Edvard Munch painted this portrait of his brother at age 12
We’re living in upside-down world–or something. This morning before reporting for his trial, Trump claimed that people are being “mugged and killed outside” the courthouse. Based on reports from people who have attended the trial, it has been quiet there, with very few protesters from either side. This man is clinically insane. He belongs in a psychiatric hospital. And yet, he is supposedly leading Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential race.
Nearly three in five Americans wrongly believe the US is in an economic recession, and the majority blame the Biden administration, according to a Harris poll conducted exclusively for the Guardian. The survey found persistent pessimism about the economy as election day draws closer.
The poll highlighted many misconceptions people have about the economy, including:
55% believe the economy is shrinking, and 56% think the US is experiencing a recession, though the broadest measure of the economy, gross domestic product (GDP), has been growing.
49% believe the S&P 500 stock market index is down for the year, though the index went up about 24% in 2023 and is up more than 12% this year.
49% believe that unemployment is at a 50-year high, though the unemployment rate has been under 4%, a near 50-year low.
Many Americans put the blame on Biden for the state of the economy, with 58% of those polled saying the economy is worsening due to mismanagement from the presidential administration.
The poll underscored people’s complicated emotions around inflation. The vast majority of respondents, 72%, indicated they think inflation is increasing. In reality, the rate of inflation has fallen sharply from its post-Covid peak of 9.1% and has been fluctuating between 3% and 4% a year.
In April, the inflation rate went down from 3.5% to 3.4% – far from inflation’s 40-year peak of 9.1% in June 2022 – triggering a stock market rally that pushed the Dow Jones index to a record high.
A recession is generally defined by a decrease in economic activity, typically measured as gross domestic product (GDP), over two successive quarters, although in the US the National Bureau of Economic Research (NEBR) has the final say. US GDP has been rising over the last few years, barring a brief contraction in 2022, which the NEBR did not deem a recession….
The only recent recession was in 2020, early in the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then, the US economy has grown considerably. Unemployment has also hit historic lows, wages have been going up and consumer spending has been strong.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s public approval rating this month fell to its lowest level in almost two years, tying the lowest reading of his presidency in a warning sign for his reelection effort, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.
The four-day poll, which closed on Monday, showed just 36% of Americans approve of Biden’s job performance as president, down from 38% in April. It was a return to the lowest approval rating of his presidency, last seen in July 2022. While this month’s drop was within the poll’s 3 percentage point margin of error, it could bode poorly for Biden as he faces off with Republican Donald Trump in the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Biden, a Democrat, has been largely tied with Trump in national polls asking voters how they will vote. But Trump has had slight leads over Biden in many polls in the states seen as most likely to determine the winner in the U.S. Electoral College.
The poll laid out Biden’s weaknesses as well as a few strengths. The state of the economy was seen as the top issue, picked by 23% of respondents as the most important problem facing the country. Some 21% saw political extremism as the top issue and 13% picked immigration.
Some 40% of respondents in the poll said Trump, who was president from 2017 to 2021, had better policies for the U.S. economy, compared to 30% who picked Biden, while the rest said they didn’t know or didn’t answer the question.
Who are these people, and what is wrong with them? Apparently lots of them don’t even follow the news or politics at all. This is from Will Bunch’s email newsletter (I don’t have an on-line link, unfortunately): “The voters Biden is losing don’t read the New York Times. Many don’t read anything.”
The constantly simmering fire on social media about how the mainstream news media covers — or doesn’t cover — President Joe Biden had a 55-gallon barrel of gasoline tossed onto it this weekend. It started on Friday when the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 40,000 for the very first time — the latest in an apparent economic winning streak for the 46th president — and it barely garnered a peep in either the New York Times or Washington Post.
Biden’s most online fans were still seething about that slight two days later when some were shocked to see the Post put a U.S. economy story at the top of the Sunday paper, with the headline: “Buying slows as gloom spreads.” So with the lowest unemployment since the 1960s, the record stock market, real growth in wages and in sectors like manufacturing, that’s what the paper went with? Gloom?
Veteran journalist Kevin Drum instantly pulled up a slew of data that contradict the Post’s glum but mostly anecdotal analysis and asked “why does the Post publish a jumble of misleading or outright incorrect economic statistics instead of just looking them up first?” That kind of question — asking why these elite newsrooms or cable news outlets like MSNBC and CNN are quick to play up Biden’s age or stylistic stumbles while ignoring his accomplishments, as he remains in a dead heat with four-times-indicted Donald Trump — epitomizes the deeply held thought that Biden’s struggles are perhaps largely due to the myriad failings of the mainstream media.
Critics are absolutely right to be furious. But at the same time, I don’t think the New York Times is the reason Biden isn’t clobbering an opponent who’s stuck in a Manhattan courtroom facing 34 felony charges. I think his real problem is the millions of Americans who wouldn’t open the New York Times if you dropped it on their lap with a slice of pizza tucked inside.
Painting by Michaelangelo, age 13
There are basically three clumps of voters in America. There are — praise the Lord — millions of diligent, civic-minded Americans who watch debates or read news, somewhere, to better understand the candidates. But there is also a large pool of what I would call the disinformed, who also pursue information but get it from propaganda sites like Fox News that twist reality, or worse. Many of them liked Trump in 2016 and like him even more now.
The group where Biden used to do OK but is now struggling is a third bloc I’d call the uninformed. Either by choice or by the realities of working multiple jobs or going to school or raising kids, millions of Americans get no news other than the snippets that pop up on TikTok or somehow interrupt the football game. These folks don’t know the New York Times, but also no one at the New York Times knows these folks — until their odd views show up in the polls and everyone is shocked.
For all the deserved carping about negative portrayals of Biden and overly positive coverage of Trump in print, a recent NBC News poll found that among the dwindling number of Americans who identify newspapers as their primary news source, the incumbent Democrat is winning by landslide proportions, 70% to 21%. NBC also found Biden leading with the millions who still watch nightly news on the traditional networks. These viewers, like newspaper readers, tend to be older — and, yes, Biden leads among senior citizens. Maybe because they are better informed?
Conversely, I’m sure you’ll be shocked, shocked to learn that when ranked by news consumption, Trump’s biggest lead is with voters who say they don’t follow the news at all. In the NBC poll, one in seven reported they don’t follow politics — and they are supporting Trump by a solid 53-27% margin. This category is also the most likely to pick a third-party candidate like Robert F.Kennedy Jr., or Cornel West, or Jill Stein, and also most likely not to vote at all.
So basically, we’re fucked unless some of these no-nothings figure out that we’re headed for a dictatorship and decide maybe they’d like to keep some of their rights. Unfortunately, some of these no-nothings appear to be Supreme Court justices.
Everyone is waiting to see what the United States Supreme Court will do with Donald Trump’s outlandish claim he should be given absolute immunity from prosecution for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Oral arguments indicated that even the conservative justices have some concerns about that stance, but we’ve now learned that Justice Samuel Alito seems pretty on board with Trump’s coup attempt.
It’s yet another ethics scandal for the Court, and it’s a reminder that the right-wing justices operate in a realm of complete unaccountability.
Last week, the New York Times broke news that on January 17, 2021 — 11 days after Trump exhorted his supporters to storm the Capitol and three days before President Joe Biden’s inauguration — an upside-down American flag hung outside the Alito home in Alexandria, Virginia. Hanging the flag upside down is literally prohibited by the flag code, save for “as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.” There’s a long tradition of upside-down flags being flown by protesters on the left and the right, but by January 17, 2021, it was widely known as a symbol used by “Stop the Steal” supporters.
How long the upside-down flag hung at the Alito home isn’t clear. The Times reviewed a January 18, 2021, email from a neighbor that said that it had been upside down for a number of days by that point. Several neighbors spoke to the Times about it but requested to remain anonymous, in part because they feared reprisal. Alito made a brief email statement to the Times, and while the statement succeeded in throwing his wife under the bus, it didn’t do much else. Alito said he “had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag” as it was “briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on lawn signs.”
Even if one takes this statement at face value, it falls far short of an explanation. Several days after an attempted insurrection, a Supreme Court justice let his wife hang a well-known symbol of that attempted insurrection because she got into a spat with the neighbors? Even if the lawn signs were “personally insulting” to the Alitos in some way, how is flying an upside-down flag a legitimate response?
Painting by Salvador Dali, age 4 or 6
Alito was more expansive with conservative Fox News correspondent Shannon Bream, but even in that friendly atmosphere, he couldn’t come up with a convincing explanation. He told Bream a neighbor had put up a sign that said “Fuck Trump,” and it was 50 feet from a children’s bus stop. Mrs. Alito decided to talk with those neighbors, but according to Alito, the conversation didn’t go well, and then those neighbors put up a sign that attacked his wife and blamed her for January 6.
Then, when the Alitos were taking a neighborhood stroll, Mrs. Alito got into an argument with one of the residents of that property, who called her “the c-word.” After that, she was distraught and decided to make what Fox News characterized euphemistically as “some sort of statement” by hanging the flag upside down. Notably, when the Washington Post spoke with a neighbor who described the content of the offending signs, they said they did not even mention the justice directly.
None of these additional details makes Alito or his wife look any better. The most charitable reading is that after a neighbor accused Mrs. Alito of being an insurrection enthusiast, she reacted by hoisting a symbol of support for insurrection. A Supreme Court justice’s wife is busy acting out the Matt Bors comic where a MAGA type reacts to hearing someone say Trump fans are racist by going full Nazi.
Needham goes on to explain why nothing will be done about this. I recommend reading the whole thing.
More insanity from Trump:
You probably heard that Judge Aileen Cannon unsealed some more DOJ documents yesterday, and the MAGA crowd discovered that when the FBI executes a search warrant, they are routinely authorized to use force if necessary. Now Trump is claiming that Joe Biden wanted the FBI to assassinate him when they searched Mar-a-Lago. Never mind that Trump was in New Jersey at the time and everyone–including the FBI–knew that.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has screwed up the Mar-a-Lago case in so many ways it defies easy categorization. Her slow rolling of the trial is obviously her single gravest sin. But there’s another layer of malfeasance going on here that came more clearly into view yesterday.
Over the objection of Special Counsel Jack Smith, Cannon ordered the unsealing of previous filings in the case. In some of those filings, it’s becoming apparent, Trump has tucked in information about the case that he wants to seed in the public imagination and use as fodder for his presidential campaign and for fighting the criminal charges outside of court.
Cannon has given him a green light to do so, and the results became apparent yesterday.
In one of the filings, Trump drew attention to the FBI’s deadly force policy, which was in effect during the search of Mar-a-Lago, as it is in every FBI field operation. As soon as the filing was unsealed, right-wing news outlets seized on it and accused Biden of being responsible for gunning for Trump.
Crooked Joe Biden’s DOJ, in their Illegal and UnConstitutional Raid of Mar-a-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE. NOW WE KNOW, FOR SURE, THAT JOE BIDEN IS A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY. HE IS MENTALLY UNFIT TO HOLD OFFICE—25TH AMENDMENT!
Of course none of this is true. The same deadly force policy that is in effect for every FBI operation was in effect for the Mar-a-Lago search. The FBI doesn’t need special authority to use deadly force; it has standing authority to use deadly force when circumstances warrant it. This is a standard operating policy, and Biden had nothing to do with its promulgation in general or its application in the Mar-a-Lago search in particular.
But you can see the dynamic plainly from what I just had to do to explain this to you: Trump wants to use the criminal justice process to generate more disinformation, Cannon facilitates him doing so with her rulings, right-wing media go apeshit, Trump gooses the reaction some more, and then a day later I come along and try to unpack it all for you, including the underlying falsity, with a put-the-toothpaste-back-in-the-tube futility. The FBI issued an unusual statement in similarly futile fashion.
This is all bad enough, but there’s another even darker layer here: It feeds the right-wing animosity toward federal law enforcement that has already led to two attacks on FBI field offices in the past two years.
Donald Trump on Tuesday falsely claimed in a campaign fundraising email that President Biden was “locked & loaded ready to take me out” during a 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago estate for classified documents, an extraordinary distortion of a standard FBI policy on the use of deadly force during such operations.
Painting by Pablo Picasso, age 8
Trump appeared to be referring to a law enforcement document, released Tuesday in court filings in the classified documents case, that describes the FBI’s plans for a court-authorized search on Aug. 8, 2022, at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida residence and private club. FBI agents recovered classified material from Trump’s time in the White House — which the former president is now charged with illegally retaining. One page in the document includes a “policy statement” on the use of deadly force, which says officers may resort to lethal force only when the subject of such force poses an “imminent danger of death or serious physical injury” to an officer or another person.
Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee for president, and some of his allies suggested Tuesday that this was evidence that Biden’s Justice Department was prepared to fatally shoot him. In fact, Trump was not at his Florida property the day of the search. FBI agents specifically sought to avoid a confrontation with Trump, choosing a day when Trump would not be at the property and giving the Secret Service a heads-up, The Washington Post previously reported.
A former president falsely accusing his successor and rival of posing a threat to his life is without precedent in modern U.S. history. The comments marked a sharp escalation of Trump’s baseless attacks on Biden, as the former president faces 88 criminal charges across fo perur indictments in federal and state courts. Trump has frequently accused Biden of weaponizing the legal system against him in coordination with the Justice Department and local prosecutors. There is no evidence of such coordination.
A Tuesday evening fundraising email from the Trump campaign that was signed in the candidate’s name arrived with the subject line, “They were authorized to shoot me!” and said of the Biden administration, “You know they’re just itching to do the unthinkable … Joe Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger.”
Trump also wrote Tuesday on his social media site, Truth Social, that “Joe Biden’s DOJ, in their Illegal and UnConstitutional Raid of Mar-a-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE.”
The horrifying thing is that at least 30 percent of people probably believe this.
The task before Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over the classified documents case of Donald Trump, is not easy. She must protect Mr. Trump’s constitutional rights while also ensuring the prompt and fair administration of justice.
Still, it is inexcusable that she is utterly failing to keep the case moving along in a fair but timely manner. And unfortunately, there isn’t much that the special counsel in the case, Jack Smith, can do about it.
While working as an attorney in the C.I.A.’s Office of General Counsel, I developed an expertise in Espionage Act prosecutions similar to the one pending against Mr. Trump, who is accused of illegally taking classified state documents from the White House after he left office and then obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to retrieve them. I know firsthand that cases like this can be quite complicated and lengthy.
Self-Portrait by Albrecht Dürer, age 13
But outside of the unique issues raised by Mr. Trump’s status as a former president (for example, immunity and the Presidential Records Act), the prosecution against him is actually not particularly complex. The volume of classified records subject to discovery is not outside the norm, and if the defendant were not Donald Trump, this would be a relatively routine Espionage Act prosecution for unlawful retention of classified records.
With a competent and determined judge, Mr. Trump’s due process rights could have been well protected and the trial could have reasonably been set for this summer. However, this is not the first time Judge Cannon — a Trump appointee — has granted delay after delay, and thanks to a recent schedulingorder, it’s now all but certain that the case will not go to trial until after Election Day.
If Mr. Trump wins the election, the case will be effectively over. The Trump Justice Department would almost certainly dismiss the indictment at his behest when the clock strikes noon on Jan. 20, 2025.
Informed voters know all this, of course, but the uniformed people who respond to polls may not even know that Trump stole hundreds of highly classified documents and stored them in a bathroom and on a stage in large hall at his private club.
One way of taking a measure of how Judge Cannon has failed is by looking at the progress of pretrial litigation, which started soon after Mr. Trump was indicted in June 2023. In a criminal trial, the purpose of pretrial litigation is threefold: to ensure the defense gets access to all discoverable material; to resolve “dispositive” motions that could result in dismissal of the case if granted, like Mr. Trump’s presidential immunity assertion; and to determine what the trial will look like. The latter is an especially important task here given that Mr. Trump is charged with illegally mishandling some of our most closely guarded secrets, which could be further compromised depending on how they are used at a public trial.
Measured against these goals, Judge Cannon has made almost no progress over the past 11 months. That is shocking and indefensible.
On the scope of discovery, Judge Cannon has failed to rule on Mr. Trump’s motion — filed four months ago — to compel additional discovery from the government. Under her new schedule, she may not rule on it until July. A ruling granting Mr. Trump’s motion could result in months of additional delays.
The discovery and use of classified information is one of the thornier issues in cases of this nature. Here, too, the judge has made almost no progress, and her inexperience is showing. She has ruled on just one substantive motion with respect to Mr. Trump, which was filed by the government in December and applied to only a sliver of the classified information at issue in the case. Under her new scheduling order, the next phase of litigation involving classified information won’t begin until mid-June. Judge Cannon won’t even begin to address the difficult questions about how classified information will be used and disclosed at trial until August at the earliest, even though Mr. Trump’s team has had access to over 90 percent of the classified discovery since last fall.
On efforts to dismiss the case, in February, Mr. Trump made seven such motions, and so far Judge Cannon has ruled on only two. Some of them are plainly frivolous, but she has insisted on extensive hearings for each one, some of which have not been held yet.
I feel sick just reading this. There’s more at the link.
That’s about all I can take today; I’m going to have to take some deep breaths and do something other than read or watch the news for awhile. Before I go, here are some links to interesting stories:
“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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Zhou Wenjiu, Woman with Cat, between the 10th century and the 11th century,
Yesterday, Dakinikat posted in a comment about Justice Samuel Alito’s latest scandal–an upside down American flag flew outside his house for several days after the January 6 insurrection.
The upside down flag was used by MAGA gangsters to represent “stop the steal.” A number of insurrectionists carried it during the attacks on the Capitol.
I’m going to provide more detail and reactions to this story in this post. This is a huge story and I think it shows that Alito and his wife Martha Ann are as bad or worse than Clarence and Ginni Thomas. I hope the Chinese cat art will help you stay calm.
After the 2020 presidential election, as some Trump supporters falsely claimed that President Biden had stolen the office, many of them displayed a startling symbol outside their homes, on their cars and in online posts: an upside-down American flag.
One of the homes flying an inverted flag during that time was the residence of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., in Alexandria, Va., according to photographs and interviews with neighbors.
The upside-down flag was aloft on Jan. 17, 2021, the images showed. President Donald J. Trump’s supporters, including some brandishing the same symbol, had rioted at the Capitol a little over a week before. Mr. Biden’s inauguration was three days away. Alarmed neighbors snapped photographs, some of which were recently obtained by The New York Times. Word of the flag filtered back to the court, people who worked there said in interviews.
While the flag was up, the court was still contending with whether to hear a 2020 election case, with Justice Alito on the losing end of that decision. In coming weeks, the justices will rule on two climactic cases involving the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, including whether Mr. Trump has immunity for his actions. Their decisions will shape how accountable he can be held for trying to overturn the last presidential election and his chances for re-election in the upcoming one.
Alito reacted to the story by throwing his wife under the bus.
“I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” Justice Alito said in an emailed statement to The Times. “It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”
Judicial experts said in interviews that the flag was a clear violation of ethics rules, which seek to avoid even the appearance of bias, and could sow doubt about Justice Alito’s impartiality in cases related to the election and the Capitol riot.
The mere impression of political opinion can be a problem, the ethics experts said. “It might be his spouse or someone else living in his home, but he shouldn’t have it in his yard as his message to the world,” said Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia.
This is “the equivalent of putting a ‘Stop the Steal’ sign in your yard, which is a problem if you’re deciding election-related cases,” she said.
Interviews show that the justice’s wife, Martha-Ann Alito, had been in a dispute with another family on the block over an anti-Trump sign on their lawn, but given the timing and the starkness of the symbol, neighbors interpreted the inverted flag as a political statement by the couple.
By Qi Baishi, 1864-1957
Neighbors said that the flag had been flying for several days before the photograph was taken. That’s not a brief time in my book.
The longstanding ethics code for the lower courts, as well as the recent one adopted by the Supreme Court, stresses the need for judges to remain independent and avoid political statements or opinions on matters that could come before them.
“You always want to be proactive about the appearance of impartiality,” Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge and the director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute, said in an interview. “The best practice would be to make sure that nothing like that is in front of your house.”
The court has also repeatedly warned its own employees against public displays of partisan views, according to guidelines circulated to the staff and reviewed by The Times. Displaying signs or bumper stickers is not permitted, according to the court’s internal rule book and a 2022 memo reiterating the ban on political activity.
The revelation is almost certain to prompt calls for Alito, a member of the court’s conservative wing, to recuse himself from several high-profile cases pending before the court this year involving the election and subsequent attack on the US Capitol, including the blockbuster question of whether Trump may claim immunity from federal election subversion charges….
“I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” Alito said in an emailed statement to the Times. “It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”
The upside-down flag became a symbol of the “Stop the Steal” movement in the weeks and months following the election, in which Trump’s supporters falsely claimed that Biden’s win was illegitimate due to widespread fraud. The inverted flag was widely seen during the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol….
The story will heap further scrutiny on the high court at a time when it is already facing considerable blowback. Justice Clarence Thomas has been the subject of significant criticism and calls for recusal in election-related cases after his wife, conservative activist Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, acknowledged she attended Trump’s rally before the Capitol attack and supported White House efforts to discredit the election results.
By Xu Beihong, 1952
Last fall, in response to a series of revelations about travel accepted by Thomas and Alito, the Supreme Court adopted a code of conduct for the first time. That code guides the justices to “refrain from political activity.”
“Two scenarios are plausible and neither one of them is attractive: Either the gesture was trivial pettiness and ought to be beneath the dignity of the court or it is was intended as meaningful symbolism in which case it is a real problem,” said James Sample, a Hofstra Law School professor who has studied judicial ethics.
Combined with the earlier Thomas revelations, Sample said, “The scenarios amplify the need for Congress to impose meaningful ethics enforcement on a court that steadfastly refuses to police itself.”
This is interesting. Yesterday, a number of people posted on Twitter about remarks that Sydney Powell made about the role Alito was expected to play in the efforts to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College votes on January 6, 2001.
Attorney Sidney Powell said the January 6 riot at the Capitol could have caused a delay which would have allowed Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito time to stop the certification of Joe Biden‘s election victory—but that chance was lost when Nancy Pelosi reconvened Congress to complete the process.
Powell, an attorney who has filed numerous lawsuits in a failed bid to overturn former President Donald Trump‘s 2020 election loss, made the comments during an appearance on the conservative Stew Peters Show on Friday.
She said that as a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol that day, her team was seeking an emergency injunction to prevent the certification of Biden’s win.
“We were filing a 12th Amendment constitutional challenge to the process that the Congress was about to use under the Electoral Act provisions that simply don’t jive with the 12th Amendment to the United States Constitution,” she said. “And Justice Alito was our circuit justice for that.”
She added: “Louie Gohmert was the plaintiff in our lawsuit, and we were suing the vice president to follow the 12th Amendment as opposed to the Electoral College Act.”
We have known for some time now that the current Supreme Court is not comprised of “conservatives” and “liberals,” or even “jurists” and “reactionaries.” It has split into those who care about the future of the court and the country, and those who do not.
Because the group that cares is much larger than the one that doesn’t, its members could have at any time done many things to signal to the latter group —and we can go ahead and name them, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito—that accepting lavish, undisclosed giftsand vacations from billionaire donors who have interests before the court was a rolling, public-confidence-and-democracy-threatening disaster. They said nothing, even as this sordid conduct degraded the nation’s highest court, for many of the reasons powerful individuals often say nothing: To protect the institution at large; to preserve the long-tarnished myth of a collegial court; and because, when there is nothing to be done about it anyhow, what’s the point?
Su Hanchen, Children Playing on a Winter Day, 12th century, National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan
We can certainly quibble (and Alito’s defenders surely will) about whether an upside-down flag really represents “Stop the Steal,” as Kantor’s experts affirm, or some other message of peace and goodwill. We can and will debate over Alito’s claim that his wife hoisted the flag because one of the neighbors hurt their feelings (so, #feminism). But the saddest and most arresting part of this endless downward spiral for the seven jurists who should know better, and the two who do not, is not that they don’t care about what they are doing to the court—it’s how pitifully, shabbily small these ride-or-die political battles really are.
Every one of the Supreme Court’s nine justices is well aware of the recusal statute that binds federal judges and the ethics code that, even in 2021, they purported to consult and follow. Even then, before SCOTUS produced its own totally voluntary, never-say-never ethical guidelines in 2023, internal policy and external law required them to refrain from acting like thin-skinned partisan nuts, and to recuse themselves from relevant cases when they failed to adhere to this standard.
This is a low bar to clear. And yet, in statements to the New York Timesand Fox News’ Shannon Bream, Alito implied that he and his wife, Martha-Ann, simply had no choice but to disrespect the stars and stripes by vulgarly violating the U.S. Flag Code because it was necessary to own a liberal neighbor. The justice told Bream that this neighbor put up a “Fuck Trump” sign—where children might see it!—and then another sign “personally” blaming Martha-Ann for Jan. 6. Finally, “a male in the home” called Martha-Ann “the c-word” while she was on a walk with her husband. All this led her to join countless “Stop the Steal” enthusiasts in hanging her American flag upside down.
On Alito’s ridiculous excuse:
None of the Alitos’ explanations so far even attempt to explain why Martha-Ann landed on this gesture, out of all the possibilities, to further upset and provoke her progressive neighbors. Readers are also left to guess at the true origin of the conflict; are we really supposed to think that the neighbors picked this fight unprovoked, and the Alitos are completely blameless? The justice’s defenders are scrambling to muddy the waters with some alternate explanation, but the truth is crystal clear, and unrefuted by the Alitos themselves: That flag was hung upside down to piss off some libs. At best, Martha-Ann Alito was trolling her neighbor by professing a militant belief that Biden stole the election; at worst, she held that belief sincerely.
Let’s be clear that everything these neighbors stand accused of doing is obviously protected speech under the First Amendment. There is no allegation of genuine harassment or true threats; these people just wanted to express displeasure toward a very public figure and his somewhat public wife. And though Alito seems to believe that he and his wife were within their rights to fight back against an irritating neighbor, the staff who work under Alito at SCOTUS would have no such luxury. The Times piece lays out the strictures on court employees that ban political signs and bumper stickers, “partisan political activity,” and even “nonpartisan political activity” that “could reflect adversely on the dignity or impartiality of the court.” [….]
Xu Beihong, Cat, 1941
So when Alito throws his wife under the bus—the flag was “briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs”—he’s issuing another justification: He gets to break the rules because she was in a fight with the neighbors. He gets to break the rules because the seat on the plane was otherwise unoccupied. He gets to break the rules because the rules are always trying to trip him up and catch him out.
The justice’s perpetual victimhood mentality, which shines through in his opinions and interviews and myriadgrievance-laden speeches, has now literally reached his own front yard. The Alitos are not here fighting some vitally important civic-minded battle about the nature of freedom or democracy. No. This is, as Alito concedes, just payback because of a lawn sign and a bad word. Presumably, fourth-period detention and a note home to the neighbors’ parents were not an option.
Legal experts are lamenting the lack of an enforceable judicial ethics code, with some calling for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s recusal, following a New York Times report that a symbol of the “Stop the Steal” movement to reject the 2020 election was flown outside Alito’s home in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Ten leading legal experts told Salon Friday that the conduct — the flying of an upside-down flag, a known symbol of the movement to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, at a justice’s home — appears to violate the Supreme Court’s own ethics code, adopted last last year, by creating an appearance of bias.
Those experts said it’s far past time for the nine justices who enjoy lifetime appointments to hold themselves to the highest ethical standards. But, they noted, the Supreme Court has shown itself reluctant to do so.
“The situation is out of control,” Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush who worked with Justice Alito on his 2006 Senate confirmation, told Salon. “This is after the insurrection, so it’s really him weighing in, getting involved publicly in a dispute over the insurrection.”
The U.S. Flag Code says the flag should only be displayed upside-down as a “signal of distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.” Movements including the Tea Party and “Stop the Steal” have used upside-down flags as a symbol of protest and despair….
“I don’t know why we have a Supreme Court justice flying a flag upside down, weighing in on an election, why his wife would be doing that,” Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, said. “His wife is well aware of the impartiality obligations of a federal judge.”
Painter said he was not convinced by Alito attributing the up-side down flag to his wife, particularly when it was flown on their joint property. “When the house is used this way, I’d be shocked that she would do that without talking about it with him first.”
By Xu Beihong, 1952
Alito should recuse himself from January 6-related cases.
Painter, who has called for an inspector general for the Supreme Court, said the Times report also raises “serious questions about whether he can impartially adjudicate any case related to Jan. 6.” He also suggested that special counsel Jack Smith should file a motion for Alito’s recusal in the pending Trump v. United States case, in which the Supreme Court will weigh in on presidential immunity from criminal prosecution….
“A more blatant revelation of bias in a pending case is hard to imagine,” Washington & Lee University School of Law professor Jim Moliterno told Salon. “It was literally waving a banner that said, ‘I favor election-deniers.’”
“Who can possibly think he will decide this case in a neutral manner?” Professor Leslie Levin, a University of Connecticut School of Law professor, told Salon. “Of course, Justice Alito’s political leanings were already well-known. But the flag flying incident indicates he has strong views about the facts underlying this case. His decision seems pre-ordained.”
There’s much more from legal exports at the Salon link.
“The trump criminal trial has so much drama.” John Buss @repeat 1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Last night was ladies’ night in the Congressional House Oversight Committee meeting. And oh, what a night! The sidewalk display outside the Trump Hush Money Trial wasn’t much better. And then there was the Kansas City Ball Kicker who gave a commencement speech at a small Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. It’s been a sad week for women in leadership positions or those who strive for leadership positions. It’s been a week of sexism and misogyny unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
I’m going to start with the Ball Kicker. This analysis is from Vox, written by Li Zhou. “The controversy over Harrison Butker’s misogynistic commencement speech, explained. Butker’s address was a textbook case of conservative sexism and homophobia.”
NFL kicker Harrison Butker is facing widespread backlash after giving a college commencement speech that casually dabbled in misogyny and homophobia.
Butker, who has won three Super Bowls with the Kansas City Chiefs in recent years, delivered the address at Benedictine College, a private Catholic institution in Kansas, on May 11. In it, he criticizes everything from women prioritizing professional careers to Pride Month to abortion access.
An outspoken conservative who is close with leading right-wing figures including Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Butker’s speech closely echoed Republican rhetoric and fixated on issues that have been popular fodder for conservatives as they try to mobilize their voters ahead of the 2024 election.
“I think it is you, the women who have had the most diabolical lies told to you,” Butker said in his speech. “Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”
The Chiefs have not commented on Butker’s remarks and the NFL league office distanced itself from them. “His views are not those of the NFL as an organization. The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger,” Jonathan Beane, the NFL’s senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, told People.
Butker’s speech advances the same agenda that the GOP has been pushing not only in its rhetoric but through policy. At least 21 Republican-led state legislatures have approved laws that ban or restrict abortion access and at least 20 have approved bills that curb access to gender-affirming care for minors. Butker’s remarks — which emphasized people “staying in [their] lane” — are the latest attempt to weaponize religion to achieve the same goals.
Butker’s speech is being characterized by the usual suspects as just “expressing unpopular opinions.” It’s more than that.
Below are some of the lowlights:
On women’s careers: One of the sections getting the most attention is Butker’s comments about the importance of women’s roles in the home. Singling out the women in the audience, he argued that they’re likely more eager to become wives and mothers than to have successful careers.
“I can tell you that my beautiful wife Isabelle would be the first to say her life truly started when she started living her vocation as a wife and as a mother,” he said.
In addition to speaking on women’s behalf, Butker also reduced the primary goal of their lives to one biological function. Being a homemaker is an important role that should be celebrated, but it’s far from the only one a woman can choose — a key reason his remarks spurred such backlash. Butker also described women’s roles very differently than he described men’s: While he touted the virtues of being a present father, he did not say that being a dad was likely the primary goal of a man’s life.
In recent days, a parade of Republicans have shown up at the Manhattan courthouse where Donald Trump faces criminal charges related to the hush-money scheme he concocted to deceive American voters during the 2016 election. The goal of those MAGA allies is simple: to make it unimpeachably clear that their primary fealty is to Donald Trump over the rule of law.
Unfortunately, some of media coverage has obscured these fundamentals. Some accounts describe these Republicans as “currying favor” with Trump or showing “loyalty” to him, as if they are just demonstrating personal support for him at a trying moment. Others have noted that some making this pilgrimage—none more odiously than Ohio Senator J.D. Vance—are really vying to be his running mate, which might be true but reduces all this to a form of political jockeying that seems fairly conventional.
If we are going to treat this as a story about loyalty signaling, let’s frame the question this way: Loyalty to what, exactly? Not just loyalty to Trump. This episode—and others like it, such as the stampede of Republicans backing Trump’s refusal to commit to accepting the 2024 election results—is better seen as a statement of ultimate fealty to Trump over and above our institutions, as a declaration that he is paramount and they are thoroughly dispensable.
“This trial is a scam and a sham, and it shouldn’t happen,” Trump raged on Thursday at the court, with Representative Matt Gaetz and other Republicans standing behind him. Gaetz proudly posted a picture of himself “standing back and standing by” for Trump at the courthouse, deliberately echoing the language Trump used about his paramilitary goons in the first 2020 debate.
This comes after House Speaker Mike Johnson descended on the courthouse this week and attacked presiding Judge Juan Merchan’s daughter, who fundraised for Democrats, blasting the proceedings as a “sham.” Vance and Florida Senator Rick Scott similarly attacked Merchan’s daughter. Many Republicans blasted the credibility of Michael Cohen, the former Trump fixer and chief prosecution witness. Still others slammed the lead prosecutor, based on an absurd, convoluted theory about his previous work at the Justice Department, as a tool of President Biden.
If Republicans were merely criticizing the prosecution on the facts and the law in substantive terms, it would be one thing. But here they are attacking the judge, his family, the witnesses, and the line prosecutors as actors in a fundamentally illegitimate proceeding.
Those are things the gag order on Trump prohibits him from doing, which has some commentators asking whether he is surreptitiously inducing his boosters to carry out those attacks to circumvent it. There is some evidence of this, but as Brian Beutler writes, that question misses the point: Either way, the surrogates wouldn’t be doing any of it if Trump didn’t want them to, and they are echoing Trump’s own precise language and claims.
To grasp the real force of this, it’s worth recalling the reason we don’t want proceedings like these subjected to demonization campaigns in the first place: It threatens to sabotage public confidence in the justice system’s integrity and makes it harder for good-faith actors to play their roles in it without fear or favor. And so, the whole point of these GOP depravities is to dramatize, in the form of spectacle, that their fealty is to Trump over and above those rules and norms, the ones that make the system work at the most fundamental level.
Rep. Lauren Boebert made headlines with her show of support at former President Donald Trump’s hush-money trial on Thursday, but has been conspicuously absent for her own son’s court appearances, according to multiple reports.
The Colorado congresswoman joined a gaggle of Freedom Caucus loyalists at the Manhattan criminal court on Thursday, writing on X: “I’ll never stop standing up for President Trump, even if I’m the last one standing.”
Speaking at a makeshift press conference outside the court, Boebert was heckled with chants of “Beetlejuice” — a reference to when she was thrown out of a Denver theater showing the film after vaping and apparently groping a male companion.
While Trump is facing criminal charges of falsifying business records in relation to a hush-money scheme to silence porn actor Stormy Daniels, Boebert’s 19-year-old son Tyler has also had court dates.
Tyler Boebert was arrested in February on multiple felony charges including the criminal possession of identity documents, criminal trespass, and possession of a financial device.
He’s had two court hearings to date — one on April 11 and another on May 9.
During the April hearing, Boebert was in Congress voting against the passage of the Sea Turtle Rescue Assistance and Rehabilitation Act, records show.
Trump took advantage of the photo op and whining in court by appearing at Barron’s graduation today. He’s headed off for a fundraiser tonight in the Twin Cities. He’s probably airborne, as I write. Another MAGA governor is getting slammed for being more interested in appearances than Governing. They’re the most emotionally abusive group of misfits I’ve ever seen or read about. “‘A Governor Who Doesn’t Seem to Have Much Interest in Governing Arkansas.’ Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ increasing number of critics think she’s too worried about her national profile.” This is in Politicoand reported by Dana Liebelson. If she was that worried about her profile, you would think she’d stop wearing outfits suggesting she’s about to board a Prarie Schooner to Oregon. Still, I can’t see this kind of coverage of Jeff Landry, our governor, down here in Lousyana.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders assumed a podium on a recent spring morning in Arkansas, her familiar voice instantly evoking her pugnacious press conferences under Donald Trump. That day, there were no reporters to spar with, nor culture wars to wage, only a few dozen Arkansans who’d come to applaud millions in ongoing state grants for playgrounds and parks. “When my kids were younger, we could plan a huge trip just to find out that our kids would prefer to actually play on a jungle gym or a swing set,” she said. The 41-year-old governor wore an above-the-knee metallic skirt and pumps, a millennial-friendly outfit that matched her refreshed brand as the youngest governor in the country. She reminisced about her husband, Bryan, planning outdoor adventures with their three children, “some of which I am glad that I went on.” The crowd, which included Bryan, laughed.
Sanders was a long way from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in 2018, when she sat silently, a rictus fixed on her face, as comedienne Michelle Wolf joked about her burning facts and using the ash “to create a perfect smoky eye.” The former White House press secretary made her name defending Trump’s version of reality, while whittling down the actual press briefing. To her supporters, she played the outsider in Washington who couldn’t be corrupted by the D.C. establishment.
Now that she’s returned home, they say she still puts Arkansas first. In a close-knit state where some of Sanders’ colleagues have known her since college or younger, they insist her time with Trump didn’t fundamentally change her. Washington was one of her adventures, some of which she’s glad she went on. And many people in Arkansas love her for the same reason her national audience does: “She’s a fighter, an amazing communicator, and people connect to her,” Chris Caldwell, her 2022 campaign manager, told me.
But she has brought her experience in Trump’s Washington back with her. She shows little trust in the media. She cruises between events in a black SUV with tinted windows, accompanied by a state police detail in suits and a comms director who worked for Trump and his 2020 presidential campaign. At open-press events, she takes so few questions, Arkansas reporters are fatalistic about the idea of asking many. Instead, as befits a national figure with national ambitions — she’s shown up on lists as a possible running mate for Trump — she reaches her audience on her terms, including on Fox News, or Instagram and Elon Musk’s X, where she has over 2.3 million collective followers. At times, she seems to govern for the latter. Arkansas may not share a border with Mexico, but she has traveled to Eagle Pass, Texas, and talked about the border crisis on Fox & Friends. And sent down the Arkansas National Guard. Arkansas has long allowed gender-neutral IDs, of which there are a few hundred issued, but she justified banning them in the state, using the same playbook from the Republican war on trans rights.
Criticism of a member’s “fake eyelashes” and another’s intelligence. A question about discussing a member’s “bleach blond, bad-built butch body.”
A House Oversight Committee meeting Thursday night devolved into chaos amid personal attacks and partisan bickering in a rare evening session that was supposed to center on a resolution recommending Attorney General Merrick Garland be held in contempt of Congress.
The already tense hearing was derailed when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., responded to a question from Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, by saying, “I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you’re reading.”
Democrats, led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, immediately moved to strike Greene’s words from the record and make her apologize to Crockett.
“That is absolutely unacceptable,” Ocasio-Cortez said over cross talk. “How dare you attack the physical appearance of another person?”
Greene taunted Ocasio-Cortez, asking, “Are your feelings hurt?”
“Oh, girl? Baby girl,” Ocasio-Cortez shot back. “Don’t even play.”
Greene attacked a second member just minutes after she criticized Crockett, asserting that Ocasio-Cortez did not have “enough intelligence” for a debate.
Greene had asked Ocasio-Cortez, “Why don’t you debate me?”
Ocasio-Cortez responded that she thought “it’s pretty self-evident.”
“You don’t have enough intelligence,” Greene said as members of Congress audibly groaned at her attack.
Greene agreed to strike her comments toward Crockett but vehemently refused to apologize for the evening’s attacks, declaring, “You will never get an apology out of me.”
Green asked if any member of the Democrat party was employing Judge Marchand’s daughter, which had nothing to do with the committee topic, which was supposed to be about AG Merrick Garland.
I’d like to hear your thoughts on all of this because I’m “hopping mad,” as my mother would say. It seemed to be an equal opportunity week to discuss why women should return to the kitchen and nursery. Sometimes, I’d like to be wherever David and Warren are, packing my guitars and piano with me and ignoring this world for a while.
I have one thing to bring to your attention. This is from the Texas Monthly. “Why Did Greg Abbott Pardon a Racist Murderer? The governor didn’t offer much of a rationale in granting clemency to Daniel Perry, who killed a Black Lives Matter protester in 2020, but apparently the enemy of his enemy is his friend.” It was written by Christopher Hooks. May all the wisdom beings protect every living thing and person in a red state.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The sun produced its biggest flare in nearly two decades Tuesday, just days after severe solar storms pummeled Earth and created dazzling northern lights in unaccustomed places.
“Not done yet!” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced in an update.
It’s the biggest flare of this 11-year solar cycle, which is approaching its peak, according to NOAA. The good news is that Earth should be out of the line of fire this time because the flare erupted on a part of the sun rotating away from Earth.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the bright flash of the X-ray flare. It was the strongest since 2005, rated on the scale for these flares as X8.7.
Bryan Brasher at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado said it may turn out to have been even stronger when scientists gather data from other sources.
It follows nearly a week of flares and mass ejections of coronal plasma that threatened to disrupt power and communications on Earth and in orbit. An ejection associated with Tuesday’s flare appeared to have been directed away from our planet, although analysis is ongoing, Brasher noted.
I’m glad it’s not going to affect us, because last time my cell phone malfunctioned and I spent hours texting with tech support trying to get it working again.
Trump Biden debate in 2020
The big news this morning is that President Biden challenged Trump to two debates and Trump accepted. The first debate is now scheduled for June 27. The second one is planned for some time in September, if Trump doesn’t chicken out. The debates will not be under the control of the debate commission, and Biden’s preference is for no live audience.
President Biden and former president Donald Trump agreed Wednesday to a June 27 debate on CNN, hours after Biden announced he would bypass the decades-old tradition of three fall meetings organized by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates.
After Biden publicly embraced a CNN proposal in a social media post, a Trump adviser, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said the presumptive Republican nominee would accept that event. CNN also announced plans for the event.
“I am Ready and Willing to Debate Crooked Joe at the two proposed times in June and September,” Trump wrote earlier Wednesday on Truth Social. “I would strongly recommend more than two debates and, for excitement purposes, a very large venue, although Biden is supposedly afraid of crowds.”
“Just tell me when, I’ll be there,” he continued, before referencing a tag line from professional boxing. “’Let’s get ready to Rumble!!!”
The publicagreement follows private back-channel discussions about possible meetings. The officials with the Biden and Trump campaigns have had informal conversations on debates in recent weeks, focused on meetings that would not involve the commission, according to two people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private events.
The Biden proposal, outlined in a video message and letter to the commission, called for direct negotiations between the Trump and Biden campaigns over the rules, moderators and network hosts for the one-on-one encounters. He proposed a separate vice-presidential debate in July, after the Republican nominating convention and before the Democratic nominating convention.
“Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020, and since then he hasn’t shown up for a debate. Now he is acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal. I’ll even do it twice,” Biden said in the video released Wednesday that referenced the weekly break in Trump’s New York criminal trial. “So let’s pick the dates, Donald. I hear you’re free on Wednesdays.” [….]
On the proposed ground rules:
Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon cited the commission’s proposed schedule and past struggles to keep candidates from violating the debate rules in the letter explaining the decision.
Trump and Biden in 2020
“The Commission’s model of building huge spectacles with large audiences at great expense simply isn’t necessary or conducive to good debates,” she wrote. “The debates should be conducted for the benefit of the American voters, watching on television and at home — not as entertainment for an in-person audience with raucous or disruptive partisans and donors, who consume valuable debate time with noisy spectacles of approval or jeering.” [….]
The Biden proposal will be the subject of extensive negotiations between the two camps over the coming weeks, with Biden advisers now expecting proposals to come in from networks. Biden’s team has requested that only broadcast networks that hosted Republican primary debates in 2016 and Democratic primary debates in 2020 be eligible to host the first debate. Only four networks — CNN, ABC News, Telemundo and CBS News — hosted debates for both parties during those cycles.
Biden proposed that the moderator should be selected by the broadcast host from its “regular personnel,” with firm time limits for answers, equal speaking time, alternative turns to speak and microphones that are active only during each candidate’s turn. The first debate would take place after the June 15 conclusion of the Group of Seven summit in Italy and the conclusion of Trump’s criminal trial in New York. The September debate would take place before the start of early voting.
Yesterday, Michael Cohen finished his direct testimony in the hush money case, and the defense began cross examining him.
NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s criminal trial finally progressed Tuesday to a confrontation that has been brewing for weeks: the face-off between the former president’s defense team and his former fixer, Michael Cohen.
But after a few initial crackles, it lacked the pop that many had expected.
Todd Blanche with Trump in court
Cohen is the prosecution’s star witness, and during a day-and-a-half of direct examination, he provided critical details about Trump’s knowledge of the cover-up at the heart of the case. So when Trump’s lead attorney, Todd Blanche, stood up after lunch to begin cross-examining him, everyone was waiting to see the Trump team’s strategy for depicting Cohen as a liar with a vendetta.
Blanche’s first question — in which he quoted an off-color insult from Cohen — got the courtroom’s attention. But over several hours, Cohen largely maintained his cool while Blanche attempted to provoke him. And in questions ranging from Cohen’s book profits to what Cohen said during the Robert Mueller investigation, it wasn’t clear if Blanche managed to dent Cohen’s credibility in the hush money case.
Even Trump himself appeared to doze off while his own lawyer was questioning his nemesis.
The cross-examination will continue Thursday (after a scheduled day off on Wednesday), but for now, Cohen seems mostly unscathed.
More on Blanche’s questioning of Cohen:
He began by making it personal: “On April 23, you went on TikTok and called me a ‘crying little shit,’ didn’t you?” Blanche asked Cohen, raising his voice to deliver “shit.”
Prosecutors objected — but not before Cohen blurted out: “That sounds like something I would say.”
Blanche wasn’t done. Moments later, he confronted Cohen with more of his expletive-laden TikTok commentary, including calling Trump a “dictator douchebag” and saying Trump leaves the courtroom to go to “right into that little cage, which is where he belongs, in a fucking cage, like an animal.”
“I recall saying that,” Cohen replied.
But if Blanche’s strategy was to rankle Cohen into displaying some of the ire and petulance he has broadcast on social media and on his podcast, it didn’t work. Cohen maintained a largely placid demeanor, calling Blanche “sir,” and declining to offer colorful descriptions of the events Blanche questioned him about.
When Blanche tried to depict Cohen as a blabbermouth who has frustrated the Manhattan district attorney’s office by repeatedly going on TV to talk about the case against Trump, Cohen said he didn’t recall many requests by prosecutors to keep quiet and insisted they had only occasionally asked him, “please don’t talk about the case.”
“That’s it? They just call you and say that?” Blanche said incredulously.
“Actually, they call my attorney,” Cohen replied.
Trump has been inviting MAGA politicians like Tommy Tuberville and JD Vance to accompany him to court this week. Then they hold press conferences outside the courthouse and attack the judge and prosecution. Yesterday, Trump brought the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. This man is second in line for the presidency and he’s being led around by nose by Trump. How humiliating.
The US House was in session on Tuesday with vital business to complete but its speaker, Mike Johnson, was 200 miles north, attending another day in the criminal trial of Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee charged over hush-money payments to an adult film star who claimed an affair.
“President Trump is innocent of these charges,” Johnson said outside court in Manhattan, where Trump faces the first 34 of 88 criminal counts….
Mike Johnson holding forth outside the courthouse in Manhattan
Trump has used his trial as a loyalty test for supporters and vice-presidential hopefuls, both at the courthouse and on social media and TV. On Tuesday, Johnson was joined by the governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum, the Florida representatives Byron Donalds and Cory Mills, and Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur who ran for the Republican presidential nomination.
Before proceedings began, as Johnson and other supporters stood behind him, Trump spoke to reporters.
“I do have a lot of surrogates and they are speaking very beautifully,” he said. “They come from all over Washington, and they’re highly respected and they think this is the biggest scam they’ve ever seen.”
Regarding such surrogates’ ability to comment on the trial unencumbered by a gag order over which Trump has been fined and threatened with incarceration, Trump told reporters: “You ask me questions that I’m not allowed to answer.” [….]
One of Johnson’s former Republican colleagues, the anti-Trump conservative Liz Cheney, jibed: “Have to admit I’m surprised that Speaker Johnson wants to be in the ‘I cheated on my wife with a porn star’ club. I guess he’s not that concerned with teaching morality to our young people after all.” [….]
Back on Capitol Hill, the House was due to consider final passage of the Federal Aviation Authority Reauthorization Act. House Democrats were also set to face a series of messaging bills, proposed legislation designed not to pass but to ensnare the other party in difficult political choices.
Mr Johnson said he was speaking out in defence of his “friend,” the former president, and decried the “sham” trial.
“I wanted to be here myself, to call out what is a travesty of justice,” Mr Johnson told reporters. “President Trump is a friend and I wanted to be here to support him.” [….]
Mr Johnson criticized the charge that Mr Trump falsified his business records.
“I think everybody knows he is not the bookkeeper for his company,” he said. “President Trump is innocent of these charges, and again, anyone with common sense can understand what is happening here.”
Mr Johnson is just the latest Republican-elected official to head to New York to show their support for the former president. Senators Rick Scott of Florida, JD Vance of Ohio and Senator Tommy Tuberville are among the many who have made the pilgrimage to the Manhattan courthouse.
The Democratic National Committee mocked the showing.
“Trump’s pathetic band of MAGA extremists seemingly have nothing better to do than echo Trump’s lies and nod approvingly in the background – because they certainly aren’t doing their day jobs of serving their constituents or running a functional political operation,” spokesman Alex Floyd said. “If deploying this motley crew of cranks and conspiracy theorists was the Trump campaign’s ham-handed attempt to divert attention from their candidate’s disappearance from the campaign trail, they’re in for a stormy six months ahead.”
In recent days, several high-profile Republican political figures have traveled to the Manhattan Criminal Court, where Donald Trump is on trial. Outside the courthouse, they addressed the media and attacked key witnesses, the jury, and even the judge’s daughter.
The comments by Trump’s Republican allies are nearly identical to attacks that Trump has made previously in interviews and social media posts. But Judge Juan Merchan has ruled that, in so doing, Trump violated the gag order he imposed to preserve the integrity of the trial. Merchan has already fined Trump for violating the gag order 10times and has warned that future violations could result in incarceration.
Tommy Tuberville holds forth in Manhattan
Merchan’s order prohibits Trump from “directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses.” The order also prohibits Trump from directing others to attack the jury, the court staff, or family members.
Asked on Tuesday if he directed the Republicans to speak about the trial on his behalf, Trump described them as his “surrogates” and praised them for “speaking very beautifully.” Trump has also entered the courthouse flanked by his surrogates, effectively giving them his imprimatur. If Trump directed his surrogates to speak, their comments could constitute criminal contempt of the gag order by Trump….
On Monday, Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH), Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), and Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) addressed the media in front of the courthouse. On Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum (R), Congressman Byron Donalds (R-FL), former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy (R), and Congressman Cory Mills (R-FL) did the same. Tuesday’s group, in an apparent show of solidarity, wore Trump’s signature blue suit and red tie.
Many of Trump’s surrogates appear to be speaking from a common script.
Read more at the link above. I’m not sure the judge can do anything about this. Trump is slime.
On a recent Tuesday morning, a visibly frustrated Donald Trump sat through a tense hearing in the first-ever criminal trial of a former American president. During a break, he let rip on his social media platform.
New York Justice Juan Merchan, Trump declared on Truth Social, is a “highly conflicted” overseer of a “kangaroo court.” Trump supporters swiftly replied to his post with a blitz of attacks on Merchan. The comments soon turned ugly. Some called for Merchan and other judges hearing cases against Trump to be killed.
“Treason is a hangable offense,” one wrote.
“They should all be executed,” added another.
The April 23 post by Trump and the menacing responses from his followers illustrate the incendiary impact of his angry and incessant broadsides against the judges handling the criminal and civil suits against him. As his presidential campaign intensifies, Trump has baselessly cast the judges and prosecutors in his trials as corrupt puppets of the Biden administration, bent on torpedoing his White House bid.
The rhetoric is inspiring widespread calls for violence. In a review of commenters’ posts on three pro-Trump websites, including the former president’s own Truth Social platform, Reuters documented more than 150 posts since March 1 that called for physical violence against the judges handling three of his highest-profile cases – two state judges in Manhattan and one in Georgia overseeing a criminal case in which Trump is accused of illegally seeking to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.
Those posts were part of a larger pool of hundreds identified by Reuters that used hostile, menacing and, in some cases, racist or sexualized language to attack the judges, but stopped short of explicitly calling for violence against them.
Experts on extremism say the constant repetition of threatening or menacing language can normalize the idea of violence – and increase the risk of someone carrying it out. Mitch Silber, a former New York City Police Department director of intelligence analysis, compared the Trump supporters now calling for violence against judges to the U.S. Capitol rioters who believed they were following Trump’s “marching orders” on Jan. 6, 2021.
“This is just the 2023-2024 iteration of that phenomenon,” Silber said. “Articulating these ideas is the first step along the pathway of mobilizing to violence.”
Stormy Daniels leaving the Trump trial wearing bulletproof vest
Attorney Clark Brewster appeared on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” on Monday, where he revealed how the adult film star wore a bulletproof vest underneath her clothes “every day” until she got to the Manhattan courthouse where the trial is taking place.
“She was concerned about the security coming into New York,” Brewster told host Anderson Cooper and the show’s panelists.
Offering some insight into Daniels’ headspace during the trial, Brewster said, “I can tell you that before she came on Sunday, I mean, she cried herself to sleep.”
“She was paralyzed with fear, not of taking the stand or telling her story, but what some nut might do to her,” he continued. “And I’m genuinely concerned about it as well.”
No matter what happens with Donald Trump’s other criminal cases, we’ll always have New York, where he’s been walloped with two sets of civil penalties and is currently sleeping through his hush-money/election interference criminal trial.
Unfortunately, despite four indictments, it looks like New York is the only trial that will take place before the 2024 election. With more than a little help from his friends, Trump’s delay tactics have been remarkably successful, and he probably won’t see the inside of another criminal courtroom any time soon.
Last week, Trump appointee Judge Aileen Cannon issued a bizarre order that indefinitely delayed Trump’s trial for his mishandling of classified national security documents. It’s the culmination of months of foot-dragging on Cannon’s part, and it’s one that legal experts agree looks equal parts deliberate and incompetent.
Cannon’s May 7 order set 14 pretrial deadlines, vacated the May 20, 2024, trial date that had been tentatively set, and just didn’t bother to set a new one. Her reasoning? Setting a trial date would be “imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions before the Court, critical CIPA [Classified Information Procedures Act] issues, and additional pretrial and trial preparations necessary to present this case to a jury.”
That sounds plausible until you remember that Cannon herself is solely responsible for delays in addressing pretrial issues. It’s the judicial equivalent of running around in a hot dog costume declaring that “we’re all trying to find the guy who did this.” Her behavior is so obviously favorable to the former president that one Republican close to Trump told Rolling Stone Cannon is his “favorite member of the Trump campaign,” while another Trump adviser called her “a godsend.”
On the January 6th case:
In addition to Cannon, Trump is getting help from the US Supreme Court, which agreed to hear his absurd immunity claim in the January 6 election interference case — one that Trump’s own lawyer admitted would allow a president to order assassinations of political opponents.
In December 2023, special prosecutor Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to take the question on an expedited basis but they declined. This meant that the DC Circuit Court of Appeals had to hear the appeal first.
The DC Circuit ruled against Trump on February 6, 2024, and the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case on February 22. Apparently, the Supreme Court didn’t see the issue as particularly pressing and set oral arguments for April 25. During oral arguments, the Court’s conservative wing signaled they didn’t necessarily buy the entirety of Trump’s immunity argument but, as Liz Dye wrote, they “seemed to think the question of whether the president has to obey the laws of this land is a major head scratcher.”
The Georgia case is also “on hold indefinitely”:
The calendar also doesn’t favor the prosecution in the Georgia case, where Trump is charged with racketeering, false statements, forgery, witness tampering, and election fraud. However, where the classified documents and January 6 cases have dragged on with the assistance of Trump appointees, the roadblocks in the Georgia case are mainly the fault of the prosecutor, Fani Willis.
Willis hired her boyfriend, Nathan Wade, as a special prosecutor on the case, and when one of Trump’s co-defendants found out, he moved to dismiss the indictment and disqualify Willis. After a hearing in February, the presiding judge ruled the following month that Willis would not be disqualified. But Trump and eight of his co-defendants asked the Georgia Court of Appeals to allow them to appeal the decision, and last week, the appellate court agreed to hear the case.
No dates for briefing or oral argument have been set. The appellate court has roughly six months to hear and decide the case, which means a decision could come as late as November. Also, the trial court judge will probably refrain from setting a trial date until this is decided.
Unless the Georgia appellate courts move with unusual swiftness, Willis’s misstep here handed Trump the considerable gift of delaying the trial past the election.
At least it does appear that we’ll get a verdict in the New York case, but all this is very dispiriting.
That’s all I have for you today. I hope you find something of interest here.
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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.
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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.” Iran’s president, foreign minister, and others found dead at helicopter crash site, state media says.”
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.
athan Beane, the NFL’s senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, told People.
These last 10 years have taught us that we may have come a long way from not being able to vote, but the party of Troglydites can send us right back to being chattel and slaves in a matter of years. Women, the GLBT community, immigrant populations, and America’s black community are having basic rights stripped from them daily. The shit show in front of the Manhattan Courthouse yesterday was appalling. “MAGA Rage at Trump’s Trial Just Got Darker and More Dangerous. Republicans aren’t just showing “loyalty to Trump.” They’re saying that Trump is more important than the rule of law.” This is from Greg Sargent writing for The New Republic.
“Matt Gaetz evokes ‘standing by’ language adopted by Proud Boys as he attends court with Donald Trump.” They all basically helped Trump avoid his gag order. If they were ordered by Donald to do it, they are all in trouble. Boebert also made a huge fool of herself and, once again, showed her “family values.” This is from Business Insider. “Lauren Boebert skipped Congress to support Trump’s trial, but didn’t show up to her own son’s hearings: reports.”
Trump took advantage of the photo op and whining in court by appearing at Barron’s graduation today. He’s headed off for a fundraiser tonight in the Twin Cities. He’s probably airborne, as I write. Another MAGA governor is getting slammed for being more interested in appearances than Governing. They’re the most emotionally abusive group of misfits I’ve ever seen or read about. “‘A Governor Who Doesn’t Seem to Have Much Interest in Governing Arkansas.’ Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ increasing number of critics think she’s too worried about her national profile.” This is in Politico and reported by Dana Liebelson. If she was that worried about her profile, you would think she’d stop wearing outfits suggesting she’s about to board a Prarie Schooner to Oregon. Still, I can’t see this kind of coverage of Jeff Landry, our governor, down here in Lousyana.
Before I get going on today’s political news, I want to share this story that caught my eye while I was surfing around. 
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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