“As Trump’s criminal trial winds down, Melania finally makes her way to the Manhattan Courthouse to support her embattled husband.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I think it’s obvious by now that we no longer have a two-party system. Neither of them was ever close to fine, but whatever theocratic, fascist right-wing cult that calls itself Republican these days is beyond a political party. They are incapable of governing. They have nothing to offer policy-wise that comes close to being conservative or constitutional. I’m not sure what’s propping them up at this point, but it’s getting beyond worrisome.
The judge in the criminal trial of former President Donald J. Trump said on Monday that the case would take longer than anticipated to wrap up, with closing arguments now not expected until next week.
“It was either have a long break now or have a long break then, and unfortunately the calendar is what it is,” said the judge, Juan M. Merchan, referring to the long weekend for Memorial Day.
The new schedule outlined by Justice Merchan meant that the jurors who would decide Mr. Trump’s innocence or guilt would not have the case in their hands until after the holiday. Next week will be the trial’s seventh.
After more than seven hours of sometimes bruising cross-examination over two days, Michael D. Cohen, former President Trump’s one-time lawyer and fixer, will return to the stand Monday to face final questions from the Trump defense team. Before Justice Merchan’s remarks on Monday, prosecutors were expected to rest their case as soon as Tuesday after Mr. Cohen steps down.
Court will be adjourned on Wednesday, the normal off day for the trial every week, but also on Friday and Monday, which is Memorial Day.
Mr. Cohen is the 19th — and most consequential — witness called by the Manhattan district attorney’s office in the first criminal trial of an American president. When the defense questioning concludes, prosecutors may re-interview Mr. Cohen.
After that, the defense has the opportunity to present its own case. On Thursday, Mr. Trump’s lawyers said that he had yet to decide whether he would testify, and it is unclear whether his lawyers might call other witnesses.
Will he actually testify? This is from Politico. “Trump claims he wants to testify at his trial. No one else thinks he should.
“Anybody testifying for their own sake, it doesn’t play out well,” said one Trump ally.”
On the eve of his criminal trial, Donald Trump told reporters in Florida that he would take the stand and testify if necessary. “All I can do is tell the truth,” Trump proclaimed.
That boast is about to be put to the test, as Trump and his defense team decide in the coming days whether to present him as a witness.
His Republican backers say the New York trial is a sham and prosecutors haven’t proven their case — so why bother? Former prosecutors say he would open himself up to all sorts of damaging questions, from whether he had sex with porn star Stormy Daniels to alleged fraudulent business practices and inquiries about his honesty that could be political and legal landmines.
“He’s somebody who’s not controlled, who is going to be all over the place,” said Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor and legal analyst.
As Trump’s historic criminal trial winds down, with closing arguments delivered as soon as next week, one of the biggest questions remaining (besides the jury’s verdict) is whether the former president will take the stand in his own defense. While there may be some political benefits to Trump testifying, including boasting to his supporters that he wasn’t afraid to tell his side of the story, the legal risks, many say, are too high.
I’m not about to guess if he’ll testify, but I can imagine he’s being told to not do it by everyone. The other thing I question is that if he doesn’t testify on his own behalf after whining continually about being gagged and unable to defend himself, what impact, if any, will it have on his cult and those Republican pols cowed into supporting him? I hope he does it. I’d watch even though every time he speaks, I shudder and feel sick.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the country’s foreign minister were found dead Monday hours after their helicopter crashed in fog, leaving the Islamic Republic without two key leaders as extraordinary tensions grip the wider Middle East.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in the Shiite theocracy, quickly named a little-known vice president as caretaker and insisted the government was in control, but the deaths mark yet another blow to a country beset by pressures both at home and abroad.
Iran has offered no cause for the crash nor suggested sabotage brought down the helicopter, which fell in mountainous terrain in a sudden, intense fog.
In Tehran, Iran’s capital, businesses were open and children attended school Monday. However, there was a noticeable presence of both uniformed and plainclothes security forces.
“We were shocked that we lost such a character, a character that made Iran proud, and humiliated the enemies,” said Mohammad Beheshti, 36.
The crash comes as the Israel-Hamas war roils the region. Iran-backed Hamas led the attack that started the conflict, and Hezbollah, also supported by Tehran, has fired rockets at Israel. Last month, Iran launched its own unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel.
Israel’s war policy is still the focus of the International Justice system. This is from a statement from the ICC. “ Statement of ICC Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan KC: Applications for arrest warrants in the situation in the State of Palestine.” Top of the list goes to Bibi Netanyahu and his Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant.
Today I am filing applications for warrants of arrest before Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court in the Situation in the State of Palestine.
On the basis of evidence collected and examined by my Office, I have reasonable grounds to believe that Yahya SINWAR (Head of the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”) in the Gaza Strip), Mohammed Diab Ibrahim AL-MASRI, more commonly known as DEIF (Commander-in-Chief of the military wing of Hamas, known as the Al-Qassam Brigades), and Ismail HANIYEH (Head of Hamas Political Bureau) bear criminal responsibility for the following war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of Israel and the State of Palestine (in the Gaza strip) from at least 7 October 2023:
Extermination as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(b) of the Rome Statute;
Murder as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(a), and as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
Taking hostages as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(iii);
Rape and other acts of sexual violence as crimes against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(g), and also as war crimes pursuant to article 8(2)(e)(vi) in the context of captivity;
Torture as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(f), and also as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i), in the context of captivity;
Other inhumane acts as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(l)(k), in the context of captivity;
Cruel treatment as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i), in the context of captivity; and
Outrages upon personal dignity as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(ii), in the context of captivity.
My Office submits that the war crimes alleged in these applications were committed in the context of an international armed conflict between Israel and Palestine, and a non-international armed conflict between Israel and Hamas running in parallel. We submit that the crimes against humanity charged were part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Israel by Hamas and other armed groups pursuant to organisational policies. Some of these crimes, in our assessment, continue to this day.
My Office submits there are reasonable grounds to believe that SINWAR, DEIF and HANIYEH are criminally responsible for the killing of hundreds of Israeli civilians in attacks perpetrated by Hamas (in particular its military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades) and other armed groups on 7 October 2023 and the taking of at least 245 hostages. As part of our investigations, my Office has interviewed victims and survivors, including former hostages and eyewitnesses from six major attack locations: Kfar Aza; Holit; the location of the Supernova Music Festival; Be’eri; Nir Oz; and Nahal Oz. The investigation also relies on evidence such as CCTV footage, authenticated audio, photo and video material, statements by Hamas members including the alleged perpetrators named above, and expert evidence.
It is the view of my Office that these individuals planned and instigated the commission of crimes on 7 October 2023, and have through their own actions, including personal visits to hostages shortly after their kidnapping, acknowledged their responsibility for those crimes. We submit that these crimes could not have been committed without their actions. They are charged both as co-perpetrators and as superiors pursuant to Articles 25 and 28 of the Rome Statute.
During my own visit to Kibbutz Be’eri and Kibbutz Kfar Aza, as well as to the site of Supernova Music Festival in Re’im, I saw the devastating scenes of these attacks and the profound impact of the unconscionable crimes charged in the applications filed today. Speaking with survivors, I heard how the love within a family, the deepest bonds between a parent and a child, were contorted to inflict unfathomable pain through calculated cruelty and extreme callousness. These acts demand accountability.
My Office also submits there are reasonable grounds to believe that hostages taken from Israel have been kept in inhumane conditions, and that some have been subject to sexual violence, including rape, while being held in captivity. We have reached that conclusion based on medical records, contemporaneous video and documentary evidence, and interviews with victims and survivors. My Office also continues to investigate reports of sexual violence committed on 7 October.
I wish to express my gratitude to the survivors, and the families of victims of the 7 October attacks, for their courage in coming forward to provide their accounts to my Office. We remain focused on further deepening our investigations of all crimes committed as part of these attacks and will continue to work with all partners to ensure that justice is delivered.
I again reiterate my call for the immediate release of all hostages taken from Israel and for their safe return to their families. This is a fundamental requirement of international humanitarian law.
“Bibi and I would like to thank you for your vote. … And such Lovely children. I’m sure I’ll meet them someday.” Bibi and War Guy.
The Israeli people–all of them–deserve better than Bibi and his fanatics. The subsequent indictments belong to them.
On the basis of evidence collected and examined by my Office, I have reasonable grounds to believe that Benjamin NETANYAHU, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Yoav GALLANT, the Minister of Defence of Israel, bear criminal responsibility for the following war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of the State of Palestine (in the Gaza strip) from at least 8 October 2023:
Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the Statute;
Wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health contrary to article 8(2)(a)(iii), or cruel treatment as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
Wilful killing contrary to article 8(2)(a)(i), or Murder as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
Intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as a war crime contrary to articles 8(2)(b)(i), or 8(2)(e)(i);
Extermination and/or murder contrary to articles 7(1)(b) and 7(1)(a), including in the context of deaths caused by starvation, as a crime against humanity;
Persecution as a crime against humanity contrary to article 7(1)(h);
Other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity contrary to article 7(1)(k).
My Office submits that the war crimes alleged in these applications were committed in the context of an international armed conflict between Israel and Palestine, and a non-international armed conflict between Israel and Hamas (together with other Palestinian Armed Groups) running in parallel. We submit that the crimes against humanity charged were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian civilian population pursuant to State policy. These crimes, in our assessment, continue to this day.
My Office submits that the evidence we have collected, including interviews with survivors and eyewitnesses, authenticated video, photo and audio material, satellite imagery and statements from the alleged perpetrator group, shows that Israel has intentionally and systematically deprived the civilian population in all parts of Gaza of objects indispensable to human survival.
This occurred through the imposition of a total siege over Gaza that involved completely closing the three border crossing points, Rafah, Kerem Shalom and Erez, from 8 October 2023 for extended periods and then by arbitrarily restricting the transfer of essential supplies – including food and medicine – through the border crossings after they were reopened. The siege also included cutting off cross-border water pipelines from Israel to Gaza – Gazans’ principal source of clean water – for a prolonged period beginning 9 October 2023, and cutting off and hindering electricity supplies from at least 8 October 2023 until today. This took place alongside other attacks on civilians, including those queuing for food; obstruction of aid delivery by humanitarian agencies; and attacks on and killing of aid workers, which forced many agencies to cease or limit their operations in Gaza.
My Office submits that these acts were committed as part of a common plan to use starvation as a method of war and other acts of violence against the Gazan civilian population as a means to (i) eliminate Hamas; (ii) secure the return of the hostages which Hamas has abducted, and (iii) collectively punish the civilian population of Gaza, whom they perceived as a threat to Israel.
The effects of the use of starvation as a method of warfare, together with other attacks and collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza are acute, visible and widely known, and have been confirmed by multiple witnesses interviewed by my Office, including local and international medical doctors. They include malnutrition, dehydration, profound suffering and an increasing number of deaths among the Palestinian population, including babies, other children, and women.
Here are a few last links to suggest for y’all before I head down to the corner store for a bag of cat food. (Via Memeorandum)
Liz Dye / Public Notice: Why isn’t Donald Trump in jail already? — Donald Smith would be in a cell by now! … “Why isn’t Donald Trump in jail already?” — It’s a fair question, particularly in light of the flagrant gag order violations in Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial, both by the man himself and his surrogates.
*About the headline: Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “Justice too long delayed is justice denied” in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” which was smuggled out of prison in 1963.
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I’m getting really sick of the constant TV coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas. Yes, it’s an important story, and needs to be covered. But do we really need to see and hear about it 24-7, while the cable networks ignore just about everything else? Dakinikat remarked to me a few days ago that it seems our generation have seen wars play out on TV now for most of our lives, beginning with Vietnam. She’s right. It’s so sad and depressing.
And . . . It appears that the explosion at the hospital in Gaza was caused by a failed Hamas rocket, not a bomb from an Israeli airplane. Meanwhile, the fatally flawed U.S. media reported it as an attack by Israel on civilians. Meanwhile the media blamed it on Israel without waiting for any evidence. I’m sick and tired of the DC media too.
President Joe Biden on Wednesday expressed agreement with Israel in denying that the Israeli military was responsible for a catastrophic explosion at a hospital in Gaza that left hundreds dead.
On Tuesday night Hamas—which rules Gaza—blamed an Israeli airstrike for the disaster at the Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital, which Gaza health officials said killed 500 people. On Wednesday morning, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) published evidence that it claimed showed that a failed rocket launch from inside the enclave was to blame, with Biden saying U.S. intelligence led him to believe Israel was not at fault.
“Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you,” Biden said, speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Biden later said he’d drawn his conclusion based on “the data I was shown by my Defense Department.”
“Like the entire world, I was outraged and saddened by the enormous loss of life yesterday in the hospital in Gaza,” Biden said in a second speech Wednesday, reiterating that the blast “appears the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza.” [….]
IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari claimed in a statement early Wednesday that Islamic Jihad, the second-biggest militant group in Gaza, “was responsible” for the hospital explosion. He said that at 6:59 p.m. local time on Tuesday, Islamic Jihad launched a barrage of 10 rockets from a cemetery. Reports of an explosion at the hospital also emerged at the same time, Hagari added.
Vietnam reporting on TV
“According to our intelligence, Hamas checked the reports, understood it was an Islamic Jihad rocket that had misfired—and decided to launch a global media campaign to hide what really happened,” Hagari said. “They went as far as inflating the number of casualties.”
The statement from Hagari did not clarify what the IDF believed the true number of casualties of the hospital explosion to be. He did, however, say aerial footage showed there was “no direct hit of the hospital itself,” with a parking lot outside the facility being “the only location damaged.” Hagari said if the blast had been caused “by an aerial munition,” it would have caused craters and structural damage to buildings—neither of which had been detected.
This story is behind a paywall, so I’m going to give you a bit more:
Hagari went on to criticize media outlets that “immediately reported the unverified claims by Hamas.” “It is impossible to know what happened as quickly as Hamas claimed they knew,” he added. “That should have been an initial warning sign for many.”
He also explained that the IDF confirmed that “there was no IDF fire—by land, sea or air—that hit the hospital.” At the same time, Hagari said, Israeli radar tracked rockets launched from inside Gaza at the time of the explosion. “The trajectory analysis from the barrage of rockets confirms that the rockets were fired in close proximity to the hospital.”
Hagari said “two independent videos” also showed the failure of the rocket launch and its trajectory toward the ground as it fell in the hospital compound. The IDF also released a recording of a conversation “between terrorists talking about the rocket misfiring.”
American officials say they have multiple strands of intelligence — including infrared satellite data — indicating that the deadly blast at a Gaza hospital on Tuesday was caused by Palestinian fighters.
The intelligence includes satellite and other infrared data showing a launch of a rocket or missile from Palestinian fighter positions within Gaza. American intelligence agencies have also analyzed open-source video of the launch showing that it did not come from the direction of Israeli military positions, the officials said. Israeli officials have also provided the United States with intercepts of Hamas officials saying the strike came from forces aligned with Palestinian militant groups.
“While we continue to collect information, our current assessment, based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open-source information, is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday,” said Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council.
Other U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive information, cautioned that the analysis was preliminary and that they were continuing to collect and analyze evidence. Multiple officials said the evidence gathered so far refutes claims that Israeli forces were responsible for the blast and was strong enough for President Biden to make comments supporting Israel’s account of events….
A senior Defense Department official said based on the launch data collected by infrared sensors that the United States is “fairly confident” the launch did not come from Israeli forces.
Israel said Wednesday that it will allow Egypt to deliver limited quantities of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, the first crack in a 10-day siege on the territory. Palestinians reeled from a massive blast at a Gaza City hospital that killed hundreds the day before and grew increasingly desperate as food and water supplies ran out.
Israeli-Hamas conflict reported in 2021.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the decision was approved after a request from visiting U.S. President Joe Biden. It said Israel “will not thwart” deliveries of food, water or medicine, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip and don’t go to Hamas militants. The statement made no mention of badly needed fuel.
It was not clear when the aid would start flowing. At Rafah crossing, Gaza’s only connection to Egypt, truckloads of aid have been waiting for days to enter. But the facility has only a limited capacity, and Egypt says it has been damaged by Israeli airstrikes.
Israel’s announcement came as rage over Tuesday night’s blast at al-Ahli Hospital spread across the Middle East, and just as Biden began his visit to Israel in hopes of preventing a wider conflict in the region. The war started when Hamas militants rampaged across communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Back in Washington, the Republicans are supposedly trying to elect a Speaker of the House, but I have to ask, are they really trying to choose a gang leader?
Jim Jordan’s allies attempted to badger House Republicans into making him speaker. Those tactics backfired on Tuesday, and could soon doom his speakership push outright.
The Ohio Republican’s most vocal GOP defectors during Tuesday’s failed speaker vote said they were pressured to back Jordan by party bosses back home and national conservatives with big megaphones. Most of those skeptics viewed it as a coordinated push with a threatening theme: Vote for Jordan — or else.
The arm-twisting campaign, which in many cases included veiled threats of primary challenges, was meant to help rally support behind Jordan’s candidacy. Instead, it has put the Judiciary chair’s bid on life support and threatened to plunge House Republicans deeper into turmoil with no clear way out.
“Jim’s been nice, one-on-one, but his broader team has been playing hardball,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) told POLITICO about Jordan’s network of supporters, adding that he’s been getting calls from party chairs back in Nebraska. He added that his wife even received multiple anonymous emails and texts saying: “your husband better support Jim Jordan.”
He’s not the only one who faced significant pressure. Other Republicans, too, told POLITICO they have received a barrage of calls from local conservative leaders. They blame the onslaught on his backers even though, by all accounts, he isn’t directly involved. Even some of Jordan’s supporters acknowledge that the aggressive moves have set him back ahead of a potential second speaker ballot….
Acknowledging that his speaker bid is in limbo, Jordan punted his plan to hold a second vote on Tuesday after Republicans privately warned he was at risk of seeing his opponents’ numbers grow. Instead, he is expected to huddle with allies and make calls in an attempt to get his bid back on track before a second vote as soon as Wednesday.
“We’re going to keep working, and we’re going to get the votes,” Jordan said on Tuesday night, saying that Republicans were having “great conversations.”
Rep. Don Bacon speaks about the January 6 Capitol attack.
The wife of Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) reportedly received anonymous text messages and emails warning her husband to back Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R-OH) House speakership campaign ahead of Tuesday’s vote….
Bacon — who was one of 20 Republicans who voted against Jordan for speaker — also told the news outlet that his wife had received “multiple anonymous emails and texts” pressuring him to vote for Jordan.
Politico reporter Olivia Beavers shared several screenshots of the text messages sent to Bacon’s wife from anonymous senders who refused to identify themselves.
“Why is your husband causing chaos by not supporting Jim Jordan? I thought he was a team player,” read one text, to which Bacon’s wife responded, “Who is this???”
The anonymous sender then warned, “Your husband will not hold any political office ever again. What a disappoint [sic] and failure he is.
A former Ohio State University wrestler who accused Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, of ignoring sexual abuse at the college criticized Jordan for “turn[ing] his back” on members of the team while a coach.
Former Ohio State wrestler Will Knight said he disagreed with Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who called the Ohio Republican a “fighter” in a speech Tuesday.
“People always call Jim Jordan a fighter, and I always wonder who he’s fighting for, because he had a real opportunity to fight for us,” Knight said in an interview with CNN. “All he’s done is turn his back on us.”
Hundreds of former athletes and students are suing Ohio State University in a case that alleges the university failed to protect them from a sexual predator who served as the assistant coach on their team during the 1980s and 90s. Jordan was an assistant wrestling coach on the team at the time and has denied knowing what was going on.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) tried to make the case for Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) as House speaker on Tuesday, but her comments caused some members of Congress to audibly gasp.
While nominating Jordan for the job, Stefanik claimed that he “is the voice of the American people who have felt voiceless for far too long. Whether as judiciary chair, conservative leader, or representative for his constituents in West Central Ohio, whether on the wrestling mat or in the committee room, Jim Jordan is strategic, scrappy, tough and principled.”
Jim Jordan with a photo insert of him as a College wrestler.
The “wrestling mat” comment may not have left the impression Stefanik intended.
When Jordan was an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University between 1986 and 1994, he reportedly ignored molestation allegations against the team’s doctor, Richard Strauss.
Although Jordan has denied that he knew anything about the allegations, Mike DiSabato, a former wrestler and friend of Jordan’s, said in 2018 that the lawmaker “is absolutely lying if he says he doesn’t know what was going on.”
“He doesn’t deserve to be House speaker,” Yetts said. “He still has to answer for what happened to us.”
A 2019 report from the university found that Strauss, who died in 2005, committed nearly 1,500 sexual assaults on student-patients while he worked there.
A couple more stories on the House Speaker search:
Jordan’s missed-it-by-that-much candidacy for the third most powerful position in America is a sobering reminder that however principled some in the GOP might be, far-right extremists are firmly in control of the party — even if they can’t quite elect a Speaker of the House.
Jordan can thank Republicans representing districts Joe Biden won in 2020 for most of his vote-counting woes. Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon, a vocal Jordan critic, represents an area Biden won by 6 points. New York Reps. Mike Lawler and Anthony D’Esposito won areas Biden carried by 20 and 12 points, respectively. Their refusal to support Jordan amounted to an admission that Jordan’s brand of conspiracy-driven politics is poisonous to swing district voters.
In a statement on just how divided the House Republicans truly are, Jordan lost more than twice as many Republicans in his bid for Speaker (20) as Rep. Kevin McCarthy lost in the vote that ultimately ousted him (8). Jordan’s vote breakdown reveals a House Republican Caucus more divided than it was during McCarthy’s fractious 15-round elect-a-thon. GOP leaders hoped two weeks away from office would help mend the party’s festering wounds. Instead, things have only gotten worse.
On Monday, Jordan irritated some of his Freedom Caucus colleagues by assuring skeptical Republicans that he would allow votes on additional Ukrainian military aid. That’s the same Ukrainian spending that Jordan’s Freedom Caucus colleagues cited as a reason for giving McCarthy the boot. As Jordan discovered on Tuesday, the strict fundamentalism of the MAGA movement is totally incompatible with the compromises required in governing.
Signs of the party’s continued fracture were everywhere ahead of Jordan’s ill-fated vote. Earlier on Tuesday, Colorado Rep. Ken Buck had sought assurances from Jordan that the 2020 election was, in fact, legitimate. Judging by Jordan’s stony silence when asked by reporters about his bogus claims of 2020 election fraud, there is still at least one concession Jordan isn’t willing to make in his quest for power. Jordan’s intractability likely cost him as many votes as his abhorrent political views.
But after the House holds another vote on Jordan’s speakership Wednesday morning, Republicans aren’t expected to be any closer to ending their nightmare either. [NOTE: That didn’t happen.]
In fact, they may be further away.
While Jordan was able to flip at least one member who voted against him by Tuesday evening, rumors were flying around the Capitol that more Republicans planned to vote against Jordan on the next ballot—a potential death knell for Jordan’s candidacy and a signal that the archconservative Ohio Republican should perhaps step aside for someone else.
Publicly, however, Jordan—the chief architect of the modern day House GOP’s legislative hardball tactics—showed no signs of bowing out. Instead, he wanted to continue applying pressure on his detractors, with the help of his allies in right-wing media, and even to blame current House GOP leaders for not getting him the votes.
One rift that was already emerging Tuesday involved Jordan and his initial rival for the speakership: Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA).
Last week, Jordan narrowly lost to Scalise in a private vote for the party’s speakership nomination. Afterward, Jordan allegedly told Scalise he would back him as the conference’s pick for one ballot—with the expectation that Scalise would drop out and endorse Jordan if he didn’t get the speakership on the first vote.
And that didn’t happen either.
Scalise chose not to even go to the floor, after it was clear he couldn’t get the near-unanimous GOP support it would take to win.
After winning the nomination himself, Jordan faced the same problem. But he decided to move to a floor vote anyway, hoping that the prospect of putting his colleagues on the record publicly—under the scrutiny of a fired-up conservative base—would deliver him a victory.
The strategy didn’t work.
But instead of stepping aside, Jordan is moving ahead with another vote, and sources indicated to The Daily Beast that Jordan is blaming everyone but himself for his lackluster showing on Tuesday.
“Attacking members and laying the blame anywhere but your own feet when you’re 20 votes down shows you don’t know the first thing about bridging divides,” a senior GOP aide told The Daily Beast. “This is 2013 Jim Jordan all over again and it shows he’s not mature enough to lead the conference.”
Read more at the link.
So those are the top two news events going on today. What other stories have you been following?
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It’s not uncommon for violence to break out between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza. It typically goes like this: Hamas throws rockets over the Gaza border into Israel, most of which are intercepted by the Iron Dome — Israel’s very sophisticated missile defense system. The impact in Israel is usually minimized.
Israel then responds with airstrikes on the densely populated Gaza Strip.
But what happened last weekend was unprecedented in its scale and coordination.
Militants attacked Israeli communication towers with improvised explosives, they breached the Gaza-Israel border fence within minutes and assumed control of several Israeli communities. They paraglided over the border and gunned down civilians at a music festival.
Hamas killed 1,200 people in the attack, and took dozens hostage, including women, children and the elderly — all while Israel’s military was late to respond. It was the deadliest attack Israel has seen in decades.
In retaliation, Israel has laid siege to Gaza with hundreds of airstrikes that have killed at least 1,000 Palestinians and displaced more than 200,000 people. It has cut off electricity, food and fuel supplies.
Speaking to mayors of the southern border towns that were hit by the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel’s response “will change the Middle East.”
Troops have now amassed for a possible ground invasion of Gaza – which last happened in 2014 and resulted in at least 2,000 Palestinians killed, and more than 70 on the Israeli side. It’s the biggest escalation in the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in recent years.
But experts who follow the region closely point to key developments over the past year in Israel and the Palestinian territories that set the stage for this explosion of violence.
Israel says it has reinforced its northern area with thousands of extra units after trading fire with Lebanon.
Its army shelled militant targets in Lebanon after two missiles were fired at an Israeli military post near the unofficial border.
Three people were injured in the shelling which hit several towns and villages, Lebanese state media said.
The Hezbollah movement said the missiles were a response to the killing of three of its fighters on Monday.
The exchange came as Israel bombed Gaza in retaliation for Palestinian militant group Hamas’ unprecedented attack.
Turning from Inner War to Inner Peace, by Monika Kretschmar
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said an anti-tank missile was fired from Lebanon towards an Israeli military post near the village of Arab al-Aramshe, which is just south of the UN-demarcated Blue Line – the unofficial border which separates Israel and Lebanon.
Hezbollah said it targeted the position “in a decisive retaliation to Zionist aggression on Monday”. It claimed that the missile caused several Israeli casualties.
The IDF said that as part of its response to the attack, aircraft attacked an observation post inside Lebanon belonging to Hezbollah. Artillery also shelled the missile launch site. It did not report any casualties among its troops.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that three civilians were wounded and 10 houses were damaged by Israeli fire in the town of Marwahin. The towns of Yarin, and Dharya were also hit, it said.
“We have deployed tens of thousands additional units along the northern border,” IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus said on Wednesday, referring to infantry, special forces, armoured forces, artillery, air forces and intelligence.
“The message to Hezbollah is very clear. If they will try to attack, we are ready and vigilant along our border,” he added.
You know, there are moments in this life — and I mean this literally — when the pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world.
The people of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend. The bloody hands of the terrorist organization Hamas — a group whose stated purpose for being is to kill Jews.
This was an act of sheer evil.
More than 1,000 civilians slaughtered — not just killed, slaughtered — in Israel. Among them, at least 14 American citizens killed.
Parents butchered using their bodies to try to protect their children.
Stomach-turning reports of being — babies being killed.
Entire families slain.
Imagine, by Lisa Botto Lee
Young people massacred while attending a musical festival to celebrate peace — to celebrate peace.
Women raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies.
Families hid their fear for hours and hours, desperately trying to keep their children quiet to avoid drawing attention.
And thousands of wounded, alive but carrying with them the bullet holes and the shrapnel wounds and the memory of what they endured.
You all know these traumas never go away.
There are still so many families desperately waiting to hear the fate of their loved ones, not knowing if they’re alive or dead or hostages.
Infants in their mothers’ arms, grandparents in wheelchairs, Holocaust survivors abducted and held hostage — hostages whom Hamas has now threatened to execute in violation of every code of human morality.
It’s abhorrent.
The brutality of Hamas — this bloodthirstiness — brings to mind the worst — the worst rampages of ISIS.
Nine United Nations staff members have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza since Saturday, the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees confirmed Wednesday.
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said nine staffers have been killed in airstrikes since the start of Israel’s counterattack on Gaza, with several of the staff members killed late Tuesday.
Deborah Milton, I wish I could
“The protection of civilians is paramount, including in times of conflict,” Juliette Touma, UNRWA director of communications, told The Associated Press. “They should be protected in accordance with the laws of war.”
The strikes are part of an aggressive counteroffensive by the Israeli military, after the Palestinian militant group Hamas sent a barrage of rocket strikes and militants into the country Saturday in a surprise attack, leaving behind horrific scenes of brutalized villages along the border….
By Wednesday, several neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip had been demolished after the Israeli military pounded the area with air strikes.
Touma told the AP the U.N. staff members were killed in their homes across the Gaza Strip. She said the UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City and many schools-turned-shelters were damaged as well.
The U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, said Tuesday that clear evidence has emerged showing war crimes being committed on both sides of the conflict.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is flying to Israel on Wednesday in a show of support for the country as it begins a major offensive campaign in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in response to a wave of deadly cross-border attacks by the militant group.
The top U.S. diplomat is expected to meet with senior Israeli officials to receive an update on the security situation and inquire what else the United States can provide to Israel as it works to regain control of its border, free hostages and destroy Hamas’s operational capacity following the surprise attacks by gunmen who inflicted the bloodiest day in Israel’s 75-year history.
“It will be a message of solidarity and support,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in describing the thrust of the trip.
Since the Hamas invasion on Saturday morning and massacre of Israeli civilians, Blinken has made a flurry of calls with his counterparts in the Middle East in an effort to have U.S. allies and partners send a clear message to Iran, Hezbollah and Palestinians in the West Bank to refrain from entering the conflict.
“We’ve been on the phones throughout our government over the last 24 hours, engaging everyone in the region and well beyond,” Blinken told CNN on Sunday, “both to make sure that there is support for Israel and that every country is using every effort to pull Hamas back and to prevent this from escalating.”
Israeli officials have made several specific requests to Washington in response to the military offensive by Hamas, including a replenishment of Iron Dome ground-to-air missile interceptors, small-diameter bombs, ammunition for machine guns and heightened cooperation on intelligence-sharing particularly in southern Lebanon, according to U.S. officials familiar with the requests.
“President Biden’s direction was to make sure that we’re providing Israel everything it needs in this moment to deal with the attacks from Hamas,” Blinken said.
Heal the World, by Hiske Bain
Back in the U.S., House Republicans are still trying to figure out what to do about finding a new Speaker. It’s not looking good at the moment. The choice so far is between two deeply flawed candidates: Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise. Jordan is tainted by a sexual abuse scandal when he was a wrestling coach at Ohio State; Scalise once referred to himself as “David Duke without the baggage.” He’s also being treated for an aggressive form of cancer.
Former Ohio State wrestlers who accuse Jim Jordan of ignoring sexual abuse when he was a coach said the hard-right Republican should not be elected speaker of the US House.
“Do you really want a guy in that job who chose not to stand up for his guys?” Mike Schyck, one of hundreds of wrestlers who say they were assaulted by a team doctor, told NBC News. “Is that the kind of character trait you want for a House speaker?”
Another former wrestler, Dunyasha Yetts, told NBC: “He doesn’t deserve to be House speaker. He still has to answer for what happened to us.”
Jordan, 59 and a founder of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, is competing for the speakership with Steve Scalise, the majority leader from Louisiana, after the historic ejection of Kevin McCarthy by disgruntled right-wingers last week. Jordan has secured the endorsement of Donald Trump, the presidential frontrunner whose supporters orchestrated McCarthy’s defenestration.
Before entering politics, Jordan was an assistant OSU wrestling coach from 1986 to 1994. Former athletes have said he ignored rampant sexual abuse by Richard Strauss, a team doctor who died in 2005.
A bit more:
Jordan has long denied helping orchestrate a cover-up. On Tuesday, a spokesperson told NBC: “Chairman Jordan never saw or heard of any abuse, and if he had, he would have dealt with it.”
But Jordan also refused to co-operate with an official investigation which found Strauss’s abuse was an “open secret”, and that “coaches, trainers and other team physicians were fully aware of Strauss’ activities, and yet few seemed inclined to do anything to stop it”.
Healing from the Inside, by Kathryn Rutherford
At one hearing, another former wrestler, Adam DiSabato, said: “Jim Jordan called me crying, crying, groveling, on the Fourth of July … begging me to go against my brother, begging me, crying for half an hour. That’s the kind of cover-up that’s going on here. He’s a coward. He’s a coward.”
Yetts has previously said: “If Jordan says he didn’t know about it, then he’s lying.”
Speaking to NBC, another former wrestler, Rocky Ratliff, said Jordan “abandoned his former wrestlers in the Ohio State sexual abuse scandal and cover-up”….
Schyck told NBC he was himself a Republican, and Jordan “was somebody I revered, somebody I looked up to.
“If early on he jumped in on our side and validated what we were saying, what everybody knew about what Dr Strauss was doing to us, then this wouldn’t be happening. But he decided early on, for reasons I still don’t understand, that he was going to deny knowing anything about this.
As everyone here knows, Jordan is also not very bright and a lying MAGA conspiracy theorist.
House Republicans were expected to meet this morning at 10:00, and they are voting now. Neither candidate is believed to have the votes to be elected. Financial Times: House Republicans begin voting on nominee for Speaker.
House Republicans have started voting for their nominee for Speaker, amid a growing sense of urgency to determine who will lead the lower house and address pressing issues on the US’s domestic and international agendas.
Steve Scalise, the House majority leader, and Jim Jordan, who chairs the judiciary committee, made their cases to colleagues in a closed-door forum on Tuesday evening, although neither candidate was in a position to claim the upper hand ahead of Wednesday’s conference vote. The two rival candidates are vying for support on the private ballot, after eight rebels led an unprecedented revolt against Kevin McCarthy last week. Ken Buck, a Republican from Colorado, told the FT he voted “present” for Speaker after neither Scalise nor Jordan adequately answered his question on Tuesday about who won the 2020 presidential election. “It’s a yes or no question,” he said.
“I don’t think anybody has 217 [votes],” Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene said on Tuesday night. “If it comes out that neither one of them can get there, then yes, we’re going to have to produce another candidate.” For Republicans, the lack of a clear outcome risks a replay of events in January, when it took a record 15 rounds of voting for the party to elect McCarthy as Speaker. More broadly, the abrupt downfall of the former Speaker last week has created chaos in the House. The lower chamber is at a standstill, unable to pass legislation, as the US weighs whether to provide additional aid to Israel and Ukraine in their respective conflicts with Hamas and Russia. Lawmakers must also pass a spending bill by November 17 to avoid a US government shutdown.
Federal prosecutors hit Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., with 23 additional charges Tuesday, including allegations of identity theft and that he charged a supporter’s credit card in excess of the supporter’s contribution and then transferred the money to his personal bank account.
Prosecutors said Santos faces “one count of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, two counts of wire fraud, two counts of making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), two counts of falsifying records submitted to obstruct the FEC, two counts of aggravated identity theft, and one count of access device fraud” in a superseding indictment filed Tuesday.
Keith Morant, Requiem
“As alleged, Santos is charged with stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization, lying to the FEC and, by extension, the public about the financial state of his campaign. Santos falsely inflated the campaign’s reported receipts with non-existent loans and contributions that were either fabricated or stolen,” Breon Peace, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement….
Prosecutors said in a news release that the scheme included falsely claiming that relatives of Santos and his then-campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, had donated big bucks to his campaign to make it appear that he was raising more money than he actually was in order to qualify for assistance from the national party.
“To create the public appearance that his campaign had met that financial benchmark” for additional funds from the Republican Party “and was otherwise financially viable, Santos and Marks agreed to falsely report to the FEC that at least 10 family members of Santos and Marks had made significant financial contributions to the campaign when Santos and Marks both knew that these individuals had neither made the reported contributions nor given authorization for their personal information to be included in such false public reports.”
He is also alleged to have been involved in a credit card scheme in which the campaign would charge contributors’ credit cards repeatedly and above FEC individual contribution limits.
A group of House Republicans from New York are introducing a resolution to expel Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., from Congress.
“Today, I’ll be introducing an expulsion resolution to rid the People’s House of fraudster George Santos,” Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-N.Y., said in a post on the social media platform X.
He said the resolution will be co-sponsored by fellow New York House Republicans Nick LaLota, Mike Lawler, Marc Molinaro, Nick Langworthy and Brandon Williams.
The move comes a day after federal prosecutors issued Santos a 23–count superseding indictment alleging he committed identity theft, fraud and other offenses. Santos, who was first indicted in May, has said he plans on fighting the charges. He pleaded not guilty to the charges in the original 13-count indictment earlier this year.
Those are the top stories today. What are your thoughts? What other stories are you following?
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I really was looking for something meaty to post about today but there seems to be mostly about the slide of the Republican Party into abject delusion and insanity. Last night, on Brian Williams, I had to look twice at the sight of Rudy Guiliani basically being a hype man for the My Pillow psycho. Guiliani evidently has a youtube channel and last night’s performance of abject fellating of a man that could help him with his legal bills was eye-opening. I thought it resembled that old Dan Ackroyd SNL character.
This is from Newsweek: “Rudy Giuliani Features MyPillow Ads as Mike Lindell Says Donald Trump Will Be President in August’.
Rudy Giuliani, an attorney for Republican former President Donald Trump, is running advertisements for MyPillow on his YouTube show. Meanwhile, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has publicly said that Trump will return to the White House in August despite losing the 2020 election.
“I’m been sleeping on MyPillows for some time. I love them. They’re simply the very best pillows ever made,” Giuliani said in the most recent episode of his YouTube show, Rudy Giuliani’s Common Sense. The 53-minute episode asked whether UFOs are real, in reference to a forthcoming Pentagon report on UFOs.
Giuliani continued the ad by stating that he “just found out” that MyPillow also offers other non-pillow products. When mentioning their slippers, he brandished a pair at the camera.
GEORGES ROUAULT (1871-1958) Clown de profil
BB talked about some of this craziness yesterday. I think he’s doing his usual signalling to the hounds of hell to give him another coup attempt in August. This is Amanda Marcotte’s take:”How do we report on Trump’s dastardly schemes without amplifying his lies and incitement? Trump’s blog failed, so he’s inciting followers through media leaks. Does that make journalists his accomplices?”
It is likely no coincidence that right around that time, stories based on claims by anonymous sources “close to Trump” (which often means Trump himself) started to tick up. It began when New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, a longtime outlet for Trump “leaks”, tweeted that Trump has been telling people close to him that he believes he’ll reinstated as president in August. This tweet echoed a conspiracy theory from the QAnon and Q-adjacent world, and coincided with an uptick in far-right chatter about how the American right should look to Myanmar’s February military coup for inspiration.
After Haberman’s tweet, the Washington Post strengthened this narrative with a story about how Trump is “increasingly consumed with the notion that ballot reviews pushed by his supporters around the country could prove that he won” and is peddling the idea that such “audits” — which are deliberately messy and nonsensical affairs — “could result in his return to the White House this year.” The Daily Beast confirmed that “the ex-president had begun increasingly quizzing confidants about a potential August return to power.” This reporting gave Fox News all the excuse they needed to amplify the message. Even though that came in the form of Lara Trump, his daughter-in-law, denying the reporting, the end result was another round of news stories reinforcing the basic concepts: August is the month. A violent coup. Trump’s miraculous reinstatement.
This is entirely too similar to the way Trump got the message out to his followers to stage a revolt on Jan. 6, through winking and nudging. So far, the big difference is that no exact date and location, as far as I can tell, has been established for a MAGA uprising.
As much as liberals resist the idea that Trump has any wits at all, what he’s doing is not exactly mysterious. He wants to get this particular message out, vaguely claiming that a glorious revolution will restore him to power later this year, and he’s using the mainstream press to do it. To make things worse, he’s exploiting the liberal desire to point at him and laugh to spread the message further. Every time a liberal shares one of these stories and calls Trump and his followers “delusional” for thinking that some extra-constitutional return to power is possible, they help spread the word — while also reminding Trump supporters how “owned” liberals would be if there really were a “storm” that swept Trump back into the White House in August.
Is it to avoid this too?
Eric Trump complains about the avalanche of Trump subpoenas, confirms multiple investigations pending:
But the nutter parade continues with the ever-shrinking numbers of screeching, hateful, white nationalist evangelical Christians. This is good news. Their numbers are shrinking. This is from NPR: “How Is The GOP Adjusting To A Less Religious America?” My days in that party got limited the minute they come in riding the tails of Ronnie Raygun and Pat Rob’em all Robertson. Talk about another grift operation. No wonder they grabbed onto Mister Two Corinthians.
The Clown by Auguste Renoir, 1868
In fact, the U.S. recently passed a religious milestone: For the first time, a majority of Americans are not church members, Gallup found this spring.
Over the last decade, the share of Republicans who are church members fell from 75% to 65%, according to Gallup. That’s a solid majority but also a sizable fall.
The key bloc of white evangelicals is also shrinking as a share of the population, while the share of religiously unaffiliated Americans grows.
This makes religion one key part of a looming, long-term demographic challenge for Republicans, says Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster.
“Republicans clearly have a stronger hold among the religiously affiliated, especially evangelical Protestants. And consequently, any decline in evangelical Protestant affiliation is not good news for the GOP,” he said.
The upshot, to Ayres, is that a party still deeply entwined with conservative Christianity and, particularly, white evangelicals will eventually have to win over more Christian conservatives — for example, among the growing Hispanic electorate — or make gains among substantially less-religious groups, like young voters.
Already, they’re directly inserting themselves in the Israeli ousting of Bibi. This is from All Israel News. “Will Christians support new Israeli government? Many will. But one prominent Evangelical has declared war on Naftali Bennett, sent scathing letter denouncing him with profanity – ‘I will fight you every step of the way'”. They just can’t seem to stick to clothing and feeding the poor and homeless.
The apparently imminent demise of the Netanyahu government is coming as a shock to the 60 million pro-Israel Evangelical Christians in the United States.
In recent days, I have received many concerned emails and text messages from Evangelical leaders asking me what is happening, why, and what the implications of this political earthquake are likely to be.
By and large, Evangelicals have come to love and respect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest serving premier in the history of modern Israel.
By contrast, most have never heard of Naftali Bennett, the right-wing former chief of staff to Netanyahu and former defense minister in Netanyahu’s Cabinet, who now appears poised to replace Netanyahu as the nation’s next prime minister.
Most have not heard of Yair Lapid, the centrist former finance minister and incoming foreign minister, either.
But they will soon.
To be clear, it is far too early to be sure that Bennett and Lapid and their colleagues will actually be sworn into office.
They have many opponents, who are working feverishly to derail their nascent new government.
But if they do come to power, one key question is whether Bennett and Lapid can quickly build relationships and trust with American Evangelicals – and Evangelicals worldwide – who are among the most important strategic allies that the State of Israel has.
There’s also one less congregation in Tennessee. This former California TV star–who I never heard of–and his now late wife preached fat people could not get into heaven because of the sin of gluttony. Their schtick was a diet. I think if you see the pictures you’ll see this poor woman had body dysmorphia. These kinds of things really confuse me. Guess where they were going?
REVEALED: Plane carrying Tarzan star Joe Lara and five others 'was en route to MAGA rally' when it crashed https://t.co/0ZuzQqiEkO
Clown tragique Georges Rouault Date: 1911 Style: Expressi
You have to wonder what the discussions these days are between George and brother Jeb Bush on this. From WAPO: “George P. Bush is running for attorney general in Texas — and courting Trump.” Trump was brutal during the first primary and “low energy Jeb” took a lot of hits.
George P. Bush’s campaign video does not mention the Republican political dynasty that preceded him. Not his father, the former governor of Florida. Nor his uncle, the 43rd president of the United States. Nor his grandfather, the 41st.
The video does pay homage to former president Donald Trump.
“Under the leadership of President Trump our country was strong and vibrant again, but because of the failed leadership of liberal ideas, our country is suffering,” said George P. Bush, who this week launched a 2022 bid to become Texas attorney general. The state land commissioner is channeling and courting Trump despite the 45th president’s past attacks on elder members of the Bush family — a sign of Trump’s still-strong hold on a transformed GOP.
Scholars of Texas politics said the Bush name can still be a plus in the state, but also saw Trump’s endorsement as a big prize in the GOP primary for attorney general, where George P. Bush will face incumbent Attorney General Ken Paxton. Paxton is staunchly pro-Trump and last year.
Okay, enough of this! Hopefully, you’ll see me on Monday with something newsy and less sleazy! Have a great weekend! I’m still feral but going to get my eyes checked this afternoon. My post-vaccine life means catching up with doctor appointments, etc. Have you dressed up and gone out into civil society yet?
Oh, wait, one more idiot before I go.
Ok Donald Trump Jr selling birthday greetings for $500 a pop is one of the saddest and most hilariously unexpected outcomes of our prior four years of Hell.
Evidently, you pay $19.99 to Direct Message him and he may or may not answer. Cocaine is a helluva drug. It’s also not cheap and neither are lawyers. So, we’ve got the grift going. Enjoy the laugh!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
And now, not going down the “Send in the Clowns” road!
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It’s hard to know where to start the day’s news round up because it’s just one big shit show brought to you by KKKremlin Caligula. There was an active school shooter this morning in Sante Fe, Texas where they have been injuries and fatalities reported. While this was going on, the most despised human being on the planet was tweeting about Hillary Clinton and some deep state cover up by the FBI which is tantamount to broadcasting some Alex Jones drug-induced conspiracy theory to the world.
Why isn’t disgraced FBI official Andrew McCabe being investigated for the $700,000 Crooked Hillary Democrats in Virginia, led by Clinton best friend Terry M (under FBI investigation that they killed) gave to McCabe’s wife in her run for office? Then dropped case on Clinton!
Bill Gates, the billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist, has claimed Donald Trump twice asked him the difference between HIV and HPV and knew a “scary” amount about Gates’s daughter’s looks.
The remarks were recorded at a recent Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation meeting, where Gates took questions from staff, according to MSNBC’s All in with Chris Hayes show, which broadcast the footage on Thursday.
Gates told the audience how Trump had encountered his daughter Jennifer, now 22, at a horse show in Florida. “And then about 20 minutes later he flew in on a helicopter to the same place,” the Microsoft co-founder said. “So clearly he had been driven away but he wanted to make a grand entrance in a helicopter.”
Gates himself met Trump for the first time in New York in December 2016, he recalled: “So when I first talked to him it was actually kind of scary how much he knew about my daughter’s appearance. Melinda [Gates’s wife] didn’t like that too well.”
This was the additional creepy thing.
Gates is hardly known for his comic timing but he frequently prompted laughter from the audience at the foundation event. In one anecdote he said: “When I walked in, his first sentence kind of threw me off. He said: ‘Trump hears that you don’t like what Trump is doing.’ And I thought, ‘Wow, but you’re Trump.’ I didn’t know the third-party form was always expected. ‘Gates says that Gates knows that you’re not doing things right.’”
Trump has a now-familiar verbal tic of referring to himself in the third person.
The Trump administration is preparing to announce on Friday a far-reaching change in how Title X family planning funds are awarded so that clinics that provide or abortion services or referrals will no longer be eligible — a move that would effectively defund Planned Parenthood by millions of dollars.
Under the proposal to be filed by the Department of Health and Human Services, the $260 million program would require a “bright line” of physical and financial separation between Title X services and providers that perform, support, or refer to abortion as a method of family planning.
These requirements are similar to those that were in place, although they were not enforced, during the Reagan era. Unlike the Reagan regulation, the proposal will not prohibit counseling for clients about abortion, meaning that there’s no “gag rule” that critics of the changes had feared, according to an administration official.
The changes, the official said, reflect the view that taxpayer funds should not be used to fund abortion and that Title X funds are for family planning services, and abortion is not family planning. The updates are also designed to establish more transparency about the activities of grantees and their sub-grantees.
Conservatives are confident that the new rules will withstand a legal challenge, because similar Reagan-era requirements overcame a Supreme Court challenge.
David Christensen, vice president of government affairs for the Family Research Council, said in an interview that those standards required operations receiving Title X funds to be physically and financially separate from those performing abortions.
“Under Reagan, they could not be co-located, they couldn’t refer for abortion,” Christensen said.
Why do all bad and evil things find their roots in the Reagan years? Asking for womankind here. So, now Faux news has decided that Trump just might be the “second coming” of Reagan. And while I’m asking questions does any one find all this messianic language creepy? I swear,the Republican party is a damned cult these days.
Bret Baier, chief political anchor of Fox News, President Trump’s favorite network, insists he isn’t living in some alternate reality. He knows that our current President is louder, cruder, and ruder than Ronald Reagan, “a counterpuncher” from New York far different from his genial Republican predecessor. Baier is not handing Trump the Nobel Prize for a North Korea summit that hasn’t even happened yet, and he footnotes every conversation with a caution that we don’t know how the Trump story turns out. “I’m not saying that Trump is Reagan, or Reagan is Trump,” he said when we met the other day, in his corner office at the Fox bureau in Washington, not long after handing me a signed copy of the new book he wrote with Catherine Whitney, “Three Days in Moscow: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Union.”
Cautions dispensed with, Baier, who has carved out a profitable sideline moonlighting as a Presidential historian, reeled off what he sees as striking parallels between Trump and Reagan, and his book makes much of everything from their “similar rhetoric in big speeches” to tough media coverage and a shared penchant for being “underestimated.” Decades after many of the details about precisely what happened in Reagan’s eight-year Presidency, in the twilight of the Cold War, have faded from public memory, he remains an exalted figure in the Republican pantheon. Most significantly, Baier argues, Reagan met with the Soviets, but only after years of talking tough about the “evil empire.” A generation later, Trump may be poised for his own expectation-scrambling summitry with the North Korean leader, an example Baier and some Trump partisans portray as a modern-day equivalent of Reagan’s policy of “peace through strength.” “Heads were exploding back when Reagan was elected, and heads are exploding now,” Baier said, as we talked about the twin challenges of covering Trump, a President “unlike any we’ve ever seen,” and writing history amid the “fire hose” of Trump-era news.
Right before our conversation, Baier had appeared on the radio with Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk-show host who reveres Reagan so much he refers to him as Ronaldus Magnus. Limbaugh waxed on to Baier about “the parallels” between two different men, and Baier agreed. “Exactly,” he said. “One thing you can say is, like Reagan, Trump has changed the paradigm. I mean, the jury’s still out on the end result, but the game changed in the way Washington worked.” Baier, who devotes the entire last chapter of his Reagan book to a discussion of Trump, would go on to sell the Reagan-Trump comparison throughout the week, as his book launch continued, chatting amiably about it with the ladies of “The View,” nodding along with his colleagues at “Fox & Friends.” “Bret Baier talks Reagan-Trump parallels,” Fox touted in the video clip from its show, “The Five.”
Soon after our interview on Monday evening, Baier would head over to the Marriott Marquis hotel for his book party. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao showed up, as did White House adviser Kellyanne Conway. It was so crowded with Trump luminaries, it could have been a Cabinet meeting.
Once, a fellow journalist exited our shared taxi outside my apartment. I thought we were sharing a cab to our respective homes, but he had other expectations, and suddenly his tongue was in my face. On another evening, another journalist grabbed my wrist and dragged me out of a nightclub without a word. I was clearly too drunk to consent; it was a caveman approach to get me into bed while I was intoxicated. And on yet another occasion, in a Beijing restaurant, a Western public relations executive reached under my dress and grabbed my crotch.
The incidents aren’t limited by proximity. I have received multiple unsolicited “dick pics” from foreign correspondents — generally on the highly monitored messaging service WeChat. Somewhere deep in the Chinese surveillance apparatus there is a startling collection of images of journalists’ genitalia.
The #MeToo campaign has reminded us of how common these stories are — but the behavior of foreign men working abroad has, in my experience, been far worse than anything I ever experienced at home. Fortunately for me, I’ve experienced this only as part of the wider journalist community, not in my own workplaces – but others haven’t been so lucky. The phenomenon is not a problem unique to the press, but it’s one that’s especially problematic for journalists.
A somber meeting this Tuesday of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China, which represents the interests of foreign journalists in a difficult local environment, provided another painful example of this. As the New York Times reported, former club president Jonathan Kaiman, who had resigned in January after being accused of sexual misconduct by Laura Tucker, a former friend of his, was now accused of sexually assaulting a female journalist, Felicia Sonmez. After the second accusation, the Los Angeles Times quickly suspended him from his role as Beijing bureau chief and has begun an investigation. But as the Hong Kong Free Press noted, the original accusation had prompted many male correspondents to launch misogynistic attacks on Tucker in online conversations.
Such actions, and entitlement, reflect a sense of privilege and a penchant for sexual aggression that threatens to distort the stories told about Asia, and that too often leaves the telling in the hands of the same men preying on their colleagues. I have seen correspondents I know to be serial offenders in private take the lead role in reporting on the sufferings of Asian women, or boast of their bravery in covering human rights. In too many stories, Asian men are treated as the sole meaningful actors, while Asian women are reduced to sex objects or victims. And this bad behavior — and the bad coverage that follows — is a pattern that repeats across Asia, from Tokyo to Phnom Penh.
Meanwhile, it appears Trump has caved to NK’s Kim Jong Un and halted the joint training between the US and SK. The only person that appears to be capable of maintaining maximum pressure is Michael Avenatti. This is from Josh Rogin writing for WAPO.
The Trump administration says that if the upcoming summit between the United States and North Korea fails or doesn’t happen at all, the United States and its allies can go right back to the “maximum pressure” campaign that brought Kim Jong Un to the table in the first place. In reality, doing that would be difficult if not impossible. The pressure is already diminishing.
The administration’s claim that it can immediately turn on the pressure again is crucial to its effort to play it cool ahead of the Trump-Kim summit. President Trump often says that if Kim doesn’t want to strike a good deal, he will simply walk away, no harm done. After the North Korean government threatened to scuttle the talks this week in response to comments from national security adviser John Bolton, the White House doubled down on this assertion.
In reality, the dynamics that made a successful maximum-pressure campaign possible have changed fundamentally. The United States and its allies have paused their efforts to increase sanctions on North Korea to give diplomacy a chance to work. The sting of the existing sanctions naturally erodes over time. There are reports that China is already easing up on its sanctions enforcement, allowing more laborers and goods to flow over North Korea’s northern border. The mood in South Korea has changed significantly, making the threat of military action less credible.
Meanwhile, the United Nation is actively slapping US foreign policy on Israel to the ground. I’m actually thinking Trump will pull the US from the body at this point it’s so obviously aimed at him. The UN has voted to investigate War Crimes in the Gaza Massacre that happened during the Kushner debacle opening an US embassy in Jerusalem. which, once again, panders to religious cultists. This is from The Independent.
The UN has voted to send an international war crimes probe to Gaza after the body’s leading human rights official slammed Israel‘s reaction to protests along the border as “wholly disproportionate.”
Israeli firing into Hamas-ruled Gaza killed nearly 60 Palestinians at mass border protests on Monday.
“There is little evidence of any attempt to minimise casualties on Monday,” Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein told a special session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The council voted through the resolution by 29 in favour and two opposed, while 14 states abstained.
The United Nations Security Council will begin talks on Monday on a Kuwait-drafted resolution that condemns Israeli force against Palestinian civilians and calls for an “international protection mission” to be deployed to the occupied territories.
The draft resolution, seen by Reuters on Friday, asks UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to report within 30 days of its adoption on “ways and means for ensuring the safety, protection and well-being of the Palestinian civilian population.”
At least eight people are dead following a shooting at Santa Fe High School outside of Houston, Texas, law enforcement officials have told multiplelocal news sources.
One person, reportedly a male who federal officials believe to be a student, is in custody, and another person has been detained, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez tweeted. At least three people — two adults and one student — are being treated for injuries at a local hospital. One police officer was wounded. The Houston Chronicle is reporting that the officer was “clipped” and is not seriously injured.
November 18 is coming and we all need to vote to end this war on humanity, science, world peace, and civilization.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
The instability in the Middle East continues to be the 100-year plague that keeps on killing. There are two top stories there. This headline from the AP was jolting.” 
Israel’s war policy is still the focus of the International Justice system. 
I’m getting really sick of the constant TV coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas. Yes, it’s an important story, and needs to be covered. But do we really need to see and hear about it 24-7, while the cable networks ignore just about everything else? Dakinikat remarked to me a few days ago that it seems our generation have seen wars play out on TV now for most of our lives, beginning with Vietnam. She’s right. It’s so sad and depressing.
Jordan can thank Republicans representing districts Joe Biden won in 2020 for most of his vote-counting woes. Nebraska Rep. 
Good Morning Sky Dancers!
This is the same national embarrassment that is now speaking of himself in the third person and has no idea what the difference is between HPV and HIV and had to ask twice about it. 
This was the additional creepy thing.
Why do all bad and evil things find their roots in the Reagan years? Asking for womankind here. So, now Faux news has decided that Trump just might be the “second coming” of Reagan. And while I’m asking questions does any one find all this messianic language creepy? 
Here’s a real doozy of a “me too” story from Foreign Policy
Meanwhile, the United Nation is actively slapping US foreign policy on Israel to the ground. I’m actually thinking Trump will pull the US from the body at this point it’s so obviously aimed at him. The UN has voted to investigate War Crimes in the Gaza Massacre that happened during the Kushner debacle opening an US embassy in Jerusalem. which, once again, panders to religious cultists. 
Additionally, Kuwait wants to request a Palestianian protection force. 
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