Cats can be mysterious creatures to begin with, but their ability to purr has long perplexed scientists. How can so small an animal make such a deep sound?
Now, scientists may be one step closer to solving this perplexing pet puzzle. Cats, they say, have pads within their vocal cords that may help produce the low-frequency vocalizations involved in purring, according to a new paper published last week in the journal Current Biology.
Big animals, like elephants, have longer vocal cords than smaller animals do, which allows them to produce lower sounds. The same rule applies to musical instruments: A large double bass can produce lower notes than a small violin does, for example.
“Typically, the larger the animal, the longer the vocal folds and so the lower the frequency of sound created,” says study co-author Christian Herbst, a voice scientist at the University of Vienna, to New Scientist’s Jason Arunn Murugesu.
But domestic cats, with their relatively short vocal cords, seem to be an exception to this rule. Though they typically weigh around ten pounds, when purring, they can make low-frequency rumbles between 20 and 30 hertz—lower than the lowest bass sounds made with the average human voice.
To explain this phenomenon, researchers studied eight domestic cats that had already been euthanized because of terminal illness. With the cat owners’ consent, the scientists removed the animals’ larynges from their bodies, then pushed warm air through them to simulate feline vocalizations.
With this method, the researchers were able to produce purring sounds at frequencies between 25 and 30 hertz—without any input from the cat’s brain, and without any muscle contractions. The vocal cords vibrated in a way that resembled “vocal fry” in humans, or the creaky, low register sound some people make when speaking.
Other vertebrates produce sounds in a similar way—via a passive process known as flow-induced self-sustained oscillation. When this occurs, the brain sends a signal to the vocal cords that causes them to press together. As air flows through the vocal cords, they begin to vibrate—and from here, physiology takes over, and the brain is no longer involved….
The researchers analyzed the deceased cats’ vocal cords and found masses of tissue embedded within them that they theorize might be the key to purring. These structures, which they termed “pads,” might slow down the vocal cords’ vibrations by making them denser, enabling the animals to make lower-frequency sounds in spite of their diminutive size.
Interesting, huh?
In people news, longtime GOP strategist and author Kevin Phillips has died.
“The whole secret of politics is knowing who hates who.”
That insight was the brainchild of Kevin Phillips, the longtime political analyst who passed away this week at 82 years old. Phillips’s 1969 book, “The Emerging Republican Majority,” provided the blueprint for the “southern strategy” that the Republican Party adopted for decades to win over White voters who were alienated by the Democratic Party’s embrace of civil rights in the 1960s.
Phillips advised Republicans to exploit the racial anxieties of White voters, linking them directly to issues such as crime, federal spending and voting rights. The strategy, beginning with Richard M. Nixon’s landslide victory in the 1972 presidential race, helped produce GOP majorities for decades.
To the witch’s house we go, by Margaryta Yermolayeva
Though Phillips later reconsidered his fealty to the GOP, updated versions of the “southern strategy” live on in today’s Republican Party, shaping the political world we inhabit today. So I asked historians and political theorists to weigh in on Phillips’s legacy. Their responses have been edited for style and brevity.
Kevin Kruse, historian at Princeton University and co-editor of “Myth America”: Kevin Phillips was a prophet of today’s polarization. He drew a blueprint for a major realignment of American politics that is still with us. For much of the 20th century, Democrats dominated the national scene, because of the reliable support of the “Solid South.”
But the “Negro problem” of the 1960s, Phillips argued, presented Republicans an opportunity to take the South and Southwest, too, a new region he anointed “the Sun Belt.” All they had to do was appeal to the hatreds of White voters there, through racially coded “law and order” appeals.
Phillips, of course, proved correct about the regional realignment. Republicans won every single state in the South in the 1972, 1984, 1988, 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns. Today, Republicans dominate the region partly because they still employ Phillips’s polarizing politics of resentment and reaction, from complaints about Black Lives Matter to panics about “woke” education. Donald Trump’s continued dominance of the GOP shows that the underlying instinct to exploit division and inflame hatred remains.
Read the rest, including more quotes by experts, at The WaPo.
House Republicans are still in chaos. Yesterday, one of the craziest House reps, George Santos, had an insane freakout in the midst of the Speaker fight.
We’ve all had an extremely long week, as you’re likely aware. On Friday afternoon, George Santos, the New York representative whose tally of alleged federal crimes is now up to 23, was spotted screaming in the hallway of the Longworth House Office Building. It appears Santos — who famously suggested his family was Jewish then revised this to “Jew-ish” — was accosted by pro-Palestinian protesters.
Normally, neither a small protest on Capitol Hill nor George Santos shouting in front of a gaggle of reporters would be all that notable. But there’s the twist: Santos was holding a 2-month-old baby when this all went down….
You probably have a lot of questions right now, as do I. Hartmann doesn’t have any answers. She posted some tweets, but WordPress won’t let me do that anymore. You can read them at NY Mag.
Rep. George Santos (R-NY) had a complete meltdown on Friday afternoon during a tense interaction on Capitol Hill that ended with a man in police custody—and somehow involved a baby.
According to a clip shared by NBC News’ Sahil Kapur, Santos called the man, identified by cops as Shabd Khalsa, “human scum” for asking him questions critical of Israel’s bombings in Gaza….
“You came into my personal space yelling at me,” Santos fumed. “What are you doing about terrorists destroying Israel?” He then sped down a hallway in the Capitol’s Longworth Building, screaming statements condemning Hamas….
Capitol Police said in a statement to The Daily Beast that 36-year-old Khalsa was arrested and charged him with simple assault “after an officer witnessed him have physical contact with a congressional staffer in the Longworth Building.” The staffer was not identified.
A profile on X under the name Shabd Singh, the same name Khalsa gave to reporters, says that he is a former campaign organizer for Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT).
He told The Hill that he was Jewish-American and that Santos, who was previously busted falsely claiming to be Jewish, “began yelling at me, essentially framing what I am saying as some sort of antisemitic trope.”
Still no information about the baby. If you’ve heard anything about the origins of the child or what Santos was doing with him/her, please let us know.
As Daknikat wrote yesterday, Insurrectionist Jim Jordon is currently the leading candidate for House Speaker, but he doesn’t yet have the votes to be election, thank goodness.
After a series of setbacks, Republicans ended the week no closer to electing a new speaker as deep internal divisions have left the conference struggling to govern and the House in a state of paralysis.
The chaos within House GOP ranks intensified dramatically over the past several days as the conference has tried and so far failed to find a viable successor to Kevin McCarthy following his unprecedented ouster at the hands of a small faction of hardline conservatives.
Black Cat Halloween, by Iva Wilcox
Rep. Jim Jordan is the new GOP speaker nominee following Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s exit from the race. But the Ohio Republican faces the same kind of grim vote math that doomed Scalise’s speaker bid as Jordan lacks the 217 votes needed to win the gavel in a full House floor vote.
Jordan has the weekend to continue to make his case and attempt to flip holdouts, but he faces a steep uphill battle.
The GOP conference faced whiplash this week after Scalise won an initial vote to become speaker nominee, only to drop out not long after as a result of entrenched opposition to his candidacy. The week ended with another vote, this time to make Jordan the new nominee. But it soon became clear that Jordan also faces a stiff wall of resistance.
The House remains effectively frozen as long as there is no speaker, a dire situation that comes as Congress faces a fast-approaching government funding deadline in mid-November and as crisis unfolds abroad in Ukraine and with Israel’s war against Hamas.
Asked by CNN’s Manu Raju how the entire episode reflects on the GOP, McCarthy said on Friday, “it’s terrible.”
Centrists are signaling they’re open to a deal. Democrats are outlining terms. With no speaker in sight yet, House Republicans are ramping up their discussions about a way to reopen the chamber.
A bipartisan solution to the GOP’s leadership chaos still sounds farfetched to most on the Hill — but then, so does the idea that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) might overcome his dozens of skeptics and win a floor vote early next week.
There’s just one problem with the idea that a temporary compromise could get the House back to legislative business: It has the same issue that plagued the speakership bids of Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise and now Jordan. Right now, no solution has the near-unanimous House Republican support that’s required to pass on the floor.
Which means that, unless Jordan can overcome his skeptics and push to victory on the floor in the next several days, the only way forward might be with Democrats. A group of centrist Democrats wrote to Acting Speaker Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) on Friday to propose a limited agenda and some perks for the opposing party in exchange for temporarily restarting House business during a time of global crisis.
Some self-described GOP pragmatists have suggested that if Republicans can’t chart a course on their own, they could cut a deal with Democrats to break the 10-day impasse.
“At some point we have to do a bipartisan deal. I mean, they don’t want to acknowledge it, but these guys do not want to govern,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said of his own party’s conservatives.
But as desperation creeps into the GOP while Jordan pushes to lock down the gavel, it’s clear that any attempt to further empower a caretaker speaker would fall short within their own party. McHenry has indicated that his future role as acting speaker is up to his colleagues to settle — even as the Nov. 17 shutdown deadline draws closer and Israel seeks U.S. aid — but his fellow Republicans simply can’t agree on anything.
Read more at the link above.
I suppose I have to include some news from the war between Israel and Hamas. (BTW, is it just me, or has the Ukraine war completely disappeared from the media?)
A blast has struck a convoy on an evacuation route in Gaza, killing a number of people including several children, after a stark deadline ahead of a possible Israeli ground assault.
The IDF told civilians in and around Gaza City Friday that they must move south to avoid being caught up in Israeli military operations and announced a six-hour evacuation window on Saturday.
Black Cat at Halloween, by Daniel Eskridge
Israel has massed troops and military equipment at the border with Gaza, and continued bombarding the densely populated territory in response to the deadly October 7 attacks by the Islamist militant group, Hamas.
Videos authenticated by CNN showed a scene of extensive destruction following Friday’s blast on Salah Al-Deen street. A number of bodies, including those of children, can be seen on on a flat-bed trailer that appears to have been used to carry people away from Gaza City. There are also a number of badly burned and damaged cars.
It’s unclear what caused the widespread devastation. CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment on any airstrikes in the same location.
Even before the evacuation warning, more than 400,000 Palestinians had already been internally displaced by the past week of fighting as conditions worsen inside the bombarded strip.
But the evacuation statement and the prospect of a potential incursion have been sharply criticized by rights groups, including the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) head, who warned that such a move could bring “catastrophic humanitarian consequences.”
As Israel engages in a massive air campaign ahead of an anticipated full-scale ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Friday that all citizens of Gaza are responsible for the attack Hamas perpetrated in Israel last weekend that left over 1,200 people dead.
“It is an entire nation out there that is responsible,” Herzog said at a press conference on Friday. “It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’etat.”
When a reporter asked Herzog to clarify whether he meant to say that since Gazans did not remove Hamas from power “that makes them, by implication, legitimate targets,” the Israeli president claimed, “No, I didn’t say that.”
But he then stated: “When you have a missile in your goddamn kitchen and you want to shoot it at me, am I allowed to defend myself?”
At another point in the press conference, Herzog presented a different perspective, saying, “Of course there are many, many innocent Palestinians who don’t agree to this — but unfortunately in their homes, there are missiles shooting at us, at my children.”
Ghost Cat, by Neocale at Deviant Art
Herzog’s comments follow Israel’s announcement that it had directed the 1.1 million residents of northern Gaza to evacuate, likely ahead of a ground invasion. Israel dropped thousands of flyers over northern Gaza and left voice messages on Friday directing people to leave their homes and flee south.
Human rights groups and the United Nations denounced the evacuation order.
“The United Nations considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences,” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general, said in a statement. “The United Nations strongly appeals for any such order, if confirmed, to be rescinded avoiding what could transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation.”
“Ordering a million people in Gaza to evacuate, when there’s no safe place to go, is not an effective warning,” Clive Baldwin, senior legal advisor to Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “World leaders should speak up now before it is too late, he added.
Documents exclusively obtained by NBC News show that Hamas created detailed plans to target elementary schools and a youth center in the Israeli kibbutz of Kfar Sa’ad, to “kill as many people as possible,” seize hostages and quickly move them into the Gaza Strip.
The attack plans, which are labeled “top secret” in Arabic, appear to be orders for two highly trained Hamas units to surround and infiltrate villages and target places where civilians, including children, gather. Israeli authorities are still determining the death toll in Kfar Sa’ad.
The documents were found on the bodies of Hamas terrorists by Israeli first responders and shared with NBC News. They include detailed maps and show that Hamas intended to kill or take hostage civilians and school children.
One page labeled “Top Secret” outlines a plan of attack for Kfar Sa’ad, saying “Combat unit 1” is directed to “contain the new Da’at school,” while “Combat unit 2” is to “collect hostages,” “search the Bnei Akiva youth center” and “search the old Da’at school.”
Another page labeled “Top Secret Maneuver” describes a plan for a Hamas unit to secure the east side of Kfar Sa’ad while a second unit controls the west. It says “kills as many as possible” and “capture hostages.” Other orders include surrounding a dining hall and holding hostages in it.
The detailed plan to attack Kfar Sa’ad is part of a trove of documents that Israeli officials are analyzing, according to one source in the Israeli army and one in the government. Surveillance video of Hamas terrorists entering a kibbutz on Oct. 7 shows tactics similar to those laid out in the documents obtained by NBC News.
The Israeli officials said that the wider group of documents show that Hamas had been systematically gathering intelligence on each kibbutz bordering Gaza and creating specific plans of attack for each village that included the intentional targeting of women and children.
The judge presiding over the upcoming damages trial against Rudy Giuliani said Friday she will tell jurors that the former Trump lawyer intentionally hid financial documents and other records in defiance of court orders.
Vlad Vampire Cat, by Carrie Hawks
In a five-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said the move was necessary given “Giuliani’s continued and flagrant disregard of this Court’s August 30 Order that he produce financial-related documents concerning his personal and his businesses’ past and present assets” and other pertinent information.
That means jurors deciding how much Giuliani should pay two Georgia election workers he defamed will be told they can assume the worst about why the former New York City mayor has failed to turn over the court-ordered records.
“The jury will be instructed that it must, when determining an appropriate sum of compensatory, presumed, and punitive damages, infer that defendant Giuliani was intentionally trying to hide relevant discovery about the Giuliani Businesses’ finances for the purpose of shielding his assets from discovery and artificially deflating his net worth,” the judge wrote.
Additionally, Giuliani and his lawyer will be prohibited “from making any argument, or introducing any evidence, stating or suggesting that he is insolvent, bankrupt, judgment proof, or otherwise unable to defend himself” since he failed to hand over evidence that would show that’s true, the judge wrote.
You might be forgiven for thinking it’s been a very quiet few months for the Covid-19 pandemic. Besides the rollout of new boosters, the coronavirus has largely slipped out of the headlines. But the virus is on the move. Viral levels in wastewater are similar to what they were during the first two waves of the pandemic. Recent coverage of the so-called Pirola variant, which is acknowledged to have “an alarming number of mutations,” led with the headline “Yes, There’s a New Covid Variant. No, You Shouldn’t Panic.”
Even if you haven’t heard much about the new strain of the coronavirus, being told not to panic might induce déjà vu. In late 2021, as the Omicron variant was making its way to the United States, Anthony Fauci told the public that it was “nothing to panic about” and that “we should not be freaking out.” Ashish Jha, the Biden administration’s former Covid czar, also cautioned against undue alarm over Omicron BA.1, claiming that there was “absolutely no reason to panic.” This is a telling claim, given what was to follow—the six weeks of the Omicron BA.1 wave led to hundreds of thousands of deaths in a matter of weeks, a mortality event unprecedented in the history of the republic.
Indeed, experts have been offering the public advice about how to feel about Covid-19 since January 2020, when New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo opined, “Panic will hurt us far more than it’ll help.” That same week, Zeke Emanuel—a former health adviser to the Obama administration, latterly an adviser to the Biden administration—said Americans should “stop panicking and being hysterical.… We are having a little too much [sic] histrionics about this.”
This concern about public panic has been a leitmotif of the Covid-19 pandemic, even earning itself a name (“elite panic”) among some scholars. But if there’s one thing we’ve learned, three and a half years into the current crisis, it’s that—contrary to what the movies taught us—pandemics don’t automatically spawn terror-stricken stampedes in the streets. Media and public health coverage have a strong hand in shaping public response and can—under the wrong circumstances—promote indifference, incaution, and even apathy. A very visible example of this was the sharp drop in the number of people masking after the CDC revised its guidelines in 2021, recommending that masking was not necessary for the vaccinated (from 90 percent in May to 53 percent in September).
As that example suggests, emphasizing the message “don’t panic” puts the cart before the horse unless tangible measures are being taken to prevent panic-worthy outcomes. And indeed, these repeated assurances against panic have arguably also preempted a more vigorous and
urgent public health response—as well as perversely increasing public acceptance of the risks posed by coronavirus infection and the unchecked transmission of the virus. This “moral calm”—a sort of manufactured consent—impedes risk mitigation by promoting the underestimation of a threat. Soothing public messaging during disasters can often lead to an increased death toll: Tragically, false reassurance contributed to mortality in both the attacks on the World Trade Center and the sinking of the Titanic.
Read the rest at The Nation. The gist is that Covid-19 is still out there and still dangerous. Pretending it’s not won’t help us.
That’s my contribution for today. What do you think? What other stories have caught your interest?
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Loki with a fishing net (per Reginsmál) as depicted on an 18th-century Icelandic manuscript (SÁM 66)
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
That’s a rhetorical question when you don’t have creator gods running amok in your religious landscape, but I have a suggestion. I vote for Loki. However, the gods of Norse mythology don’t really have much to do with the current battles. Loki is now known mainly by a TV series, a Marvel character, the video game “Assassin’s Creed”, and the Wagner Opera “Der Ring des Nibelungen.”
The old gods and goddesses always had a great sense of humor and irony. Much of their fun has to do with internecine complaints among themselves, which humankind is brought into. The God of Abraham seems to be all about revenge, no matter which face you look at. He’s demanding since he doesn’t have to share anything with other goddesses and gods. And only one form will do, depending on the tribe that brought you into the world. You dance and die with the one that brought you unless you shrug your shoulders and read the books without supernatural nonsense. I could never imagine a perfect being whose primary trait is the desire to be worshipped. That sounds more like a human with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Loki is nonbinary and is good at schemes and deceptions. Maybe that’s why Marvel thought he’d be profitable and popular today.
Loki, however, never had a reality show. He also isn’t sitting on a shitload of federal and state indictments, including rape, fraud, and the theft of secret documents.
And dead children, old people, and mothers are just as dead from one set of one’s war crimes or another’s. My mother always said two wrongs do not make a right. Mothers always have things like that up their sleeves. I know am a mother with the cannon of old wives’ tales and admonitions handed down by mine. However, I’m not an old wife, thankfully. Maybe Loki could sort this out like he frequently did within the community of beings dwelling in Asgard. He indeed won’t be plagued with journos trying to show both sides of any situation.
BB wrote extensively about the continued situation in the Middle East. So, I will switch to the other chaos in our country. A two-party system has usually been seen to be more stable than a parliamentary system of democracy because there are two primarily united fronts to make policy and govern. The Republican party is a perfect example of what appears to be a coalition of three stubborn sects with very few policy ideas other than handing the country over to the very rich and creating performance opportunities for the narcissistic among them.
I would say that this is no way to run a country or a homeland of gods. So, Israel has a coalition government, and we have a hot mess. Does democracy really have to be this disorganized and angry? Given the proof of a war crime, I can’t drop the Israeli/Palestinian suffering and the current escalation of war crimes as Israel dropped the Rain of Fire indiscriminately around the Gaza Strip today. The country had the high ground and is now losing it.
It’s not really an American democracy thing to have a Handmaiden and a bunch of whacky Opus Dei types deciding what’s supposed to be law. Here’s another one of Republican Chaos Agents. But it’s definitely a Leonard Leo thing.
Many could thank Leo for their advancement. Thomas Hardiman of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled to loosen gun laws and overturn Obamacare’s birth-control mandate. Leo had put Hardiman on Trump’s Supreme Court shortlist and helped confirm him to two earlier judgeships. Kyle Duncan and Cory Wilson, both on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, both fiercely anti-abortion, were members of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, the network of conservative and libertarian lawyers that Leo h
ad built into a political juggernaut. As was Florida federal Judge Wendy Berger, who would uphold that state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. Within a year of the party, another attendee, Republican North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Phil Berger Jr. (no relation), would write the opinion reinstating a controversial state law requiring voter identification. (Duncan, Wilson, Berger and Berger Jr. did not comment. Hardiman did not comment beyond confirming he attended the party.)
The judges were in Maine for a weeklong, all-expenses-paid conference hosted by George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, a hub for steeping young lawyers, judges and state attorneys general in a free-market, anti-regulation agenda. The leaders of the law school were at the party, and they also were indebted to Leo. He had secured the Scalia family’s blessing and brokered $30 million in donations to rename the school. It is home to the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State, named after the George H.W. Bush White House counsel who died this May. Gray was at Leo’s party, too. (A spokesperson for GMU confirmed the details of the week’s events.)
The judges and the security detail, the law school leadership and the legal theorists — all of this was a vivid display not only of Leo’s power but of his vision. Decades ago, he’d realized it was not enough to have a majority of Supreme Court justices. To undo landmark rulings like Roe, his movement would need to make sure the court heard the right cases brought by the right people and heard by the right lower court judges.
Leo began building a machine to do just that. He didn’t just cultivate friendships with conservative Supreme Court justices, arranging private jet trips, joining them on vacation, brokering speaking engagements. He also drew on his network of contacts to place Federalist Society protégés in clerkships, judgeships and jobs in the White House and across the federal government. He personally called state attorneys general to recommend hires for positions he presciently understood were key, like solicitors general, the unsung litigators who represent states before the U.S. Supreme Court. In states that elect jurists, groups close to him spent millions of dollars to place his allies on the bench. In states that appoint top judges, he maneuvered to play a role in their selection.
After Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s ignominious removal from the House speakership last week, Rep. Steve Scalise has been pushed forward as the House GOP’s nominee for speaker — and the smiling face of Republican denialism. If there’s an obvious truth that can’t be reconciled with a Republican talking point or goal, then there may be no better person to smile and pretend the truth isn’t the truth than the Louisiana Republican.
There’s the Republican narrative about who Republicans are, who the Democrats are and what Pelosi represents, and then there’s the reality of Pelosi taking charge and acting in the best interest of her country as an angrily pouting Republican president does nothing. These two things — the narrative and the reality — conflict. So Scalise, who had observed Pelosi’s vocal advocacy, suggested that the attack on the U.S. Capitol was somehow her fault and not Donald Trump’s.
And when confronted with video evidence that he was standing near Pelosi on Jan. 6, what did Scalise say? His spokesperson Lauren Fine told The Washington Post that he was asking “why wasn’t the National Guard called prior to the day of?” What a dishonest response.
But it wasn’t surprising. The year before, in an October 2021 interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News, Scalise refused to answer Wallace’s simple question: “Do you think the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump?”
Scalise still appears to be unwilling to answer that question. CNN’s Manu Raju posted to the platform X on Wednesday that Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., said he wouldn’t vote for Scalise or Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, “since neither man would answer his question yesterday about whether the 2020 election was stolen.”
The House GOP has entered an angrier and more bewildered phase in its leadership crisis.
The fractious Republican conference has rejected a second speaker hopeful in eight days — this time, Kevin McCarthy’s longtime heir apparent, Steve Scalise. While Republicans appear to be turning next to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), some are already airing open doubts that Jordan can pull off what the majority leader couldn’t.
The lesson Republicans have learned in the frenetic week since McCarthy’s fall: They have no clear choice for leader who can unite their ranks — no matter how long this drags out and their chamber of Congress is paralyzed.
It’s not just GOP centrists sparring with the hard right. It’s not just McCarthy loyalists secretly fuming at Scalise or his allies. There’s mounting anger across the entire conference that no GOP speaker candidate, including Jordan, appears able to prevail under the current margins.
“We need to all recognize that this is much bigger than just one person or any single person’s petty feelings,” said Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), who had voted for Jordan but publicly backed Scalise after he won the internal election.
It won’t be easy for any candidate to get past the internal spats that have only worsened as the GOP’s speaker fight drags on with no end in sight.
Only a messianic cult could like this situation. Oh, wait … hold my beer. Anyway, the deadline for government funding is sitting over our heads, as well as any hope for getting more defense weapons to Ukraine or Israel. Axios today suggests that the messianic cult may run to members of the Democrat Party. This is delusional, but I live in New Orleans, not the District Beltway. Thanks, Alexander Solender, for the nice midday Heroic Myth! “Bipartisan talk grows as GOP fails to find a speaker.” I fart in your general direction.
Lawmakers in both parties are expressing growing openness, both in public and in private, to a bipartisan deal to elect a House speaker as Republicans are continually thwarted in their efforts to do it alone.
Why it matters: With House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) withdrawing despite winning his party’s nomination, some Republicans are concerned nobody can win the job with just GOP votes.
What they’re saying: “There’s a sentiment building around [a bipartisan deal] among Democrats and Republicans,” Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), a member of Democratic leadership who represents a swing district, told Axios.
“We’re open to anything that’s reasonable,” said Rep. Maria Salazar (R-Fla.), a member of the moderate Republican Governance Group. “Bipartisanship is not a sin.”
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a perennial bipartisan dealmaker, said “at this point, there are enough Republican and Democrats saying we’ve got to get this fixed.”
Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) said, as the situation devolves, he sees Republicans “absolutely” getting more open to a deal: “Yes, I mean you’re seeing that.”
State of play: With Scalise out of the running, all eyes now turn to Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a co-founder of the right-wing Freedom Caucus.
But some of Jordan’s GOP colleagues are already predicting he’ll suffer the same fate as Scalise. “I think he’s gonna have a math problem as well,” said Mike Garcia (R-Calif.).
Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) said “it’s going to be hard” for Jordan to win.
What we’re hearing: A bipartisan group of roughly ten House lawmakers is quietly holding “very” serious discussions, a moderate Republican involved in the discussions told Axios on the condition of anonymity.
“The question is who gets you to the largest minority of the majority,” the GOP lawmaker said. “Is it Don Bacon, who gets 20 [GOP] votes and 200 Democrats? Is it French Hill who gets 100 votes from Republicans? And the fewer Republicans, the more dangerous this is – not just politically, but structurally.”
Another question, the Republican said, is how many speaker candidates need to fail before people soften on the idea: “Kevin, Steve, Jordan, Emmer … how many losses do you have to have to make that an acceptable outcome?”
Between the lines: Congress is unfamiliar with bipartisan coalition governments in the vein of state legislatures and foreign governments – but the House had also never voted to oust a speaker until last Tuesday.
Nearly eight decades after the end of World War II, the thing we ought to understand most clearly about Nazi propaganda is not to believe a word of it. The images pumped out by Hitler’s messaging apparatus depicting a healthy, thriving and prosperous Germany were blatant lies used to paper over a horrifying genocide, as well as a self-destructive war that left much of the nation in ruins. But there’s one historical claim made by fascists that gets accepted at face value by people who ought to know better: The idea that authoritarian regimes are models of order and discipline. Videos of goose-stepping soldiers and myths about full employment and the trains running on time have persisted in the cultural imagination. The belief that the far right is ruthlessly efficient and well organized terrifies its opponents and emboldens its supporters, then and now.
If you still buy any of that, consider the Republicans in Congress, who are behaving like a sackful of trapped weasels over what should be a simple task: Picking which one of the indistinguishable MAGA-monsters gets to be speaker of the House.
Calling this a “clown show” really undersells the situation, and is unfair to the skill and training of actual clowns. All of this kicked off last January, when it took the smaller-than-expected Republican majority 15 ballots to elect Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California who had spent his entire career in politics aiming for that moment. It didn’t go well: McCarthy’s stint with the gavel lasted less than nine months, the shortest tenure for any speaker since Michael Kerr died in office in 1876. He was ousted, of course, by Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and seven other renegade Republicans, motivated more by a desire for airtime on Fox News than any coherent grievance against McCarthy.
So it’s not a huge surprise that the House GOP’s efforts to elect another speaker are going poorly, even though there are officially only two candidates: Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio. It was announced Wednesday that Scalise, previously McCarthy’s No. 2 in House leadership, had won a secret ballot vote at the GOP caucus meeting. But the prospect that Scalise could actually win a floor vote for the speakership fell apart quickly, after some of the most camera-hungry members of the GOP have refused to go along with the party’s vote. By Thursday, Scalise had enough and dropped out of the race.
Marvel’s Loki. Don’t you just love a genderfluid trickster god who likes to become a fish ever so often?
Jim Jordan is poised to take a step toward the speaker’s gavel on Friday — even as he faces a last-minute challenger.
Republicans are meeting Friday afternoon to hear directly from the Ohio conservative and Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), who threw his hat into the ring just before the close-door meeting and added a new dimension to the topsy-turvy speaker’s race.
While there are enough Republicans opposed to — or wary of — a Jordan speakership to block him from getting the 217 necessary votes on the floor, he is projecting confidence that he will clear the much easier simple majority threshold for becoming the conference’s pick for speaker on Friday.
“I think I can unite the conference. I think I can go tell the country what we’re doing and why it matters,” he told reporters, adding that he feels “confident” heading into the secret ballot vote.
But whether Jordan can ultimately capture the speaker’s gavel remains far more uncertain, with a coalition of vulnerable front-liners and frustrated allies of Scalise and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy predicting that the Ohio Republican falls short.
Scott’s entry is viewed more as a move designed to pull over Jordan critics and give the House GOP conference another choice. In a statement, the Georgia Republican said that he wanted to “lead a House that functions in the best interest of the American people.”
But one House Republican, speaking on condition of anonymity, predicted that whoever votes for Austin on Friday “will be a slightly overstated proxy for the Never Jordan people.”
“Others are keeping their powder dry until Jordan realizes he has no path to 217,” the Republican added.
Underscoring that uneasiness, several Republicans left a Friday morning closed-door meeting making it clear that they wanted to see who else other than Jordan would run.
Loki and Sigyn, by Arthur Rackham (c. 1867-1939)
Perhaps prognostication is best left to the Delphi Oracle, the Nechung Oracle, or the Oracle of Omaha? Well, there is the congressman who went to my high school and represents that district in Omaha.
“When you reward bad behavior you get more of it. So I struggle with that,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), though he stopped short of saying he will vote against Jordan.
He added that “we need to have enough time for other folks to consider [running] and to come up with a game plan.” Bacon floated other alternatives including Reps. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) and Patrick McHenry(R-N.C.).
Notice they always stop short of saying I wouldn’t vote for them because their assholes who misbehave even though I am a pontificating asshole myself?
So, here’s more reads if you haven’t already been tired out by this nastiness.
It’s not uncommon for violence to break out between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza. It typically goes like this: Hamas throws rockets over the Gaza border into Israel, most of which are intercepted by the Iron Dome — Israel’s very sophisticated missile defense system. The impact in Israel is usually minimized.
Israel then responds with airstrikes on the densely populated Gaza Strip.
But what happened last weekend was unprecedented in its scale and coordination.
Militants attacked Israeli communication towers with improvised explosives, they breached the Gaza-Israel border fence within minutes and assumed control of several Israeli communities. They paraglided over the border and gunned down civilians at a music festival.
Hamas killed 1,200 people in the attack, and took dozens hostage, including women, children and the elderly — all while Israel’s military was late to respond. It was the deadliest attack Israel has seen in decades.
In retaliation, Israel has laid siege to Gaza with hundreds of airstrikes that have killed at least 1,000 Palestinians and displaced more than 200,000 people. It has cut off electricity, food and fuel supplies.
Speaking to mayors of the southern border towns that were hit by the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel’s response “will change the Middle East.”
Troops have now amassed for a possible ground invasion of Gaza – which last happened in 2014 and resulted in at least 2,000 Palestinians killed, and more than 70 on the Israeli side. It’s the biggest escalation in the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in recent years.
But experts who follow the region closely point to key developments over the past year in Israel and the Palestinian territories that set the stage for this explosion of violence.
Israel says it has reinforced its northern area with thousands of extra units after trading fire with Lebanon.
Its army shelled militant targets in Lebanon after two missiles were fired at an Israeli military post near the unofficial border.
Three people were injured in the shelling which hit several towns and villages, Lebanese state media said.
The Hezbollah movement said the missiles were a response to the killing of three of its fighters on Monday.
The exchange came as Israel bombed Gaza in retaliation for Palestinian militant group Hamas’ unprecedented attack.
Turning from Inner War to Inner Peace, by Monika Kretschmar
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said an anti-tank missile was fired from Lebanon towards an Israeli military post near the village of Arab al-Aramshe, which is just south of the UN-demarcated Blue Line – the unofficial border which separates Israel and Lebanon.
Hezbollah said it targeted the position “in a decisive retaliation to Zionist aggression on Monday”. It claimed that the missile caused several Israeli casualties.
The IDF said that as part of its response to the attack, aircraft attacked an observation post inside Lebanon belonging to Hezbollah. Artillery also shelled the missile launch site. It did not report any casualties among its troops.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that three civilians were wounded and 10 houses were damaged by Israeli fire in the town of Marwahin. The towns of Yarin, and Dharya were also hit, it said.
“We have deployed tens of thousands additional units along the northern border,” IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus said on Wednesday, referring to infantry, special forces, armoured forces, artillery, air forces and intelligence.
“The message to Hezbollah is very clear. If they will try to attack, we are ready and vigilant along our border,” he added.
You know, there are moments in this life — and I mean this literally — when the pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world.
The people of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend. The bloody hands of the terrorist organization Hamas — a group whose stated purpose for being is to kill Jews.
This was an act of sheer evil.
More than 1,000 civilians slaughtered — not just killed, slaughtered — in Israel. Among them, at least 14 American citizens killed.
Parents butchered using their bodies to try to protect their children.
Stomach-turning reports of being — babies being killed.
Entire families slain.
Imagine, by Lisa Botto Lee
Young people massacred while attending a musical festival to celebrate peace — to celebrate peace.
Women raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies.
Families hid their fear for hours and hours, desperately trying to keep their children quiet to avoid drawing attention.
And thousands of wounded, alive but carrying with them the bullet holes and the shrapnel wounds and the memory of what they endured.
You all know these traumas never go away.
There are still so many families desperately waiting to hear the fate of their loved ones, not knowing if they’re alive or dead or hostages.
Infants in their mothers’ arms, grandparents in wheelchairs, Holocaust survivors abducted and held hostage — hostages whom Hamas has now threatened to execute in violation of every code of human morality.
It’s abhorrent.
The brutality of Hamas — this bloodthirstiness — brings to mind the worst — the worst rampages of ISIS.
Nine United Nations staff members have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza since Saturday, the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees confirmed Wednesday.
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said nine staffers have been killed in airstrikes since the start of Israel’s counterattack on Gaza, with several of the staff members killed late Tuesday.
Deborah Milton, I wish I could
“The protection of civilians is paramount, including in times of conflict,” Juliette Touma, UNRWA director of communications, told The Associated Press. “They should be protected in accordance with the laws of war.”
The strikes are part of an aggressive counteroffensive by the Israeli military, after the Palestinian militant group Hamas sent a barrage of rocket strikes and militants into the country Saturday in a surprise attack, leaving behind horrific scenes of brutalized villages along the border….
By Wednesday, several neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip had been demolished after the Israeli military pounded the area with air strikes.
Touma told the AP the U.N. staff members were killed in their homes across the Gaza Strip. She said the UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City and many schools-turned-shelters were damaged as well.
The U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, said Tuesday that clear evidence has emerged showing war crimes being committed on both sides of the conflict.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is flying to Israel on Wednesday in a show of support for the country as it begins a major offensive campaign in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in response to a wave of deadly cross-border attacks by the militant group.
The top U.S. diplomat is expected to meet with senior Israeli officials to receive an update on the security situation and inquire what else the United States can provide to Israel as it works to regain control of its border, free hostages and destroy Hamas’s operational capacity following the surprise attacks by gunmen who inflicted the bloodiest day in Israel’s 75-year history.
“It will be a message of solidarity and support,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in describing the thrust of the trip.
Since the Hamas invasion on Saturday morning and massacre of Israeli civilians, Blinken has made a flurry of calls with his counterparts in the Middle East in an effort to have U.S. allies and partners send a clear message to Iran, Hezbollah and Palestinians in the West Bank to refrain from entering the conflict.
“We’ve been on the phones throughout our government over the last 24 hours, engaging everyone in the region and well beyond,” Blinken told CNN on Sunday, “both to make sure that there is support for Israel and that every country is using every effort to pull Hamas back and to prevent this from escalating.”
Israeli officials have made several specific requests to Washington in response to the military offensive by Hamas, including a replenishment of Iron Dome ground-to-air missile interceptors, small-diameter bombs, ammunition for machine guns and heightened cooperation on intelligence-sharing particularly in southern Lebanon, according to U.S. officials familiar with the requests.
“President Biden’s direction was to make sure that we’re providing Israel everything it needs in this moment to deal with the attacks from Hamas,” Blinken said.
Heal the World, by Hiske Bain
Back in the U.S., House Republicans are still trying to figure out what to do about finding a new Speaker. It’s not looking good at the moment. The choice so far is between two deeply flawed candidates: Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise. Jordan is tainted by a sexual abuse scandal when he was a wrestling coach at Ohio State; Scalise once referred to himself as “David Duke without the baggage.” He’s also being treated for an aggressive form of cancer.
Former Ohio State wrestlers who accuse Jim Jordan of ignoring sexual abuse when he was a coach said the hard-right Republican should not be elected speaker of the US House.
“Do you really want a guy in that job who chose not to stand up for his guys?” Mike Schyck, one of hundreds of wrestlers who say they were assaulted by a team doctor, told NBC News. “Is that the kind of character trait you want for a House speaker?”
Another former wrestler, Dunyasha Yetts, told NBC: “He doesn’t deserve to be House speaker. He still has to answer for what happened to us.”
Jordan, 59 and a founder of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, is competing for the speakership with Steve Scalise, the majority leader from Louisiana, after the historic ejection of Kevin McCarthy by disgruntled right-wingers last week. Jordan has secured the endorsement of Donald Trump, the presidential frontrunner whose supporters orchestrated McCarthy’s defenestration.
Before entering politics, Jordan was an assistant OSU wrestling coach from 1986 to 1994. Former athletes have said he ignored rampant sexual abuse by Richard Strauss, a team doctor who died in 2005.
A bit more:
Jordan has long denied helping orchestrate a cover-up. On Tuesday, a spokesperson told NBC: “Chairman Jordan never saw or heard of any abuse, and if he had, he would have dealt with it.”
But Jordan also refused to co-operate with an official investigation which found Strauss’s abuse was an “open secret”, and that “coaches, trainers and other team physicians were fully aware of Strauss’ activities, and yet few seemed inclined to do anything to stop it”.
Healing from the Inside, by Kathryn Rutherford
At one hearing, another former wrestler, Adam DiSabato, said: “Jim Jordan called me crying, crying, groveling, on the Fourth of July … begging me to go against my brother, begging me, crying for half an hour. That’s the kind of cover-up that’s going on here. He’s a coward. He’s a coward.”
Yetts has previously said: “If Jordan says he didn’t know about it, then he’s lying.”
Speaking to NBC, another former wrestler, Rocky Ratliff, said Jordan “abandoned his former wrestlers in the Ohio State sexual abuse scandal and cover-up”….
Schyck told NBC he was himself a Republican, and Jordan “was somebody I revered, somebody I looked up to.
“If early on he jumped in on our side and validated what we were saying, what everybody knew about what Dr Strauss was doing to us, then this wouldn’t be happening. But he decided early on, for reasons I still don’t understand, that he was going to deny knowing anything about this.
As everyone here knows, Jordan is also not very bright and a lying MAGA conspiracy theorist.
House Republicans were expected to meet this morning at 10:00, and they are voting now. Neither candidate is believed to have the votes to be elected. Financial Times: House Republicans begin voting on nominee for Speaker.
House Republicans have started voting for their nominee for Speaker, amid a growing sense of urgency to determine who will lead the lower house and address pressing issues on the US’s domestic and international agendas.
Steve Scalise, the House majority leader, and Jim Jordan, who chairs the judiciary committee, made their cases to colleagues in a closed-door forum on Tuesday evening, although neither candidate was in a position to claim the upper hand ahead of Wednesday’s conference vote. The two rival candidates are vying for support on the private ballot, after eight rebels led an unprecedented revolt against Kevin McCarthy last week. Ken Buck, a Republican from Colorado, told the FT he voted “present” for Speaker after neither Scalise nor Jordan adequately answered his question on Tuesday about who won the 2020 presidential election. “It’s a yes or no question,” he said.
“I don’t think anybody has 217 [votes],” Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene said on Tuesday night. “If it comes out that neither one of them can get there, then yes, we’re going to have to produce another candidate.” For Republicans, the lack of a clear outcome risks a replay of events in January, when it took a record 15 rounds of voting for the party to elect McCarthy as Speaker. More broadly, the abrupt downfall of the former Speaker last week has created chaos in the House. The lower chamber is at a standstill, unable to pass legislation, as the US weighs whether to provide additional aid to Israel and Ukraine in their respective conflicts with Hamas and Russia. Lawmakers must also pass a spending bill by November 17 to avoid a US government shutdown.
Federal prosecutors hit Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., with 23 additional charges Tuesday, including allegations of identity theft and that he charged a supporter’s credit card in excess of the supporter’s contribution and then transferred the money to his personal bank account.
Prosecutors said Santos faces “one count of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, two counts of wire fraud, two counts of making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), two counts of falsifying records submitted to obstruct the FEC, two counts of aggravated identity theft, and one count of access device fraud” in a superseding indictment filed Tuesday.
Keith Morant, Requiem
“As alleged, Santos is charged with stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization, lying to the FEC and, by extension, the public about the financial state of his campaign. Santos falsely inflated the campaign’s reported receipts with non-existent loans and contributions that were either fabricated or stolen,” Breon Peace, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement….
Prosecutors said in a news release that the scheme included falsely claiming that relatives of Santos and his then-campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, had donated big bucks to his campaign to make it appear that he was raising more money than he actually was in order to qualify for assistance from the national party.
“To create the public appearance that his campaign had met that financial benchmark” for additional funds from the Republican Party “and was otherwise financially viable, Santos and Marks agreed to falsely report to the FEC that at least 10 family members of Santos and Marks had made significant financial contributions to the campaign when Santos and Marks both knew that these individuals had neither made the reported contributions nor given authorization for their personal information to be included in such false public reports.”
He is also alleged to have been involved in a credit card scheme in which the campaign would charge contributors’ credit cards repeatedly and above FEC individual contribution limits.
A group of House Republicans from New York are introducing a resolution to expel Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., from Congress.
“Today, I’ll be introducing an expulsion resolution to rid the People’s House of fraudster George Santos,” Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-N.Y., said in a post on the social media platform X.
He said the resolution will be co-sponsored by fellow New York House Republicans Nick LaLota, Mike Lawler, Marc Molinaro, Nick Langworthy and Brandon Williams.
The move comes a day after federal prosecutors issued Santos a 23–count superseding indictment alleging he committed identity theft, fraud and other offenses. Santos, who was first indicted in May, has said he plans on fighting the charges. He pleaded not guilty to the charges in the original 13-count indictment earlier this year.
Those are the top stories today. What are your thoughts? What other stories are you following?
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On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we honor the perseverance and courage of Indigenous peoples, show our gratitude for the myriad contributions they have made to our world, and renew our commitment to respect Tribal sovereignty and self-determination.
The story of America’s Indigenous peoples is a story of their resilience and survival; of their persistent commitment to their right to self-governance; and of their determination to preserve cultures, identities, and ways of life. Long before European explorers sailed to this continent, Native American and Alaska Native Nations made this land their home, some for thousands of years before the United States was founded. They built many Nations that created powerful, prosperous, and diverse cultures, and they developed knowledge and practices that still benefit us today.
But throughout our Nation’s history, Indigenous peoples have faced violence and devastation that has tested their limits. For generations, it was the shameful policy of our Nation to remove Indigenous peoples from their homelands; force them to assimilate; and ban them from speaking their own languages, passing down ancient traditions, and performing sacred ceremonies. Countless lives were lost, precious lands were taken, and their way of life was forever changed. In spite of unimaginable loss and seemingly insurmountable odds, Indigenous peoples have persisted. They survived. And they continue to be an integral part of the fabric of the United States.
Today, Indigenous peoples are a beacon of resilience, strength, and perseverance as well as a source of incredible contributions. Indigenous peoples and Tribal Nations continue to practice their cultures, remember their heritages, and pass down their histories from generation to generation. They steward this country’s lands and waters and grow crops that feed all of us. They serve in the United States military at a higher rate than any other ethnic group. They challenge all of us to celebrate the good, confront the bad, and tell the whole truth of our history. And as innovators, educators, engineers, scientists, artists, and leaders in every sector of society, Indigenous peoples contribute to our shared prosperity. Their diverse cultures and communities today are a testament to the unshakable and unbreakable commitment of many generations to preserve their cultures, identities, and rights to self-governance. That is why, despite centuries of devastation and turmoil, Tribal Nations continue to thrive and lead in countless ways.
South Dakota was the first state to recognize Indigenous Americans Day starting in 1990. As U.S. News and World Report reminds us, Colonizer and Mass Murderer Christopher Colombus never set foot on what is now US soil. His legacy is one of mass rape, enslavement, and slaughter. It is offensive to still have this day recognized as a Federal Holiday.
More than a dozen states and the District of Columbia now recognize Indigenous Peoples Day. Those states include Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.
How does Indigenous Peoples Day change things?
Indigenous Peoples Day offers an opportunity for educators to rethink how they teach what some have characterized as a “sanitized” story of the arrival of Columbus. This version omits or downplays the devastating impact of Columbus’ arrival on Indigenous peoples. Indigenous Peoples Day is an opportunity to reconcile tensions between these two perspectives.
Thomas Jefferson was the first US President to establish a policy to interact with Tribal nations. This is from the folks who preserve and run Monticello. If you read President Biden’s policies, you’ll be able to see the differences in policies. The various Nations had differences of opinion on Jefferson’s policy.
It was as President of the United States that Thomas Jefferson had the greatest impact on the Indian nations of North America. He pursued an Indian policy that had two main ends. First, Jefferson wanted to guarantee the security of the United States and so sought to bind Indian nations to the United States through treaties. The aim of these treaties was to acquire land and facilitate trade, but most importantly to keep them allied with the United States and not with European powers, namely England in Canada and Spain in the regions of Florida, the Gulf Coast and lands west of the Mississippi River.
Secondly, Jefferson used the networks created by the treaties to further the program of gradual “civilization.” His Federalists predecessors had begun this program, but it was completely in keeping with Jefferson’s Enlightenment thinking. Through treaties and commerce, Jefferson hoped to continue to get Native Americans to adopt European agricultural practices, shift to a sedentary way of life, and free up hunting grounds for further white settlement.
The desire for land raised the stakes of the “civilization program.” Jefferson told his agents never to coerce Indian nations to sell lands. The lands were theirs as long as they wished, but he hoped to accelerate the process. In a letter to William Henry Harrison, written as the diplomatic crisis leading to the Louisiana Purchase unfolded, Jefferson suggested that if the various Indian nations could be encouraged to purchase goods on credit, they would likely fall into debt, which they could relieve through the sale of lands to the government. The “civilization program” would thus aid the Indians in accordance with Enlightenment principles and at the same time further white interests.
I was born on the Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma, and my earliest experiences were with the Lakota and Kickapoo tribes. My mother always ensured we went to all the Pow Wows around the area and learned as much as possible about Indigenous History. This included the Trial of Tears, the terrible legacy of President Andrew Jackson, and The Removal Act of 1830. This established everything to the east of the Mississippi as land to be taken from Native Tribes in return for land West of the Mississippi. The Cherokee nation resisted his efforts, and the tragedy of the Trial of Tears resulted. We mustn’t let politicians like DeSantis whitewash these tragedies or remove them from our history books.
The Trail of Tears (Robert Lindneux, 1942)
The Cherokee Nation resisted, however, challenging in court the Georgia laws that restricted their freedoms on tribal lands. In his 1831 ruling on Cherokee Nation v. the State of Georgia, Chief Justice John Marshall declared that “the Indian territory is admitted to compose a part of the United States,” and affirmed that the tribes were “domestic dependent nations” and “their relation to the United States resembles that of a ward to his guardian.” However, the following year the Supreme Court reversed itself and ruled that Indian tribes were indeed sovereign and immune from Georgia laws. President Jackson nonetheless refused to heed the Court’s decision. He obtained the signature of a Cherokee chief agreeing to relocation in the Treaty of New Echota, which Congress ratified against the protests of Daniel Webster and Henry Clay in 1835. The Cherokee signing party represented only a faction of the Cherokee, and the majority followed Principal Chief John Ross in a desperate attempt to hold onto their land. This attempt faltered in 1838, when, under the guns of federal troops and Georgia state militia, the Cherokee tribe were forced to the dry plains across the Mississippi. The best evidence indicates that between three and four thousand out of the fifteen to sixteen thousand Cherokees died en route from the brutal conditions of the “Trail of Tears.”
With the exception of a small number of Seminoles still resisting removal in Florida, by the 1840s, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, no Indian tribes resided in the American South. Through a combination of coerced treaties and the contravention of treaties and judicial determination, the United States Government succeeded in paving the way for the westward expansion and the incorporation of new territories as part of the United States.
Today’s news is disturbing. Two U.S. congressmen returned to Washington after the massive and deadly attacks on Israel. This is from Politico. “At least 2 members of Congress were in Israel during the attack. “Both Rep. Dan Goldman and Sen. Cory Booker have left the country, their offices say.” They can share first-hand experience as the Biden administration and what’s left of the functional parts of the U.S. Congress decide on possible responses.
Both Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) were in Israel over the weekend while extremist group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack at the country’s border with Gaza. Both congressmen have since left the country, according to their offices.
Goldman was in Israel for a Bar Mitzvah with his wife and three of his children, his spokesperson, Simone Kanter, said. “Congressman Goldman and his family sheltered from Hamas rocket fire in their hotel’s interior stairwell until early Sunday morning, when they were able to safely depart for New York,” Kanter said in a statement.
Booker arrived in Israel on Friday, according to his office, ahead of a summit on the Abraham Accords at which he was scheduled to speak Tuesday.
“Senator Booker and accompanying staff were in Jerusalem when Hamas launched their attacks against Israel on Saturday, and sheltered in place for their safety,” spokesperson Maya Krishna-Rogers said in a statement. “We are grateful that Senator Booker and our colleagues were able to safely depart Israel earlier today.”
The Saturday morning assault blindsided Israeli forces, leaving hundreds dead, wounded and kidnapped, including many civilians. Both congressmen took to social media to condemn Hamas’ actions and offer their support for Israel in the hours and days after the attack.
“At a minimum, Congress must replenish — and expand — the Iron Dome as soon as possible,” Goldman posted on X, formerly Twitter, early Sunday morning, referring to Israel’s defense system against rockets. “I hope Republicans can get their House in order so we can pass emergency legislation to assist Israel in defending herself.”
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz posted this Op-Ed in response. “Netanyahu Bears Responsibility for This Israel-Gaza War.” Amazingly, we’re beginning to recognize the damage of our Colonial roots–including the huge white right-wing backlash–while Israel continues to put its Palestinian population in what’s been described as a “prison.” It is also unamazing that many white people are upset to lose their fairy tale versions of American history.
The disaster that befell Israel on the holiday of Simchat Torah is the clear responsibility of one person: Benjamin Netanyahu. The prime minister, who has prided himself on his vast political experience and irreplaceable wisdom in security matters, completely failed to identify the dangers he was consciously leading Israel into when establishing a government of annexation and dispossession, when appointing Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir to key positions, while embracing a foreign policy that openly ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians.
Netanyahu will certainly try to evade his responsibility and cast the blame on the heads of the army, Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet security service who, like their predecessors on the eve of the Yom Kippur War, saw a low probability of war with their preparations for a Hamas attack proving flawed.
They scorned the enemy and its offensive military capabilities. Over the next days and weeks, when the depth of Israel Defense Forces and intelligence failures come to light, a justified demand to replace them and take stock will surely arise.
However, the military and intelligence failure does not absolve Netanyahu of his overall responsibility for the crisis, as he is the ultimate arbiter of Israeli foreign and security affairs. Netanyahu is no novice in this role, like Ehud Olmert was in the Second Lebanon War. Nor is he ignorant in military matters, as Golda Meir in 1973 and Menachem Begin in 1982 claimed to be.
Another frightening bit of global war news comes from Putin. This is from the Guardian. “Russia will revoke ratification of nuclear test ban treaty, envoy says’. The US condemns announcement by Mikhail Ulyanov, saying it ‘needlessly endangers the global norm’ against nuclear testing.”
A senior Russian diplomat has said that Moscow will revoke its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), in a move Washington denounced as jeopardising the “global norm” against nuclear test blasts.
Mikhail Ulyanov, the Russian representative to the international nuclear agencies in Vienna, was speaking after Vladimir Putin suggested Moscow might resuming testing for the first time in 33 years, signalling another downward turn in relations between the world’s two biggest nuclear powers
Ulyanov said on X, formerly known as Twitter: “Russia plans to revoke ratification (which took place in the year 2000) of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.
“The aim is to be on equal footing with the #US who signed the Treaty, but didn’t ratify it. Revocation doesn’t mean the intention to resume nuclear tests.”
Reuters has this “Analysis: Russian nuclear test would send warning signal, prompt others to follow suit.”
Russia may be paving the way to conduct a nuclear test, a move that would sharply raise tensions with the West and likely prompt other world powers to resume testing for the first time this century.
President Vladimir Putin last week said Russia’s parliament should consider withdrawing Moscow’s ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) which prohibits tests involving nuclear explosions. Parliamentary leaders were due to discuss the issue on Monday.
Some Western security analysts now see a growing likelihood of a Russian test, even though Putin said the aim was only to mirror the position of the United States, which has signed but not ratified the treaty.
“A Russian nuclear test is clearly very much on the cards now. I don’t think it’s a certainty, but it shouldn’t surprise anybody if that happens,” said James Acton, co-director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Matthew Harries, director of proliferation and nuclear policy at the RUSI think-tank in London, said cancelling Russia’s ratification would create a “legal and presentational framework for Russia to test if it wants to”.
If Moscow did conduct a test, he said, “it would be a strong form of signalling, to put the nuclear threat in people’s minds, to try to signal resolve and to evoke fear”.
Former Soviet and Russian diplomat Nikolai Sokov went further, saying a Russian nuclear test would mark a very serious escalation towards actually using an atomic weapon.
A new Supreme Court term is upon us and voting rights and race consciousness continue to be contested. Last June, the court issued an opinion that ended race-based affirmative action in college admissions. But it also gave Black voters in Alabama a surprise win in the redistricting case of Allen v. Milligan. And now, with this current session, it will once again consider a redistricting case with strong racial ramifications.
Collectively, these cases have implications for the American slide toward autocracy.
Across America, each decennial census brings the ritual of redrawing Congressional districts to adjust to population changes. Currently in five states — Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina — courts are dealing with claims that GOP-dominated legislatures illegally diminished Black voters’ power when they redrew districts to maximize Republican dominance.
In Alabama, the lower court in the Milligan case just approved a new map developed by an independent expert that will likely enable Black Alabamians to choose a second member of Congress in 2024. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, says the state will continue to appeal. Ultimately, they hope to get the benefit of the Court’s affirmative action decision and strike down the remedies of the Voting Rights Act as illegal race-consciousness under the Fourteenth Amendment.
These fights over redistricting could shift the balance of power in the House, where Republicans hold a razor-thin majority. In Florida, at the behest of Governor Ron DeSantis, the legislature carved up a district that had been represented by a Black Democrat and moved Black voters into surrounding majority-white districts, which helped Florida Republicans pick up four seats in the 2022 congressional elections. In other Deep South states, Republicans are trying to avoid creating new majority-minority congressional districts that would be competitive rather than locked-in for the GOP.
They claim that they should be able to move Black voters out of certain districts for partisan or other allegedly non-racial reasons — and not have the resulting political marginalization of Black voters be deemed illegal racial discrimination. But as William Faulkner once wrote, “All of us labor in webs spun long before.”
I live less than a 1/2 mile from where Homer Plessy boarded the train. I’m also within blocks of the school segregated with the arrival of Ruby Bridges. I know her brother, Elton. The impact of slavery and Jim Crow never ends.
The Supreme Court was also hostile to Reconstruction. In 1883, in an 8-1 decision, it struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875 which would have enabled Black citizens to use the same public spaces and facilities as white citizens. And in 1896, the court once again encouraged the proliferation of Jim Crow laws, this time with magical thinking, proclaiming in Plessy v. Ferguson that separate was absolutely equal.
Had the Court not blocked integration then, habits of supremacy and its attendant “segregation-forever” politics might have been broken long ago. Instead, white supremacy became the central organizing principle of southern politics for nearly a century and any southerner that disliked segregation suffered under one-party autocratic rule. In Alabama, as late as 1965, voters still encountered the Alabama Democratic Party’s long-held motto, “White Supremacy for the Right,” on the ballot in the voting booth.
No wonder the right wants to erase history while claiming the rest want to erase their ‘culture.’ It suits them for us to forget these things. However, our history is what it is. It’s never that far behind us. Here in Louisiana, we’re still waiting to see what redistricting will do to us.
Have a great week! Let’s put racism, nativism, and fascism behind us!
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It has been another busy week in politics, with Trump’s businesses on trial in New York as well as new evidence that Trump shared top secret information with foreign nationals; the House of Representatives in chaos without a speaker; a violent attack by Hamas on Israel overnight; and other odds and ends. Let’s get started.
The story getting the most attention today is the attack on Israel.
The New York Times and The Washington Post are running live updates.
The Israeli prime minister ordered a call-up of reservists after Palestinian militants fired thousands of rockets and invaded several Israeli towns. More than 250 people have been killed, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials.
Israel battled on Saturday to repel one of the broadest invasions of its territory in 50 years after Palestinian militants from Gaza launched an enormous and coordinated early-morning assault on southern Israel, infiltrating several Israeli towns and army bases, kidnapping Israeli civilians and soldiers, and firing thousands of rockets toward cities as far away as Jerusalem.
By early evening, the Israeli military said fighting continued in at least five places in southern Israel, around 70 Israelis had been reported dead by emergency medical groups, and Israel had retaliated with huge strikes on Gazan cities. At least 198 Palestinians were killed in either gun battles or airstrikes, the Gazan Health Ministry said….
At least 100 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian militant assault began on Saturday morning, said Zaki Heller, a spokesman for the Magen David Adom emergency service. The number is expected to continue to rise in the coming hours and days.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday “we are at war, and we will win it” after the Islamist militia Hamas launched an assault and took captives following the 50th anniversary of the start of the 1973 Yom Kippur war. The confrontation, which has killed at least 40 Israelis and injured at least 740, is one of the most serious in years after weeks of rising tensions along the volatile border. Israeli air force strikes killed nearly 200 people on the Gaza Strip and injured 1,600, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Israeli authorities said that an unknown number of Israeli civilians, soldiers and commanders have been taken captive by Hamas….
Autumn Cat, by Tatiana Feoktistova
Israel ordered residents in areas around Gaza to remain inside after militants infiltrated Israeli territory — including by paraglider and by sea — and launched more than 3,000 rockets, the Israel Defense Forces said. The Israeli air force began striking targets late Saturday morning, the military said, adding that gun battles were taking place in Israeli areas near the border.
U.S. officials including President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and numerous members of Congress condemned the attacks on Israel. Biden described the attacks as “appalling” and said he offered Netanyahu “rock-solid and unwavering” support.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. stands squarely by Israel and will ensure it “has what it needs to defend itself” after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war against Palestinian militants that launched a surprise attack on his country.
Austin said in a statement he was “closely monitoring developments in Israel” and extended his condolences to families of the victims who lost their lives in the Saturday attack.
“Our commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself remains unwavering,” Austin said. “Over the coming days the Department of Defense will work to ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself and protect civilians from indiscriminate violence and terrorism.”
The U.S. is one of Israel’s staunchest allies and has provided around $3.8 billion a year to the country.
The chaos-ridden, speaker-less House is threatening to stymie a host of bipartisan legislative efforts across the Capitol — and senators are getting really tired of it.
Forget the expectations earlier this year of achieving even modest policy reforms, or passing spending bills under so-called “regular order.” Senators will consider themselves lucky to escape the calendar year without a catastrophe. Among the possibilities: a shutdown and a crush of blown deadlines on expiring legislation addressing aviation law, surveillance authority and flood insurance.
Possibly, the best case is lurching from crisis to crisis until the presidential election.
“It’s hard to pass legislation and send it to the president when one House is not able to function,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said of the prognosis for the months ahead, one of several senators interviewed who implied the legislative calendar is looking bleak.
One of the frontrunners for House speaker, Jim Jordan of Ohio, didn’t even support the stopgap spending bill that avoided a shutdown. And he opposes new aid for Ukraine — the two biggest priorities among Senate Democrats and at least half of the Senate Republicans.
What’s more, with no speaker and no clear candidate who has the votes to wrap up an election quickly, there’s no one currently empowered to negotiate with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the White House on behalf of the only Republican-controlled lever of the federal government.
“Only a new speaker [can negotiate], if they’re willing to do that,” echoed Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a former House member. “Somebody has to face the reality.”
The Senate’s challenges for the next few months are tough to square with the disorderly state of the House GOP majority. Aviation law, surveillance authority and flood insurance all expire later this year. That’s not to mention modest Senate policy priorities that bipartisan gangs are coalescing around.
Staunch conservative Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is in the spotlight after launching a bid for the speaker’s gavel this week, a race that is sure to provide even more drama and chaos than the unprecedented ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
But one critical aspect of Jordan’s history that has been omitted by most Beltway publications is the prominent role he played in spreading lies about the 2020 election and rallying supporters to contest the results. The extraordinary effort led by former President Donald Trump, who has endorsed Jordan’s bid for speaker, led to the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“Jim Jordan knew more about what Donald Trump had planned for Jan. 6 than any other member of the House of Representatives,” former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who co-chaired the House Select Committee tasked with investigating the insurrection, said in a speech at the University of Minnesota this week.
“Jim Jordan was involved, was part of the conspiracy in which Donald Trump was engaged as he attempted to overturn the election,” she added.
Jordan, who now chairs the House Judiciary Committee, refused to cooperate with the select committee regarding his communications with Trump as the attack was occurring, defying subpoenas for testimony.
Cat in autumn, unknown illustrator
Trump spoke on the phone with Jordan for 10 minutes on the morning of Jan. 6. Jordan has never divulged the nature of the conversation, saying only that he had spoken to Trump “a number of times” that day.
Jordan also phoned then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows while the attack was underway, according to former Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson.
“They had a brief conversation,” Hutchinson told the committee. “In crossfire, I heard briefly what they were talking about. I heard conversations in the Oval [Office] dining room at that point talking about the ‘Hang Mike Pence’ chants.”
Jordan also sent a text to Meadows on Jan. 5 outlining a legal theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over the Senate chamber on Jan. 6, had the authority to block the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.
In recent days, Democrats have tried to show our colleagues in the Republican majority a way out of the dysfunction and rancor they have allowed to engulf the House. That path to a better place is still there for the taking.
Over the past several weeks, when it appeared likely that a motion to vacate the office of speaker was forthcoming, House Democrats repeatedly raised the issue of entering into a bipartisan governing coalition with our Republican counterparts, publicly as well as privately.
It was my sincere hope that House Democrats and more traditional Republicans would be able to reach an enlightened arrangement to end the chaos in the House, allowing us to work together to make life better for everyday Americans while protecting national security.
Regrettably, at every turn, House Republicans have categorically rejected making changes to the rules designed to accomplish two objectives: encourage bipartisan governance and undermine the ability of extremists to hold Congress hostage. Indeed, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) publicly declared more than five hours before the motion to vacate was brought up for a vote that he would not work with House Democrats as a bipartisan coalition partner. That declaration mirrored the posture taken by House Republicans in the weeks leading up to the motion-to-vacate vote. It also ended the possibility of changing the House rules to facilitate a bipartisan governance structure.
Things further deteriorated from there. Less than two hours after the speakership was vacated upon a motion brought by a member of the GOP conference, House Republicans ordered Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and former majority leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) to “vacate” their hideaway offices in the Capitol. The decision to strip Speaker Emerita Pelosi and Leader Hoyer of office space was petty, partisan and petulant.
“A different path?”
House Republicans have lashed out at historic public servants and tried to shift blame for the failed Republican strategy of appeasement. But what if they pursued a different path and confronted the extremism that has spread unchecked on the Republican side of the aisle? When that step has been taken in good faith, we can proceed together to reform the rules of the House in a manner that permits us to govern in a pragmatic fashion.
By Lorelai ArtsyPartsy
The details would be subject to negotiation, though the principles are no secret: The House should be restructured to promote governance by consensus and facilitate up-or-down votes on bills that have strong bipartisan support. Under the current procedural landscape, a small handful of extreme members on the Rules Committee or in the House Republican conference can prevent common-sense legislation from ever seeing the light of day. That must change — perhaps in a manner consistent with bipartisan recommendations from the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress.
In short, the rules of the House should reflect the inescapable reality that Republicans are reliant on Democratic support to do the basic work of governing. A small band of extremists should not be capable of obstructing that cooperation.
On the final day of the first week of the trial, lawyers for New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office again grilled Jeffrey McConney, a former Trump Organization senior vice president.
In a dramatic finale, McConney admitted that ex-Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg asked for his help in committing tax fraud. He said he kept engaging in this illegal conduct because Weisselberg was his boss and if he refused, he would probably have lost his job.
Judge Arthur Engoron later in the day turned down an effort from Trump’s lawyers to suspend the trial.
An appeals court judge denied Trump’s bid to halt the fraud trial, but agreed to stay enforcement of Engoron’s order canceling business certificates involving the former president and top officials at his company.
An Appellate Division judge who heard emergency arguments Friday wrote the application is “granted solely to the extent of staying enforcement of Supreme Court’s order directing the cancellation of business certificates. The interim application is denied in all other respects.”
In a court filing earlier in the day, Trump’s attorneys argued that part of Engoron’s ruling was tantamount to “corporate death sentences” for various Trump companies that would have to be dissolved.
Attorney General Letitia James had already said she would hold off on the cancellation of certificates until the end of the trial, so not a big deal.
Months after leaving the White House, former President Donald Trump allegedly discussed potentially sensitive information about U.S. nuclear submarines with a member of his Mar-a-Lago Club — an Australian billionaire who then allegedly shared the information with scores of others, including more than a dozen foreign officials, several of his own employees, and a handful of journalists, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Autumn Pumpkin Cat, by Ryan Conners
The potential disclosure was reported to special counsel Jack Smith’s team as they investigated Trump’s alleged hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, the sources told ABC News. The information could shed further light on Trump’s handling of sensitive government secrets.
Prosecutors and FBI agents have at least twice this year interviewed the Mar-a-Lago member, Anthony Pratt, who runs U.S.-based Pratt Industries, one of the world’s largest packaging companies.
In those interviews, Pratt described how — looking to make conversation with Trump during a meeting at Mar-a-Lago in April 2021 — he brought up the American submarine fleet, which the two had discussed before, the sources told ABC News.
According to Pratt’s account, as described by the sources, Pratt told Trump he believed Australia should start buying its submarines from the United States, to which an excited Trump — “leaning” toward Pratt as if to be discreet — then told Pratt two pieces of information about U.S. submarines: the supposed exact number of nuclear warheads they routinely carry, and exactly how close they supposedly can get to a Russian submarine without being detected.
It’s far from the first time Trump has done this. In fact, very early in his term as “president,” Trump outed an Israeli spy to Russians in the oval office. Remember that? It was the day after he fired James Comey and he thought the Russia investigation was over.
Trump allegedly told Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt in April 2021 that Australia should start buying its submarines from the U.S. Trump then told Pratt the supposed exact number of nuclear warheads a U.S. sub can carry, and how close it can supposedly get to a Russian sub without being detected, ABC News reported late Thursday, citing anonymous sources.
Pratt then told at least 45 other people—including six journalists, 11 employees at his company, 10 Australian officials, and three former Australian prime ministers—about Trump’s comments before he was approached by special counsel Jack Smith’s team….
The incident with Pratt is far from the first time that Trump shared classified information with people unauthorized to hear it. In May 2017, Trump shared highly classified information with the Russian foreign minister and the Russian ambassador to the United States that the U.S. hasn’t shared with some of its closest allies. Current and former U.S. officials warned that Trump had jeopardized a crucial intelligence source on the Islamic State group.
Later that month, Trump told then-Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte that the U.S. had positioned two nuclear submarines off the Korean peninsula. The locations of nuclear subs are meant to be kept secret, as a matter of national security. In fact, only the captains and crews know the sub’s exact location.
Then, in July 2017, CNN reported that the U.S. was forced to extract a spy embedded in the Russian government after concerns that Trump had shared classified information that could have exposed them.
Rather than learn his lesson, Trump met privately with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the G20 summit (also in July 2017). Trump confiscated the interpreter’s notes at the end of the meeting, an unusual move that led intelligence officials to believe he had shared more classified information.
Trump tweeted a video in December 2018 of the Al Asad Airbase in Iraq, exposing a SEAL team’s faces and location. The next year, he bragged about U.S. nuclear weapons capabilities to reporter Bob Woodward and tweeted photos that revealed the location of U.S. spy satellites.
And of course, it didn’t stop after he left office. One of the documents he allegedly kept detailed a plan to attack Iran. He is accused of waving the paper around in front of people.
Weird Odds and Ends
Republicans and Fox News are once again up in arms about something Hillary Clinton said.
Supporters of Donald Trump may need to be “deprogrammed” as if they were cult members, Hillary Clinton said.
“Sadly, so many of those extremists … take their marching orders from Donald Trump, who has no credibility left by any measure,” the former first lady, senator, secretary of state and Democratic nominee for president told CNN.
“He’s only in it for himself. He’s now defending himself in civil actions and criminal actions. And when do they break with him? Because at some point maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members. But something needs to happen.” [….]
By Atey Ghailan
Clinton said: “I think, sadly, he will be the nominee and we have to defeat them. And we have to defeat those who are the election deniers, as we did and 2020 and [in the midterms of] 2022. And we have to just be smarter about how we are trying to empower the right people inside the Republican party.”
Clinton was speaking after the fall of Kevin McCarthy, who became first US House speaker ever ejected by his own party thanks to pro-Trump extremists.
Clinton called Trump “an authoritarian populist who really has a grip on the emotional [and] psychological needs and desires of a portion of the population and the base of the Republican party, for whatever combination of reasons.”
Republicans, she said, “see in him someone who speaks for them and they are determined they will continue to vote for him, attend his rallies and wear his merchandise, because for whatever reason he and his very negative, nasty form of politics resonates with them.
“Maybe they don’t like migrants. Maybe they don’t like gay people or Black people or the woman who got the promotion at work they didn’t get. Whatever reason.”
Hey, she’s right. But now all the Trump fans have something else to have fun being outraged about.
Three months after a Florida man and his three sons were convicted of selling toxic industrial bleach as a fake COVID-19 cure through their online church, a federal judge in Miami sentenced them to serve prison time.
Jonathan Grenon, 37, and Jordan Grenon, 29, were sentenced on Friday to 151 months in prison for conspiring to defraud the United States by distributing an unapproved and misbranded drug, and for contempt of court, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office Southern District of Florida. Mark Grenon, 66, and Joseph Grenon, 36, were sentenced to 60 months in prison, the statutory maximm for conspiring to defraud the United States by distributing an unapproved and misbranded drug.
All four had been found guilty by a federal judge this summer after a two-day trial where the Grenons represented themselves, according to The Miami Herald. Mark Grenon is the father of Jonathan, Jordan and Joseph Grenon.
Prosecutors called the Grenons “con men” and “snake-oil salesmen” and said the family’s Genesis II Church of Health and Healing sold $1 million worth of their so-called Miracle Mineral Solution, distributing it to tens of thousands of people nationwide. In videos, the solution was sold as a cure for 95% of known diseases, including COVID-19, Alzheimer’s, autism, brain cancer, HIV/AIDS and multiple sclerosis, prosecutors said.
But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had not approved MMS for treatment of COVID-19, or for any other use. The FDA had strongly urged consumers not to purchase or use MMS for any reason, saying that drinking MMS was the same as drinking bleach and could cause dangerous side effects, including severe vomiting, diarrhea, and life-threatening low blood pressure. The FDA received reports of people requiring hospitalizations, developing life-threatening conditions, and even dying after drinking MMS.
Read more nutty stuff at the link if you so desire.
Have a nice weekend, everyone!!
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
I would say that this is no way to run a country or a homeland of gods. So, Israel has a coalition government, and we have a hot mess. Does democracy really have to be this disorganized and angry? Given the proof of a war crime, I can’t drop the Israeli/Palestinian suffering and the current escalation of war crimes as Israel dropped the
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
South Dakota was the first state to recognize Indigenous Americans Day starting in 1990. As 
I was born on the Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma, and my earliest experiences were with the Lakota and Kickapoo tribes. My mother always ensured we went to all the Pow Wows around the area and learned as much as possible about Indigenous History. T
Today’s news is disturbing. Two U.S. congressmen returned to Washington after the massive and deadly attacks on Israel. This is from 
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz posted
Fascism is afoot in the world right now. We’re dealing with it here, and it’s depressing and tiring. Here’s a Politico article to help you understand the roots of ours. This fits our history. Notice this ruling comes quickly after the passage of Jackson’s Removal Act. 
I live less than a 1/2 mile from where Homer Plessy boarded the train. I’m also within blocks of the school segregated with the arrival of Ruby Bridges. I know her brother, Elton. The impact of slavery and Jim Crow never ends.
What’s more, with no speaker and no clear candidate who has the votes to wrap up an election quickly, there’s no one currently empowered to negotiate with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the White House on behalf of the only Republican-controlled lever of the federal government.
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