaign and is considering giving more. “I think she’s a viable candidate. I would certainly like her over Trump.”
Ms. Haley’s fresh appeal to the moneyed crowd is coming at a critical juncture in the race, when positive buzz and steady cash flow are vital to a candidate’s survival. With less than eight weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Ms. Haley’s campaign and allied political committees need money to pay for travel, advertising, staff and a ground game to draw out potential voters.
Some business leaders say they appreciate her focus on cutting taxes and government spending. Others praise her foreign-policy chops and her search for a winning Republican message on abortion rights, on which she has sought a moderate path but recently tacked to the right by saying she would have signed a six-week ban as governor of South Carolina.
Most say they see her as a welcome alternative to Mr. Trump, whom they blame for inciting the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, for costing Republicans a Senate majority in last year’s midterm elections and for being too volatile as a commander in chief. They also prefer her to President Biden, whose economic policies and age many cited as a concern.
“It’s invigorating to be truly excited by a candidate again,” said Jonathan Bush, the chief executive of a health-data startup and a cousin of former President George W. Bush. He hosted a virtual fund-raiser for Ms. Haley in early November.
Well, at least it would be fun to see Trump deal with another woman. Especially since this one also is not white.
That’s it for me today. If you’d like to learn more about the released hostages, there are pictures and a short profile at this Sky News link.
I hope the rest of your weekend is spent in peace and relaxation. Enjoy it!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Wednesday Warning Reads: Jive Turkeys
Posted: November 22, 2023 Filed under: just because, Republican politics, Republican presidential politics, Treason and Sedition Republican Style | Tags: Donald Trump and fascism, fascist freedom caucus, FBI False Flag conspiracy theory J6, Jive Turkey Aileen Cannon, Jive Turkey Dean Phillips, Jive Turkey Donald Trump, Jive Turkey Elon Musk, Jive Turkey Ron DeSantis, Jive Turkeys 10 Comments
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
You may have noticed that JJ and I have been doing the posts recently. BB took ill with Covid-19. We were hopeful that a few doses of Paxlovid would have her back in no time. However, she has been in the hospital now since Monday. She developed mild pneumonia and will probably have more days in hospital before they release her. We all wish her the very best on her road back to health.
My mother used to love watching the A-Team back in the day. I didn’t watch it much, but I did love Mister T, and “I pity the fool” who didn’t love him calling out a “Jive Turkey.” One of Maya Angelou’s words of wisdom was, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Today, I have a long list of Jive Turkeys showing us exactly who they are.
A jive turkey is someone who is unreliable, makes exaggerations or empty promises, or who is otherwise dishonest. The phrase is so associated with 1970s culture.
Okay, so Jive Turkey number one is Judge Aileen Cannon. This is from Politico‘s Josh Gerstein. “How one judge is slowing down one of Trump’s biggest criminal cases. The May 2024 trial in Trump’s classified documents case appears headed for a politically precarious postponement.”
Judge Aileen Cannon seems to be in no hurry.
On paper, she has scheduled a trial to open next May in the case charging Donald Trump with hoarding national security secrets at Mar-a-Lago.
In reality, she has run the pretrial process at a leisurely pace that will make a postponement almost inevitable, according to experts on criminal prosecutions related to classified information.
Delaying Trump’s trial until after the November election would have a momentous implication: It might mean the trial never happens at all. If Trump wins the election and the case is still pending, he’s expected to order the Justice Department to shut it down.
Even a shorter delay would be fraught: Pushing the trial into the summer or fall could run headlong into the Republican National Convention or the heart of the general election campaign.
For now, Cannon, a Trump-appointed federal district judge in Florida, is officially sticking with the May 20 trial date she announced four months ago. She even recently denied Trump’s bid to push it back. But in a series of more technical rulings, Cannon has postponed key pretrial deadlines, and she has added further slack into the schedule simply by taking her time to resolve some fairly straightforward matters.
“It could be seen as a stealth attempt to delay the ultimate trial date without actually announcing that yet,” said Brian Greer, a former Central Intelligence Agency attorney.
“There’s pretty much no chance they could go to trial on May 20 with the current schedule,” he added.
David Aaron, a former DOJ national security prosecutor, agreed, saying a May 20 trial is unlikely “unless a lot of discipline is imposed.”
You may read the exact steps she’s taken to delay justice for the American people at the link above. Multiple Jive Turkeys are dissing our wonderful Vice President Kamala Harris. Dean Phillips, an obscure congressman from Minnesota, is challenging President Biden in the Democratic Presidential primary. This is from Tommy Christopher at Mediaite. “Biden Rival Comically Backtracks When Confronted On CNN For Attacking VP Kamala Harris: ‘I Don’t Recall Saying Those Words’.”
Congressman and longshot Biden presidential rival Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) did a comical bit of backpedaling when CNN anchor Abby Phillip confronted him for attacking Vice President Kamala Harris in another interview.
Rep. Phillips — who is polling at or below the margin of error in most polls since launching a primary challenge against Biden — lobbed a series of attacks at the VP in an Atlantic interview, couched as repetitions of criticisms from unnamed others:
“Is Kamala Harris prepared to step in if something happened to Biden?” I asked Phillips.
“I think that Americans have made the decision that she’s not,” he said.
I replied that I was interested in the decision of one specific American, Dean Phillips.
“That is not my opinion,” Phillips clarified. He said that every interaction he’s had with the vice president has been “thoughtful” and that “I’ve enjoyed them.”
“That said …” Phillips paused, and I braced for the vibe shift.
“I hear from others who know her a lot better than I do that many think she’s not well positioned,” he said of Harris. “She is not well prepared, doesn’t have the right disposition and the right competencies to execute that office.”
Phillips also noted that Harris’s approval numbers are even worse than Biden’s: “It’s pretty clear that she’s not somebody people have faith in.”
But again, Phillips is not one of those people: “From my personal experiences, I’ve not seen those deficiencies.”
The exchange even nonplussed the interviewer, Mark Leibovich, who compared it to “Trumplike ‘many people are saying’ attributions.”
Stay classy Congressman. You may want to read up on misogynoir.
The Kingpin Jive Turkey is, of course, Donald Trump. This is also from Mediaite. “MSNBC’s Claire McCaskill Claims Trump ‘Even More Dangerous’ Than Hitler and Mussolini.” It’s reported by Ken Meyer.
‘The Turkey is a noble bird.” Benjamin Franklin’s character in the musical 1776, John Buss @repeat1968
MSNBC political analyst Claire McCaskill posited that Donald Trump is “even more dangerous” than Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler because the only thing he cares about is himself, and he lacks any other kind of political center.
The former senator joined Alicia Menendez on Tuesday for Dateline, where the panel was discussing the New York Times’ analysis of Trump’s most recent rhetoric against his political enemies. With Trump’s increasing levels of vitriol, aggression and thirst for vengeance, the Times pointed to the valid comparisons between the former president and various fascist leaders and dictators.
As McCaskill was invited to discuss Trump stoking violence and political extremism in America, she noted that “A lot of people have tried to draw similarities between Mussolini and Hitler and the use of the terminology like ‘vermin’ and the drive that those men had towards autocracy and dictatorship.”
The difference, though, I think makes Donald Trump even more dangerous, and that is he has no philosophy he believes in. He is not trying to expand the boundaries of the United States of America. He is not trying to overcome a neighboring country like Putin is in Ukraine. He is not going for a grandiose scheme of international dominance. All he wants is to look in the mirror and see a guy who is president. All he cares about is selfish self-promotion. That’s the only philosophy he has.
McCaskill argued this makes Trump “even more dangerous because he’s actually said out loud that it would be okay to terminate the Constitution to keep him in power.”
“He actually said those words,” she said. “And the irony is all of these supposed conservative folks that have populated the Republican party all stood around with their thumb in their mouth going ‘well, yeah okay.’ It’s bizarre.”
Les Dindons, 1877, Claude Monet
Peter Stone of The Guardian wrote this analysis. “‘Openly authoritarian campaign’: Trump’s threats of revenge fuel alarm. ‘Openly authoritarian campaign’: Trump’s threats of revenge fuel alarm. .”Trump’s talk of seeking to ‘weaponize’ the DoJ and ‘retribution’ for opponents poses a direct threat to the rule of law and democracy in the US should he win a second term, experts say.”
Donald Trump’s talk of punishing his critics and seeking to “weaponize” the US justice department against his political opponents has experts and former DoJ officials warning he poses a direct threat to the rule of law and democracy in the US.
Trump’s talk of seeking “retribution” against foes, including some he’s branded “vermin”, has coincided with plans that Maga loyalists at rightwing thinktanks are assembling to expand the president’s power and curb the DoJ, the FBI and other federal agencies. All of it has fueled critics’ fears that in a second term Trump would govern as an unprecedentedly authoritarian American leader.
Trump is currently the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican nomination for 2024 and has long maintained hefty polling leads over his party rivals. At the same time a slew of recent polls has also shown him ahead of president Joe Biden, including in key battleground states.
But scholars and ex-justice officials see increasing evidence that if they achieved power again Trump and his Maga allies plan to tighten his control at key agencies and install trusted loyalists in top posts at the DoJ and the FBI, permitting Trump more leeway to exact revenge on foes, and shrinking agencies Trump sees as harboring “deep state” critics.
Ominously, Trump has threatened to tap a special prosecutor to “go after” Biden and his family.
Trump’s angry mindset was revealed on Veterans Day when he denigrated foes as “vermin” who needed to be “rooted out”, echoing Fascist rhetoric from Italy and Germany in the 1930s.
“I’m hard pressed to find any candidates anywhere who are so open that they would use the power of the state to go after critics and enemies,” said Steven Levitsky, a Harvard government professor and co-author of How Democracies Die.
“This is one of the most openly authoritarian campaigns I’ve ever seen. You have to go back to the far-right authoritarians in the 1930s in Europe or in 1970s Latin America to find the kind of dehumanizing and violent language that Trump is starting to consistently use.”
Republican Freedom Caucus Jive Turkeys are trying to pin January 6th on a false flag operation led by the FBI. This was denied by FBI Director Christopher Wray in a Congressional hearing and is an absolutely insane conspiracy theory. This is from Amanda Marcotte writing for Salon. ‘Marjorie Taylor Greene and Mike Lee get Jan. 6 footage — but trying to blame the FBI could backfire. Whatever, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Mike Lee — no one actually thinks the FBI was behind January 6.”
No surprise from a guy who took the lead defending Donald Trump’s attempted coup, but the newly appointed Speaker of the House, Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., moved quickly to abuse his power in an effort to spread lies and disinformation. He’s pretending to do so under the guise of “transparency,” by releasing over 40,000 hours of security footage from the January 6 insurrection online this week. Of course, Johnson does not actually expect people to watch the footage, especially as pretty much every American already knows what happened that day: attempted murder, vandalism, bashing cops, and limitless jackassery from people dumb enough to listen to Donald Trump. But of course, the MAGA movement — now indistinguishable from the Republican Party — wants to rewrite history in gaslight, claiming that our lying eyes deceived us and that the Capitol riot was merely a tickle.
The purpose of this release is not subtle. Propagandists can soon cherry-pick a few moments where rioters were not beating up cops, and pretend that somehow negates the rest of the time that they were beating up cops. As I noted in Tuesday’s newsletter, the tactic is familiar to anyone who has survived a trash boyfriend, the kind who whined, “Why don’t you talk about all the days I didn’t cheat on you?”
Relitigating a day that makes Republicans look like fascists and cowards doesn’t seem like the smartest electoral strategy. But the GOP now is primarily composed of professional trolls who cannot turn down an opportunity to spew noxious gases online. Sure enough, some of the most annoying people in Congress tweeted conspiracy theories about the footage in language so fevered you could practically hear them panting as they typed. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, a man who is only spared from being the biggest dweeb in the Senate by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, retweeted an image of a Capitol rioter with captions falsely implying he was an undercover FBI agent. “I can’t wait to ask FBI Director Christopher Wray about this at our next oversight hearing,” Lee wrote, with a junior high student’s enthusiasm for being annoying to adults.
And, of course, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., repeated the same obviously silly story, because the woman never met a conspiracy theory she doesn’t like.
No Jive Turkey Trot would be worth its salt if it didn’t include Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. This is from A.G Gancarski’s Florida Politics. “In attempt to reboot New Hampshire campaign, Ron DeSantis rolls out food drive. Hungry Floridians won’t benefit, but the Governor’s 2024 campaign will.”
While Floridians who are dealing with food insecurity this week may be on their own, it’s heartening to know Gov. Ron DeSantis is organizing a food drive.
That’s the good news.
The bad news for them is that it’s in another state.
“We are doing a big canned food drive today in New Hampshire. We’re going to be donating to the New Hampshire Food Bank. So I would just say Americans as they enjoy their Thanksgiving, there’s a lot of people that are struggling with this economy so we want to step up and do our part,” DeSantis said on Tuesday’s “Fox and Friends.”
Though Florida has been rocked by inflation that rivals anywhere in the country, DeSantis is strategically limiting his cost-of-living concerns to states where he needs votes more imminently. He has bemoaned spiraling prices in Iowa also.
“I’m going around and talking to voters across the country. I’ll have a family in Iowa tell me, you know, now they go and check out at the grocery store and it rings up so high, so quick they’ve got to take things out of their shopping cart,” DeSantis said in September on the Fox News Channel’s “America Reports.”
For the DeSantises, economic concerns are a family affair: First Lady Casey DeSantis has also talked about troubles in the economy, blaming “Bidenomics” for her need to buy her children’s “$2 t-shirts” at Walmart.
The Governor is spending Tuesday in the Granite State, where he will be the main attraction during a noon town hall event in Manchester, at the Executive Court Banquet Center, with Gov. Chris Sununu on hand. From there, his next stop will be a second town hall in Keene, a 6 p.m. start at Tempesta Restaurant.
Gov. DeSantis only has room to improve in New Hampshire generally, but his problems are especially acute in the Manchester metropolitan area, where he had just 2% support in a a recent survey from the University of New Hampshire.
He’s below 10% in recent polls of the state, including a drop to fifth place in the new Washington Post-Monmouth survey of New Hampshire GOP Primary voters. With 7% support, the Florida Governor finds himself behind Vivek Ramaswamy (8%), Chris Christie (11%), Nikki Haley (18%), and Donald Trump (46%).
The plumpest Social Media Jive Turkey of them all is getting support for Republicans. This is a Washington Post Op-Ed by Greg Sargent “Elon Musk’s silly lawsuit offers a glimpse into the Musk-MAGA alliance.”
Elon Musk’s new lawsuit against Media Matters, which X Corp. filed late Monday, has been dismissed by legal experts as a frivolous effort to bully a prominent critic into silence. But some Republicans apparently see this as a feature, not a bug: They are allying themselves with Musk’s effort for precisely this purpose.
Musk’s suit charges that Media Matters deliberately and deceptively harmed X (formerly Twitter) with a widely-publicized investigation showing that posts containing pro-Nazi content appeared on X alongside advertisements from leading companies. That, along with a surge in antisemitic content, has advertisers fleeing the site, sparking a slide in ad revenue.
Republicans are eagerly rushing to Musk’s rescue — and not just rhetorically. Two GOP state attorneys general — Ken Paxton in Texas and Andrew Bailey in Missouri — have responded by announcing vaguely defined investigations into Media Matters.
Meanwhile, Trump adviser Stephen Miller is urging Republican law enforcement officials to probe Media Matters for “criminal” activity. And Mike Davis, who is touting himself as Donald Trump’s next attorney general, has declared that Media Matters staff members should be jailed.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Texas, doesn’t deny that the juxtapositions between ads and pro-Nazi postings are real. Rather, it accuses Media Matters of creating an account following only fringe content and endlessly refreshing it until it finally generated the juxtapositions. Those are “extraordinarily rare,” the suit says, but were deliberately engineered to disparage X, harm its revenue stream and interfere with its contracts with advertisers.
It’s a weak case, as experts point out. The Media Matters article said it had “found” the juxtapositions, which X calls “false,” insisting they were “manipulated” into existence. But even if you question Media Matters’s presentation of the facts, it still wouldn’t show that it did “all of this to harm X’s market value,” said Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
Well, next November we get to see how all of this shakes out. If you’re not convinced the Republicans have gone Fascist by now, there’s not much hope for you.
Happy Thanksgiving!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: The Very Model of a Modern First Lady
Posted: November 20, 2023 Filed under: just because | Tags: #Blabbermouth Trump, Argentina, Massive Carbon Big Foot, Polluter elite, Roselynn Carter, Trump Gag Order, Voting Rights Act 5 Comments
Place: Atlanta Ga., U.S.A. Date: 1993 Credit: The Carter Center
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Before I start kvetching about Appeals Courts today, I’d like to join the country in its appreciation of Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, who passed this weekend at 96. Former President Jimmy Carter got the very first vote I cast in a Presidential election. I was at University and remember those turbulent times well. The Israel-Palestine conflict was as ghastly then as it is now. Iran introduced itself by capturing U.S. hostages from our Embassy there. Inflation was roaring. Rosalynn Carter was the face of humanitarian efforts during that one term. She was also active in trying to get the ERA passed and brought a new perspective to the treatment of people with mental illness and the elderly. The Carters’ work with Habitat for Humanity is the stuff of legends. She was both a social justice warrior and a humanitarian.
This is the tribute given to her by NBC News’ Daniel Arkin.
Rosalynn Carter, the former first lady and humanitarian who championed mental health care, provided constant political counsel to her husband, former President Jimmy Carter, and modeled graceful longevity for the nation, died Sunday at her home in Plains, Georgia, according to the Carter Center.
Carter was 96. She had entered hospice care inher home on Friday.
In a statement, former President Carter said: “Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished. She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.”
Rosalynn Carter was widely regarded for her political shrewdness, drawing particular praise for her keen electoral instincts, down-to-earth appeal, and work on behalf of the White House, including serving as an envoy to Latin America.
She devoted herself to several social causes in the course of her public life, including programs that supported health care resources, human rights, social justice and the needs of elderly people.
“Twenty-five years ago, we did not dream that people might someday be able actually to recover from mental illnesses,” Carter said at a mental health symposium in 2003. “Today it is a very real possibility.”
“For one who has worked on mental health issues as long as I have,” she added, “this is a miraculous development and an answer to my prayers.”
Place: Afeta, Ethiopia
Date: Feb. 13, 2007
Credit: The Carter Center
Five first ladies have paid tribute to the extraordinary woman who was visibly a partner to her husband’s presidency. “Her life is a reminder that no matter who we are, our legacies are best measured not in awards or accolades, but in the lives we touch,” Michelle Obama wrote. Secretary Hillary Clinton and her husband, the former President, characterized Mrs. Carter as a “champion of human dignity.
The Washington Post‘s Karen Tumulty characterizes Mrs. Carter this way.
But Rosalynn Carter arrived at a time when women’s roles were changing at every level of society. And, according to Paul Costello, who was her assistant press secretary, the new first lady took to heart a bit of counsel from her own outspoken predecessor. “Betty Ford gave her wise advice: Do what you want to do because no matter what you do, you will be criticized,” Costello told me.
Still, the first lady was taken aback by the stir she created when, in the second year of the Carter presidency, she began showing up at Cabinet meetings and quietly taking notes.
“Jimmy and I had always worked side by side; it’s a tradition in southern families, and one that is not seen as in any way demeaning to the man,” she wrote in her autobiography. “I also think there was a not very subtle implication that Cabinet meetings were no place for a wife. I was supposed to take care of the house — period.”
It was not the only time she felt frustrated with the expectations that came with her role. Less than a month after the inauguration, she held her first solo news conference to announce the formation of a presidential commission on mental health — an issue that would become her biggest cause.
“The next morning when I picked up the Washington Post to read about it I found not one word about the commission or the press conference,” she recalled. This newspaper instead ran a story about how the Carters had established a policy against serving hard liquor at White House functions.
But the first lady continued to press against the constraints, and in breaking her own path, she would make it easier for those who followed — including Hillary Clinton.
Rosalynn Carter traveled abroad and met with heads of state to discuss matters of substance, not for photo opportunities, and made it clear she was speaking for the administration in her public appearances. “Dinner guests at the White House have seen her interrupt the President — not rudely but unhesitatingly — usually to explain something more clearly than he had been doing,” the New York Times columnist Tom Wicker wrote in 1979.
Two crucial cases are coming from two very different Federal Appeals Courts today. The first one is on Voting Rights and came out of the 8th District. It’s basically forcing the outcome that Republicans have championed for some time and will likely find an accessible Advocate in the Supreme Court in its Chief Justice John Roberts. Hansi is the NPR reporter for this case. It’s terrible news. Most of the judges on the 8th circuit were appointed by Bush or Trump.
US First Lady Rosalynn Carter climbs the steps to her plane during a trip, Texas, September 1978. (Photo by Diana Walker/Getty Images)
Politico has this headline. “Federal court deals devastating blow to Voting Rights Act. The decision out of the 8th Circuit will almost certainly be appealed to the Supreme Court.” The analysis is written by Zach Montellaro.
A federal appeals court issued a ruling Monday that could gut the Voting Rights Act, saying only the federal government — not private citizens or civil rights groups — is allowed to sue under a crucial section of the landmark civil rights law.
The decision out of the 8th Circuit will almost certainly be appealed to the Supreme Court. But should it stand, it would mark a dramatic rollback of the enforcement of the law that led to increased minority representation in American politics.
The appellate court ruled that there is no “private right of action” for Section 2 of the law — which prohibits voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race
That, in practice, would severely limit the scope of protections in the act. For decades, private parties — including civil rights groups, individual voters and political parties — have brought Section 2 challenges on everything from redistricting to voter ID requirements.
Rosalynn Carter, wife of presidential candidate Jimmy Carter, appears on the ‘Meet the Press’ television talk show, September 26th 1976. She is wearing a ‘Carter/Mondale’ campaign badge. (Photo by UPI/Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)
We’re also seeing action from the Appeals Court in the DC circuit on their”Hearing on Trump gag order in federal 2020 election subversion case.” This is breaking and updating news from CNN.
After 2 hours and 20 minutes of oral arguments, the three-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals appears inclined to restore the limited gag order in former President Donald Trump’s federal election subversion case, but may loosen some restrictions so he can more directly criticize special counsel Jack Smith.
None of the judges embraced Trump’s claims that the gag order should be wiped away for good because it is a “categorically unprecedented” violation of his free speech rights.
Yet they also posed sharp questions to prosecutors as they tried to find the boundary of where intense campaign-trail rhetoric crosses the line of undermining a criminal case.
The limited gag order from district Judge Tanya Chutkan – which was temporarily frozen by the appeals panel when they agreed to hear the case — restricts Trump’s ability to directly attack Smith, members of his team, court staff or potential trial witnesses. He is allowed to criticize the Justice Department, proclaim his innocence, can say that the case is “politically motivated.”
The appellate judges, who are all Democratic appointees, heard the case on an expedited schedule and are expected to issue a ruling soon.
First Lady Rosalynn Carter on stage with Willie Nelson at the White House, 1978
Identifier
I believe that Jack Smith is more concerned about the attacks on his family than himself, but we shall see.
The Guardian discusses how recent data has shown that the Upper 1% of global wealth holders are responsible for destroying the World’s resources via carbon emissions. This study was done by Oxfam. “Richest 1% account for more carbon emissions than poorest 66%, report says. ‘Polluter elite’ are plundering the planet to point of destruction, says Oxfam after comprehensive study of climate inequality”
The most comprehensive study of global climate inequality ever undertaken shows that this elite group, made up of 77 million people including billionaires, millionaires and those paid more than US$140,000 (£112,500) a year, accounted for 16% of all CO2 emissions in 2019 – enough to cause more than a million excess deaths due to heat, according to the report.
For the past six months, the Guardian has worked with Oxfam, the Stockholm Environment Institute and other experts on an exclusive basis to produce a special investigation, The Great Carbon Divide. It explores the causes and consequences of carbon inequality and the disproportionate impact of super-rich individuals, who have been termed “the polluter elite”. Climate justice will be high on the agenda of this month’s UN Cop28 climate summit in the United Arab Emirates.
The Oxfam report shows that while the wealthiest 1% tend to live climate-insulated, air-conditioned lives, their emissions – 5.9bn tonnes of CO2 in 2019 – are responsible for immense suffering.
Using a “mortality cost” formula – used by the US Environmental Protection Agency, among others – of 226 excess deaths worldwide for every million tonnes of carbon, the report calculates that the emissions from the 1% alone would be enough to cause the heat-related deaths of 1.3 million people over the coming decades.
Over the period from 1990 to 2019, the accumulated emissions of the 1% were equivalent to wiping out last year’s harvests of EU corn, US wheat, Bangladeshi rice and Chinese soya beans.
The suffering falls disproportionately upon people living in poverty, marginalised ethnic communities, migrants and women and girls, who live and work outside or in homes vulnerable to extreme weather, according to the research. These groups are less likely to have savings, insurance or social protection, which leaves them more economically, as well as physically, at risk from floods, drought, heatwaves and forest fires. The UN says developing countries account for 91% of deaths related to extreme weather.
The report finds that it would take about 1,500 years for someone in the bottom 99% to produce as much carbon as the richest billionaires do in a year.
LAGRANGE, GA – JUNE 10: Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalyn attach siding to the front of a Habitat for Humanity home being built June 10, 2003 in LaGrange, Georgia. More than 90 homes are being built in LaGrange; Valdosta, Georgia; and Anniston, Alabama by volunteers as part of Habitat for Humanity International’s Jimmy Carter Work Project 2003. (Photo by Erik S. Lesser/Getty Images)
An Italian Economics professor has an Op-Ed up in today’s New York Times. “What Happens When the Super Rich Are This Selfish? (It Isn’t Pretty.)
Throughout much of the Western world’s history, the wealthiest have been viewed in their communities as a potentially unfavorable presence, and they have attempted to allay this sentiment by using their riches to support their societies in times of crises like plagues, famines or wars.
This symbiotic relationship no longer exists. Today’s rich, their wealth largely preserved through the Great Recession and the Covid-19 pandemic, have opposed reforms aimed at tapping their resources to fund mitigation policies of all kinds.
This is a historically exceptional development. Helping foot the bill of major crises has long been the main social function attributed to the rich by Western culture. In the past, when the wealthiest have been perceived to be insensitive to the plight of the masses, and especially when they have appeared to be profiteering from such plights (or have simply been suspected of doing so), society has become unstable, leading to riots, open revolts and anti-rich violence. As history has the unpleasant feature of repeating itself, we would do well to consider recent developments, including legislators’ inability to increase taxes on the rich, from a long-term perspective.
Let us begin with the consideration that the presence of very rich, or even superrich, individuals has always been somewhat troubling for Western societies. Medieval theologians regarded the rich as sinners and thought that the building of large fortunes should have been discouraged. At the very least, the rich were expected not to appear to be wealthy and to provide generous bequests to charitable institutions to the benefit of their souls.
But with time, as new economic opportunities in trade and in finance led to the accumulation of fortunes of unprecedented size, the increased presence of extremely wealthy individuals within the community could no longer be dismissed as an anomaly. From the 15th century, and beginning with the most economically developed areas of Europe such as central-northern Italy, the rich were assigned a specific social role: to act as private reserves of money into which the community could tap in times of dire need.
Nobody made this point better than the Tuscan humanist Poggio Bracciolini. In his treatise “De avaritia” (“On avarice”), completed in 1428, he argued that cities that follow the tradition of instituting public granaries to build up food reserves should also be well provided of “many greedy individuals, in order … to constitute a kind of private barn of money able to be of assistance to everybody.”
US First Lady Rosalynn Carter plays basketball with members of the Harlem Globetrotters outside the White House, Washington DC, March 1980. They are teaching her how to spin a basketball on her fingertip. (Photo by Diana Walker/Getty Images)
As with all good economics treatises, this one brings home the numbers, story, and background. Private jet travel is one of the biggest culprits.
Argentina’s hard-fought progress toward democracy is about to be threatened by a right-wing libertarian populist President who was just congratulated by Orange Caligula. “The lion, the wig and the warrior. Who is Javier Milei, Argentina’s president-elect?” This is from the AP.
His legions of fans call him “the madman” and “the wig” due to his ferocity and unruly mop of hair. He refers to himself as “the lion.” He thinks sex education is a Marxist plot to destroy the family, views his cloned mastiffs as his “children with four paws” and has suggested people should be allowed to sell their own vital organs.
He is Javier Milei, Argentina’s next president.
A few years ago, Milei was a television talking head whom bookers loved because his screeds against government spending and the ruling political class boosted ratings. At the time, and up until mere months ago, hardly any political expert believed he had a real shot at becoming president of South America’s second-largest economy.
But Milei, a 53-year-old economist, has rocked Argentina’s political establishment and inserted himself into what has long been effectively a two-party system by amassing a groundswell of support with his prescriptions of drastic measures to rein in soaring inflation and by pledging to crusade against the creep of socialism in society.
This analysis is from the Washington Post. “Argentina set for sharp right turn as Trump-like radical wins presidency.” Argentina is now off the list for where in the Western Hemisphere one might go to escape a second Trump Presidency.
A radical libertarian and admirer of Donald Trump rode a wave of voter rage to win Argentina’s presidency on Sunday, crushing the political establishment and bringing the sharpest turn to the right in four decades of democracy in the country.
Javier Milei, a 53-year-old far-right economist and former television pundit with no governing experience, claimed nearly 56 percent of the vote in a stunning upset over Sergio Massa, the center-left economy minister who has struggled to resolve the country’s worst economic crisis in two decades. Even before the official results had been announced Sunday night, Massa acknowledged defeat and congratulated Milei on his win.
Trump also congratulated Milei. “I am very proud of you,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “You will turn your Country around and Make Argentina Great Again!”
Voters in this nation of 46 million demanded a drastic change from a government that has sent the peso tumbling, inflation skyrocketing and more than 40 percent of the population into poverty. With Milei, Argentina takes a leap into the unknown — with a leader promising to shatter the entire system.
In his first speech as president-elect, Milei told Argentines that “the model of decadence has reached its end. There is no turning back.”
“Enough of the impoverishing power of the caste,” he said. “Today we once again embrace the model of liberty, to once again become a world power.” His supporters joined him in shouting: “Long live freedom, damn it!”
Milei will take office on Dec. 10, the 40th anniversary of Argentina’s return to democracy after the fall of its military dictatorship.
Wielding chain saws on the campaign trail, the wild-haired Milei vowed to slash public spending in a country heavily dependent on government subsidies. He pledged to dollarize the economy, shut down the central bank and cut the number of government ministries from 18 to eight. His rallying campaign cry was a takedown of the country’s political “caste” — an Argentine version of Trump’s “drain the swamp.”
Why are so many people becoming dictator-curious and looking to the likes of Hitler and Mussolini again? Plus, these folks are raping the planet. It’s discouraging. I hope we can find a new model for Thanksgiving this year where we can celebrate with others and be thankful for what we have. I also hope it isn’t based on stealing your host’s land, committing genocide, and destroying their cultural practices.
Have a good Turkey Day! And it’s time we pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Finally Friday Reads: The Republican Crazy Train
Posted: November 17, 2023 Filed under: 2024 Elections, A thread for Ranting | Tags: #RepublicanCrazyTrain, @repeat1968, Crazy Clay Higgins, crazy right wing republicans, Elon Musk is a NAZI, George Santos, Ghost Bus, Super Confused Donald 11 Comments
John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Have you noticed that a good deal of Republican Politicians need some serious intervention and more than a few psychiatric evaluations? As part of my training to be a teacher at university, I was trained to spot issues and quickly send the individual off to the District’s psychologist. I can’t say I know what happens after you get diagnosed with, say, a significant personality disorder or two, but I do know how to recognize symptoms and get the person’s help. It was a massive effort in ’70s education colleges since School Districts could be held accountable for not diagnosing student needs and getting them help as soon as possible. Perhaps it’s time to introduce a similar methodology to aides, staff, and those working daily with Republican officeholders. The amount of abnormal behavior screams at you from your television screen daily. I remember Nixon’s paranoia well, but it didn’t seem like a larger pattern in the party then.
Leave it to Ozzy.
All aboard Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay
Crazy, but that’s how it goes
Millions of people living as foes
Maybe it’s not too late
To learn how to love
And forget how to hate
Mental wounds not healing
Life’s a bitter shame
I’m going off the rails on a crazy train
I’m going off the rails on a crazy train
Let’s go
The Washington Monthly starts at the very head of the rotting fish. “Has Trump Gone Even Crazier? Forget parsing every Biden utterance. The likely GOP nominee is forgetting where he is, stumbling over words, and waxing full fascist.” This is written by James D. Zirin.
While neither Trump nor Biden projects John F. Kennedy’s vigor, Trump, 77, has been even more bizarre of late—doddering and disoriented in a new way.
Listen to what he has been saying lately.
He has repeatedly confused Biden and Obama, even calling Obama the current president. Doctors often ask stroke victims who is the current president to test mental acuity. We all misspeak. But put this in the context of many other indicia of cognitive decline.
Trump doesn’t know where he is. On the stump in Sioux City, Iowa, he said hello to Sioux Falls, which is in South Dakota. Okay, not that big a deal. Of course, his aides later said the teleprompter got it wrong. I wonder whether the aides are still in his employ. Perhaps they are moving boxes in Mar-a-Lago.
Misidentifying world leaders. He described Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whom he admires, as the “great leader of Turkey.” Recep Tayyip Erdogan is authoritarian like Orban but with an Islamic hue rather than a Christian nationalist drag. Trump has said that Hungary shares a border with Russia. Seven countries border Hungary, but not Russia.
Referring to Kim Jong-Un, the hereditary dictator who rules North Korea, Trump said he was in charge of a country of 1.4 billion people, obviously confusing the Hermit Kingdom of 26 million with the Middle Kingdom of 1.4 billion.
But it’s not just misidentification. It’s the cadence and slurring of speech, too. Trump is having trouble with names. “On purpose” came out as “on perfect.” Adherents of Karl Marx came out as “markers,” not Marxists. He warned that Biden is drifting us into World War II.
Perhaps more worrisome than Trump’s mental miscues is the fact that his authoritarian tendencies have veered into even more fascistic territory, and his insults have become even more intemperate, which is saying something. (Recall that after the first 2016 presidential debate, he flogged Megyn Kelly with a reference to menstruation.) Special Counsel Jack Smith is “deranged.” While this might be understandable since Smith has indicted Trump in a Washington, D.C. federal court for using illegal means to overturn the 2020 election results and in Florida for mishandling classified documents, the bile has boiled over into invective against Smith’s wife and family, whom he insists “despise me much more than he does.”
Trump called Nancy Pelosi a “crazed lunatic” and continued to joke about the hammer assault on her 83-year-old husband, Paul, by a crazed, seemingly pro-Trump intruder who was convicted on multiple felony accounts on Thursday.
From bad to wurst. In a Veterans Day speech in New Hampshire, Trump called his political enemies “vermin,” channeling the dehumanizing language of OG fascists Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and arguing paradoxically—and paranoically—that the pests are also “radical left thugs” who pose a greater threat to the United States than Russia, China, or even North Korea. He promised to “root out” the vermin if he regained power.
And, if you dare call out the reference to vermin or blood as Hitlerian, his spokesman threatens that your “entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.”
In New Hampshire, he also called himself a “very proud election denier.” Are there humble election deniers?
Jewish and Latino groups, as well as an untold number of columnists, have condemned his statement that undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country,” the kind of volk talk that sounded better in the original German.
Deranged people, as we all have learned, can be dangerous. While it can be hard to diagnose if the unhoused man who regularly yells at you at the street corner has just plateaued or will be given to a violent attack, Trump’s policy pronouncements have become more incendiary and more insane, if that were possible.
The list of policy pronouncements should have a chilling effect on any person who values the U.S. Constitution. But, crazy is at all levels of U.S. Federal and State Republican officials. 
The Economist had this headline today. “Donald Trump poses the biggest danger to the world in 2024. What his victory in America’s election would mean.” Are any other media outlets listening or are the too focused on Joe Biden’s Age?
A shadow looms over the world. In this week’s edition we publish The World Ahead 2024, our 38th annual predictive guide to the coming year, and in all that time no single person has ever eclipsed our analysis as much as Donald Trump eclipses 2024. That a Trump victory next November is a coin-toss probability is beginning to sink in.
Mr Trump dominates the Republican primary. Several polls have him ahead of President Joe Biden in swing states. In one, for the New York Times, 59% of voters trusted him on the economy, compared with just 37% for Mr Biden. In the primaries, at least, civil lawsuits and criminal prosecutions have only strengthened Mr Trump. For decades Democrats have relied on support among black and Hispanic voters, but a meaningful number are abandoning the party. In the next 12 months a stumble by either candidate could determine the race—and thus upend the world.
This is a perilous moment for a man like Mr Trump to be back knocking on the door of the Oval Office. Democracy is in trouble at home. Mr Trump’s claim to have won the election in 2020 was more than a lie: it was a cynical bet that he could manipulate and intimidate his compatriots, and it has worked. America also faces growing hostility abroad, challenged by Russia in Ukraine, by Iran and its allied militias in the Middle East and by China across the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea. Those three countries loosely co-ordinate their efforts and share a vision of a new international order in which might is right and autocrats are secure.
Because maga Republicans have been planning his second term for months, Trump 2 would be more organised than Trump 1. True believers would occupy the most important positions. Mr Trump would be unbound in his pursuit of retribution, economic protectionism and theatrically extravagant deals. No wonder the prospect of a second Trump term fills the world’s parliaments and boardrooms with despair. But despair is not a plan. It is past time to impose order on anxiety.
The greatest threat Mr Trump poses is to his own country. Having won back power because of his election-denial in 2020, he would surely be affirmed in his gut feeling that only losers allow themselves to be bound by the norms, customs and self-sacrifice that make a nation. In pursuing his enemies, Mr Trump will wage war on any institution that stands in his way, including the courts and the Department of Justice.
This nutter is from Louisiana and believe me, the majority of us are super embarrassed by him. The YouTube below is about Representative Clay Higgin’s “Ghost Bus” comment to the Director of the FBI. Higgins evidently believes that January 6th was a false flag operation by the deep state in the Homeland Security Department. FBI Director Christopher Ray had to remind him that the FBI was not part of that Department.
Higgins represents Southernmost Louisiana which is basically Cajun Country. He was a police captain know for his tough on crime, often violent approach to gangs in the area. Here’s more on the craziness of Representative Clay Higgins from The Guardian. “Republican praises January 6 attacker’s ‘good faith and core principles’ Louisiana congressman Clay Higgins asks judge to show leniency to Ryan Nichols, charged with assaulting police at US Capitol.”
Seeking leniency for a January 6 rioter charged with assaulting police, the Louisiana Republican congressman Clay Higgins – a former law enforcement officer himself – saluted the man’s “good character, faith and core principles”.
In video taken during the attack on Congress on 6 January 2021, the rioter was seen to say: “It’s going to be violent and yes, if you are asking, ‘Is Ryan Nichols going to bring violence? Yes, Ryan Nichols is going to bring violence.’”
Nichols, in an affidavit, admitted posting the video, attacking officers with pepper spray and urging rioters on with shouts including, “This is not a peaceful protest”
In court in Washington last week, Nichols, of Longview, Texas, pleaded guilty to two charges: obstruction and assaulting, resisting or impeding police and obstruction of an official proceeding.
More than 1,000 arrests have been made over the attack and hundreds of convictions secured, some for seditious conspiracy. Donald Trump, who incited the riot as he attempted to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat by Joe Biden, faces 17 charges related to his election subversion, four federal and 13 at state level in Georgia.
Nine deaths have been linked to the attack staged by the former president’s supporters, including law enforcement suicides.
Higgins’ own website describes him as having “spent much of his career dedicated to uniformed service [as] an army veteran and law enforcement officer”. It also says he is “widely regarded as one of the most conservative members of Congress”.
Nonetheless, in a letter dated 7 November, he asked the US district judge in Nichols’s case, Royce C Lamberth, to show leniency when passing down sentence.
“Sir,” Higgins wrote. “I submit to you this letter in support of Ryan Taylor Nichols. He is a man of good character, faith, and core principles.
“I humbly ask that he receive fair consideration of the whole of circumstances regarding his case, condition, and background. He has already served nearly two years in the District of Columbia jail in pretrial confinement, which has been destructive to his physical (liver issues) and mental health (PTSD).”
Nichols had been under house arrest since 22 November 2022 and had “not sought to flee nor shown any indication of dangerous activity”, Higgins said.
He added: “Prior to his arrest, Mr Nichols had no criminal background and served honorably in the United States Marine Corps. He continued to serve domestically in a search and rescue capacity, even being publicly recognised for his heroic actions on national television.”
So, that cartoon sums up Higgin’s views of thugs pretty well. I’m sure you can all name at least 5 crazy Republicans in Congress. Now, add Higgins to that list. Right Wingers with money, businesses, and platforms that serve as Republican enablers and donors are equally as nuts these days. I’ve heard more than a few references to Henry Ford’s wingnuttery and the bat shit crazy Elon Musk. Musk is placing NAZI propaganda on X quite close to the ads he relies on for revenues. This is from MediaMatters for America. “As Musk endorses antisemitic conspiracy theory, X has been placing ads for Apple, Bravo, IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity next to pro-Nazi content. CEO Linda Yaccarino previously claimed that brands are “protected from the risk of being next to” toxic posts.” This is reported by Eric Hananoki.
Update (11/16/23): IBM released a statement to the Financial Times saying that it has “suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation.” Media Matters will update if the other major companies in this report take any similar actions.
As X owner Elon Musk continues his descent into white nationalist and antisemitic conspiracy theories, his social media platform has been placing ads for major brands like Apple, Bravo (NBCUniversal), IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity (Comcast) next to content that touts Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party. The company’s placements come after CEO Linda Yaccarino claimed that brands are “protected from the risk of being next to” toxic posts on the platform.
Yaccarino has been trying to bring advertisers back to the platform by claiming it’s safe for business. She’s also claimed that X (formerly Twitter) has been “demonstrating its absolute commitment to combating antisemitism on the platform” and that “antisemitism is evil and X will always work to fight it on our platform.”
But her boss last night endorsed the pernicious antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jewish people are supporting “hordes of minorities” who are “flooding” into the country to replace white people. That conspiracy theory was the same one that motivated the deadly 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting.
X has also reinstated numerous accounts of bigots and paid far-right extremists, apparently including a pro-Hitler and Holocaust denier account, as part of its creator ad revenue sharing program.
During all of this Musk-induced chaos, corporate advertisements have also been appearing on pro-Hitler, Holocaust denial, white nationalist, pro-violence, and neo-Nazi accounts. Yaccarino has attempted to placate companies by claiming that “brands are now ‘protected from the risk of being next to’ potentially toxic content.”
But that certainly isn’t the case for at least five major brands: We recently found ads for Apple, Bravo, Oracle, Xfinity, and IBM next to posts that tout Hitler and his Nazi Party on X
You may see the ads placements and the offending material at the link. CNN has this analysis by Allison Morrow. “With antisemitic tweet, Elon Musk reveals his ‘actual truth’.”
Elon Musk has publicly endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory popular among White supremacists: that Jewish communities push “hatred against Whites.”
That kind of overt thumbs up to an antisemitic post shocked even some of Musk’s critics, who have long called him out for using racist or otherwise bigoted dog whistles on Twitter, now known as X. It was the multibillionaire’s most explicit public statement yet endorsing anti-Jewish views.
ICYMI: Musk was responding to a post Wednesday that said Jewish communities “have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” The post also referenced “hordes of minorities” flooding Western countries, a popular antisemitic conspiracy theory.
It’s the kind of post you can find easily on X these days, and likely would have gone unnoticed had Musk, with more than 160 million followers, not re-shared the post with the comment: “You have said the actual truth.”
The antisemitic conspiracy theory — which posits that Jews want to bring undocumented minority populations into Western countries to reduce White majorities in those nations — is often espoused by hate groups.
It’s the same conspiracy echoed in the final written words of Robert Bowers, the convicted murderer of 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. His last social media post said that a Jewish nonprofit dedicated to aiding refugees “likes to bring invaders in that kill our people.” The mass shooting was the deadliest attack against Jews in American history.
Musk, in subsequent posts, expounded on his views. He wrote that he does not believe hatred of White people extends “to all Jewish communities.” But then he singled out the Anti-Defamation League, claiming that it promotes racism against White people.
X did not respond to requests for comment.
This confuses me to no end because other than the late Sammy Davis, Jr., I thought all European Jews were white. I just don’t get this weird view of race and gender where some right wing nut gets to have purity standards based on some genetic code only they seem to know. I hope this sinks X for good but all that will do is likely get an even more outrageous set of hate crimes against our Jewish population. I have issues with the Bibi’s government and with the entire concept of Zionism but for goodness’ sake, having policy differences with a nation does not mean I hate its people. It certainly doesn’t mean I blame any American Jewish person for what the approach is now to the West Bank either. I also do not blame the population of the West Bank or Gaza on the actions of Hamas. All this right winger craziness torched to a burnt earth strategy by messianic cults just makes me very sad.
So, we need to address the continuing saga which is Congressman George Santos. He appears to be the only Drag Queen that right wing Republicans want to keep around. After he announced he would not be running for reelection this week, he likely believed his expulsion was less likely. That’s not a good assumption, gurl! The AP has this breaking news headline. “Ethics chairman launches a new bid to expel George Santos after a withering report on his conduct.”
The chairman of the House Ethics Committee announced Friday he has filed a resolution to force a vote on expelling Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., from Congress, one day after the committee issued a withering report detailing substantial evidence that Santos converted campaign donations for his own personal use.
Santos easily survived an expulsion vote earlier this month as lawmakers in both parties stressed the need to allow due process, as Santos is also facing nearly two dozen charges in federal court. But the release of the committee’s findings has generated new momentum for ousting the scandal-plagued freshman. Shortly after the report was released, Santos announced he would not seek reelection.
“The evidence uncovered in the Ethics Committee’s Investigative Subcommittee investigation is more than sufficient to warrant punishment and the most appropriate punishment, is expulsion,” said Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss.
Mary Trump wrote a lot about some of the pathology of her Uncle Donald. She really slammed him for his NAZI rhetoric. I’ll just let her discuss the Republican Crazy Train. She’s got far better credentials than me. All I see are people with scads of delusions of grandeur. That would be representative of Jill Stein too as far as I am concerned. You can check out her substack here.
Stein’s Candidacy: Mary Trump also weighed in on Jill Stein’s announcement that she would run for office in 2024 on behalf of the Green Party. Calling her a “pro-Putin hack,” Mary Trump noted that she played a spoiler to Hillary Clinton’s presidential run in 2016.
“She had no chance of winning; and the only candidate whose chances she was going to hurt was Hillary Clinton. That was precisely the point,” Mary Trump said.
The psychologist said her stance against Stein was not simply because of the enormous damage she did eight years ago, but also because in those intervening years, she has done nothing. “She’s a fraud whose only purpose seems to be lining her own pockets in the service of undermining the only party that has a shot at saving American democracy,” the ex-president’s niece said.
Look Ahead: Mary Trump also said the focus in the coming weeks would be “Whether or not Donald’s mental decline is worsening or just becoming more obvious as the stressors in his life compound” and “Will the corporate media focus, in a serious and sustained way, on his multiplying verbal gaffes and cognitive errors.”
The psychologist noted that Donald Trump’s dangerous rhetoric has been ramping up and he was not only echoing Hitler but was also sometimes quoting the German dictator. While Hitler promised to “get rid of the communist vermin,” the ex-president in his “Veteran’s Day” message promised to get rid of “the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.
Yes, once again I’m reporting all the news that no one really wants to hear. I just want to keep scaring everyone into voting for anyone but these crazy people.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: Not even Godwin’s Law applies Anymore
Posted: November 13, 2023 Filed under: just because | Tags: "reductio ad Hitlerum", #Blabbermouth Trump, Godwin's law, Government Shutdown Blues, Marsh Fires, Republicans Can't Govern, Super Fog, Trump says the Nazi part out loud 18 Comments
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
New Orleans has certainly set me up for sharing the Dystopian Hell Realm that we’ve been introduced to by Orange Caligula. Marsh Fires have created an acrid smell and an overcast set of days in what usually is the perfect season of Autumn here. I’ve even learned a new weather term, “Super Fog.” That’s what caused a lot of crashes and problems on the interstates here. I posted about this earlier.
We may have dodged Hurricane Season, but I’m unsure how to characterize a season with a Salt Water Wedge that’s making more than a few communities downriver use bottled water. What comes out of the faucet isn’t drinkable down there. It’s combined with these eerie Marsh Fires. They’ve now broken through to remove the brushy, dead foliage left by the drought. Currently, there is a coastal flooding warning on our radar. I’m sitting high and dry here on the banks of the Mississippi, watching the dismal Republican pols and candidates miss the natural disasters while inventing their own. Climate change, anyone?
John Buss, @repeat1968
Many of us are now on the Trumpist list known as ‘Vermin.’ If this sounds less Orwellian and more Hitler-like to you, it should. This is from Michael Tomasky at The New Republic. “It’s Official: With
“Vermin,” Trump Is Now Using Straight-up Nazi Talk. He’s telling us what he will do to his political enemies if he’s president again. Is anyone listening?”
We’ve all often wondered whether Donald Trump understands the historical import of what comes out of his mouth. He’s so ill-informed, so proudly ignorant, that it’s easy to think that when he hurls a historical insult, he just doesn’t know.
I feel pretty safe in saying that we can now stop giving him the benefit of that particular doubt. His use—twice; once on social media and then repeated in a speech—of the word “vermin” to describe his political enemies cannot be an accident. That’s an unusual word choice. It’s not a smear that one just grabs out of the air. And it appears in history chiefly in one context, and one context only.
Before we get to that, let’s just record what he wrote and said. On Saturday at 10:25 a.m., he posted on Truth Social: “In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American dream.” Then, at a rally in New Hampshire later that day, he repeated those words essentially verbatim—promising to “root out … the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country”—and doubled down on it: “The real threat is not from the radical right; the real threat is from the radical left, and it’s growing every day, every single day. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.”
This is straight-up Nazi talk, in a way he’s never done quite before. To announce that the real enemy is domestic and then to speak of that enemy in subhuman terms is Fascism 101. Especially that particular word.
Mom and Dad were back in Kansas City, MO, right before he deployed to England.
My Dad and Mother would be 100 this year. As I frequently shared here, my Dad was in the Army Air Corps during World War 2. He and his unit were responsible for bombing targets in France, Belgium, and Germany so the troops on the group and the parachuters could get to Germany. One of the results of these missions was freeing those who remained in Concentration Camps. That would include people of the Jewish Faith, Homosexuals, and intellectuals. People were often teased with “Godwin’s Law” because it couldn’t happen again or here. Right?
Godwin’s law, short for Godwin’s law (or rule) of Nazi analogies,[1] is an Internet adage asserting that as an online discussion grows longer (regardless of topic or scope), the probability of a comparison to Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches 1.[2]
Well, this Trump Speech was not “reductio ad Hitlerum“. Dad’s crew on the bomber included a Jewish American from a small town in Washington State as well as a Puerto Rican American from New York City. BB’s Dad was a small-town Middle of America professor who spent time in the Pacific Theatre. Everyone in the military represents everyone you could possibly meet in the US population, from indigenous Americans to those who are newly immigrated. How dare this man speak like this on a day when we remember those who have sacrificed much for our democratic Republic? Which of them would be on Trump’s “vermin” list?
This is from the Washington Post. “Trump calls political enemies ‘vermin,’ echoing dictators Hitler, Mussolini, On Veterans Day, the former president vowed to “root out” his liberal opponents, drawing backlash from historians who say his rhetoric is reminiscent of authoritarians.” It’s reported by Marianne LeVine.
The former president’s speech in Claremont, N.H., echoed his message of vengeance and grievance, as he called himself a “very proud election denier” and decried his legal entanglements, once again attacking the judge in a New York civil trial and re-upping his attacks on special counsel Jack Smith. In the speech, Trump once again portrayed himself as a victim of a political system that is out to get him and his supporters.
Yet Trump’s use of the word “vermin” both in his speech and in a Truth Social post on Saturday drew particular backlash.
“The language is the language that dictators use to instill fear,” said Timothy Naftali, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. “When you dehumanize an opponent, you strip them of their constitutional rights to participate securely in a democracy because you’re saying they’re not human. That’s what dictators do.”
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University, said in an email to The Washington Post that “calling people ‘vermin’ was used effectively by Hitler and Mussolini to dehumanize people and encourage their followers to engage in violence.”
“Trump is also using projection: note that he mentions all kinds of authoritarians ‘communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left’ to set himself up as the deliverer of freedom,” Ben-Ghiat said. “Mussolini promised freedom to his people too and then declared dictatorship.”
Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, told The Post “those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.”
Cheung later clarified that he meant to say their “sad, miserable existence” instead of their “entire existence.”
New Orleans firefighters are flooding an underground marsh fire in New Orleans East that’s been burning for at least three weeks and spreading smoke across the city. Photo: Chief Chris Mickal, NOFD photo unit
Liz Cheney ripped into the RNC after this speech. This is from The Hill, “Liz Cheney says RNC chair ‘collaborating’ with Trump’s ‘Nazi propaganda’.” This is written by Miranda Nazzaro.
Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) ripped Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Ronna McDaniel for dodging questions Sunday about former President Trump’s “vermin” comments, which Cheney described as “Nazi propaganda.”
“When @GOPChairwoman refuses to condemn the GOP’s leading candidate for using the same Nazi propaganda that mobilized 1930s-40s Germany to evil, it’s fair to assume she’s collaborating,” Cheney wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “History will judge Ronna McDaniel and every republican who is appeasing this dangerous man.”
Since we’re on the subject of disrespecting Americans serving in our Military, I have one bit of reasonable, possible bi-partisan effort to stop the temper tantrum reign of Tommy the Willfully Stupid.
A fire burns in the southeast corner of the Bayou Sauvage Urban National Wildlife Refuge in New Orleans in early August 2023. U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE PHOTO LDAF
Here are some details on that. This is from the Military Times. “Senate may change rule to break Tuberville hold on military promotions.”
Senate Rules Committee officials this week will try to break through Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s months-long blockade of military nominees, though it’s unclear if the plan can gain enough Republican support to work.
The committee on Tuesday will vote on a plan to allow consideration of about 350 pending nominations in a single parliamentary move, a dramatic change in precedent for the chamber. The proposal is expected to easily pass out of the committee but will face more problems in the full Senate, where Republican cooperation will be needed for final approval.
Tuberville, an Alabama Republican, has held up fast-track consideration of routine senior military promotions and confirmations since the spring over his objections to the Defense Department’s abortion access policy. In recent days, several GOP colleagues have pressured him to relent on the holds, citing cascading leadership difficulties caused by the move.
But Tuberville thus far has rebuffed those requests. Tuesday’s rules committee meeting is designed to force a resolution on the issue, with Democratic leaders (and a number of top Pentagon officials) insisting the standoff has already lasted too long.
Don’t forget about all the domestic and abroad disturbances that require a US presence. We still have a looming government shutdown. The Republican Party representatives cannot govern. This is from CNN.
New House Speaker Mike Johnson may already be losing his first big clash with the hard-right lawmakers who are making the Republican majority and the nation ungovernable as time races down to yet another federal funding cut-off.
The Louisiana conservative, who was just lifted from obscurity to second in line to the presidency, may soon find himself in the position that doomed his predecessor Rep. Kevin McCarthy — needing Democratic votes to keep the government open.
A funding deadline of Friday night means Washington again faces a wild ride of shutdown brinkmanship caused by extreme GOP lawmakers who either cannot or don’t want to help run the country. The imbroglio is not just harming America’s image as a functioning democracy abroad. It has already wasted every week of the House majority party’s term since the summer and threatens to further weaken the key swing-district members critical to the GOP’s hopes of keeping the gavel in next year’s election.
Johnson on Saturday unveiled a complex two-tiered plan to temporarily fund the government, with a pair of deadlines in January and February for the passage of permanent department budgets.
The move could head off the Washington holiday-season tradition of shutdown dramas and mammoth all-encompassing spending bills. But the chances that a GOP majority that has trouble passing any bill could deliver on this intricate plan seem very low.Given the House’s record, Johnson may simply be setting the country up for two government shutdowns rather than one.
While the two-step approach appears to be a concession to the far right — which abhors what it calls “clean” continuing resolutions, or CRs, that keep government open temporarily at current spending levels — Johnson’s approach may already have backfired since it lacks the sweeping cuts that hard-right Republicans demanded even though they have no chance of getting them past a Democratic-run Senate and White House. “It’s a 100% clean. And I 100% oppose,” Freedom Caucus member and Texas Rep. Chip Roy wrote on X, conjuring up exactly the showdown that cost McCarthy his job.
Johnson’s task is so difficult because the tiny GOP majority means he can lose only a handful of members on any bill and still pass it with only Republican votes – hence the need to get help from Democrats on some issues and the consequent risk of further alienating far-right members of his conference.
The Marsh Fires aren’t getting as much play on the national level as the forest fires up north, but believe me, if you live downwind of them, you feel them. They’ve been trying to get masks to people here with asthma and problems breathing. I’ve felt like I’ve had one big sinus infection the entire time, but other than a few pain relievers and allergy medicine, there’s not much you can do. I hope we’ve gotten our share of FEMA and federal disaster relief for this because if they shut the government down, there will be a lot of hurt all over the state.
Have a great week! I hope all our active military and veterans got the recognition and respect they deserve for Veteran’s Day!
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