Yesterday, the Boston area was supposed to get up to a foot of snow. For several days, meteorologists predicted a huge winter storm was on the way. They were confident it would happen. But at the last minute, Mother Nature changed her mind. There was a big storm, but its path shifted to the South, and guess what we got where I live? Nada. Some sleet and rain.
I really love snowstorms, and I was looking forward to this one. In addition, the entire Boston school system was shut down and many businesses closed for the day. That has to be expensive, right?
We’ve had several of these failed predictions this winter. What is the problem? Are meteorologists predicting these storms too many days ahead? I don’t know. But I’m disgusted. I’m never believing their forecasts again. There is supposedly another snowstorm on the way. I’ll believe it when I see it.
On with today’s reads.
Yesterday’s Special Elections
Democrats got some good news last night as they won special elections in New York and Pennsylvania.
Democrat Tom Suozzi won a hotly contested special election for Congress on Tuesday, the Associated Press projected, retaking a seat in suburban New York and offering his party some reassurance amid high anxiety about President Biden’s political vulnerabilities.
Suozzi beat Republican nominee Mazi Pilip to replace Republican George Santos, who was indicted on a charge of fraud and then expelled from Congress late last year amid revelations that he fabricated much of his life story. The race for New York’s 3rd District — long viewed as a dead heat — played out in a suburban part of Long Island that favored President Biden by eight points in 2020 but then swung toward Republicans, backing Santos by the same margin.
With more than 93 percent of the vote counted early Wednesday, Suozzi led Pilip by nearly eight percentage points.
National issues dominated the campaign, making Tuesday’s vote this year’s first high-profile test of the parties’ messages on abortion, the economy and, above all, immigration. Suozzi represented the area for six years previously and campaigned as a moderate who wanted to work across the aisle. But with New York City struggling to absorb more than 100,000 migrants arriving from the southern border, much of the campaign centered on what polling suggests is Democrats’ toughest issue….
In New York, Suozzi’s victory capped a long list of Democratic wins in recent special elections, which have showcased the party’s ability to turn out its base and tap into anger at GOP-backed abortion restrictions since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Democrats spent millions of dollars attacking Pilip’s “pro-life” stance even though she said she would not support a national ban on abortion.
Road in the Village of Baldersbronde, Winter Day 1912, by Laurits Anderson Ring
I’m not sure immigration will be the Democrats’ “toughest issue” anymore, since Republicans in Congress refused to pass an immigration bill that was supported by the Border Patrol Union and the U.S. Chamber of Congress simply because Donald Trump order them to vote no.
Democrat Tom Suozzi is heading back to Congress after defeating Republican Mazi Pilip in the special election to replace serial fabulist and expelled former GOP Rep. George Santos. The result will further narrow the GOP’s already thin House majority and hand President Joe Biden’s party a boost as the general election campaign comes into focus….
Both parties poured cash into the race for New York’s 3rd congressional district, but Democrats’ fundraising and registration advantage combined with Suozzi’s brand – he’s spent most of the last 30 years at or around the center of Long Island politics – and a fired-up base, angry over the Santos fiasco, delivered a victory that means the House GOP will now become even harder to corral.
For Pilip, who has vowed to run again in the fall, defeat meant an almost immediate rebuke from Trump, who called her a “very foolish woman” in a social media post Tuesday night. Pilip refused until the final days of the campaign to say whether she voted for Trump in 2020, though she did follow his lead in dissing a highly touted bipartisan Senate border bill – a decision that helped Suozzi tie her more tightly to the former president over the last week….
The campaign was staked on a series of issues from the beginning: immigration, inflation, Israel and abortion. Suozzi talked about reproductive rights but didn’t make it a centerpiece of his campaign. Inflation has mostly leveled out. And there was no political or policy space to speak of between the candidates who both fully backed Israel.
On the immigration issue:
Understanding this, Pilip and Republicans set about hammering Suozzi over the migrant crisis in New York City, claiming he caused it along with Biden – a line that ultimately didn’t quite wash with voters who have long recognized Suozzi as a moderate or centrist. When Pilip suggested he was in league with the progressive “squad,” Suozzi at their debate was prepared.
“For you to suggest I’m a member of the squad,” he said, “is about as believable as you being a member of George Santos’s volleyball team.” (And that was before a knowing reference to Rick Lazio, which only seasoned New York voters would appreciate.)
Most notably, though, Suozzi and state Democratic leaders didn’t repeat their mistakes from 2022. They aggressively countered Pilip’s migrant message and it never felt like the issue, typically a winner for the GOP, put Suozzi on the backfoot.
The weather was a factor in this election. Many Democrats vote early or by mail, while Republicans mostly vote on election day. The snowstorm may have kept Republicans from getting to the polls.
Democrats won a state House special election in Pennsylvania on Tuesday night, preserving the party’s narrow majority in the closely watched battleground state, The Associated Press projected.
In the race for the open seat in the 140th state House District, Democrat Jim Prokopiak, a school board member in Bucks County, defeated Republican Candace Cabanas.
Prokopiak’s victory gives Democrats a narrow 102-100 majority in the state House, preventing another tie in the chamber.
The party had a one-seat majority, 102-101, before Democratic Rep. John Galloway resigned after he won a judgeship in November.
His departure created a tie. But another resignation Friday, by Republican Joe Adams, gave Democrats a fresh 101-100 advantage.
Republicans control the state Senate, while Democrats hold the governorship.
The win in Bucks County — a purple slice of the northern suburbs of Philadelphia — was hailed as positive news by national Democrats, some of whom had viewed the contest as an early bellwether of the party’s fortunes among suburban voters ahead of the 2024 election.
Even the Biden campaign weighed in on the victory, touting it as evidence that Bucks County voters would reject Donald Trump in the fall.
“With control of the state House on the line, Pennsylvanians again defeated Republicans’ anti-abortion agenda and voted for Jim Prokopiak, a Democrat who has stood up for women and working people,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement.
More News:
House Republicans spent yesterday impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas based on zero evidence.
The GOP-led House finally got its act together enough to stage an impeachment performance last evening, claiming the scalp of Biden Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
The same three Republican members who stymied the effort last week voted against impeachment again, but Rep. Steve Scalise’s return from cancer treatment gave the Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) the critical vote he needed to complete the flimsiest impeachment in history:
It’s totally appropriate to categorize these kinds of maneuvers by Republicans as performative or as playing politics or as engaging in political stunts. All true. But it’s also fundamentally an abuse of power. House Republicans are hikacking the levers of power that come with the offices they hold to advance their own partisan political aims and hold on to that power.
Not every example of an alignment between official acts and partisan political advantage is an abuse of power. But when you strip away any ostensibly objective motive for the official act, when you offer no pretense for the official act, when you’re only using the powers of the office to further your own political aims, when you stretch the law and the rules and bend them to your own grubby ends, you’re engaged in abuse of power. When, at the same time, you’re engaging in the wholesale breaking of government and institutions for the sake of it, all you’re left with is politics of the grimy, self-serving, and self-perpetuating variety.
There will have to be a trial in the Senate, but the “impeachment” is dead there. This is disgusting.
Sven Kroner, Hocuspocus
President Biden condemned Trump’s attack on NATO and his encouragement to Russia to attack our European allies.
Last May, Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) visited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, warmly embracing the embattled leader and later urging President Biden to “do more” to help the nation as it fights off Russia’s invasion.
But this week, Graham voted repeatedly against sending $60 billion in aid to that nation as well as against other military funds for Israel and U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific. The longtime hawk dramatically announced on the Senate floor that he also would no longer be attending the Munich Security Conference — an annual pilgrimage made by world leaders to discuss global security concerns that’s been a mainstay of his schedule.
“I talked to President Trump today and he’s dead set against this package,” Graham said on the Senate floor on Sunday, a day after the former president said at a rally that he would let the Russians do “whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies that did not spend enough on defense. “He thinks that we should make packages like this a loan, not a gift,” Graham said.
Claude Monet, A Cart on the Snowy_Road at Honfleur, 1865 or 1867
Graham’s about-face on Ukraine aid sends a stark warning signal to U.S. allies that even one of the most aggressive advocates for U.S. interventionism abroad appears to be influenced by the more isolationist posture pervading the Republican Party.
It marked a departure for the senator who was harshly critical of Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy when he ran against him for president in 2015, in part on a message of launching a U.S. invasion of Syria. And even as he cozied up to Trump once he became president on numerous other issues, the Air Force veteran continued to criticize Trump on foreign policy, including for wanting to withdraw from Afghanistan and Syria….
The episode has also eroded Graham’s credibility among colleagues who worked closely with him to shape a bipartisan package of border policy reforms that Republicans demanded be attached to the foreign aid in exchange for their votes — only to backtrack and help kill it in the end.
Merrick Garland is highly unlikely to serve a second term as attorney general amid mounting criticism of the Biden classified documents report, a law professor has said.
Professor Anthony V. Alfieri, a law professor at the University of Miami in Florida, was reacting to Garland’s appointment of Robert Hur as special counsel to investigate President Biden’s handling of the documents.
Garland has been under pressure for the perceived unfairness of the report and his silence in its aftermath.
The report said that Biden claimed he couldn’t remember details of classified documents he held after leaving the White House as vice president, and would likely claim forgetfulness if put on trial.
“Garland’s lack of fairness in this case, and the ensuing political fallout, renders a second term of service highly unlikely,” Alfieri told Newsweek.
“Attorney General Garland’s appointment of Robert Hur as Special Counsel, despite a notably conservative pedigree and record, is less controversial than Garland’s conclusion that Hur’s report was neither ‘inappropriate’ nor ‘unwarranted’,” Alfieri said.
“That conclusion and his release of the report to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees without addition, redaction, or modification, both explicitly and implicitly approves formally descriptive but substantively gratuitous, ad hominem and politically charged language prejudicial to Mr. Biden.”
Read more at the link.
That’s all I have for you today. What are your thoughts on all this? What stories have you been following?
Did you like this post? Please share it with your friends:
NOTE: The artwork in today’s post is from the Los Angeles Cat Art Show.
Amanda, by Mark Ryden
Yesterday Dakinikat wrote about Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s refusal to accept the decision of the right wing, corrupt Supreme Court that Federal law supersedes Texas state law; and therefore, Biden can order the removal of Abbott’s lethal razer wire from the Texas border with Mexico.
Unfortunately, other Republican Governors have come forward to back Abbott, and Donald Trump is urging these governors to send National Guard troops to support Abbott’s illegal activities. This is dangerously close to threatening civil war.
Like pouring water on a grease fire, former President Donald Trump has weighed in on the escalating standoff between the federal government and Texas.
In a multi-part social media post shared Thursday night, Trump called on “all willing states” to deploy their national guard forces to Texas “to prevent the entry of illegals, and to remove them back across the Border.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told Tucker Carlson on Friday, that so far, ten governors had sent National Guard or other law enforcement resources to assist on the border, and will be “disappointed” if others do not follow suit.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt told Fox News on Friday that he also “absolutely” plans to send national guard soldiers to Texas. ““We’ve already started putting the numbers together,” said Stitt.
(Less than 24 hours earlier, Stitt joined Newsmax host Carl Higbie for a casual chat about potential “force-on-force conflict” breaking out at the border.)
Stitt is one of 25 red state governors who have released statements expressing support for Abbott, who is continuing to defy the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this week that found that the federal government, not states, have ultimate jurisdiction over border enforcement
The background:
The Court’s 5-4 ruling gave a green light to Border Control to cut down the miles of razor wire that Texas forces had erected without federal permission along the Rio Grande and around Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, which is an epicenter for unauthorized border crossings.
Yawning Toothy Silhouette, by Brandon Boyd
Two weeks ago, the Texas National Guard seized control of Shelby Park, blocking Border Control’s access to the area and effectively preventing them from conducting rescue missions. Rio Grande. Days later, a migrant woman and two children drowned, which the Biden Administration blamed Texas for.
Abbott has doubled down on border enforcement activity since the Supreme Court ruling. He published a strongly-worded letter on Wednesday that accused the Biden Administration of abdicating its constitutional responsibility to protect states from “invasion.” “The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the states,” Abbott asserted.
Abbott cited a dissenting opinion from the 2012 Supreme Court case Arizona v. United States that argued that states have a constitutional authority to protect themselves if the federal government fails to.
Cori Alonso-Yoder, an associate professor from George Washington University Law School’s Fundamentals of Lawyering Program, told VICE News that she believes Abbott’s statement falls “more into the realm of political theater than actual supported legal theory.”
There’s also a bunch of crazy “christians” who say they will march to the border.
A convoy of hundreds of people plans to head to the Texas border to stop migrants crossing into the country from Mexico.
The group, called “Take Our Border Back,” is organizing on Telegram and now has more than 1,600 followers.
One of the group’s organizers described them as “God’s army” in a planning call, according to Vice.
“This is a biblical, monumental moment that’s been put together by God,” one organizer said, per Vice.
Another said: “We are besieged on all sides by dark forces of evil.”
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. It is time for the remnant to rise,” they said.
Pete Chambers, a lieutenant colonel organizing the group, has claimed he was a Green Beret. He explained the group’s plans while speaking to conspiracist Alex Jones on his Infowars show on Thursday.
“That’s what Green Berets do. Unconventional warfare is our bread and butter. Now we’re doing domestic internal defense,” Chambers said.
More at the Insider link.
The Senate is now working on a new border bill, and President Biden has endorsed it. It’s not yet clear what House Republicans will do, but Speaker Johnson has said the bill is dead on arrival.
President Joe Biden on Friday urged Congress to pass a bipartisan bill to address the immigration crisis at the nation’s southern border, saying he would shut down the border the day the bill became law.
Katsunori Miyagi, Gravity Cat
“What’s been negotiated would — if passed into law — be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country,” Biden said in a statement. “It would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law.”
Biden’s Friday evening statement resembles a ramping up in rhetoric for the administration, placing the president philosophically in the camp arguing that the border may hit a point where closure is needed. The White House’s decision to have Biden weigh in also speaks to the delicate nature of the dealmaking, and the urgency facing his administration to take action on the border — particularly during an election year, when Republicans have used the issue to rally their base.
The president is also daring Republicans to reject the deal as it faces a make-or-break moment amid GOP fissures.
It comes after a hectic week on the Hill, as Senate negotiators try to salvage monthslong talks to reach a border deal and unlock aid for Ukraine. The White House has continued to engage in talks and has publicly signaled optimism that a deal can be struck, even as some House Republicans say any bill is dead on arrival in the lower chamber. Donald Trump has also tried to scuttle the talks, adding another layer to complicated negotiations.
On the developing deal:
The contours of the deal are still subject to negotiation. But the negotiators have long discussed setting triggers for daily border crossings after which the Biden administration could shut down the border between ports of entry. Under the current proposal, asylum seekers would still be authorized to present claims at authorized ports of entry, although they would face a much higher standard for being granted the opportunity to apply for asylum.
Republicans who support a deal say the authority would both force Biden’s hand and strengthen that of his potential successor.
“This is an opportunity to put laws on the books that someone who is genuinely interested in securing the border will be able to use,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said as the Senate adjourned Thursday. “President Donald J. Trump in 2017 asked for laws like this. We’re going to deliver it and if he becomes president, he’ll be glad that we did.”
The terms of the deal under discussion, which is largely agreed to but not yet final, would also give DHS expulsion authority if border encounters hit an average of 4,000-a-day over the course of a week, a metric that includes asylum appointments. That authority would become mandatory if daily crossings average more than 5,000 people for a week or crest over 8,500 a day, according to two people briefed on the emerging agreement and who were granted anonymity to discuss the details.
Senate negotiators have agreed to empower the US to significantly restrict illegal migrant crossings at the southern border, according to sources familiar with the matter, a move aimed at ending the migrant surge that has overrun federal authorities over the past several months.
President Joe Biden has vowed to use the authority offered by the deal, embracing measures that are far more draconian than he’s previously considered in an area many voters perceive him as weaker than former President Donald Trump.
Kitty Bread Time, by Travis Lampe
The Senate deal, which is expected to be unveiled as soon as next week, would also speed up the asylum process to consider cases within six months – compared with the current system, under which it could take up to 10 years for asylum seekers.
The details provide a new window into high-profile negotiations that have been going on for months – as Senate leaders hold out hope they can attach the deal to aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as domestic and international crises loom. The plan would also put pressure on Republicans to decide whether to greenlight these new authorities or reject the plan as Trump has urged the GOP to defeat anything short of what he calls a “perfect” bill.
Under the soon-to-be-released package, the Department of Homeland Security would be granted new emergency authority to shut down the border if daily average migrant encounters reach 4,000 over a one-week span. If migrant crossings increase above 5,000 on average per day on a given week, DHS would be required to close the border to migrants crossing illegally not entering at ports of entry. Certain migrants would be allowed to stay if they prove to be fleeing torture or persecution in their countries.
Moreover, if crossings exceed 8,500 in a single day, DHS would be required to close the border to migrants illegally crossing the border. Under the proposal, any migrant who tries to cross the border twice while it is closed would be banned from entering the US for one year.
The goal of the trio of negotiators – GOP Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut – is to prevent surges that overwhelm federal authorities. The Biden administration and Senate leaders have been heavily involved in the talks, and more details of the deal are expected to be released in the coming days.
Meanwhile, it appears Congress is continuing to block aid to Ukraine.
In the Senate battle over Ukraine funding, one surprising issue has emerged that has led to a fascinating intra-Republican dispute—and one of the most aggressively anti-Ukraine Republicans is very vocally leading the “anti” side.
The issue is whether the United States and other Western countries should pay to prop up Ukraine’s entire economy, and specifically its social safety net and old-age pensions, or just replenish its critically diminished supply of munitions in its war with Russia. On December 11, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy traveled to Washington to make his case to Congress for $61 billion in emergency assistance the White House has requested for Ukraine.
Paul Koudounaris, Warhol Cat
“If there’s anyone inspired by unresolved issues on Capitol Hill, it’s just [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and his sick clique,” Zelenskiy said, only to fly home empty-handed because many MAGA Republicans in both chambers of Congress have soured on America’s Ukrainian ally—a position in lockstep with Donald Trump’s longtime geopolitical bromance with Russia’s leader-oligarch, Vladimir Putin.
Walking point in that platoon is Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, once an anti-Trump moderate who was reincarnated on the 2022 campaign trail as an ultra-MAGA scourge of liberals and university professors and elite educational institutions (he has a law degree from Yale). “Even if you support funding for Ukraine for some national defense purpose, which obviously I do not, I think it suggests that they’re effectively becoming a welfare client if we’re funding their pensioners,” said Vance, who is considered a possible vice presidential pick for Trump.
In December, Ukraine’s minister for social policy, Oksana Zholnovych, said that 500,000 civil servants, 1.4 million teachers, and 10 million pensioners could experience payment delays if foreign humanitarian assistance is not approved soon.
Vance and other MAGA senators have since gone out of their way to throw cold water on Biden’s funding package for Ukraine, which has been tied down in the Senate with unrelated immigration policy concessions Senate leaders in both parties have demanded to push a deal through.
As I write this I am in Warsaw, 170 miles from Poland’s border with Ukraine. The front line, where Ukrainians are right now fighting and dying, is another 450 miles beyond that. Not so far, in other words. A long day’s drive. I am well within range of Russian missiles, the kind that have hit Kyiv, Odesa, and Lviv so many times over the past two years.
Tens of millions of other people—Poles, Germans, Romanians, Finns, Estonians, Swedes, Slovaks, Lithuanians, Czechs, Latvians, Norwegians—are also in range of Russian conventional missiles, whether launched from Belarus, Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine, or Russia itself. Anyone in Europe could also be hit by Russian nuclear weapons, of course, as Russian television propagandists so frequently like to remind us. Dmitri Medvedev, a former Russian president, in recent months has threatened Poland with the loss of its statehood, threatened Sweden and Finland with nuclear and hypersonic missiles, and said the Baltic states belong to Russia anyway.
Most of the time, the possibility of Russian aggression doesn’t affect anybody or change anything. No one talks about it. Life goes on as normal. In Finland and Romania, preparations for presidential elections are under way. In Germany, farmers are on strike. Lithuania is holding an international light festival.
The moment the Ukrainians start to lose, all of that will change. For the past few months, Western observers have been tossing around the word stalemate, as if the Russian invasion of Ukraine had settled into some kind of dull, permanent stasis. In fact, the battlefield is dynamic. The front line is constantly changing, and the changes, both material and psychological, are starting to favor Russia. The Ukrainians are just as brave as they were a year ago and just as innovative. Their drones recently hit a Russian gas depot near St. Petersburg, hundreds of miles from Ukraine, among other targets. With no navy of their own, they have pushed much of the Russian Black Sea fleet away from their shores. But on the ground, in the southern and eastern parts of their country, they are rationing ammunition. They’ve never had sufficient missiles and bullets, and now they are at risk of not having enough to keep fighting at all.
Marc Dennis, Night Out
Were their front line to fall back dramatically, the horrific violence alone would trigger a shock wave through the rest of Europe. Russian occupation of more territory would continue to mean what it has meant for the past two years: torture chambers, random arrests, and thousands of kidnapped children. But an even deeper, broader shock wave would be triggered by the growing realization that the United States is not just an unreliable ally, but an unserious ally. A silly ally. Unlike the European Union, which collectively spends more money on Ukraine than Americans do but can’t yet produce as many weapons, the U.S. still has ammunition and weapons to send. Now Washington is on the verge of refusing to do so, but not because the White House has had a change of heart.
The looming end of American aid to Ukraine is not a policy decision. For two years, the Biden administration successfully led an international coalition to provide not soldiers but rather military aid to Ukraine. Officials convened regular meetings, consulted with allies, pulled in military support from around the world. Majorities in the U.S. continue to support Ukraine. Majorities in both houses of Congress do too. The Senate is said to have its legislation almost ready to go. But now, for reasons that outsiders find impossible to understand, a minority of Republican members of Congress, in a fit of political pique, are preparing to cut it all off. They might succeed.
Read the rest at The Atlantic. If you can’t get past the paywall, Applebaum has posted a gift article on Twitter.
On Thursday night, Alabama executed Kenneth Eugene Smith using nitrogen gas, a method never before used, but approved by the right wing Supreme Court. It did not go well, but Alabama will pretend that it did.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall on Friday vowed to continue using nitrogen gas in executions and offered to assist other states interested in the novel method, while fending off concerns that an inmate executed the night before did not become unconscious as quickly as expected and thrashed on the gurney, according to witnesses.
“What occurred last night was textbook,” Marshall told reporters after the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith on Thursday evening by nitrogen hypoxia, in which he was forced to breathe only nitrogen through a mask and was denied oxygen.
The execution, the first in the U.S. using nitrogen gas, lasted roughly 30 minutes from the time it started to Smith’s time of death. Marshall said Friday that nitrogen hypoxia “is no longer an untested method — it is a proven one.”
But the physical reaction of Smith, who was 58 and on death row for over three decades for a 1988 murder-for-hire slaying, was already being highly scrutinized after a 2022 attempt to execute him by lethal injection failed when prison staff could not locate a suitable vein.
Media witnesses to Thursday’s execution said Smith was conscious for several minutes into the execution and then appeared to shake and writhe on the gurney for two minutes. They said that was followed by several minutes of deep breaths until his breathing slowed and it was no longer perceptible….
…one media witness said it appeared to take longer than the state had suggested for Smith to become unconscious and die.
“It’s interesting to see the attorney general say that everything went consistent with plans that they laid out,” Lee Hedgepeth, an Alabama reporter, said on MSNBC.
“We saw him begin violently shaking, thrashing against the straps that held him down,” Hedgepeth said of Smith. “This was the fifth execution that I’ve witnessed in Alabama, and I’ve never seen such a violent execution or a violent reaction to the means of execution.”
He added that Smith had dry-heaved into the mask.
There’s more at the link.
That’s all I have for you today–not a lot of good news, I’m afraid. What stories are you following?
Did you like this post? Please share it with your friends:
The 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, a pivotal event on the road to the American Revolution, will be marked with a series of events in the city on Saturday, culminating in a reenactment of the destruction of the tea.
On Dec. 16, 2023, the Sons of Liberty stormed aboard the brig Beaver and ship Eleanor to destroy wooden chests of East India Company tea. They dumped more than 300 crates of tea into Boston Harbor to protest taxes imposed on the colonies, who did not have representation in Parliament.
Two-and-a-half centuries after that famous act of defiance, reenactors plan to recreate the historic event starting at 8 p.m. Saturday. Members of the public are invited to the Harborwalk at 510 Atlantic Ave. to witness the reenactment.
“When history asked Boston in 1773 if we were willing to do what it takes to defend our liberties, we took tea leaves for ink and made the ocean our page,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said.
Earlier Saturday, a series of other events are planned:
4 p.m. to 5 p.m.: An outdoor screening at Faneuil Hall plaza of “Faneuil Hall and the Boston Tea Party: A protest in principle. A retrospective on revolution.” Free tickets to this event are sold out.
6 p.m. to 7 p.m.: Reenactors portraying citizens of colonial Boston will present news of the tea crisis at Downtown Crossing, Reader’s Plaza at Milk St. and Washington St.
6:15 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.: Reenactors will recreate a vigorous debate inside Old South Meeting House, which hosted several meetings about the tea crisis, including the final meeting before Samuel Adams gave the signal that started the Boston Tea Party. Tickets for this event are sold out.
7:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.: A fife and drum corps will lead a rolling rally from Old South Meeting House to the Harborwalk for the tea party reenactment.
In the 250 years since members of the Sons of Liberty boarded ships in Boston Harbor to dump their cargo of imported tea overboard — on Dec. 16, 1773 — the right to protest over inadequate representation has been a central liberty of Americans.
There was already broad agreement in 18th century Britain and its American colonies that taxation without representation violated a supposedly free person’s rights.
But the British government had a far more limited view of what constitutes actual representation than the Colonists did. Parliament asserted that it represented the people in Britain’s American colonies even if they had no role in electing it.
After the Sons of Liberty action, Americans began to feel differently. A mercantile protest against tax breaks and corporate welfare for a private but influential monopoly (the British East India Co.) became a blow against the entire panoply of legislation and taxation adopted to coerce loyalty to the crown and Parliament.
The principle of no taxation without representation became increasingly about the definition of representation.
In the ensuing two and a half centuries, the American republic has moved in fits and starts toward perfecting democratic representation. It has had a very long way to go. Enslaved Africans and their descendants, Native Americans on reservations and women were represented in government in name only until recently, without voting power, the same way British Parliament once claimed to represent people who had no ability to say “yes” or “no” to their supposed delegates. In a sense, American democracy did not actually come into being until 1965, when the Voting Rights Act finally guaranteed Black voters equal rights to elect their government officials.
The fight isn’t over. Court rulings have permitted racial and partisan gerrymandering that undermine the Voting Rights Act and weaken the principle of one-person, one-vote — itself a fairly recent principle in American democracy. Residents of the District of Columbia will tell you, accurately, that they are taxed without representation. In many states, people who have served time for felonies cannot regain their right to vote, at least not without re-enfranchisement procedures so cumbersome as to be practically impossible….
In observing the semiquincentennial of the Boston Tea Party, it’s important to recall that although it began as an anti-tax protest, it was ultimately about the true meaning of representative government. The people of Boston in 1773 were unwilling to support a government in which they had no say. The Tea Party’s proper legacy is the continuing fight for fuller, more representative voting rights.
If you’d like a longer read about the Boston Tea Party, the long struggle for democracy in the U.S. and the unique dangers to liberty we face today, check out this interesting piece in The New York Times by Jennifer Schluessler: The Boston Tea Party Turns 250 and Raises 21st-Century Questions.
A jury on Friday ordered Rudolph W. Giuliani to pay $148 million to two former Georgia election workers who said he had destroyed their reputations with lies that they tried to steal the 2020 election from Donald J. Trump.
Judge Beryl A. Howell of the Federal District Court in Washington had already ruled that Mr. Giuliani had defamed the two workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. The jury had been asked to decide only on the amount of the damages.
The jury awarded Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss a combined $75 million in punitive damages. It also ordered Mr. Giuliani to pay compensatory damages of $16.2 million to Ms. Freeman and $16.9 million to Ms. Moss, as well as $20 million to each of them for emotional suffering.
Mr. Giuliani, who helped lead Mr. Trump’s effort to remain in office after his defeat in the 2020 election but has endured a string of legal and financial setbacks since then, was defiant after the proceeding.
“I don’t regret a damn thing,” he said outside the courthouse, suggesting that he would appeal and that he stood by his assertions about the two women.
He said that the torrent of attacks and threats the women received from Trump supporters were “abominable” and “deplorable,” but that he was not responsible for them.
His lawyer, Joseph Sibley IV, had also argued that Mr. Giuliani, the former New York mayor and federal prosecutor, should not be held responsible for abuse directed to Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss by others.
Mr. Sibley had warned that an award of the scale being sought by the women would be the civil equivalent of the death penalty for his client. Outside the courthouse on Friday, Mr. Giuliani called the amount “absurd.”
Break out the tiny violin. A bit more:
Over hours of emotional testimony during the civil trial in Washington, Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss described how their lives had been completely upended after Dec. 3, 2020, when Mr. Giuliani first suggested that they had engaged in election fraud to tilt the result against Mr. Trump in Georgia, a critical swing state.
The women, who are Black and are mother and daughter, were soon flooded with expletive-laden phone calls and messages, threats, and racist attacks, they testified. People said they should be hanged for treason or lynched; others told them they fantasized about hearing the sound of their necks snapping.
They showed up at Ms. Freeman’s home. They tried to execute a citizen’s arrest of Ms. Moss at her grandmother’s house. They called Ms. Moss’s 14-year-old son’s cellphone so much that it interfered with his virtual classes, and he finished his first year of high school with failing grades.
“This all started with one tweet,” Ms. Freeman told the jury, referring to a social media post from Mr. Giuliani saying, “WATCH: Video footage from Georgia shows suitcases filled with ballots pulled from under a table AFTER supervisors told poll workers to leave room and 4 people stayed behind to keep counting votes.”
All lies, of course.
No one knows how much Rudy is worth these days, because he refused to provide information on his assets to the court. But it’s highly unlikely he has anything like the millions he’s been ordered to pay. Of course, he’s planning to appeal.
Rudy Giuliani followed his time in public service with a lucrative career in the private sector that turned him into a multimillionaire. But the former New York mayor now faces legal damages of $148 million in a defamation case filed by two Georgia election workers.
A jury of eight Washington, D.C., residents ruled Giuliani must pay $148 million to the election workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss. Their attorneys had asked the jurors to award $24 million each in damages. Giuliani was earlier found liable for several defamation claims against them.
The jury on Friday said the former mayor must pay $16.2 million to Freeman and $17 million to Freeman, as well as $20 million to each for emotional distress and an additional $75 million in punitive damages.
So how much is he worth today?
Giuliani’s current net worth could be worth less than $50 million, based on his attorney’s comment that the damages sought by Moss and Freeman would “be the end” of him.
About 15 years ago, Giuliani’s net worth was more than $50 million, with $15 million of that total from his business activities, including his work with lobbying firm Giuliani Partners, according to CNN. At the time, he earned about $17 million a year, the news outlet reported.
How much has Giuliani’s net worth changed over the years?
Giuliani faces considerable expenses, hurt by a third divorce and pricey lawsuits, and signs suggest they have taken a financial toll. To generate cash, he’s sold 9/11 shirts for $911 and pitched sandals sold by Donald Trump ally Mike Lindell. He also started selling video messages on Cameo for $325 a pop, although his page on the site says Giuliani is no longer available.
Giuliani owes about $3 million in legal fees, according to The New York Times. He earns about $400,00 a year from a radio show and also receives some income from a podcast, but it’s not enough to cover his debts, the newspaper reported. Earlier this year, Giuliani’s long-term attorney sued him, alleging that the former mayor owes him almost $1.4 million in legal fees.
Meanwhile, Giuliani in July listed his Manhattan apartment for $6.5 million, and it was still available in mid-December, according to Sotheby’s. The 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom co-op includes a library with a wood-burning fireplace and a butler’s pantry.
Unfortunately, Trump is still in the news. Here’s what’s happening with the narcissistic wannabe dictator.
When Donald Trump sat down in the office of his Bedminster, N.J., golf club late this summer to flesh out his trade and border policy, familiar faces were across from him: Robert Lighthizer and Russell Vought, two of the architects of the former president’s populist first-term record.
Trump’s former trade representative and White House budget director, respectively, are part of a cadre of allies helping him shape policy proposals across a range of topics, laying the groundwork for what would be an aggressive and controversial second-term agenda.
The group—which also includes Stephen Miller, driver of hard-line immigration policies, former Housing Secretary Ben Carson and John Ratcliffe, former director of national intelligence, among others—is stocked with veterans of Trump’s first term who are closely aligned with his vision of protectionist economic policies and an isolationist approach to foreign policy.
They are likely to take key administration roles should Trump win the election, according to the campaign, which has worked to counter speculation over Trump’s inner circle and policy-formulation process.
Importantly for Trump, these figures have stuck by him following his loss to President Biden in 2020, unlike the many past cabinet officials and other top aides who now oppose him.Trump’s first term was marked by dissension, with policy disagreements and personality clashes leading to heated Oval Office arguments and damaging leaks to reporters.
In contrast, aides say, the current group of Trump confidantes is on the same page. Whether such harmony could be preserved in an actual second Trump administration—which would include hundreds more aides and a full cabinet—is less clear.
Trump’s policy development, like much of what he has brought to government, is unorthodox—a mix of his gut instincts and working style. He eschews traditional meetings and flowcharts, aides say, and instead draws on his experience in business and direct conversations with an extended network of contacts of longtime friends, CEOs and people he has met in politics. He often pits one viewpoint against another, a hallmark of his first tenure in office.
Flights to and from campaign events have turned into policy huddles with staff and are where Trump reads articles, instructing aides to get someone on the phone when they land or the following day, according to people involved in the discussions.
His policy agenda has excited core supporters while alarming Democrats and some Republicans.
“He’s been pretty clear in saying he will use the levers of government to go after his political opponents, which is anathema to conservatives,” said Marc Short, who served in the Trump administration and was a top adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence’s presidential campaign. Short said Trump’s 2016 platform appealed to the party in part by focusing on appointing conservative judges and cutting taxes.
Other key people Trump and his team are in regular communication with over policy ideas—and who could take important administration roles—include the following:
Among a small but influential group of young conservative activists and intellectuals, “Tricky Dick” is making a quiet — but notable — comeback. Long condemned by both Democrats and Republicans as the “crook” that he infamously swore not to be, Nixon is reemerging in some conservative circles as a paragon of populist power, a noble warrior who was unjustly consigned to the black list of American history.
Across the right-of-center media sphere, examples of Nixonmania abound. Online, popular conservative activists are studying the history of Nixon’s presidency as a “blueprint for counter-revolution” in the 21st century. In the pages of small conservative magazines, readers can meet the “New Nixonians” who are studying up on Nixon’s foreign policy prowess. On TikTok, users can scroll through meme-ified homages to Nixon. And in the weirdest (and most irony laden) corners of the internet, Nixon stans are even swooning over the former president’s swarthy good looks.
“I’ve always been pretty fascinated with him,” said Curt Mills, a conservative journalist and self-professed Nixon fan. (Mills has contributed to POLITICO Magazine.) “I think the Nixon story is really an American story. He really is this guy who is from nowhere, and he’s just absolutely reviled … [but] I do think he has this charisma that’s sort of underrated.”
The Nixon renaissance is being driven in part by young conservatives’ genuine interest in Nixon, whom Mills colorfully described as “our Shakespearean president.” But when pressed about their pro-Nixon views, even his most sincere supporters readily admit that the Nixon-mania isn’t being driven solely — or even primarily — by academic interest in Nixon. Instead, the populist right’s ongoing effort to rehabilitate Nixon, which is unfolding against the backdrop of the 2024 Republican primary, is really about another divisive former Republican president: Donald Trump.
In the topsy-turvy historical tableau of 2023, to defend Nixon is to back Trump — and to rescue the former from historical ignominy is, according to the thinking of some young conservatives, to save the latter from the same fate.
“If we can rehabilitate Richard Nixon in a balanced and fair manner — or even if we can just create questions in the public discourse about Nixon and about Nixon’s presidency — then I think, by way of analogy, it will provoke similar questions about Donald Trump,” said the conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who published a lengthy defense of Nixon earlier this year for City Journal. “It will give us the kind of template, it will give us the precedents, it will give us the skills, where we can more effectively defend a conservative president against these kinds of attacks.”
Read the rest at Politico, if you can handle it.
Time Magazine has a piece about Texas abortion laws and Kate Cox, the woman who fled the state in order to get abortion care after learning she was carrying a non-viable fetus and faced the prospect of losing her ability to have children in the future: That Texas Abortion Case Is Even Worse Than You Think.
So much of the national conversation this week has been about Kate Cox, the 31-year-old mom who had to flee Texas to have an abortion to end a doomed pregnancy as the state’s Supreme Court slowly decided to substitute its judgment for her doctor’s advice.
But what’s been missing from most of the talk about this case is this reality: Texas has at least three separate laws on the books designed to make getting an abortion nearly impossible. Those overlapping, vague statutes not only create one of the most restrictive environments in the country for reproductive rights, but shaped Cox’s case in ways that many following her ordeal likely missed. It also shows how even minor details can matter, especially when judges have political bents and time is an urgent component.
To understand the lay of the land that Cox, her family, and her doctor were facing, we need to look at what Texas lawmakers put in place before Dobbs, the 2022 case that invalidated a half-century of protections enshrined in Roe v. Wade. A year earlier, Texas passed a so-called “trigger ban” that would outlaw abortions should the Supreme Court overturn Roe. We’ll call this Ban A. It serves up a felony life sentence for health care providers who perform abortions and a $100,000 fine.
A second 2021 law—let’s call it Ban B—was a novel attempt at effectively banning most abortions in Texas without waiting for the Supreme Court to give permission, and it largely succeeded. That law runs along civil lines by deputizing neighbors and strangers to enforce it through lawsuits. Under Ban B (also known as S.B. 8), even an Uber driver who ferries a customer to a place where abortions are performed can be civilly charged. Critics have labeled it a Bounty Law. Yet unlike Ban A, Ban B isn’t a complete ban, though it functions as one in practice. It blocks most pregnant individuals from seeking an abortion after about six weeks, or when lawmakers decided there exists a beating “fetal heart”—a term doctors do not use, because a fetus at that point does not yet have a heart. (What abortion opponents describe as a heartbeat at that stage is actually the electrical impulses developing cells start to emit.)
Finally, there is Ban C, which are the pre-Roelaws in Texas, dating back to the state’s first criminal code of 1857. At that time, the state had a ban on abortion—including the funding of it—except in cases when the pregnant person’s life was at risk. The penalty? Five years in prison for those providing the care. Texas officials have asserted that those laws snapped back into effect when Roe fell.
All three abortion bans include language that provides exceptions when the health of the pregnant person is in question, although the specific definitions and conditions are different and vague. (None, it also should be noted, holds the pregnant party criminally liable.)
This all created a legal and medical minefield for Kate Cox, the Dallas-area mother of two who has been public about wanting, in her words, “a large family.” When Cox and her family learned the fetus she was carrying had tested positive for a genetic condition that almost always results in a miscarriage or stillbirth, she took action. She had already been to the hospital four times in two weeks seeking emergency attention and worried what this troubled pregnancy would mean for her future potential; her doctor agreed that an abortion would leave her with the greatest potential for a pregnancy at a future date.
The killing of the three men – who were kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October during its assault on southern Israel – has triggered widespread anger and incredulity in Israel amid a mounting sense of anxiety over the safety of the remaining hostages in Gaza.
According to reports of the IDF probe in the Israeli media, the three men Yotam Haim, Samer El-Talalka and Alon Shamriz – all in their 20s – had somehow escaped their captors and were approaching an IDF position in the Shejaiya area of Gaza City where there has been heavy fighting.
One of the men was carrying a stick with a white cloth tied to it and all had removed their shirts. Spotting the three, an Israeli soldier on a rooftop, however, opened fire on the men, shouting “Terrorists!”.
While two of the hostages fell to the ground immediately, the third fled into a nearby building. When a commander arrived on the scene, the unit was ordered into the building where it killed the third hostage despite his pleas for help in Hebrew.
It emerged too that the IDF had identified a nearby building marked with “SOS” and “Help! Three hostages” two days earlier but had believed it might be a trap.
As the first details of the killing were released by the IDF on Friday night, after most Israelis had begun to mark Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, a hastily called demonstration converged on the Kirya, Israel’s sprawling military headquarters compound in Tel Aviv.
Chanting “Shame”, “There’s no time” and “Deal now!” – the last a demand for a new ceasefire agreement with Hamas and a hostage exchange – the protesters represent a growing thread of anger in Israel at the way in which the war is being prosecuted, as the situation of the remaining hostages in Gaza has taken a series of dark of turns in the past week.
There’s much more at the link.
That’s all I have for you today. I hope you all have a terrific weekend!
Did you like this post? Please share it with your friends:
It’s another rainy weekend in Boston, and I overslept because it was so dark. They were predicting a nor’easter. I don’t know if this qualifies, but it’s very dark and raining hard, with high winds expected later on. This feels like about the 20th rainy weekend in a row here.
Yesterday, House Republicans rejected Jim Jordan as Speaker after he lost more votes on a third ballot. Members then held a secret ballot to see if he should keep trying, and this time he got only 86 votes of the 217 he would need to be elected.
In a shocking turn, Jim Jordan on Friday lost an internal GOP vote that was intended to show confidence in him remaining as his party’s speaker designee.
The Ohio Republican is now no longer his party’s pick to lead the House, a demise sealed by a GOP secret ballot just after his third failed floor vote as a speaker hopeful.
It was an unexpectedly fast end to the Ohio conservative’s candidacy to lead the chaos-ridden Republican conference — and a sign that the flailing party is fed up on its 17th day without a speaker. Lawmakers now plan to leave Washington for the weekend as the next round of ambitious Republicans decide whether to mount their own speaker bids.
But most Republicans acknowledge that even with new faces to consider, they still have no clear path to uniting their splintered conference. They have already rejected two speaker candidates — Jordan and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise — as well as former Speaker Kevin McCarthy during this month alone.
McCarthy gave voice to a sentiment that’s growing within the GOP: The party’s inability to run the half of Congress that it narrowly won doesn’t bode well for its broader future.
“I’m concerned about where we go from here,” said McCarthy, who had been backing Jordan. “It’s astonishing to me, and we are in a very bad position as a party.”
Jordan’s loss of the speaker nod from his party came as something of a surprise, since he had sought the internal vote with allies preparing to cite it as a show of continued support for his candidacy. Instead, the secret ballot revealed that while Jordan’s public opposition never topped 25 votes, scores more House Republicans wanted to see him out of the race.
The next race to replace him is expected to get crowded, even as Congress faces no shortage of pressing business that it’s unable to conduct while the House stays shut. At the top of that list: a government shutdown deadline that’s less than a month away and a $100 million-plus emergency funding request from the Biden administration, encompassing aid to both Israel and Ukraine.
I don’t know why Politico didn’t expect this. It had become clear that semi-normal Republicans weren’t responding well to being bombarded with death threats by MAGA Jordan supporters.
There is still no end in sight for the high-stakes speakership battle after House Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy more than two weeks ago.
The search is on for a new GOP speaker nominee after Rep. Jim Jordan on Friday became the latest exit from the race, and it’s already shaping up to be a crowded candidate field.
It will be our secret, by Margaryta Yermolayevay
Frustrations and divisions have only intensified within the conference as Republicans search for a way to resolve the impasse. That, along with the GOP’s narrow majority, has made it increasingly unclear whether any candidate will be able to secure the 217 votes needed to win the gavel on the House floor.
The House, meanwhile, remains in a state of paralysis as Republicans struggle to coalesce around a speaker candidate, with the chamber effectively frozen amid the threat of a government shutdown next month and conflict unfolding abroad.
House Republicans are expected to hold a candidate forum Monday evening and more candidates are likely to throw their names into the running before then….
Here are some of the candidates now vying to become the next GOP speaker nominee:
Rep. Tom Emmer, who serves as majority whip, said in a letter to his colleagues shared on Saturday that he was seeking the speakership with the goal of delivering “historic change.”McCarthy is backing Emmer for speaker, sources tell CNN, delivering an early boost for his candidacy.
Rep. Kevin Hern told CNN on Friday that “yes” he plans to run for speaker. When asked how he plans to get 217 votes, Hern said he’ll work “hard” to get people on his side.
Rep. Jack Bergman is running for the speaker role, his spokesman told CNN.
Rep. Austin Scott, who launched a last-minute bid against Jordan last week, but quickly dropped out and then supported Jordan, is now running for speaker again now that the field is wide open, his spokesperson told CNN.
Rep. Byron Donalds, a Freedom Caucus member, announced on X that he’s seeking the speakership to advance a “conservative vision for the House of Representatives and the American people.”
Rep. Mike Johnson, the House Republican conference vice chairman, also announced a run for speaker in a letter to his Republican colleagues Saturday, saying “after much prayer and deliberation, I am stepping forward now.”
Meanwhile, in the midst of this Republican chaos, the first thing I saw this morning–at the top of the Memeorandum news feed–was this opinion piece by a Republican named Douglas MacKinnon, who argues that both Biden and Harris should step down. LOL!
Playtime is over. We have to put the toys away and have the adults in the room re-exert their authority.
It’s one thing when the issues of the day are identity politics; “green” energy; organized looting; cashless bail; Trump’s legal exposure; political corruption; or who’s really in charge of the border, when having a president and vice president in power who even countless Democrats no longer have faith in. It’s quite another when the world is teetering on the edge of massive violent conflict or outright nuclear war and that leadership looks demonstrably lost and feeble.
Beware of magic cats, by Margaryta Yermolayeva
The barbaric attack by Hamas upon men, women and children in Israel, coupled with the war in Ukraine inching us ever closer to a nuclear conflict, should serve as stark reminders that real and resolute leadership does matter and is needed before it is too late.
Unfortunately, history reminds us that it is not uncommon for presidents — or vice presidents — to find themselves in untenable or overwhelming positions in which they can no longer cope or effectively govern. They often can’t see the proper course forward because they are either standing too close to the problem or are shielded from the negative fallout by overprotective aides or a partisan media.
Such a case came during the summer of 1974. It was becoming obvious to all that the Watergate break-in and the subsequent widespread coverup had politically and legally ensnared President Richard Nixon in a trap from which there was no viable escape.
A growing number of senior Republicans feared Nixon was too isolated from reality, and quite possibly misinformed by aides, to rationally ascertain his dire predicament. For those reasons, and others, a few decided that an intervention at the White House was urgently nee
A growing number of senior Republicans feared Nixon was too isolated from reality, and quite possibly misinformed by aides, to rationally ascertain his dire predicament. For those reasons, and others, a few decided that an intervention at the White House was urgently needed.
We all know the story, which is not at all analogous to anything happening with Biden/Harris. Who are these “adults” that MacKinnon refers to?
We need Biden — and Harris — to rise above that nonsense while turning the eyes of our nation toward the true threats that could destroy us. We need a president who is actually “presidential.”
We need a Thomas Jefferson, an Abraham Lincoln, a John F. Kennedy, or a Bill Clinton. This is not a partisan point. It is one about mutual survival….
I can’t find a Democrat I know who wants either one on the ticket for 2024. Be it for age reasons; cognitive-health concerns; potential Hunter Biden corruption issues; plain competency fears; or record-low polling numbers, a second act of Biden-Harris comes across as political kryptonite for many Democrats hoping to retain the White House in 2024….
That stated, where are the “adult in the room” Democratic powerbrokers willing to emulate the 1974 Republicans and travel down to the White House to tell Biden and Harris that they are “in over their heads” and that their “time has come and gone”?
MacKinnon would do better to ask where the Republican “adults” are.
This weird perception of Biden is so mysterious to me. He has just traveled all over the world and returned to give an oval office speech last night. He doesn’t seem tired or confused to me.
With viewing taking place across 10 networks, President Biden‘s Thursday night address from the oval office has reached a total audience of 20.326 million total viewers, according to Live+Same Day figures from Nielsen.
First trick or treat, by Margaryta Yermolayeva
Coverage of the 15-minute speech lasted from approximately 8 pm to 8:22 pm ET, varying by network with nearly 65% of the 20.3 million viewers tuning in to the president’s speech on broadcast networks, Nielsen reports. 35% of the audience watched on cable networks. People ages 55 and up make up the majority of the audience at 15.94 million and averaged an audience rating of 15.7. Notably, the adults 18-34 key demo made up only 4% of the Thursday night audience.
Biden addressed the nation on the U.S.’s response to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, telling his constituents why it’s necessary to show continued support for America’s partners in Israel and Ukraine.
“The security package I’m asking congress to do is an unprecedented commitment to Israel’s security that will sharpen their qualitative military edge which we’ve committed to,” Biden said. “At the same time, President Netanyahu and I discussed the critical need for Israel to operate by the laws of war. That means protecting civilians in combat. The people of Gaza urgently need food, water, and medicine. Yesterday, in discussions with the leaders of Israel and Egypt, I secured an agreement for the first shipment of humanitarian assistance from the United Nations to Palestinian civilians in Gaza.”
“As hard as it is, we cannot give up on peace. We cannot give up on a two-state solution,” the President said.
President Joe Biden’s task, as he looked America in the eye from the Oval Office, was to explain why a nation wearied by its own foreign quagmires and political estrangements should send $100 billion to help other people fight their wars.
His answer was that Israel and Ukraine were fighting existential struggles and that their wars were not just their own but were critical to the security of each American watching his primetime speech on Thursday.
But the most profound takeaway from what was only his second Oval Office address was this: While Biden scheduled the appearance to discuss two nations fighting for their survival against outside attack, his real topic was America itself – and perceived threats to its foundational values in a volatile political age.
He implored his country to honor the global role that has cemented a stable world order since World War II and to reject the appeasement of terrorists and tyrants. And in remarks that foreshadowed a reelection bid that will help decide the character of America and its place in the world for years to come, he sought to inspire it to reject intolerance as bitter politics rage at home.
Biden delivered his speech hours after returning from Israel and meeting victims of the Hamas terror attacks that killed more than 1,400 civilians, and months after his daring trip to another war zone in Ukraine. Even as he spoke, the first signs of an expected Israeli incursion into Gaza began to unfold, suggesting a crisis he sought to contain with his trip on Wednesday is about to get far worse.
“I know these conflicts can seem far away, and it’s natural to ask – why does this matter to America?” Biden said. “So let me share with you why making sure Israel and Ukraine succeed is vital for America’s national security.”
The president beseeched Americans to understand that if the “pure unadulterated evil” of Hamas and the attempt by Russian President Vladimir Putin to “erase” Ukraine’s independence prevailed, terrorism emanating from the Middle East would threaten Americans again and Russia would imperil global peace.
Biden’s address is likely to be seen by historians as a signature moment in his presidency because of the messages he sent to American allies and foes abroad and how he sketched his vision for his own deeply divided nation.
President Joe Biden said that Hamas’ attacks on Israel were intended in part to scuttle the potential normalization of the U.S. ally’s relations with Saudi Arabia.
“One of the reasons Hamas moved on Israel … they knew that I was about to sit down with the Saudis,” Biden said at a campaign event Friday night, according to pool reports. “Guess what? The Saudis wanted to recognize Israel,” the president added.
Less than a month ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had also expressed optimism about the potential detente, telling Biden that a “historic peace” between the two countries seemed attainable.
Invitation, by Margaryta Yermolayeva
The normalization push began under former President Donald Trump’s administration and was branded as the Abraham Accords.
But Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel and sustained retaliation from the Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza have pushed the possibility of normalization between Israel and neighboring Arab countries farther from reach.
On Saturday, the first 20 trucks carrying about 3,000 tons of aid passed through the Rafah border crossing from Egypt on Saturday, bringing humanitarian assistance to Gazans, who have been rationing food and water and relying on dwindling medical supplies amid the barrage of Israeli airstrikes.
In his speech at a Washington, D.C., fundraiser, Biden emphasized his administration’s commitment to supporting the longevity of the Israeli state.
“I am convinced with every fiber of my being: If there were no Israel, there’s not a Jew safe in the world — not in the entire world … including the United States,” Biden said.
Likening the conflict to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as he did in his Oval Office speech Thursday night, Biden underscored America’s role in providing aid to both allies, once more invoking former secretary of state Madeleine Albright in calling the U.S. the “essential nation.”
The United States on Friday released a U.S. intelligence assessment sent to more than 100 countries that found Moscow is using spies, social media and Russian state-run media to erode public faith in the integrity of democratic elections worldwide.
“This is a global phenomenon,” said the assessment. “Our information indicates that senior Russian government officials, including the Kremlin, see value in this type of influence operation and perceive it to be effective.”
A senior State Department official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said that Russia was encouraged to intensify its election influence operations by its success in amplifying disinformation about the 2020 U.S. election and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Success breeds more, and we definitely see the U.S. elections as a catalyst,” the official said.
The Russian embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The release of the assessment comes amid serious tensions between the United States and Russia over Moscow’s war against Ukraine and a raft of other issues.
The assessment was sent in a State Department cable dated Wednesday to more than 100 U.S. embassies in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa for distribution to their host governments, he said.
Washington was privately briefing recipient governments and shared the assessment “to get ahead of elections that are over the horizon over the next year,” the official said.
The report represents Washington’s latest move to combat what it says are Moscow’s efforts “to sow instability” in democratic countries by portraying elections as “dysfunctional, and resulting governments as illegitimate.”
Washington “recognizes its own vulnerability to this threat,” said the report, noting that U.S. intelligence agencies found that “Russian actors spread and amplified information to undermine public confidence in the U.S. 2020 election.”
Finally, here are a few interesting stories about Trump’s many problems.
Two stalwart allies of former President Donald Trump flipped against him this week, a staggering turn of events that could now pose a grave threat to his ability to fend off criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The witch is coming, by Margaryta Yerrmolayeva
The rapid-fire developments are a massive boost for prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, and the separate but overlapping federal case against Trump that was filed by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith.
The pleas are a stark display of the reality that the Georgia case against Trump and his co-defendants is getting stronger. While Trump has vowed to fight until the bitter end, these newly inked plea deals force his co-defendants to confront the same difficult choice: cut a deal or roll the dice at trial.
or two prominent Trump co-defendants – Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro – the looming five-month trial, potentially resulting in a yearslong prison sentence, appears to have spurred them into flipping.
Their decisions to transform from Trump diehards to key witness against him have likely shattered any sense of invincibility that the former president or others charged may be feeling – perhaps for the first time.
What can these two testify about?
Chesebro directly implicated Trump in a criminal conspiracy, and his plea establishes for the first time that the fake electors plot was illegal. Notably, Chesebro has now admitted that “the purpose” of the fake electors conspiracy was to “disrupt and delay the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021,” which is a key element of the federal charges Trump is facing.
As part of the plea, Chesebro established that the fake electors plot was part of “an attempt… to violate” the US Constitution and federal law, by subverting the Electoral College proceedings. This dovetails with the allegations against Trump in Smith’s federal indictment.
On Thursday, former Trump campaign lawyer Powell pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a separate, but complementary, effort to interfere with the 2020 election by breaching Georgia voting systems.
While Powell’s guilty plea only covers charges related to the breach of election equipment in Coffee County, Georgia, her deal with prosecutors opens the door for testimony about first-hand interactions with Trump and other key co-defendants.
For example, if called to the stand in a future trial, Powell could face questions about White House meetings she attended where Trump considered taking extreme steps to overturn the 2020 results, like ordering the Pentagon to seize voting machines.
After a mini-saga in the classified documents case against Donald Trump, both of the former president’s co-defendants have waived concerns that their attorneys have represented witnesses in the case.
During Friday’s hearing in Fort Pierce, Florida, Trump’s personal aide Walt Nauta told federal Judge Aileen Cannon he had no concerns that his attorney, Stanley Woodward, has represented several witnesses in the case.
Moonlight Tea, by Margaryta Yermolayeva
“I still choose Mr. Woodward as my lawyer,” Nauta told the judge after she went through the potential conflicts in detail.
Last week, Carlos De Oliveira, a maintenance worker at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, also waived potential conflict of interest concerns raised by prosecutors who noted that his attorney also represented witnesses in the case, too.
Woodward and prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith have gone back and forth in court filings and before Cannon over the potential conflicts. In court Friday, Woodward agreed that he would not cross-examine witnesses he has represented or is currently representing.
One of those witnesses, Yuscil Taveras – an IT director at Mar-a-Lago – cut an agreement with prosecutors in exchange for his cooperation in the case after switching attorneys from Woodward.
Nauta is completely screwed. He’s going to prison unless Judge Cannon somehow protects him. I wonder if he knows that?
In a double serving of what could arguably be described as doses of one’s own medicine, special counsel Jack Smith plucked apart Donald Trump‘s latest efforts to throw out criminal conspiracy charges against him in Washington, D.C., by citing two arguments the former president would seem hard pressed to deny — one from the U.S. Supreme Court justice he appointed, Brett Kavanaugh, and the other from Trump’s own mouth when he was impeached for the second time.
The pointed response from federal prosecutors is found in a 52-page filing directed at Trump’s early October motion when he urged U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to dismiss the election subversion indictment against him on the grounds that as former president, he held “absolute presidential immunity” from prosecution.
While Trump argued his public proclamations of rampant voter fraud and efforts to advance slates of false electors, among other things, fell squarely within the parameters of his duties as president, special counsel argued those schemes were largely rooted in “fraud,” “conspiracy,” “exploitation” and “deceit.”
Discussion of the nature of the crimes themselves aside, Smith contends that an inability to prosecute a former president for his crimes alleged or otherwise as Trump would have it is antithetical to the very premise of the office of the presidency, the meaning of the U.S. Constitution and longstanding legal precedent on similarly aligned subjects throughout years of case law.
“Indeed no sound policy supports granting a former president blanket immunity from criminal prosecution for a time he or she served as president,” Smith wrote.
Fox News was essential to Donald Trump’s success in both of his last presidential runs. Now, as the former president navigates another campaign through a tidal wave of indictments and legal problems, he’s facing a much frostier relationship with the cable giant—and that could be bad news for both of them.
Jokers, by Margaryta Yermolayeva
In recent months, Trump’s inner circle has become convinced that Fox News is essentially sidelining the former president by restricting live appearances on the network.
“Trump is not allowed live on Fox,” a Trump operative told The Daily Beast, chalking it up to “fear” that Trump could level a baseless allegation that could leave the network in a legal mess.
A Trump adviser told The Daily Beast a similar story—that the former president isn’t allowed live on air anymore, and that Fox News prefers to have Trump in a pre-recorded setting.
“Fox sent down word from the top that they don’t want to ‘platform’ Trump like they did before,” a Trump adviser told The Daily Beast. “I find it hilarious. For one, it sounds like something MSNBC would do.”
After a lengthy hiatus last year, Trump re-emerged on Fox News in March, but in a diminished capacity in a string of interviews with Fox hosts and anchors including Sean Hannity, Bret Baier, and Larry Kudlow. Gone are the days when Trump could simply call in live and share his stream of consciousness.
According to a search by The Daily Beast and Media Matters for America, Trump last phoned in live to a Fox News program in April of 2022. And Matt Gertz, senior fellow at Media Matters, told The Daily Beast the live freeze-out is no accident.
“Fox News’ record defamation settlement stemmed in part from its on-air Trump fanatics refusing to correct their guests’ election-denial conspiracy theories live, even when they knew their claims were lies,” Gertz said. “It’s wildly implausible to imagine the likes of Sean Hannity pushing back on Trump’s rigged-election fantasies, so it looks like Fox’s lawyers may have engineered a solution that doesn’t require its propagandists to perform journalism.”
One Trump confidant contrasted the apparent ban on Trump’s live appearances to earlier Fox News coverage, when they “used to go live at every single one of his rallies!”
As Trump would say, “Sad.”
So . . . that’s all the news I have for today. What stories have you been following?
Did you like this post? Please share it with your friends:
Meteorological Autumn has begun, even though most of the country is still experiencing hot weather. Here in New England, it looks like we will have summer weather for at least the first half of September. It has been in the high 80’s lately, and later this week it will hit 92 for a couple of days. Of course it’s still comfortable here in my cozy apartment with my heat pump keeping things cool.
I was thinking this morning that I’m an orphan now. My Mom and Dad are both gone, along with all of their siblings. I’m in the older generation now. How does time go by so quickly? I can really tell that I’m old now. People my age (75) are dying every day. I come from long-lived stock on both sides, so I probably have a few years left, but you never know. I just hope I don’t live to see fascism take over the U.S.
— Adolescence – Identity versus identity confusion
— Young adulthood – Intimacy versus isolation
— Middle age – Generativity versus stagnation
— Older adulthood – Integrity versus despair
I guess I’m finally moving into the 8th stage; but I still care a lot about what happens to the next generation, so I’m still partly in stage 7, generativity–when you care more about giving to the next generation than satisfying yourself.
When I was in grad school, my mentor, Richard, (who is gone now, too, sadly) used to teach that Erikson’s states are flexible. You can go back and repair the damage that happened in an earlier stage and you can be in more than one stage at a time. Because people live longer than in Erikson’s day, it can take longer to get into that last stage, where you are supposed to look back on your life and come to terms with all you have experienced, good and bad.
I do find myself looking back at times, reevaluating things that happened to me and reaching acceptance. I believe that I did repair damage from the past over the 40+ years since I’ve been sober, and I’ve learned to accept my life as it is most of the time.
Now back to the present moment, where we are up in the air as to whether our country will be a democracy or a dictatorship ruled over by an insane idiot. Today is a slow news day, but here is some news:
The Capitol’s attending physician, Brian Monahan, said in a new letter that Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell did not suffer a stroke or seizure – and is not suffering from Parkinson’s disease – after the 81-year-old Kentuckian was evaluated by a group of neurologists following two recent health scares in front of TV cameras.
Vincen Van Gogh, The Garden of St. Paul’s Hospital Leaf Fall
The new letter, released by McConnell’s office Tuesday, comes after he froze in front of cameras for the second time in as many months, raising questions about whether the GOP leader could continue to hold his powerful position atop the Senate GOP Conference. After he froze last week in Covington, Kentucky, McConnell was evaluated by four neurologists, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Monahan said in the Tuesday letter that he consulted with McConnell’s neurologists and conducted several evaluations, including brain MRI imaging and a test that measures electrical imaging in the brain.
“There is no evidence that you have a seizure disorder or that you experienced a stroke, TIA or movement disorder such as Parkinson’s disease,” the letter said.
So what did happen, then? No one knows.
It’s still unclear exactly why McConnell froze up for roughly 30 seconds each time.
The Republican leader’s office had attributed the two frozen moments to “lightheadedness,” and Monahan had indicated in a previous letter that it’s “not uncommon” for victims of concussion to feel lightheaded. McConnell suffered a concussion and broken ribs after falling at a Washington hotel and hitting his head in March, sidelining him from the Senate for nearly six weeks.
I still say he should retire. He’s 81, for heaven’s sake!
The media keeps telling us that Republicans are going to force a government shutdown. Politico claims to know what Democrats are going to do about it: How Democrats are bracing for a ‘MAGA shutdown.’
There’s still a month to go, but Capitol Hill is girding for an appropriations breakdown — and Democrats are already strategizing over how to make Republicans pay for what some have already started calling a “MAGA shutdown.”
Their challenge: Maximizing the GOP political pain while avoiding blame themselves. After all, it has been a full 10 years since the government has shut down with a Democrat in the White House. And this time, the president needs to win reelection in 14 months.
The Birch Wood, Gustav Klimt
“This is really going to be driven by the House,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) told reporters in the Capitol on Friday. “They’re the ones that are going to bring [a shutdown] upon the country.”
To be sure, top House Democrats are still hoping to avoid a shutdown, and the party’s rank-and-file stands ready to approve a bipartisan deal — preferably a clean stopgap with some amount of Ukraine and disaster aid attached, likely sent over from the Senate.
But the key funding decisions lie with Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his capricious Republican conference, and putting a deal along those lines up for a vote could prove disastrous to McCarthy’s standing as leader.
With members of the hard-right Freedom Caucus escalating their threats, Democratic leaders want their members to stay unified around a message decrying GOP hostage-taking and accusing Republicans of reneging on a bipartisan deal on spending caps reached in May.
A solid Democratic front, the thinking goes, will squeeze Republicans from districts won by President Joe Biden and force McCarthy to the negotiating table. Absent that pressure, “I don’t think there’s a lot of hope that Kevin McCarthy for once will actually stand up to the far right,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.).
The House comes back next week, so I guess we’ll learn more about their idiotic plans then.
First lady Jill Biden tested positive for Covid-19 on Monday and is experiencing “mild symptoms,” the White House said. President Joe Biden has tested negative.
The diagnosis has upended the first lady’s plans to begin teaching the fall semester at Northern Virginia Community College on Tuesday. She is working with the school to “ensure her classes are covered by a substitute,” Vanessa Valdivia, the first lady’s spokesperson, said.
Dr. Biden, 72, who remains at the family’s home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, typically teaches on Tuesday and Thursdays.
Biden will be “monitored by the White House medical team” after her diagnosis and follow the team’s advice about when to return the White House, Valdivia said. In addition to starting school on Tuesday, Biden was supposed to speak in the evening in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, at a send-off dinner for the US team competing in the Invictus Games in Düsseldorf, Germany next week, but now she will not participate, Valdivia said.
An administration official told CNN Monday that there are no changes to White House Covid protocols or to the president’s schedule at this time.
I just hope the president doesn’t come down with it.
Claude Monet, Autumn on the Seine at Argenteuil, 1873
George Conway diagnosed the underlying problem that’s causing Republicans to undermine military readiness and attack law enforcement.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) continues to block military promotions to force the reversal of a Pentagon policy granting leave and travel expenses for military personnel stationed in states where they cannot obtain an abortion, but the conservative Conway told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” the political stunt was emblematic of the GOP’s attitude toward the U.S. government at large.
“They hate the United States military because it’s a part of the United States government,” Conway said. “This is basically, the Republicans have become anti-American, anti-government, anti-the United States. That’s their shtick now. That’s why they’re attacking the State Department, FBI, prosecutors, and they attack the institutions that normally Republicans were very, very supportive of — now, it’s just this nihilistic attack on American institutions.”
Conservative attorney George Conway said Donald Trump should be locked away for good if he’s found guilty in the two federal cases currently pending against him.
Conway shared a tweet from former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega, who wrote that Trump should be given a prison sentence “equal to or greater than” the sentences handed down in other key Jan. 6 cases if convicted in Washington.
That would make 18 years a starting point ― but Conway said the 77-year-old former president’s potential prison time could be much longer than that if he’s convicted in the classified documents case.
“It’s beyond question he should spend the rest of his natural life in prison,” Conway wrote on X, the site formerly known as Twitter….
Conway has called the Florida case against Trump “airtight,” and said “he should and he will” go to jail over it “because the obstruction case is just so strong.”
Elon Musk has threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League after accusing the civil rights group that campaigns against antisemitism and bigotry of trying to “kill” his X social media platform.
The owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, said the ADL was trying to shut down his company by “falsely accusing it and me of being antisemitic”.
In a series of posts on X, Musk said advertising sales for the business were down 60% and “based on what we’ve heard from advertisers, ADL seems to be responsible for most of our revenue loss”.
The world’s richest man also indicated that he would sue the group for defamation, posting on X that “it looks like we have no choice but to file a defamation lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League … oh the irony!”
In his posts on Tuesday, Musk added that to be “super clear” he was in favour of free speech “but against antisemitism of any kind”.
Yeah, right. If Musk sues, the ADL will be able to get discovery of all the anti-Semites and Nazis Musk let back on Twitter, so he’s unlikely to do it, but you never know. The guy is really stupid, as far as I can tell.
Because Twitter is no longer a publicly traded company with a public stock price there’s no straightforward way to assess its current value. But most market analysts estimate the company is now worth no more than a third of the $44 billion Musk paid for it a year ago. To be fair, Musk clearly overpaid for the company. He paid a premium over the company’s current stock price and even that price was probably inflated. But there’s no question Musk’s erratic and destructive reign has dramatically damaged the company, torching its public reputation and leading to a catastrophic decline in ad revenues which Musk and independent press reports have pegged at between 50% and 60%.
Gustave Courbet, Forest in Autumn, 1841
But Musk has found a new scapegoat: the Jews. Or rather, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish community’s largest and oldest organization dedicated to fighting not only anti-Semitism but all forms of racial and religious bigotry and other forms of discrimination. But I suspect the “rather” or the distinction in general might be lost on Musk’s 155 million Twitter followers. Over the past several days Musk has gone on a tear claiming that the catastrophic decline in his company’s value since he purchased it is mostly or entirely the fault of the ADL and churning up Twitter debates that at least big time anti-Semitic accounts think is clearly boosting their cause.
As is often the case, Musk’s attacks have evolved out of tag teaming with notorious anti-Semitic accounts on the platform. It kicked off on Friday when Musk responded to a tweet by Keith Woods, an Irish white nationalist and self-described “raging anti-Semite.”
“ADL has tried very hard to strangle X/Twitter,” Musk told Woods.
From here, Musk went on to gin up support for the #BanTheADL hashtag while alternately claiming that he should ban the group but might not, before rolling into claims that the ADL was responsible for tens of billions of dollars of Twitter losses. This all culminated with Musk announcing he was being forced to sue the ADL “to clear our platform’s name on the matter of anti-Semitism.”
Discussing the defamation suit, Musk claimed the ADL could “potentially be on the hook for destroying half the value of the company, so roughly $22 billion.” Later he said that “giving them the maximum benefit of the doubt,” the ADL might only be responsible for $4 billion in damages.
Read the rest at TPM.
So that’s today’s news as I see it. Please share your thoughts and any other stories that interest you.
Did you like this post? Please share it with your friends:
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.
Good Morning!!
But the British government had a far more limited view of what constitutes actual representation than the Colonists did. Parliament asserted that it represented the people in Britain’s American colonies even if they had no role in electing it.
The jury awarded Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss a combined $75 million in punitive damages. It also ordered Mr. Giuliani to pay compensatory damages of $16.2 million to Ms. Freeman and $16.9 million to Ms. Moss, as well as $20 million to each of them for emotional suffering.
From CBS News: 
Trump’s former trade representative and White House budget director, respectively, are part of a cadre of allies helping him shape policy proposals across a range of topics, laying the groundwork for what would be an 
“He’s been pretty clear in saying he will use the levers of government to go after his political opponents, which is anathema to conservatives,” said Marc Short, who served in the Trump administration and was a top adviser to former Vice President 
The Nixon renaissance is being driven in part by young conservatives’ genuine interest in Nixon, whom Mills colorfully described as “our Shakespearean president.” But when pressed about their pro-Nixon views, even his most sincere supporters readily admit that the Nixon-mania isn’t being driven solely — or even primarily — by academic interest in Nixon. Instead, the populist right’s ongoing effort to rehabilitate Nixon, which is unfolding against the backdrop of the 2024 Republican primary, is really about another divisive former Republican president: Donald Trump.
To understand the lay of the land that Cox, her family, and her doctor were facing, we need to look at what Texas lawmakers put in place before Dobbs, the 2022 case that 
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Recent Comments