Fare Thee Well, by Elisheva Nesis
Democrats, meanwhile, are devising their own ways to get around the blockade, and are hoping the GOP frustration they see will push Republicans to support their idea.
Lazy Caturday Reads
Posted: November 4, 2023 Filed under: abortion rights, Afternoon Reads, cat art, Cats, caturday, just because, LGBTQIA+ | Tags: Brian Karam, conversion therapy, House Speaker Mike Johnson, israel, Mark Meadows, Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project, Michael T. James, Mike Johnson's adopted son, military promotions, people accused of witchcraft, Tommy Tuberville, Ukraine 4 Comments
By Daniel Ryan
Happy Caturday!!
It’s the weekend, and I don’t feel like getting down in the weeds about all the bad stuff that’s happening; so I’m going to share a mixed bag of recent stories that caught my fancy. Since it’s Caturday, I’m going to begin with a story about cats.
Margaret Osborne at Smithsonian Magazine: Cats Make Nearly 300 Different Facial Expressions.
…[R]esearchers have discovered that cats use nearly 300 distinct facial expressions to communicate with one another, according to a study published in October in the journal Behavioral Processes.
“Many people still consider cats—erroneously—to be a largely nonsocial species,” Daniel Mills, a veterinary behaviorist at the University of Lincoln who was not involved in the study, tells Science’s Christa Lesté-Lasserre. “There is clearly a lot going on that we are not aware of.”
To collect data on these furry subjects, researcher Lauren Scott of the University of Kansas Medical Center frequented a cat cafe located in Los Angeles for about a year and recorded video footage of interactions between 53 cats. All were adult domestic shorthairs, and the group included males and females, per the study.
In total, Scott gathered 194 minutes of feline footage that contained 186 interactions. With the help of her co-author, evolutionary psychologist Brittany N. Florkiewicz of Lyon College, she analyzed the cats’ facial signals.
By Michael Bridges
The pair discovered 276 expressions made up of a combination of 26 facial movements, including shifts in ear position, blinks, nose licks and whisker and mouth movements. (In comparison, humans make about 44 facial movements, and dogs have 27.) Of all expressions, about 45 percent—or 126—were categorized as friendly, 37 percent were aggressive and 18 percent were ambiguous, writes Jennifer Nalewicki for Live Science.
“These findings show it is good to look at a cat’s ears, eyes and whiskers to understand if they are feeling friendly,” Florkiewicz tells Earth.com’sAndrei Ionescu. “Their mouth provides a lot of information about whether a cat fight is likely. People may think that cats’ facial expressions are all about warning other cats and people off, but this shows just how social and tolerant pet cats can actually be.”
The team also identified a “common play face” among cats, which was characterized by a dropped jaw and drawn back corners of the mouth, per Live Science. People, dogs and monkeys share similar expressions in playful scenarios.
There’s a bit more at the link.
NBC News published an interesting AP story from Massachusetts: Group seeks to clear names of all accused, convicted or executed for witchcraft in Massachusetts.
In 1648, Margaret Jones, a midwife, became the first person in Massachusetts — the second in New England — to be executed for witchcraft, decades before the infamous Salem witch trials.
Nearly four centuries later, the state and region are still working to come to grips with the scope of its witch trial legacy.
The latest effort comes from a group dedicated to clearing the names of all those accused, arrested or indicted for witchcraft in Massachusetts, whether or not the accusations ended in hanging.
The Massachusetts Witch-Hunt Justice Project, made up of history buffs and descendants, is hoping to persuade the state to take a fuller reckoning of its early history, according to Josh Hutchinson, the group’s leader.
Hundreds of individuals were accused of witchcraft in what would become the Commonwealth of Massachusetts between 1638 and 1693. Most escaped execution.
While much attention has focused on clearing the names of those put to death in Salem, most of those caught up in witch trials throughout the 1600s have largely been ignored, including five women hanged for witchcraft in Boston between 1648 and 1688.
“It’s important that we correct the injustices of the past,” said Hutchinson, who noted he counts both accusers and victims among his ancestors. “We’d like an apology for all of the accused or indicted or arrested.”
For now, the group has been collecting signatures for a petition but hopes to take their case to the Statehouse.Among those accused of witchcraft in Boston was Ann Hibbins, sister-in-law to Massachusetts Gov. Richard Bellingham, who was executed in 1656. A character based on Hibbins would later appear in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter,” published in 1850.
Another accused Boston witch, known as Goodwife Ann Glover or Goody Glover, was hanged in the city in 1688. A plaque dedicated to her is located on the front of a Catholic church in the city’s North End neighborhood, describing her as “the first Catholic martyr in Massachusetts.” It’s one of the few physical reminders of the city’s witch trial history.
The group has also encouraged Connecticut to clear the names of accused witches in their state. Read more at the NBC News link.
Mark Meadows is in more trouble–his book publisher is suing him. The Daily Beast: Mark Meadows’ Publisher Sues Him for Millions Over Election Lies in Book.
The publisher of Mark Meadows’ book The Chief’s Chief has filed suit against the former White House chief of staff, seeking millions in damages after he reportedly copped to lying in the book about the 2020 election being “rigged” and “stolen.”
Meadows reportedly met repeatedly with Jack Smith’s team in its investigation into election interference and had admitted the 2020 election was the most secure in U.S. history—contradicting much of what he’d claimed in his book and allegedly breaking his agreement with the publisher.
“Meadows’ reported statements to the Special Prosecutor and/or his staff [sic] and his reported grand jury testimony squarely contradict the statements in his Book, one central theme of which is that President Trump was the true winner of the 2020 Presidential Election and that election was ‘stolen’ and ‘rigged’ with the help from ‘allies in the liberal media,’ who ignored actual evidence of fraud, right there in plain sight for anyone to access and analyze,” the lawsuit from All Seasons Press states.
ABC News, citing unnamed sources, reported that Meadows negotiated an immunity agreement with the special counsel’s office and in the process admitted to his lies about the 2020 election. Meadows’ lawyer later disputed the accuracy of the report….
The lawsuit claims that Meadows agreed that “all statements contained in the Work are true and based on reasonable research for accuracy,” and that he claimed to have “not made any misrepresentations to the Publisher about the Work.”
The book weighs heavily on Meadows’ claims that the election was “rigged” —debunked claims that All Seasons Press was happy to run at the time, but that now come under renewed scrutiny with Meadows’ reported admission that he propagated falsehoods.
More details at the link.
Some Senate Republicans have finally had it with Tommy Tuberville’s antics. Politico: Republicans, fed up with Tuberville, plot ways to bust his military blockade.
Republicans have had it with Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s nine-month blockade of military promotions. And after publicly putting pressure on the Alabama Republican to lift his hold on hundreds of officers, GOP senators are plotting new ways to break the impasse.
During a special meeting planned for next week, some will ask Tuberville to focus his obstruction on only the Pentagon’s civilian nominees and not uniformed officers who have nothing to do with the policy he’s protesting. Others want to shift the fight to the courts to challenge the policy at the center of the hold, which reimburses troops who have to travel to obtain abortions and other reproductive services.
The deadlock reached a dramatic and very public phase when a cadre of GOP senators confronted Tuberville on the Senate floor Wednesday night, blaming the Alabama lawmaker’s blanket hold for weakening the military at a precarious moment for the world.
The four-hour-plus event, which forced Tuberville to object to votes on 61 nominees, marked a pivotal moment for Republicans as their private frustrations with the freshman lawmaker spilled over onto live TV for all to see.
“I think what it says about where things are is Tommy’s losing support,” Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said of the Republican-on-Republican fight. “And you’re seeing the frustration build up because the consequences are building up.”
And while the attempt was doomed — those Republicans knew Tuberville wouldn’t budge — it’s also made some Senate Democrats optimistic that enough GOP members will join their push to confirm most of the promotions in one big bloc.
What an idiot. Alabama should be ashamed. Tuberville doesn’t even live there. He’s reportedly lived in Florida for decades.
Rolling Stone’s Cameron Joseph on Tuberville: Is Tommy Tuberville the Most Ignorant Man in D.C.?
Tommy Tuberville’s Republican colleagues had finally had it with him.
For months, the Alabama senator and former college football coach has blocked the confirmation of hundreds of senior military officers because he’s mad about a Pentagon policy that ensures soldiers have abortion access.
The group of anti-abortion Republicans had worked with him since February to try to find a solution. They’d flattered his ego. They’d mostly defended him in public as his game of chicken stretched nine months, punishing hundreds of senior service members who have no say over the policy and hurting U.S. military readiness at a time of global chaos.
But on Wednesday, their patience had worn out.
Five of Tuberville’s GOP colleagues took to the Senate floor to lambast his positions, begging him to relent and forcing him to object over and over again to allow a vote on more than 60 nominations that he’s blocked. The senators read off the sterling biographies of dozens of service members with increasing frustration.
Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, a colonel in the Marine reserves who served as assistant secretary of state during George W. Bush’s administration, was particularly irate.
“Xi Jinping is watching this right now,” Sullivan, at times yelling, declared on the Senate floor as Tuberville looked on from his desk. “He’s loving this. So is Putin. They’re loving this! How dumb can we be, man?”
“We’re going to look back at this episode and just be stunned at what a national-security suicide mission this became,” Sullivan exclaimed later on during the hours-long standoff. He later mocked Tuberville’s repeated claim that his holds weren’t hurting the military’s preparedness: “That this is not impacting readiness is patently absurd.”
On Tuberville’s history:
Tuberville spent most of his career coaching football — most notably at Auburn University, which made him a household name in the state he now represents. He still prefers being called “coach” instead of by his current job title — his official Senate website calls him “Coach Tommy Tuberville.” But his old nickname from his sideline days may be more appropriate: “The Riverboat Gambler.”
Back then, Tuberville was known to ignore the odds and pick the most aggressive play. It’s a habit that’s stuck now that he’s in the Senate.
That policy that triggered Tuberville’s anger was put in place by the Biden administration after the Supreme Court struck down the federal right to an abortion. Fifteen states, including Tuberville’s Alabama, have banned the procedure. Enlisted service members don’t get to choose where they and their families live — they’re stationed wherever they’re needed, many of them in ruby-red states where abortion access no longer exists and other reproductive care is severely limited. The Pentagon’s fix was to offer soldiers and their families time off and funds to travel to states where abortion remains legal.
Tuberville was irate when he found out about the workaround. His obstructionist response has hamstrung the Pentagon and forced officers who have nothing to do with the policy to serve as pawns in his policy fight….
There’s some irony that Tuberville, who frequently says he ran for office so he could give back to America in the same way his own father did with his years of military service, has almost single-handedly paralyzed the entire leadership of the U.S military — in a time of global conflagration, no less. (Tuberville reiterated that he won’t budge even after Hamas attacked Israel.)
In some ways, Tuberville is a mustache away from being the bizzarro Ted Lasso of the Senate — a folksy and affable former college football coach who makes a radical career change, then makes things up as he goes along while blithely ignoring the status quo. But instead of an aw-shucks success story, he’s a testament and a cautionary tale for those who wing it.
There’s still more at the link.
Speaking of idiots, a couple of stories on the new House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Andrew Kaczynski at CNN: Before he became a politician, House Speaker Mike Johnson partnered with an anti-gay conversion therapy group.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson closely collaborated with a group in the mid-to-late 2000s that promoted “conversion therapy,” a discredited practice that asserted it could change the sexual orientation of gay and lesbian individuals.
Prior to launching his political career, Johnson, a lawyer, gave legal advice to an organization called Exodus International and partnered with the group to put on an annual anti-gay event aimed at teens, according to a CNN KFile review of more than a dozen of Johnson’s media appearances from that timespan.
Founded in 1976, Exodus International was a leader in the so-called “ex-gay” movement, which aimed to make gay individuals straight through conversion therapy programs using religious and counseling methods. Exodus International connected ministries across the world using these controversial approaches.
Hug Needed, by Anita Zotkina
The group shut down in 2013, with its founder posting a public apology for the “pain and hurt” his organization caused. Conversion therapy has been widely condemned by most major medical institutions and has been shown to be harmful to struggling LGBTQ people.
At the time, Johnson worked as an attorney for the socially conservative legal advocacy group, Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). He and his group collaborated with Exodus from 2006 to 2010.
For years, Johnson and Exodus worked on an event started by ADF in 2005 known as the “Day of Truth” – a counterprotest to the “Day of Silence,” a day in schools in which students stayed silent to bring awareness to bullying faced by LGBTQ youth.
The Day of Truth sought to counter that silence by distributing information about what Johnson described as the “dangerous” gay lifestyle.
“I mean, our race, the size of our feet, the color of our eyes, these are things we’re born with and we cannot change,” Johnson told one radio host in 2008 promoting the event. “What these adult advocacy groups like the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network are promoting is a type of behavior. Homosexual behavior is something you do, it’s not something that you are.”
Sigh . . .
The New York Post got the goods on Johnson’s so-called “adopted son.”: Mike Johnson’s adopted son says he’s thankful to the House Speaker’s family after his troubled past is revealed.
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s adopted son has had a string of run-ins with law enforcement for crimes ranging from drug possession to theft since leaving the care of the Louisiana Republican congressman and his wife Kelly, records show, but he’s since turned his life around.
The Johnsons met Michael T. James, now 40, when he was a teenager while the couple were doing charity work for a Christian ministry in Baton Rouge, La., in 1996.
The newlyweds took the troubled then-14-year-old into their home and filed court papers to become his legal guardians in 1999 after James became homeless.
However, once the Johnsons moved from Baton Rouge to Mike’s hometown of Shreveport in 2002, James stayed behind and struck out on his own, as he was then legally an adult.
Since 2003, James has been arrested more than a dozen times, according to records reviewed by The Post.
Charges against him in Florida ranged from marijuana and cocaine possession, theft, possession of a concealed weapon, violating a protective order, and possession of drug paraphernalia.
On two occasions he was sentenced to prison time, serving 37 days on the cocaine possession rap in 2003 and a 30-day term in 2007 on a retail theft charge.
He was also ordered by a court to take an anger management class in 2017.
James is understood to have moved around to a number of places during this time period, at times living with his biological mother and older brother, moving to both Florida and Texas.
Additional court documents seen by The Post indicated James was indicted on a theft charge in 2003 while living in Houston.
One more read before I wrap this up. This is the best thing I read this week.
Brian Karam at Salon: Far-right MAGA theocrats: Most dangerous threat to America.
The world inches closer to a war that only psychopaths want to see.
On Tuesday the FBI issued a warning that the chance of staged terrorist attacks in the United States has grown since the war began in Gaza. In the White House briefing later that day, Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked National Security Council spokesman John Kirby: “Has the White House considered the possibility that a terrorist could be in the country right now after crossing the southern border?”
Obviously they have, or the FBI wouldn’t have issued the warning. The question remains, however, what our government response would be to such an attack. That has already been discussed at the highest levels in our government, and the public has a right to know what that reaction would be.
So, although I wasn’t called on, as Kirby left the stage I interrupted to ask the only question I thought mattered: “John, wait a minute. Before you leave: If Hamas terrorists attack the U.S., would the U.S. put boots on the ground in the Middle East?”
Cat Messenger, by Elisheva Nesis
Kirby stopped his retreat from the stage, and press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre let him answer. Kirby was succinct: “I won’t speculate about that, Brian. We’ll obviously do what we have to do to protect our troops and our people.”
On that same day, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer showed up at the White House with a bipartisan group — Sens. Todd Young, R-Ind., Mike Rounds, R-S.D. and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. — to talk to President Biden and help steer a congressional response to the threat posed by SKYNET … sorry, I mean AI. It’s a bipartisan effort, but there are both Republicans and Democrats who remain opposed.
Bipartisanship, once seen as a laudable goal on many issues, is now sneered at by most remaining members of the Republican Party. Working with Democrats, for them, is like choosing death over a slice of cake. (Apologies to Eddie Izzard.)
Most Republicans are so dismayed at the prospect of working with Democrats that they want to scuttle efforts to fund the war in Ukraine, virtually isolating Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who seems to be nearly alone on an island calling for aid to continue. It’s a rare display of common sense from the 81-year-old Kentuckian, whose primary focus is on political power.
“No Americans are getting killed in Ukraine,” McConnell said. “We’re rebuilding our industrial base. The Ukrainians are destroying the army of one of our biggest rivals. I have a hard time finding anything wrong with that. I think it’s wonderful that they’re defending themselves — and also the notion that the Europeans are not doing enough. They’ve done almost $90 billion, they’re housing a bunch of refugees who escaped. I think that our NATO allies in Europe have done quite a lot.”
Few Democrats have said it any better, and it spelled out exactly what the stakes are for the U.S. in the ongoing war in Ukraine. Remember that Vlad “The Impaler” Putin has clearly suggested that he wants to get the old Soviet Union band back together — Ukraine is just the first stop in a quest for global hegemony.
Karam on Mike Johnson:
Fellow Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said that McConnell was “out of touch” with his party’s base while Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley chided McConnell for siding with Democrats — and that was before Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas gave Hawley a tongue-lashing on border issues later that afternoon. It looks like Putin still has a few fans in the GOP.
In the House, those would likely include newly-minted House Speaker Mike Johnson (and that still sounds like a Bart Simpson prank call to Moe’s Bar), who took on McConnell directly, pushing to unlink aid to Israel from aid to Ukraine.
While the world burns, Johnson and the MAGA wing of the Republican Party — which seems to have swallowed the evangelical movement while also embracing it (a T-1000 morphing into Sarah Connor is just about the right image) — is embracing the darkest verses of the Bible, apparently pushing for apocalypse with an enthusiasm only rivaled by Saul’s slaughter of Christians before he changed his name to Paul.
I’m waiting for Mel Brooks to break out into song: “Let all those who wish to confess their evil ways and accept and embrace the true church convert now or forever burn in hell — for now begins the Inquisition!”
The House of Representatives, now run by Johnson, offers a discount version of the apocalyptic orgasm the holy rollers have dreamed of for years. They’ve renewed the Inquisition and seem determined to convert the U.S. into a theocracy run by people who will thump you with the Bible, but haven’t read much of it.
Lord, how they love to preach fire and brimstone. But the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes? Forget it. Matthew 25:40: “Whatever you did it for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me”? Not a chance. They’ve embraced only the Old Testament angry God and the apocalyptic parts of Revelation brought on by ergot poisoning.
I know I’ve quoted too much, but there’s still a lot more to read at the link.
That’s my contribution for today. Let me know what you think. And have a great weekend!!
Lazy Caturday Reads
Posted: October 21, 2023 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, cat art, Cats, caturday, just because | Tags: Donald Trump, Douglas MacKinnon, Fox News, House speaker search, Israel-Hamas war, Israel-Saudi Arabia agreement, Jack Smith, Jim Jordan, Joe Biden, Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, Stanley Woodward, Ukraine, Walt Nauta 3 Comments
Margaryta Yermolayeva, Cats of the Corn
Happy Caturday!!
It’s another rainy weekend in Boston, and I overslept because it was so dark. They were predicting a nor’easter. I don’t know if this qualifies, but it’s very dark and raining hard, with high winds expected later on. This feels like about the 20th rainy weekend in a row here.
Yesterday, House Republicans rejected Jim Jordan as Speaker after he lost more votes on a third ballot. Members then held a secret ballot to see if he should keep trying, and this time he got only 86 votes of the 217 he would need to be elected.
Politico: ‘It’s astonishing’: GOP ditches Jordan as speaker pick.
In a shocking turn, Jim Jordan on Friday lost an internal GOP vote that was intended to show confidence in him remaining as his party’s speaker designee.
The Ohio Republican is now no longer his party’s pick to lead the House, a demise sealed by a GOP secret ballot just after his third failed floor vote as a speaker hopeful.
It was an unexpectedly fast end to the Ohio conservative’s candidacy to lead the chaos-ridden Republican conference — and a sign that the flailing party is fed up on its 17th day without a speaker. Lawmakers now plan to leave Washington for the weekend as the next round of ambitious Republicans decide whether to mount their own speaker bids.
But most Republicans acknowledge that even with new faces to consider, they still have no clear path to uniting their splintered conference. They have already rejected two speaker candidates — Jordan and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise — as well as former Speaker Kevin McCarthy during this month alone.
McCarthy gave voice to a sentiment that’s growing within the GOP: The party’s inability to run the half of Congress that it narrowly won doesn’t bode well for its broader future.
“I’m concerned about where we go from here,” said McCarthy, who had been backing Jordan. “It’s astonishing to me, and we are in a very bad position as a party.”
Jordan’s loss of the speaker nod from his party came as something of a surprise, since he had sought the internal vote with allies preparing to cite it as a show of continued support for his candidacy. Instead, the secret ballot revealed that while Jordan’s public opposition never topped 25 votes, scores more House Republicans wanted to see him out of the race.
The next race to replace him is expected to get crowded, even as Congress faces no shortage of pressing business that it’s unable to conduct while the House stays shut. At the top of that list: a government shutdown deadline that’s less than a month away and a $100 million-plus emergency funding request from the Biden administration, encompassing aid to both Israel and Ukraine.
I don’t know why Politico didn’t expect this. It had become clear that semi-normal Republicans weren’t responding well to being bombarded with death threats by MAGA Jordan supporters.
From Clare Foran at CNN: House remains paralyzed with no end in sight for speakership battle after Jordan’s exit.
There is still no end in sight for the high-stakes speakership battle after House Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy more than two weeks ago.
The search is on for a new GOP speaker nominee after Rep. Jim Jordan on Friday became the latest exit from the race, and it’s already shaping up to be a crowded candidate field.
It will be our secret, by Margaryta Yermolayevay
Frustrations and divisions have only intensified within the conference as Republicans search for a way to resolve the impasse. That, along with the GOP’s narrow majority, has made it increasingly unclear whether any candidate will be able to secure the 217 votes needed to win the gavel on the House floor.
The House, meanwhile, remains in a state of paralysis as Republicans struggle to coalesce around a speaker candidate, with the chamber effectively frozen amid the threat of a government shutdown next month and conflict unfolding abroad.
House Republicans are expected to hold a candidate forum Monday evening and more candidates are likely to throw their names into the running before then….
Here are some of the candidates now vying to become the next GOP speaker nominee:
- Rep. Tom Emmer, who serves as majority whip, said in a letter to his colleagues shared on Saturday that he was seeking the speakership with the goal of delivering “historic change.”McCarthy is backing Emmer for speaker, sources tell CNN, delivering an early boost for his candidacy.
- Rep. Kevin Hern told CNN on Friday that “yes” he plans to run for speaker. When asked how he plans to get 217 votes, Hern said he’ll work “hard” to get people on his side.
- Rep. Jack Bergman is running for the speaker role, his spokesman told CNN.
- Rep. Austin Scott, who launched a last-minute bid against Jordan last week, but quickly dropped out and then supported Jordan, is now running for speaker again now that the field is wide open, his spokesperson told CNN.
- Rep. Byron Donalds, a Freedom Caucus member, announced on X that he’s seeking the speakership to advance a “conservative vision for the House of Representatives and the American people.”
- Rep. Mike Johnson, the House Republican conference vice chairman, also announced a run for speaker in a letter to his Republican colleagues Saturday, saying “after much prayer and deliberation, I am stepping forward now.”
Meanwhile, in the midst of this Republican chaos, the first thing I saw this morning–at the top of the Memeorandum news feed–was this opinion piece by a Republican named Douglas MacKinnon, who argues that both Biden and Harris should step down. LOL!
The Hill: Leading Democrats need to go to the White House to ask Biden and Harris to step aside.
Playtime is over. We have to put the toys away and have the adults in the room re-exert their authority.
It’s one thing when the issues of the day are identity politics; “green” energy; organized looting; cashless bail; Trump’s legal exposure; political corruption; or who’s really in charge of the border, when having a president and vice president in power who even countless Democrats no longer have faith in. It’s quite another when the world is teetering on the edge of massive violent conflict or outright nuclear war and that leadership looks demonstrably lost and feeble.
Beware of magic cats, by Margaryta Yermolayeva
The barbaric attack by Hamas upon men, women and children in Israel, coupled with the war in Ukraine inching us ever closer to a nuclear conflict, should serve as stark reminders that real and resolute leadership does matter and is needed before it is too late.
Unfortunately, history reminds us that it is not uncommon for presidents — or vice presidents — to find themselves in untenable or overwhelming positions in which they can no longer cope or effectively govern. They often can’t see the proper course forward because they are either standing too close to the problem or are shielded from the negative fallout by overprotective aides or a partisan media.
Such a case came during the summer of 1974. It was becoming obvious to all that the Watergate break-in and the subsequent widespread coverup had politically and legally ensnared President Richard Nixon in a trap from which there was no viable escape.
A growing number of senior Republicans feared Nixon was too isolated from reality, and quite possibly misinformed by aides, to rationally ascertain his dire predicament. For those reasons, and others, a few decided that an intervention at the White House was urgently nee
A growing number of senior Republicans feared Nixon was too isolated from reality, and quite possibly misinformed by aides, to rationally ascertain his dire predicament. For those reasons, and others, a few decided that an intervention at the White House was urgently needed.
We all know the story, which is not at all analogous to anything happening with Biden/Harris. Who are these “adults” that MacKinnon refers to?
We need Biden — and Harris — to rise above that nonsense while turning the eyes of our nation toward the true threats that could destroy us. We need a president who is actually “presidential.”
We need a Thomas Jefferson, an Abraham Lincoln, a John F. Kennedy, or a Bill Clinton. This is not a partisan point. It is one about mutual survival….
I can’t find a Democrat I know who wants either one on the ticket for 2024. Be it for age reasons; cognitive-health concerns; potential Hunter Biden corruption issues; plain competency fears; or record-low polling numbers, a second act of Biden-Harris comes across as political kryptonite for many Democrats hoping to retain the White House in 2024….
That stated, where are the “adult in the room” Democratic powerbrokers willing to emulate the 1974 Republicans and travel down to the White House to tell Biden and Harris that they are “in over their heads” and that their “time has come and gone”?
MacKinnon would do better to ask where the Republican “adults” are.
This weird perception of Biden is so mysterious to me. He has just traveled all over the world and returned to give an oval office speech last night. He doesn’t seem tired or confused to me.
Variety: President Biden’s Oval Office Address Delivers 20.3 Million Total Viewers.
With viewing taking place across 10 networks, President Biden‘s Thursday night address from the oval office has reached a total audience of 20.326 million total viewers, according to Live+Same Day figures from Nielsen.
First trick or treat, by Margaryta Yermolayeva
Coverage of the 15-minute speech lasted from approximately 8 pm to 8:22 pm ET, varying by network with nearly 65% of the 20.3 million viewers tuning in to the president’s speech on broadcast networks, Nielsen reports. 35% of the audience watched on cable networks. People ages 55 and up make up the majority of the audience at 15.94 million and averaged an audience rating of 15.7. Notably, the adults 18-34 key demo made up only 4% of the Thursday night audience.
Biden addressed the nation on the U.S.’s response to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, telling his constituents why it’s necessary to show continued support for America’s partners in Israel and Ukraine.
“The security package I’m asking congress to do is an unprecedented commitment to Israel’s security that will sharpen their qualitative military edge which we’ve committed to,” Biden said. “At the same time, President Netanyahu and I discussed the critical need for Israel to operate by the laws of war. That means protecting civilians in combat. The people of Gaza urgently need food, water, and medicine. Yesterday, in discussions with the leaders of Israel and Egypt, I secured an agreement for the first shipment of humanitarian assistance from the United Nations to Palestinian civilians in Gaza.”
“As hard as it is, we cannot give up on peace. We cannot give up on a two-state solution,” the President said.
Stephen Collinson at CNN: The number one takeaway from Biden’s address.
President Joe Biden’s task, as he looked America in the eye from the Oval Office, was to explain why a nation wearied by its own foreign quagmires and political estrangements should send $100 billion to help other people fight their wars.
His answer was that Israel and Ukraine were fighting existential struggles and that their wars were not just their own but were critical to the security of each American watching his primetime speech on Thursday.
But the most profound takeaway from what was only his second Oval Office address was this: While Biden scheduled the appearance to discuss two nations fighting for their survival against outside attack, his real topic was America itself – and perceived threats to its foundational values in a volatile political age.
He implored his country to honor the global role that has cemented a stable world order since World War II and to reject the appeasement of terrorists and tyrants. And in remarks that foreshadowed a reelection bid that will help decide the character of America and its place in the world for years to come, he sought to inspire it to reject intolerance as bitter politics rage at home.
Biden delivered his speech hours after returning from Israel and meeting victims of the Hamas terror attacks that killed more than 1,400 civilians, and months after his daring trip to another war zone in Ukraine. Even as he spoke, the first signs of an expected Israeli incursion into Gaza began to unfold, suggesting a crisis he sought to contain with his trip on Wednesday is about to get far worse.
“I know these conflicts can seem far away, and it’s natural to ask – why does this matter to America?” Biden said. “So let me share with you why making sure Israel and Ukraine succeed is vital for America’s national security.”
The president beseeched Americans to understand that if the “pure unadulterated evil” of Hamas and the attempt by Russian President Vladimir Putin to “erase” Ukraine’s independence prevailed, terrorism emanating from the Middle East would threaten Americans again and Russia would imperil global peace.
Biden’s address is likely to be seen by historians as a signature moment in his presidency because of the messages he sent to American allies and foes abroad and how he sketched his vision for his own deeply divided nation.
Read more analysis at the CNN link.
One more story about the Israel-Hamas conflict from Politico: Biden says Hamas attacks aimed to halt Israel-Saudi Arabia agreement.
President Joe Biden said that Hamas’ attacks on Israel were intended in part to scuttle the potential normalization of the U.S. ally’s relations with Saudi Arabia.
“One of the reasons Hamas moved on Israel … they knew that I was about to sit down with the Saudis,” Biden said at a campaign event Friday night, according to pool reports. “Guess what? The Saudis wanted to recognize Israel,” the president added.
Less than a month ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had also expressed optimism about the potential detente, telling Biden that a “historic peace” between the two countries seemed attainable.
Invitation, by Margaryta Yermolayeva
The normalization push began under former President Donald Trump’s administration and was branded as the Abraham Accords.
But Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel and sustained retaliation from the Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza have pushed the possibility of normalization between Israel and neighboring Arab countries farther from reach.
On Saturday, the first 20 trucks carrying about 3,000 tons of aid passed through the Rafah border crossing from Egypt on Saturday, bringing humanitarian assistance to Gazans, who have been rationing food and water and relying on dwindling medical supplies amid the barrage of Israeli airstrikes.
In his speech at a Washington, D.C., fundraiser, Biden emphasized his administration’s commitment to supporting the longevity of the Israeli state.
“I am convinced with every fiber of my being: If there were no Israel, there’s not a Jew safe in the world — not in the entire world … including the United States,” Biden said.
Likening the conflict to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as he did in his Oval Office speech Thursday night, Biden underscored America’s role in providing aid to both allies, once more invoking former secretary of state Madeleine Albright in calling the U.S. the “essential nation.”
From Reuters, a story about Russian world-wide election interference: US intelligence report alleging Russia election interference shared with 100 countries.
The United States on Friday released a U.S. intelligence assessment sent to more than 100 countries that found Moscow is using spies, social media and Russian state-run media to erode public faith in the integrity of democratic elections worldwide.
“This is a global phenomenon,” said the assessment. “Our information indicates that senior Russian government officials, including the Kremlin, see value in this type of influence operation and perceive it to be effective.”
A senior State Department official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said that Russia was encouraged to intensify its election influence operations by its success in amplifying disinformation about the 2020 U.S. election and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Success breeds more, and we definitely see the U.S. elections as a catalyst,” the official said.
The Russian embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The release of the assessment comes amid serious tensions between the United States and Russia over Moscow’s war against Ukraine and a raft of other issues.
The assessment was sent in a State Department cable dated Wednesday to more than 100 U.S. embassies in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa for distribution to their host governments, he said.
Washington was privately briefing recipient governments and shared the assessment “to get ahead of elections that are over the horizon over the next year,” the official said.
The report represents Washington’s latest move to combat what it says are Moscow’s efforts “to sow instability” in democratic countries by portraying elections as “dysfunctional, and resulting governments as illegitimate.”
Washington “recognizes its own vulnerability to this threat,” said the report, noting that U.S. intelligence agencies found that “Russian actors spread and amplified information to undermine public confidence in the U.S. 2020 election.”
Finally, here are a few interesting stories about Trump’s many problems.
CNN: Back-to-back plea deals pose grave legal threat to Donald Trump.
Two stalwart allies of former President Donald Trump flipped against him this week, a staggering turn of events that could now pose a grave threat to his ability to fend off criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The witch is coming, by Margaryta Yerrmolayeva
The rapid-fire developments are a massive boost for prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, and the separate but overlapping federal case against Trump that was filed by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith.
The pleas are a stark display of the reality that the Georgia case against Trump and his co-defendants is getting stronger. While Trump has vowed to fight until the bitter end, these newly inked plea deals force his co-defendants to confront the same difficult choice: cut a deal or roll the dice at trial.
or two prominent Trump co-defendants – Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro – the looming five-month trial, potentially resulting in a yearslong prison sentence, appears to have spurred them into flipping.
Their decisions to transform from Trump diehards to key witness against him have likely shattered any sense of invincibility that the former president or others charged may be feeling – perhaps for the first time.
What can these two testify about?
Chesebro directly implicated Trump in a criminal conspiracy, and his plea establishes for the first time that the fake electors plot was illegal. Notably, Chesebro has now admitted that “the purpose” of the fake electors conspiracy was to “disrupt and delay the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021,” which is a key element of the federal charges Trump is facing.
As part of the plea, Chesebro established that the fake electors plot was part of “an attempt… to violate” the US Constitution and federal law, by subverting the Electoral College proceedings. This dovetails with the allegations against Trump in Smith’s federal indictment.
On Thursday, former Trump campaign lawyer Powell pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a separate, but complementary, effort to interfere with the 2020 election by breaching Georgia voting systems.
While Powell’s guilty plea only covers charges related to the breach of election equipment in Coffee County, Georgia, her deal with prosecutors opens the door for testimony about first-hand interactions with Trump and other key co-defendants.
For example, if called to the stand in a future trial, Powell could face questions about White House meetings she attended where Trump considered taking extreme steps to overturn the 2020 results, like ordering the Pentagon to seize voting machines.
Also from CNN, on the stolen documents case in Florida: Trump aide Walt Nauta dismisses concerns over potential conflicts of interest in classified documents case.
After a mini-saga in the classified documents case against Donald Trump, both of the former president’s co-defendants have waived concerns that their attorneys have represented witnesses in the case.
During Friday’s hearing in Fort Pierce, Florida, Trump’s personal aide Walt Nauta told federal Judge Aileen Cannon he had no concerns that his attorney, Stanley Woodward, has represented several witnesses in the case.
Moonlight Tea, by Margaryta Yermolayeva
“I still choose Mr. Woodward as my lawyer,” Nauta told the judge after she went through the potential conflicts in detail.
Last week, Carlos De Oliveira, a maintenance worker at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, also waived potential conflict of interest concerns raised by prosecutors who noted that his attorney also represented witnesses in the case, too.
Woodward and prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith have gone back and forth in court filings and before Cannon over the potential conflicts. In court Friday, Woodward agreed that he would not cross-examine witnesses he has represented or is currently representing.
One of those witnesses, Yuscil Taveras – an IT director at Mar-a-Lago – cut an agreement with prosecutors in exchange for his cooperation in the case after switching attorneys from Woodward.
Nauta is completely screwed. He’s going to prison unless Judge Cannon somehow protects him. I wonder if he knows that?
Brandi Buchman at Mediaite: Jack Smith uses Brett Kavanaugh law review article and Trump’s own impeachment arguments to slap down Jan. 6 ‘presidential immunity’ claims.
In a double serving of what could arguably be described as doses of one’s own medicine, special counsel Jack Smith plucked apart Donald Trump‘s latest efforts to throw out criminal conspiracy charges against him in Washington, D.C., by citing two arguments the former president would seem hard pressed to deny — one from the U.S. Supreme Court justice he appointed, Brett Kavanaugh, and the other from Trump’s own mouth when he was impeached for the second time.
The pointed response from federal prosecutors is found in a 52-page filing directed at Trump’s early October motion when he urged U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to dismiss the election subversion indictment against him on the grounds that as former president, he held “absolute presidential immunity” from prosecution.
While Trump argued his public proclamations of rampant voter fraud and efforts to advance slates of false electors, among other things, fell squarely within the parameters of his duties as president, special counsel argued those schemes were largely rooted in “fraud,” “conspiracy,” “exploitation” and “deceit.”
Discussion of the nature of the crimes themselves aside, Smith contends that an inability to prosecute a former president for his crimes alleged or otherwise as Trump would have it is antithetical to the very premise of the office of the presidency, the meaning of the U.S. Constitution and longstanding legal precedent on similarly aligned subjects throughout years of case law.
“Indeed no sound policy supports granting a former president blanket immunity from criminal prosecution for a time he or she served as president,” Smith wrote.
Read the rest at the link.
One more from Zachary Petrizzo at The Daily Beast: Trump’s Bitter Standoff with Fox News Is Only Getting Worse.
Fox News was essential to Donald Trump’s success in both of his last presidential runs. Now, as the former president navigates another campaign through a tidal wave of indictments and legal problems, he’s facing a much frostier relationship with the cable giant—and that could be bad news for both of them.
Jokers, by Margaryta Yermolayeva
In recent months, Trump’s inner circle has become convinced that Fox News is essentially sidelining the former president by restricting live appearances on the network.
“Trump is not allowed live on Fox,” a Trump operative told The Daily Beast, chalking it up to “fear” that Trump could level a baseless allegation that could leave the network in a legal mess.
A Trump adviser told The Daily Beast a similar story—that the former president isn’t allowed live on air anymore, and that Fox News prefers to have Trump in a pre-recorded setting.
“Fox sent down word from the top that they don’t want to ‘platform’ Trump like they did before,” a Trump adviser told The Daily Beast. “I find it hilarious. For one, it sounds like something MSNBC would do.”
After a lengthy hiatus last year, Trump re-emerged on Fox News in March, but in a diminished capacity in a string of interviews with Fox hosts and anchors including Sean Hannity, Bret Baier, and Larry Kudlow. Gone are the days when Trump could simply call in live and share his stream of consciousness.
According to a search by The Daily Beast and Media Matters for America, Trump last phoned in live to a Fox News program in April of 2022. And Matt Gertz, senior fellow at Media Matters, told The Daily Beast the live freeze-out is no accident.
“Fox News’ record defamation settlement stemmed in part from its on-air Trump fanatics refusing to correct their guests’ election-denial conspiracy theories live, even when they knew their claims were lies,” Gertz said. “It’s wildly implausible to imagine the likes of Sean Hannity pushing back on Trump’s rigged-election fantasies, so it looks like Fox’s lawyers may have engineered a solution that doesn’t require its propagandists to perform journalism.”
One Trump confidant contrasted the apparent ban on Trump’s live appearances to earlier Fox News coverage, when they “used to go live at every single one of his rallies!”
As Trump would say, “Sad.”
So . . . that’s all the news I have for today. What stories have you been following?
Lazy Caturday Reads: Weekend Odds and Ends
Posted: October 14, 2023 Filed under: cat art, Cats, caturday, just because | Tags: Covid-19, Gaza, George Santos, Hamas, House Speaker fight, How do cats purr?, Isaac Herzog, israel, Jim Jordan, Kevin Phillips, Racism, Rudy Giuliani, Southern Strategy 10 CommentsHappy Caturday!!
Ghost Cat by Ken Jovi
Since it’s Caturday, I’m going to begin with a story about cats by Sarah Kuta at The Smithsonian Magazine: How Do Cats Purr? Scientists May Now Have an Answer.
Cats can be mysterious creatures to begin with, but their ability to purr has long perplexed scientists. How can so small an animal make such a deep sound?
Now, scientists may be one step closer to solving this perplexing pet puzzle. Cats, they say, have pads within their vocal cords that may help produce the low-frequency vocalizations involved in purring, according to a new paper published last week in the journal Current Biology.
Big animals, like elephants, have longer vocal cords than smaller animals do, which allows them to produce lower sounds. The same rule applies to musical instruments: A large double bass can produce lower notes than a small violin does, for example.
“Typically, the larger the animal, the longer the vocal folds and so the lower the frequency of sound created,” says study co-author Christian Herbst, a voice scientist at the University of Vienna, to New Scientist’s Jason Arunn Murugesu.
But domestic cats, with their relatively short vocal cords, seem to be an exception to this rule. Though they typically weigh around ten pounds, when purring, they can make low-frequency rumbles between 20 and 30 hertz—lower than the lowest bass sounds made with the average human voice.
To explain this phenomenon, researchers studied eight domestic cats that had already been euthanized because of terminal illness. With the cat owners’ consent, the scientists removed the animals’ larynges from their bodies, then pushed warm air through them to simulate feline vocalizations.
With this method, the researchers were able to produce purring sounds at frequencies between 25 and 30 hertz—without any input from the cat’s brain, and without any muscle contractions. The vocal cords vibrated in a way that resembled “vocal fry” in humans, or the creaky, low register sound some people make when speaking.
Other vertebrates produce sounds in a similar way—via a passive process known as flow-induced self-sustained oscillation. When this occurs, the brain sends a signal to the vocal cords that causes them to press together. As air flows through the vocal cords, they begin to vibrate—and from here, physiology takes over, and the brain is no longer involved….
The researchers analyzed the deceased cats’ vocal cords and found masses of tissue embedded within them that they theorize might be the key to purring. These structures, which they termed “pads,” might slow down the vocal cords’ vibrations by making them denser, enabling the animals to make lower-frequency sounds in spite of their diminutive size.
Interesting, huh?
In people news, longtime GOP strategist and author Kevin Phillips has died.
Greg Sargent at The Washington Post: The GOP’s ‘southern strategy’ mastermind just died. Here’s his legacy.
“The whole secret of politics is knowing who hates who.”
Read the rest, including more quotes by experts, at The WaPo.
House Republicans are still in chaos. Yesterday, one of the craziest House reps, George Santos, had an insane freakout in the midst of the Speaker fight.
Margaret Hartmann at New York Magazine: George Santos Has Meltdown While Holding Mystery Baby.
We’ve all had an extremely long week, as you’re likely aware. On Friday afternoon, George Santos, the New York representative whose tally of alleged federal crimes is now up to 23, was spotted screaming in the hallway of the Longworth House Office Building. It appears Santos — who famously suggested his family was Jewish then revised this to “Jew-ish” — was accosted by pro-Palestinian protesters.
Normally, neither a small protest on Capitol Hill nor George Santos shouting in front of a gaggle of reporters would be all that notable. But there’s the twist: Santos was holding a 2-month-old baby when this all went down….
You probably have a lot of questions right now, as do I. Hartmann doesn’t have any answers. She posted some tweets, but WordPress won’t let me do that anymore. You can read them at NY Mag.
Fog Cat by Siraure at Deviant Art
More details from Alex Nguyen at The Daily Beast: George Santos Absolutely Flips Out in Bizarre Israel Confrontation.
Rep. George Santos (R-NY) had a complete meltdown on Friday afternoon during a tense interaction on Capitol Hill that ended with a man in police custody—and somehow involved a baby.
According to a clip shared by NBC News’ Sahil Kapur, Santos called the man, identified by cops as Shabd Khalsa, “human scum” for asking him questions critical of Israel’s bombings in Gaza….
“You came into my personal space yelling at me,” Santos fumed. “What are you doing about terrorists destroying Israel?” He then sped down a hallway in the Capitol’s Longworth Building, screaming statements condemning Hamas….
Capitol Police said in a statement to The Daily Beast that 36-year-old Khalsa was arrested and charged him with simple assault “after an officer witnessed him have physical contact with a congressional staffer in the Longworth Building.” The staffer was not identified.
A profile on X under the name Shabd Singh, the same name Khalsa gave to reporters, says that he is a former campaign organizer for Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT).
He told The Hill that he was Jewish-American and that Santos, who was previously busted falsely claiming to be Jewish, “began yelling at me, essentially framing what I am saying as some sort of antisemitic trope.”
Still no information about the baby. If you’ve heard anything about the origins of the child or what Santos was doing with him/her, please let us know.
As Daknikat wrote yesterday, Insurrectionist Jim Jordon is currently the leading candidate for House Speaker, but he doesn’t yet have the votes to be election, thank goodness.
CNN: Jordan faces grim prospects in speaker’s fight after whirlwind week for House GOP.
After a series of setbacks, Republicans ended the week no closer to electing a new speaker as deep internal divisions have left the conference struggling to govern and the House in a state of paralysis.
The chaos within House GOP ranks intensified dramatically over the past several days as the conference has tried and so far failed to find a viable successor to Kevin McCarthy following his unprecedented ouster at the hands of a small faction of hardline conservatives.
Black Cat Halloween, by Iva Wilcox
Rep. Jim Jordan is the new GOP speaker nominee following Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s exit from the race. But the Ohio Republican faces the same kind of grim vote math that doomed Scalise’s speaker bid as Jordan lacks the 217 votes needed to win the gavel in a full House floor vote.
Jordan has the weekend to continue to make his case and attempt to flip holdouts, but he faces a steep uphill battle.
The GOP conference faced whiplash this week after Scalise won an initial vote to become speaker nominee, only to drop out not long after as a result of entrenched opposition to his candidacy. The week ended with another vote, this time to make Jordan the new nominee. But it soon became clear that Jordan also faces a stiff wall of resistance.
The House remains effectively frozen as long as there is no speaker, a dire situation that comes as Congress faces a fast-approaching government funding deadline in mid-November and as crisis unfolds abroad in Ukraine and with Israel’s war against Hamas.
Asked by CNN’s Manu Raju how the entire episode reflects on the GOP, McCarthy said on Friday, “it’s terrible.”
More on the Speaker hunt from Politico: Republicans ramp up search for an escape hatch from speaker chaos.
Centrists are signaling they’re open to a deal. Democrats are outlining terms. With no speaker in sight yet, House Republicans are ramping up their discussions about a way to reopen the chamber.
A bipartisan solution to the GOP’s leadership chaos still sounds farfetched to most on the Hill — but then, so does the idea that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) might overcome his dozens of skeptics and win a floor vote early next week.
There’s just one problem with the idea that a temporary compromise could get the House back to legislative business: It has the same issue that plagued the speakership bids of Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise and now Jordan. Right now, no solution has the near-unanimous House Republican support that’s required to pass on the floor.
Which means that, unless Jordan can overcome his skeptics and push to victory on the floor in the next several days, the only way forward might be with Democrats. A group of centrist Democrats wrote to Acting Speaker Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) on Friday to propose a limited agenda and some perks for the opposing party in exchange for temporarily restarting House business during a time of global crisis.
Some self-described GOP pragmatists have suggested that if Republicans can’t chart a course on their own, they could cut a deal with Democrats to break the 10-day impasse.
“At some point we have to do a bipartisan deal. I mean, they don’t want to acknowledge it, but these guys do not want to govern,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said of his own party’s conservatives.
But as desperation creeps into the GOP while Jordan pushes to lock down the gavel, it’s clear that any attempt to further empower a caretaker speaker would fall short within their own party. McHenry has indicated that his future role as acting speaker is up to his colleagues to settle — even as the Nov. 17 shutdown deadline draws closer and Israel seeks U.S. aid — but his fellow Republicans simply can’t agree on anything.
Read more at the link above.
I suppose I have to include some news from the war between Israel and Hamas. (BTW, is it just me, or has the Ukraine war completely disappeared from the media?)
CNN: Deadly blast hits Gaza evacuation route after Israel issues deadline.
A blast has struck a convoy on an evacuation route in Gaza, killing a number of people including several children, after a stark deadline ahead of a possible Israeli ground assault.
The IDF told civilians in and around Gaza City Friday that they must move south to avoid being caught up in Israeli military operations and announced a six-hour evacuation window on Saturday.
Black Cat at Halloween, by Daniel Eskridge
Israel has massed troops and military equipment at the border with Gaza, and continued bombarding the densely populated territory in response to the deadly October 7 attacks by the Islamist militant group, Hamas.
Videos authenticated by CNN showed a scene of extensive destruction following Friday’s blast on Salah Al-Deen street. A number of bodies, including those of children, can be seen on on a flat-bed trailer that appears to have been used to carry people away from Gaza City. There are also a number of badly burned and damaged cars.
It’s unclear what caused the widespread devastation. CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment on any airstrikes in the same location.
Even before the evacuation warning, more than 400,000 Palestinians had already been internally displaced by the past week of fighting as conditions worsen inside the bombarded strip.
But the evacuation statement and the prospect of a potential incursion have been sharply criticized by rights groups, including the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) head, who warned that such a move could bring “catastrophic humanitarian consequences.”
That isn’t good and neither is this.
HuffPost: Israeli President Suggests That Civilians In Gaza Are Legitimate Targets.
As Israel engages in a massive air campaign ahead of an anticipated full-scale ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Friday that all citizens of Gaza are responsible for the attack Hamas perpetrated in Israel last weekend that left over 1,200 people dead.
“It is an entire nation out there that is responsible,” Herzog said at a press conference on Friday. “It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’etat.”
When a reporter asked Herzog to clarify whether he meant to say that since Gazans did not remove Hamas from power “that makes them, by implication, legitimate targets,” the Israeli president claimed, “No, I didn’t say that.”
But he then stated: “When you have a missile in your goddamn kitchen and you want to shoot it at me, am I allowed to defend myself?”
At another point in the press conference, Herzog presented a different perspective, saying, “Of course there are many, many innocent Palestinians who don’t agree to this — but unfortunately in their homes, there are missiles shooting at us, at my children.”
Ghost Cat, by Neocale at Deviant Art
Herzog’s comments follow Israel’s announcement that it had directed the 1.1 million residents of northern Gaza to evacuate, likely ahead of a ground invasion. Israel dropped thousands of flyers over northern Gaza and left voice messages on Friday directing people to leave their homes and flee south.
Human rights groups and the United Nations denounced the evacuation order.
“The United Nations considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences,” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general, said in a statement. “The United Nations strongly appeals for any such order, if confirmed, to be rescinded avoiding what could transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation.”
“Ordering a million people in Gaza to evacuate, when there’s no safe place to go, is not an effective warning,” Clive Baldwin, senior legal advisor to Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “World leaders should speak up now before it is too late, he added.
NBC News reports on more awfulness from Hamas: ‘Top secret’ Hamas documents show that terrorists intentionally targeted elementary schools and a youth center.
Documents exclusively obtained by NBC News show that Hamas created detailed plans to target elementary schools and a youth center in the Israeli kibbutz of Kfar Sa’ad, to “kill as many people as possible,” seize hostages and quickly move them into the Gaza Strip.
The attack plans, which are labeled “top secret” in Arabic, appear to be orders for two highly trained Hamas units to surround and infiltrate villages and target places where civilians, including children, gather. Israeli authorities are still determining the death toll in Kfar Sa’ad.
The documents were found on the bodies of Hamas terrorists by Israeli first responders and shared with NBC News. They include detailed maps and show that Hamas intended to kill or take hostage civilians and school children.
One page labeled “Top Secret” outlines a plan of attack for Kfar Sa’ad, saying “Combat unit 1” is directed to “contain the new Da’at school,” while “Combat unit 2” is to “collect hostages,” “search the Bnei Akiva youth center” and “search the old Da’at school.”
Another page labeled “Top Secret Maneuver” describes a plan for a Hamas unit to secure the east side of Kfar Sa’ad while a second unit controls the west. It says “kills as many as possible” and “capture hostages.” Other orders include surrounding a dining hall and holding hostages in it.
The detailed plan to attack Kfar Sa’ad is part of a trove of documents that Israeli officials are analyzing, according to one source in the Israeli army and one in the government. Surveillance video of Hamas terrorists entering a kibbutz on Oct. 7 shows tactics similar to those laid out in the documents obtained by NBC News.
The Israeli officials said that the wider group of documents show that Hamas had been systematically gathering intelligence on each kibbutz bordering Gaza and creating specific plans of attack for each village that included the intentional targeting of women and children.
Read more at NBC News.
A couple more stories before I wrap this up.
NBC News: Judge punishes Rudy Giuliani for ‘continued and flagrant disregard’ of court orders.
The judge presiding over the upcoming damages trial against Rudy Giuliani said Friday she will tell jurors that the former Trump lawyer intentionally hid financial documents and other records in defiance of court orders.
Vlad Vampire Cat, by Carrie Hawks
In a five-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said the move was necessary given “Giuliani’s continued and flagrant disregard of this Court’s August 30 Order that he produce financial-related documents concerning his personal and his businesses’ past and present assets” and other pertinent information.
That means jurors deciding how much Giuliani should pay two Georgia election workers he defamed will be told they can assume the worst about why the former New York City mayor has failed to turn over the court-ordered records.
“The jury will be instructed that it must, when determining an appropriate sum of compensatory, presumed, and punitive damages, infer that defendant Giuliani was intentionally trying to hide relevant discovery about the Giuliani Businesses’ finances for the purpose of shielding his assets from discovery and artificially deflating his net worth,” the judge wrote.
Additionally, Giuliani and his lawyer will be prohibited “from making any argument, or introducing any evidence, stating or suggesting that he is insolvent, bankrupt, judgment proof, or otherwise unable to defend himself” since he failed to hand over evidence that would show that’s true, the judge wrote.
The Nation: The Coronavirus Still Doesn’t Care About Your Feelings.
You might be forgiven for thinking it’s been a very quiet few months for the Covid-19 pandemic. Besides the rollout of new boosters, the coronavirus has largely slipped out of the headlines. But the virus is on the move. Viral levels in wastewater are similar to what they were during the first two waves of the pandemic. Recent coverage of the so-called Pirola variant, which is acknowledged to have “an alarming number of mutations,” led with the headline “Yes, There’s a New Covid Variant. No, You Shouldn’t Panic.”
Even if you haven’t heard much about the new strain of the coronavirus, being told not to panic might induce déjà vu. In late 2021, as the Omicron variant was making its way to the United States, Anthony Fauci told the public that it was “nothing to panic about” and that “we should not be freaking out.” Ashish Jha, the Biden administration’s former Covid czar, also cautioned against undue alarm over Omicron BA.1, claiming that there was “absolutely no reason to panic.” This is a telling claim, given what was to follow—the six weeks of the Omicron BA.1 wave led to hundreds of thousands of deaths in a matter of weeks, a mortality event unprecedented in the history of the republic.
Indeed, experts have been offering the public advice about how to feel about Covid-19 since January 2020, when New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo opined, “Panic will hurt us far more than it’ll help.” That same week, Zeke Emanuel—a former health adviser to the Obama administration, latterly an adviser to the Biden administration—said Americans should “stop panicking and being hysterical.… We are having a little too much [sic] histrionics about this.”
This concern about public panic has been a leitmotif of the Covid-19 pandemic, even earning itself a name (“elite panic”) among some scholars. But if there’s one thing we’ve learned, three and a half years into the current crisis, it’s that—contrary to what the movies taught us—pandemics don’t automatically spawn terror-stricken stampedes in the streets. Media and public health coverage have a strong hand in shaping public response and can—under the wrong circumstances—promote indifference, incaution, and even apathy. A very visible example of this was the sharp drop in the number of people masking after the CDC revised its guidelines in 2021, recommending that masking was not necessary for the vaccinated (from 90 percent in May to 53 percent in September).
As that example suggests, emphasizing the message “don’t panic” puts the cart before the horse unless tangible measures are being taken to prevent panic-worthy outcomes. And indeed, these repeated assurances against panic have arguably also preempted a more vigorous and
urgent public health response—as well as perversely increasing public acceptance of the risks posed by coronavirus infection and the unchecked transmission of the virus. This “moral calm”—a sort of manufactured consent—impedes risk mitigation by promoting the underestimation of a threat. Soothing public messaging during disasters can often lead to an increased death toll: Tragically, false reassurance contributed to mortality in both the attacks on the World Trade Center and the sinking of the Titanic.
Read the rest at The Nation. The gist is that Covid-19 is still out there and still dangerous. Pretending it’s not won’t help us.
That’s my contribution for today. What do you think? What other stories have caught your interest?
Lazy Caturday Reads
Posted: October 7, 2023 Filed under: 2020 Elections, cat art, Cats, caturday, COVID19, Crime, Donald Trump, just because | Tags: Anthony Pratt, Benjamin Netanyahu, cult deprogramming, Hakeem Jeffries, Hamas attack, Hillary Clinton, House in chaos, Israel at war?, Jim Jordan, Speaker of the House, Trump blabs top secret information, Trump NY fraud trial 7 Comments
Autumn Cat Leaves, by Erin Martin Lowell Herrero
Happy Caturday!!
It has been another busy week in politics, with Trump’s businesses on trial in New York as well as new evidence that Trump shared top secret information with foreign nationals; the House of Representatives in chaos without a speaker; a violent attack by Hamas on Israel overnight; and other odds and ends. Let’s get started.
The story getting the most attention today is the attack on Israel.
The New York Times and The Washington Post are running live updates.
From The New York Times: ‘We Are at War,’ Netanyahu Says After Hamas Attacks.
The Israeli prime minister ordered a call-up of reservists after Palestinian militants fired thousands of rockets and invaded several Israeli towns. More than 250 people have been killed, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials.
Israel battled on Saturday to repel one of the broadest invasions of its territory in 50 years after Palestinian militants from Gaza launched an enormous and coordinated early-morning assault on southern Israel, infiltrating several Israeli towns and army bases, kidnapping Israeli civilians and soldiers, and firing thousands of rockets toward cities as far away as Jerusalem.
By early evening, the Israeli military said fighting continued in at least five places in southern Israel, around 70 Israelis had been reported dead by emergency medical groups, and Israel had retaliated with huge strikes on Gazan cities. At least 198 Palestinians were killed in either gun battles or airstrikes, the Gazan Health Ministry said….
At least 100 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian militant assault began on Saturday morning, said Zaki Heller, a spokesman for the Magen David Adom emergency service. The number is expected to continue to rise in the coming hours and days.
From The Washington Post: Netanyahu says Israel ‘at war’ after Hamas attack; Israeli civilians and military personnel held captive in Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday “we are at war, and we will win it” after the Islamist militia Hamas launched an assault and took captives following the 50th anniversary of the start of the 1973 Yom Kippur war. The confrontation, which has killed at least 40 Israelis and injured at least 740, is one of the most serious in years after weeks of rising tensions along the volatile border. Israeli air force strikes killed nearly 200 people on the Gaza Strip and injured 1,600, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Israeli authorities said that an unknown number of Israeli civilians, soldiers and commanders have been taken captive by Hamas….
Autumn Cat, by Tatiana Feoktistova
Israel ordered residents in areas around Gaza to remain inside after militants infiltrated Israeli territory — including by paraglider and by sea — and launched more than 3,000 rockets, the Israel Defense Forces said. The Israeli air force began striking targets late Saturday morning, the military said, adding that gun battles were taking place in Israeli areas near the border.
U.S. officials including President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and numerous members of Congress condemned the attacks on Israel. Biden described the attacks as “appalling” and said he offered Netanyahu “rock-solid and unwavering” support.
And from The Hill: Pentagon says it will support Israel after Netanyahu declares war.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. stands squarely by Israel and will ensure it “has what it needs to defend itself” after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war against Palestinian militants that launched a surprise attack on his country.
Austin said in a statement he was “closely monitoring developments in Israel” and extended his condolences to families of the victims who lost their lives in the Saturday attack.
“Our commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself remains unwavering,” Austin said. “Over the coming days the Department of Defense will work to ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself and protect civilians from indiscriminate violence and terrorism.”
The U.S. is one of Israel’s staunchest allies and has provided around $3.8 billion a year to the country.
This doesn’t sound good.
The House without a Speaker
Burgess Everett at Politico: Empty speaker’s office aggravates House-Senate beef.
The chaos-ridden, speaker-less House is threatening to stymie a host of bipartisan legislative efforts across the Capitol — and senators are getting really tired of it.
Forget the expectations earlier this year of achieving even modest policy reforms, or passing spending bills under so-called “regular order.” Senators will consider themselves lucky to escape the calendar year without a catastrophe. Among the possibilities: a shutdown and a crush of blown deadlines on expiring legislation addressing aviation law, surveillance authority and flood insurance.
Possibly, the best case is lurching from crisis to crisis until the presidential election.
“It’s hard to pass legislation and send it to the president when one House is not able to function,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said of the prognosis for the months ahead, one of several senators interviewed who implied the legislative calendar is looking bleak.
One of the frontrunners for House speaker, Jim Jordan of Ohio, didn’t even support the stopgap spending bill that avoided a shutdown. And he opposes new aid for Ukraine — the two biggest priorities among Senate Democrats and at least half of the Senate Republicans.
What’s more, with no speaker and no clear candidate who has the votes to wrap up an election quickly, there’s no one currently empowered to negotiate with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the White House on behalf of the only Republican-controlled lever of the federal government.
“Only a new speaker [can negotiate], if they’re willing to do that,” echoed Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a former House member. “Somebody has to face the reality.”
The Senate’s challenges for the next few months are tough to square with the disorderly state of the House GOP majority. Aviation law, surveillance authority and flood insurance all expire later this year. That’s not to mention modest Senate policy priorities that bipartisan gangs are coalescing around.
There’s much more at the link.
Igor Bobic at HuffPost: Jim Jordan, Who’s Running For Speaker, Played A Key Role In Trump’s 2020 Election Plot.
Staunch conservative Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is in the spotlight after launching a bid for the speaker’s gavel this week, a race that is sure to provide even more drama and chaos than the unprecedented ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
But one critical aspect of Jordan’s history that has been omitted by most Beltway publications is the prominent role he played in spreading lies about the 2020 election and rallying supporters to contest the results. The extraordinary effort led by former President Donald Trump, who has endorsed Jordan’s bid for speaker, led to the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“Jim Jordan knew more about what Donald Trump had planned for Jan. 6 than any other member of the House of Representatives,” former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who co-chaired the House Select Committee tasked with investigating the insurrection, said in a speech at the University of Minnesota this week.
“Jim Jordan was involved, was part of the conspiracy in which Donald Trump was engaged as he attempted to overturn the election,” she added.
Jordan, who now chairs the House Judiciary Committee, refused to cooperate with the select committee regarding his communications with Trump as the attack was occurring, defying subpoenas for testimony.
Cat in autumn, unknown illustrator
Trump spoke on the phone with Jordan for 10 minutes on the morning of Jan. 6. Jordan has never divulged the nature of the conversation, saying only that he had spoken to Trump “a number of times” that day.
Jordan also phoned then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows while the attack was underway, according to former Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson.
“They had a brief conversation,” Hutchinson told the committee. “In crossfire, I heard briefly what they were talking about. I heard conversations in the Oval [Office] dining room at that point talking about the ‘Hang Mike Pence’ chants.”
Jordan also sent a text to Meadows on Jan. 5 outlining a legal theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over the Senate chamber on Jan. 6, had the authority to block the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.
More on Jordan’s role at HuffPost.
Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries has an op-ed at The Washington Post: A bipartisan coalition is the way forward for the House.
Trump New York Fraud Trial
From NBC News: Trump trial Day 5 highlights: Ex-Trump executive says Allen Weisselberg asked for help in committing tax fraud.
What to know about Friday’s court session:
On the final day of the first week of the trial, lawyers for New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office again grilled Jeffrey McConney, a former Trump Organization senior vice president.
In a dramatic finale, McConney admitted that ex-Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg asked for his help in committing tax fraud. He said he kept engaging in this illegal conduct because Weisselberg was his boss and if he refused, he would probably have lost his job.
Judge Arthur Engoron later in the day turned down an effort from Trump’s lawyers to suspend the trial.
Trump went to the appeals court to try to stop the trial: Appeals court stays cancellation of Trump biz certificates.
Also:
An appeals court judge denied Trump’s bid to halt the fraud trial, but agreed to stay enforcement of Engoron’s order canceling business certificates involving the former president and top officials at his company.
An Appellate Division judge who heard emergency arguments Friday wrote the application is “granted solely to the extent of staying enforcement of Supreme Court’s order directing the cancellation of business certificates. The interim application is denied in all other respects.”
In a court filing earlier in the day, Trump’s attorneys argued that part of Engoron’s ruling was tantamount to “corporate death sentences” for various Trump companies that would have to be dissolved.
Attorney General Letitia James had already said she would hold off on the cancellation of certificates until the end of the trial, so not a big deal.
Trump once again blabbed top secret information
Here’s the background from ABC News: Trump allegedly discussed US nuclear subs with foreign national after leaving White House: Sources.
Months after leaving the White House, former President Donald Trump allegedly discussed potentially sensitive information about U.S. nuclear submarines with a member of his Mar-a-Lago Club — an Australian billionaire who then allegedly shared the information with scores of others, including more than a dozen foreign officials, several of his own employees, and a handful of journalists, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Autumn Pumpkin Cat, by Ryan Conners
The potential disclosure was reported to special counsel Jack Smith’s team as they investigated Trump’s alleged hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, the sources told ABC News. The information could shed further light on Trump’s handling of sensitive government secrets.
Prosecutors and FBI agents have at least twice this year interviewed the Mar-a-Lago member, Anthony Pratt, who runs U.S.-based Pratt Industries, one of the world’s largest packaging companies.
In those interviews, Pratt described how — looking to make conversation with Trump during a meeting at Mar-a-Lago in April 2021 — he brought up the American submarine fleet, which the two had discussed before, the sources told ABC News.
According to Pratt’s account, as described by the sources, Pratt told Trump he believed Australia should start buying its submarines from the United States, to which an excited Trump — “leaning” toward Pratt as if to be discreet — then told Pratt two pieces of information about U.S. submarines: the supposed exact number of nuclear warheads they routinely carry, and exactly how close they supposedly can get to a Russian submarine without being detected.
It’s far from the first time Trump has done this. In fact, very early in his term as “president,” Trump outed an Israeli spy to Russians in the oval office. Remember that? It was the day after he fired James Comey and he thought the Russia investigation was over.
Tori Otten recalls a few instances at The New Republic: Trump Loves Sharing National Security Secrets With Random Strangers.
Trump allegedly told Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt in April 2021 that Australia should start buying its submarines from the U.S. Trump then told Pratt the supposed exact number of nuclear warheads a U.S. sub can carry, and how close it can supposedly get to a Russian sub without being detected, ABC News reported late Thursday, citing anonymous sources.
Pratt then told at least 45 other people—including six journalists, 11 employees at his company, 10 Australian officials, and three former Australian prime ministers—about Trump’s comments before he was approached by special counsel Jack Smith’s team….
The incident with Pratt is far from the first time that Trump shared classified information with people unauthorized to hear it. In May 2017, Trump shared highly classified information with the Russian foreign minister and the Russian ambassador to the United States that the U.S. hasn’t shared with some of its closest allies. Current and former U.S. officials warned that Trump had jeopardized a crucial intelligence source on the Islamic State group.
Later that month, Trump told then-Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte that the U.S. had positioned two nuclear submarines off the Korean peninsula. The locations of nuclear subs are meant to be kept secret, as a matter of national security. In fact, only the captains and crews know the sub’s exact location.
Then, in July 2017, CNN reported that the U.S. was forced to extract a spy embedded in the Russian government after concerns that Trump had shared classified information that could have exposed them.
Rather than learn his lesson, Trump met privately with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the G20 summit (also in July 2017). Trump confiscated the interpreter’s notes at the end of the meeting, an unusual move that led intelligence officials to believe he had shared more classified information.
Trump tweeted a video in December 2018 of the Al Asad Airbase in Iraq, exposing a SEAL team’s faces and location. The next year, he bragged about U.S. nuclear weapons capabilities to reporter Bob Woodward and tweeted photos that revealed the location of U.S. spy satellites.
And of course, it didn’t stop after he left office. One of the documents he allegedly kept detailed a plan to attack Iran. He is accused of waving the paper around in front of people.
Weird Odds and Ends
Republicans and Fox News are once again up in arms about something Hillary Clinton said.
The Guardian: Hillary Clinton says Trump supporters may need to be ‘deprogrammed.’
Supporters of Donald Trump may need to be “deprogrammed” as if they were cult members, Hillary Clinton said.
“Sadly, so many of those extremists … take their marching orders from Donald Trump, who has no credibility left by any measure,” the former first lady, senator, secretary of state and Democratic nominee for president told CNN.
“He’s only in it for himself. He’s now defending himself in civil actions and criminal actions. And when do they break with him? Because at some point maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members. But something needs to happen.” [….]
By Atey Ghailan
Clinton said: “I think, sadly, he will be the nominee and we have to defeat them. And we have to defeat those who are the election deniers, as we did and 2020 and [in the midterms of] 2022. And we have to just be smarter about how we are trying to empower the right people inside the Republican party.”
Clinton was speaking after the fall of Kevin McCarthy, who became first US House speaker ever ejected by his own party thanks to pro-Trump extremists.
Clinton called Trump “an authoritarian populist who really has a grip on the emotional [and] psychological needs and desires of a portion of the population and the base of the Republican party, for whatever combination of reasons.”
Republicans, she said, “see in him someone who speaks for them and they are determined they will continue to vote for him, attend his rallies and wear his merchandise, because for whatever reason he and his very negative, nasty form of politics resonates with them.
“Maybe they don’t like migrants. Maybe they don’t like gay people or Black people or the woman who got the promotion at work they didn’t get. Whatever reason.”
Hey, she’s right. But now all the Trump fans have something else to have fun being outraged about.
Three months after a Florida man and his three sons were convicted of selling toxic industrial bleach as a fake COVID-19 cure through their online church, a federal judge in Miami sentenced them to serve prison time.
Jonathan Grenon, 37, and Jordan Grenon, 29, were sentenced on Friday to 151 months in prison for conspiring to defraud the United States by distributing an unapproved and misbranded drug, and for contempt of court, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office Southern District of Florida. Mark Grenon, 66, and Joseph Grenon, 36, were sentenced to 60 months in prison, the statutory maximm for conspiring to defraud the United States by distributing an unapproved and misbranded drug.
All four had been found guilty by a federal judge this summer after a two-day trial where the Grenons represented themselves, according to The Miami Herald. Mark Grenon is the father of Jonathan, Jordan and Joseph Grenon.
Prosecutors called the Grenons “con men” and “snake-oil salesmen” and said the family’s Genesis II Church of Health and Healing sold $1 million worth of their so-called Miracle Mineral Solution, distributing it to tens of thousands of people nationwide. In videos, the solution was sold as a cure for 95% of known diseases, including COVID-19, Alzheimer’s, autism, brain cancer, HIV/AIDS and multiple sclerosis, prosecutors said.
But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had not approved MMS for treatment of COVID-19, or for any other use. The FDA had strongly urged consumers not to purchase or use MMS for any reason, saying that drinking MMS was the same as drinking bleach and could cause dangerous side effects, including severe vomiting, diarrhea, and life-threatening low blood pressure. The FDA received reports of people requiring hospitalizations, developing life-threatening conditions, and even dying after drinking MMS.
Read more nutty stuff at the link if you so desire.
Have a nice weekend, everyone!!
Lazy Caturday Reads
Posted: September 23, 2023 Filed under: Cats, caturday, Congress, corruption, Donald Trump, just because | Tags: Alex Whiting, Bob Menendez, Chuck Schumer, government shutdown, Jack Smith, Joe Biden, Kevin McCarthy, Mark Milley, Mitch McConnell, never Trump Republicans, Ted Cruz, UAW strike 6 Comments
Happy Caturday!!
I have a mix of stories today. Arguably the biggest news is the looming government shutdown caused by far right House Republicans and pathetic “Speaker” Kevin McCarthy. Here’s the latest:
Politico: McCarthy stares into the shutdown abyss.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy has only one way out of next week’s impending government shutdown: working with Democrats. It’s an exit he’s still refusing to take.
During the most tumultuous stretch of his speakership so far, McCarthy hasn’t phoned a single member of the opposing party about a way to keep the lights on.
Instead, the speaker and his team will scramble this weekend to slash their own party’s spending bills in an effort to placate a handful of hard-liners who are threatening to eject him. Votes on some of those revised bills are now expected on Tuesday, four days before the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline. But even if they pass, that will move Congress no closer to a solution.
McCarthy’s central strategy remains the same; he wants to deliver a GOP opening bid to the Democratic Senate, while holding back a rebellion by his right flank — enough to hang on to his speakership after Democrats, by necessity, enter the talks. After his first two attempts at a short-term spending patch fell short, McCarthy is now trying to take up doomed full-year bills.
Some of McCarthy’s own allies fear that effort could prove futile as a shutdown fast approaches. These House Republicans worry that the Californian’s third attempt at a workable strategy, bringing spending measures to the floor next week, might also fail to get the votes they need and further humiliate the party.
“This is not checkers. This is chess. You got to understand that this next move by the House is not going to be the final answer,” Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) said. “Eventually, the Senate will weigh in … and it’s not going to be to our liking, and probably going to be pushed into our face and say: ‘Take it or leave it.’ And then the speaker will have a very difficult decision.”
The situation is getting worse still for McCarthy as he starts running out of room from his Senate allies. A group of conservatives across the Capitol, after days of deferring to the speaker, now want to see a vote on legislation that would automatically impose stopgap spending patches to permanently prevent shutdowns.
Read more at the Politico link.
CNN: Schumer in talks with McConnell as shutdown fears grow: ‘We may now have to go first.’
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told CNN that his chamber might have to take matters in its own hands and push through a must-pass bill to fund the government amid deep divisions in the House and a looming shutdown by next weekend.
For weeks, Democratic and Republican senators have been watching the House with growing alarm as Speaker Kevin McCarthy has struggled to cobble together the votes to pass a short-term spending bill along party lines – all as he has resisted calls to cut a deal with Democrats to keep the government open until a longer-term deal can be reached. The initial plan: Let McCarthy get the votes to pass a bill first before the Senate changes it and sends it back to the House for a final round of votes and negotiations.
Now with House GOP leaders still struggling to get the votes ahead of the September 30 deadline, Schumer said he would try to cut a deal with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and send it to the House on the eve of a potential shutdown – all as he signaled he was pushing to include aid to Ukraine as part of the package.
“We may now have to go first … given the House,” Schumer told CNN in an interview in his office, moments before he took procedural steps to allow the Senate to take up a continuing resolution, or CR, as soon as next week. “Leader McConnell and I are talking and we have a great deal of agreement on many parts of this. It’s never easy to get a big bill, a CR bill done, but I am very, very optimistic that McConnell and I can find a way and get a large number of votes both Democratic and Republican in the Senate.”
If Schumer’s assessment is correct, that would leave McCarthy with a choice: Either ignore the Senate’s bill altogether or continue to try to pass his own bill in the narrowly divided House where he can only afford to lose four GOP members on any party-line vote.
More details at the CNN link.
Another big story today is the second indictment of Democratic Senator Bob Menendez. The extent of the corruption by Menendez and his wife is gobsmacking. Menendez managed to wriggle out of the last indictment, but this one many bring him down for good.
NBC News: Bob Menendez’s indictment highlights: Gold bars and wads of cash.
Gold bars worth more than $100,000. A new Mercedes-Benz convertible in the garage. Wads of cash stuffed in the pockets of a jacket with “Bob Menendez” embroidered on the breast.
The signature at the bottom of the federal indictment released Friday charging Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., his wife Nadine, and three alleged accomplices with bribery, belongs to Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
But the details of what federal agents said they found in June 2022 when they raided the Menendez home in New Jersey, and in their subsequent investigation of the couples’ email and phone accounts, could have been stripped from an episode of “The Sopranos.”
Highlights of the indictment:
Nearly half a million dollars in cash was found stuffed inside envelopes and stashed inside the pockets of clothing hanging in the closets of the Menendez’s home in Englewood Cliffs, including a big roll of bills in a jacket from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus with Menendez’s name on it.
Fingerprints belonging to the driver of co-defendant Fred Daibes were found on at least one of the envelopes, as well as his DNA and his return address, prosecutors said. “Thank you,” Nadine Menendez texted Daibes around Jan. 24, 2022, according to the indictment. “Christmas in January.”
Patrice Schiano, a former FBI forensic accountant who is currently a lecturer at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said that’s “pretty damning.”
“It doesn’t surprise me that there might be cash hidden in the house because if they took it to the bank that’s going to be reported,” Schiano said. “But that’s going to be hard to defend because any jury is going to be like, ‘That’s a lot of cash in house’.”
Read the rest at the link, if you’re interested.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Democratic leaders on Friday called on Sen. Bob Menendez to resign, hours after federal prosecutors indicted him on bribery charges.
“The allegations in the indictment against Senator Menendez and four other defendants are deeply disturbing. These are serious charges that implicate national security and the integrity of our criminal justice system,” Murphy said in a statement. “The alleged facts are so serious that they compromise the ability of Senator Menendez to effectively represent the people of our state. Therefore, I am calling for his immediate resignation.”
The public statements by Murphy and state political leaders puts intense, possibly undeniable, pressure on New Jersey’s senior senator even after he struck a defiant tone in response to the allegations. Menendez is up for reelection in 2024 and had said before the charges that he would seek another term.
He remained resistant to his fellow Democrats’ calls Friday evening.
“Those who believe in justice believe in innocence until proven guilty. I intend to continue to fight for the people of New Jersey with the same success I’ve had for the past five decades,” Menendez said in a statement. “This is the same record of success these very same leaders have lauded all along. It is not lost on me how quickly some are rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat. I am not going anywhere.”
Like this has anything to do with Menendez’s ethnicity. That’s a pretty outrageous claim. Senate Democrats need to put pressure on Menendez to step down so the governor can appoint a Democrat to succeed him.
More interesting news stories:
Politico: Biden to join the picket line in UAW strike.
President Joe Biden will travel to Michigan to join the picket line of auto workers on strike nationwide, he said on Friday afternoon.
“Tuesday, I’ll go to Michigan to join the picket line and stand in solidarity with the men and women of UAW as they fight for a fair share of the value they helped create,” Biden wrote on X, the platform previously known as Twitter.
His decision to stand alongside the striking workers represents perhaps the most significant display of union solidarity ever by a sitting president. Biden’s announcement comes a week after he expressed solidarity with the UAW and said he “understand[s] the workers’ frustration.”
The announcement of his trip was seen as a seismic moment within certain segments of the labor community. “Pretty hard-core,” said one union adviser, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Biden had earlier attempted to send acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and senior adviser Gene Sperling, who has been the White House’s point person throughout the negotiations, to Detroit to assist with negotiations. However, the administration subsequently stood down following conversations with the union. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier Friday it was a “mutually agreed upon decision.”
Meanwhile, Trump is also headed for Michigan instead of the Republican primary debate, and he claimed he also might show up at the picket line (LOL)
Former President Donald Trump also has plans to visit Michigan next week. Despite backlash from Fain, the leading candidate in the Republican presidential primary will visit current and former workers next Wednesday — the same day his competitors in the field take the debate stage in California. A person familiar with Trump’s plans said that he is “unlikely to go to the picket line” but that such a stop “has not been ruled in or out.”
Trump’s connection to reality continues to deteriorate dramatically. Last night he claimed that General Mark Milley should be executed. Raw Story:
Donald Trump on Friday lashed out against a general who said he was forced to keep Trump in check during his presidency.
Trump, who has previously attacked General Milley in connection with other topics, unleashed a rant in which he said Milley’s behavior might warrant death. The ex-president’s attention was probably piqued by a lengthy report that recently detailed how Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley and several other military and intelligence officials had to restrain the former president’s worst impulses throughout his time in office.
On Friday, Trump came out swinging, blaming Milley for lives lost in the Afghanistan withdrawal.
“Mark Milley, who led perhaps the most embarrassing moment in American history with his grossly incompetent implementation of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, costing many lives, leaving behind hundreds of American citizens, and handing over BILLIONS of dollars of the finest military equipment ever made, will be leaving the military next week,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social social media site, created when he was banned from several others. “This will be a time for all citizens of the USA to celebrate!”
Trump continues, calling Milley a “woke train wreck.”
“This guy turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States,” Trump wrote on Friday. “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH! A war between China and the United States could have been the result of this treasonous act. To be continued!!!”
Trump should be in a straight jacket in a psychiatric hospital, not running for president.
Here’s another Republican who has apparently taken leave of his senses (or he’s just a racist). The Hill: Ted Cruz claims Democrats could parachute Michelle Obama in as presidential nominee.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) claimed Democrats could “parachute” Michelle Obama in as a presidential nominee if his theory of President Biden dropping out of the race holds true.
Cruz hosts the “Verdict with Ted Cruz” podcast, where he said Monday that he thinks Biden will leave the 2024 race.
“So here’s the scenario that I think is perhaps the most likely and most dangerous. In August of 2024, the Democrat kingmakers jettison Joe Biden and parachute in Michelle Obama,” he said. “I view this as a very serious danger.”
Cruz said choosing the former first lady as the Democratic nominee would be a decision the party could rally behind. Choosing a Black woman is a choice that would not disrupt the party or “infuriate African American women, which is a critical part of the constituency.”
Cruz said Obama would garner more Democratic support than any other potential replacement for Biden, including Vice President Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, or Elizabeth Warren.
What a moron.
On a more serious note, Politico reports: Jack Smith adds war crimes prosecutor — his deputy from the Hague — to special counsel team.
Special counsel Jack Smith has added a veteran war crimes prosecutor — who served as Smith’s deputy during his stint at the Hague — to his team as it prepares to put former President Donald Trump on trial in Washington and Florida.
Alex Whiting worked alongside Smith for three years, helping prosecute crimes against humanity that occurred in Kosovo in the late 1990s. The Yale-educated attorney also worked as a prosecutor with the International Criminal Court from 2010 to 2013. He has taught law classes at Harvard since 2007 as well, hired as an assistant professor by then-Dean Elena Kagan — now a Supreme Court justice — and rising to a visiting professorship in 2013.
Whiting’s precise role on Smith’s team is unclear. A spokesperson for Smith declined to comment, and Whiting did not immediately return requests for comment. The prosecutors’ office in the Hague and Harvard University also did not respond to requests for comment about Whiting’s current employment status.
But a POLITICO reporter observed Whiting at the U.S. district courthouse in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday and Thursday, spending several hours monitoring the trial of a Jan. 6 defendant. The judge in the case is Tanya Chutkan, who is slated to preside over Trump’s trial in March on federal charges stemming from his efforts to subvert the 2020 election.
During a break in the Jan. 6 trial this week, Whiting introduced himself to prosecutors as a new member of Smith’s team, saying he “just joined” the office.
From 2018 to 2022, Smith served as chief prosecutor in the Kosovo Specialist Chamber in the Hague. Whiting temporarily took over that office last year after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith as special counsel to lead the Trump investigations. Boston attorney Kim West was appointed to permanently succeed Smith in June but did not assume the role immediately.
Whiting has been a frequent commentator on the previous special counsel to investigate Trump: Robert Mueller, who investigated links between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign. Whiting wrote numerous articles and gave interviews assessing the strength of Mueller’s case against Trump, often siding with those who saw extreme legal peril for Trump over his efforts to curb the investigation.
Whiting’s addition to the team shows Smith is gearing up for a new phase of his efforts — preparing for trials that could send a former president to prison for the first time in U.S. history.
Finally, you might want to check out this long read at The New Republic by Ben Jacobs: Are “Never Trump” Republicans Actually Just Democrats Now?
A decade ago, Kristen Daddow-Rodriguez was a loyal Republican. Raised in Michigan, she voted automatically for the GOP in each election, even though she wasn’t wild about every candidate offered up by her party. She considered herself a fiscal conservative and social liberal who happily backed John McCain and Mitt Romney. Now, she is a dedicated Democratic activist in suburban Atlanta.
Daddow-Rodriguez is not exactly an outlier in American politics, although it may sometimes seem that way in this hyperpolarized era. After the 2016 election, there was a vogue in the media to understand how Donald Trump had possibly managed to win the presidency despite scandal after scandal. He received almost three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton—an early sign of the limits of his electoral might—but because most pollsters and experts had predicted a Clinton win, there was a desperate scramble across the Rust Belt to find the once Democratic voters who had cast a ballot for the Republican. Blue-collar diners from Allentown to Youngstown were swarmed with reporters determined to discern the secret of Donald Trump’s appeal.
In hindsight, that phenomenon may be eclipsed by another one: Republicans deserting their party precisely because of Trump, forming a demographic now familiarly known as “Never Trump Republicans.” Whether it was his xenophobic remarks about immigrants, his crude personal behavior, or his general disdain for the norms of American politics, many white, college-educated voters—long a bedrock of the GOP—cast their ballot either for Hillary Clinton or for a third-party candidate to avoid supporting Trump. The shock of his election kept this initially from being a broad focus in popular culture, but in special election after special election in the coming year, culminating in the 2018 midterms, it was clear there was a lasting revulsion from these Republicans toward the Trump-era GOP. This was reinforced in 2020, when these voters appear to have turned even more heavily against Trump, helping Joe Biden run the table in the most competitive swing states.
This tranche of voters is not huge, but they may be decisive—in 2020, 16 percent of self-identified moderate or liberal Republicans voted for Biden, according to an analysis by Pew, twice the share that did so in 2016. This even as Biden won a narrow electoral college victory by a combined margin of just under 43,000 votes in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin. Bryon Allen, a longtime Republican pollster and partner at WPA Intelligence, noted that, before Trump, Republicans in many suburban counties would get narrow majorities. “Now, without a [GOP Georgia Governor Brian] Kemp or a [GOP Virginia Governor Glenn] Youngkin or somebody who has particular appeal and the right issues … we might get 47 percent or 48 percent” in the same areas….
“I think Donald Trump was the gateway drug that has drawn a lot of otherwise pretty standard Republicans to the Democratic Party over the last eight or nine years,” Zac McCrary, a veteran Democratic pollster, told The New Republic. “And a Never Trump Republican in 2016, two or three cycles later, turns into a pretty conventional Democrat up and down the ballot.”
Again, its a long read; I’ve just posted the introduction.
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