Posted: April 17, 2024 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: Corrupt and Political SCOTUS, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, just because, Media, The Media SUCKS | Tags: Biden's wardrobe, Fischer v. United States, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Melania Trump, mob violence, obstruction, Russian propaganda, Sen. Tom Cotton, Supreme Court, the NEW York Times, Trump NYC criminal trial |
Good Morning!!
Reading Woman Daydreaming, by Henri Matisse
Those of us who are hanging onto hope that U.S. democracy can still be saved must not only fight Republicans, but also powerful media organizations, especially The New York Times and The Washington Post.
If you follow social media, you’ve undoubtedly seen people mocking New York Times headlines that suggest any good news for Biden is actually negative–along the lines of “The economy is booming–why that’s bad for Biden.”
Despite the fact that news organizations will certainly be persecuted by a second Trump administration, it really appears that at least the wealthy people in charge want another Trump presidency because they believe it will help their bottom line. Working journalists are facing layoffs these days, so perhaps fear of losing their jobs makes them willing to do their bosses’ bidding.
Right now, as Trump faces a historic criminal trial, the Times and Washington Post continue to publish gossipy lightweight stories.
David Kurtz writes in the TPM Morning Memo about a piece in the NYT yesterday on Melania Trump: NYT Is Said To Have Learned Nothing From Its Trump I Coverage.
Yesterday’s NYT apologia for Melania Trump was laugh-out-loud funny, by which I mean so, so bad. Reminiscent of its much-mocked coverage of Javanka during Trump I, the piece had all the usual hallmarks of NYT toadyism.
Let’s start with the passive-voice headline: “Melania Trump Avoids the Courtroom, but Is Said to Share Her Husband’s Anger”
“Said to” is one of the great journalistic sophistries. It does so much apparent work with so little actual effort.
What is this awkward headline construction meant to convey? That despite all her heartache over the Stormy Daniels affair, Melania, too, is outraged (OUTRAGED!) over Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s wrongful criminal prosecution of her husband.
How does the NYT know this? So glad you asked!
Melania hasn’t said anything publicly about her supposed outrage. She hasn’t attended legal proceedings with Trump. She hasn’t been by his side at the trial.
But wait! She’s has purportedly spoken “in private” about her feelings.
It’s the classic dipsy-do of the Javanka coverage: Why take any risk of speaking publicly when you can launder it through the NYT. We are never so courageous as we are in our private musings.
But how is the NYT privy to Melania’s private thoughts and comments?
The sourcing: “according to several people familiar with her thinking.” Yes! Bravo! It’s self serving on top of self serving, with two degrees of separation to play it safe.
Why are these “people familiar” granted anonymity? Because they can’t speak publicly “out of fear of jeopardizing a personal relationship with the Trumps.” Perfect! These brave truth-tellers are risking so much – by which I mean, so little – to get their essential truths out into the public sphere.
Here’s the nugget of “reporting” around which the entire article is built:
But Mrs. Trump, the former first lady, shares his view that the trial itself is unfair, according to several people familiar with her thinking.
In private, she has called the proceedings “a disgrace” tantamount to election interference, according to a person with direct knowledge of her comments who could not speak publicly out of fear of jeopardizing a personal relationship with the Trumps.
The rest of the piece is a filament of speculation, pop psychology, knowing winks about cliched relationship tropes, and lazy stereotypes about wives and mothers – all in service of trying to wring a drop of compassion from readers for the private turmoil that comes with being married to DJT.
Read the rest at TPM. But really, who the hell cares what Melania thinks? As the back of her famous jacket read, “I really don’t care, do u?”
Albert Reuss 1889-1975, Woman Reading
Another lightweight story from yesterday’s New York Times by style critic Guy Trebay (at least, I guess it’s favorable to Biden): The Biden Guide to Dressing Younger.
Joe Biden is a dapper guy. He always has been. When he turned up decades ago for a first date with the woman who would become his wife and the country’s first lady, her gut reaction was, “This is never going to work, not in a million years.”
Dressed in a sports coat and loafers, Joe Biden was too dapper for someone who had previously gone out with men in T-shirts and clogs.
They worked it out. And the future president stuck to his style. It was one that sometimes skewed Gatsby, for which in 1974 Washingtonian magazine noted his penchant for pinstripe suits and tasseled loafers when citing him as one of the best dressed men in the Senate. It was one that was sometimes too high-toned for its setting. In 1979, Mr. Biden, then a second-term senator, exuded confidence in a “tailored suit and expensive tie” for a campus speech at the University of Alabama, The New Yorker later reported.
It was one that, on occasion, even threatened to upstage the boss. Yes, it must have been flattering to be praised by The Chicago Tribune as the “best-dressed guy” at Bill Clinton’s 2000 State of the Union address. Politically, however, it was not the best look.
Still, dapper cred has stood President Biden in good stead. When Donald J. Trump, now 77, derides his 81-year-old opponent as doddering Uncle Joe, he is missing a point any tailor would be happy to clarify. There is getting old, and there is looking old. To avoid having your clothes add unnecessary years, make style your friend.
“Joe Biden’s style is timeless and doesn’t have any expiration date,” the designer Todd Snyder said recently. If you think that is accidental, you are not paying attention.
Meanwhile, Trump is a dumpy old guy in baggy suits and extra long ties who claims Biden has dementia, an obvious projection.
A campaign story from Clive Wootson, Jr. at The Washington Post: Scranton vs. Mar-a-Lago: Biden turns sharply to populism.
SCRANTON — President Biden’s schedulers did not publicly announce his second stop Tuesday during his visit to his hometown, but it came as little surprise that he’d end up at the gray house with black shutters where he spent the earliest years of his life. He even nodded to the visit in a speech that mixed his biography with his thoughts on tax policy.
By Berthe Morisot, 1873
“Scranton is a place that climbs in your heart, and it never leaves,” Biden said. “For me it was 2446 North Washington Avenue.”
But the trip was about more than sentiment during the first day of Biden’s three-day swing through this pivotal battleground state. He leaned into populist anger against the rich and worries of a world weighted against the middle class as he sought to draw distinctions between himself and his likely Republican opponent in November, Donald Trump.
“All I knew about people like Trump is that they looked down on us,” Biden told the crowd in his childhood town, contrasting his upbringing with Trump’s frequent visits to his resort in Palm Beach, Fla. “They wouldn’t let us into their homes and their country clubs. When I look at the economy, I look at it through the eyes of Scranton, not through the eyes of Mar-a-Lago.”
Biden will further stress that contrast Wednesday when he travels to Pittsburgh to address the United Steelworkers and unveil a raft of new trade protections for the steel industry. The president will call for a tripling of the 7.5 percent tariff on Chinese steel imports, as well as increased pressure to prevent China from shipping steel to America through Mexican ports….
The actions are just the latest sign of the president’s determination to be seen as a defender of American workers like those in the steel industry, whose employees are spread across states in the industrial Midwest, the so-called “blue wall” that could decide Biden’s political fate in November.
In making the argument, he has leaned into his middle-class upbringing, including the years he spent in Scranton, which he portrays as a scrappy, working-class town. He argues that Trump, on the other hand, is a billionaire who lives in a gilded club in Florida and would bolster other billionaires, the very people who have had an unfair advantage for too long.
Again, I guess at least it’s favorable to Biden.
In the News Today:
A serious piece from Mark Joseph Stern at Slate Magazine: Hundreds of Jan. 6 Prosecutions—Including Donald Trump’s—Are Suddenly in Peril at the Supreme Court.
Will the Supreme Court jeopardize the prosecution of more than 350 defendants involved with Jan. 6, including Donald Trump, by gutting the federal statute that prohibits their unlawful conduct? Maybe so. Tuesday’s oral arguments in Fischer v. United States were rough sledding for the government, as the conservative justices lined up to thwap Joe Biden’s Department of Justice for allegedly overreaching in its pursuit of Jan. 6 convictions. Six members of the court took turns wringing their hands over the application of a criminal obstruction law to the rioters, fretting that they faced overly harsh penalties for participating in the violent attack. Unmentioned but lurking in the background was Trump himself, who can wriggle out of two major charges against him with a favorable decision in this case.
There are, no doubt, too many criminal laws whose vague wording gives prosecutors near-limitless leeway to threaten citizens with decades in prison. But this isn’t one of them. Congress wrote a perfectly legible law and the overwhelming majority of judges have had no trouble applying it. It would be all too telling if the Supreme Court decides to pretend the statute is somehow too sweeping or jumbled to use as a tool of accountability for Jan. 6.
Start with the obstruction law itself, known as Section 1552(c), which Congress enacted to close loopholes that Enron exploited to impede probes into its misconduct. The provision is remarkably straightforward—a far cry from the ambiguous, sloppy, or muddled laws that typically flummox the judiciary. It’s a mainstay of the Department of Justice’s “Capitol siege” prosecutions, deployed in about a quarter of all cases. Overall, 350 people face charges under this statute, Trump among them, and the DOJ has used it to secure the convictions of about 150 rioters. It targets anyone who “corruptly … obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.” And it clarifies that an official proceeding includes “a proceeding before the Congress.”
A Woman Reading, by Pablo Picasso, 1920
The government argues that some rioters attempted to “obstruct” an “official proceeding” by halting the count of electoral votes through “corrupt” means. That includes Joseph Fischer, the defendant in the current case. Fischer, who served as a police officer before Jan. 6, allegedly texted that the protest “might get violent”; that “they should storm the capital and drag all the democrates [sic] into the street and have a mob trial”; and that protesters should “take democratic congress to the gallows,” because they “can’t vote if they can’t breathe..lol.” Video evidence shows Fischer assaulting multiple police officers on the afternoon of Jan. 6 after breaching the Capitol.
Would anyone seriously argue that this person did not attempt to corruptly obstruct an official proceeding? For a time, it seemed not: 14 of the 15 federal judges—all but Judge Carl Nichols in this case—considering the charge in various Jan. 6 cases agreed that it applied to violent rioters bent on stopping the electoral count. So did every judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit except one, Judge Gregory Katsas. Both Nichols and Katsas were appointed by Trump. Their crusade to kneecap the law caught SCOTUS’ attention, and the court decided to intervene despite overwhelming consensus among lower court judges. The Supreme Court’s decision will have major implications for Trump: Two of the four charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith in the former president’s Jan. 6 prosecution revolve around this offense. A ruling that eviscerates the obstruction law would arguably cut out the heart of the indictment.
Stern writes that at least three justices–Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito appear likely to do that. Read the rest at Slate.
Catherine Belton at The Washington Post: Secret Russian foreign policy document urges action to weaken the U.S.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has been drawing up plans to try to weaken its Western adversaries, including the United States, and leverage the Ukraine war to forge a global order free from what it sees as American dominance, according to a secret Foreign Ministry document.
In a classified addendum to Russia’s official — and public — “Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation,” the ministry calls for an “offensive information campaign” and other measures spanning “the military-political, economic and trade and informational psychological spheres” against a “coalition of unfriendly countries” led by the United States.
“We need to continue adjusting our approach to relations with unfriendly states,” states the 2023 document, which was provided to The Washington Post by a European intelligence service. “It’s important to create a mechanism for finding the vulnerable points of their external and internal policies with the aim of developing practical steps to weaken Russia’s opponents.”
The document for the first time provides official confirmation and codification of what many in the Moscow elite say has become a hybrid war against the West. Russia is seeking to subvert Western support for Ukraine and disrupt the domestic politics of the United States and European countries, through propaganda campaigns supporting isolationist and extremist policies, according to Kremlin documents previously reported on by The Post. It is also seeking to refashion geopolitics, drawing closer to China, Iran and North Korea in an attempt to shift the current balance of power.
Using much tougher and blunter language than the public foreign policy document, the secret addendum, dated April 11, 2023, claims that the United States is leading a coalition of “unfriendly countries” aimed at weakening Russia because Moscow is “a threat to Western global hegemony.” The document says the outcome of Russia’s war in Ukraine will “to a great degree determine the outlines of the future world order,” a clear indication that Moscow sees the result of its invasion as inextricably bound with its ability — and that of other authoritarian nations — to impose its will globally.
Albert Reuss, Lady Reading a Book
The Russians have clearly succeeded in subverting much of the Republican Party. Right now, far right Republicans are talking about getting rid of House Speaker Mike Johnson because he appears to be trying to pass some military aid for Ukraine.
The Washington Post: Momentum builds to oust Johnson from House speakership.
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s job is in serious jeopardy as two far-right lawmakers are threatening to oust him after the embattled Republican leader proposed a complex plan intended to fund key foreign allies during wartime.
Johnson (La.) introduced a four-part proposal Monday night to decouple aid for Israel, which faced a barrage of missiles and drones from Iran over the weekend, and help for Ukraine in its fight against Russia, along with two other measures. But his angry right flank — which has for weeks threatened to wrest Johnson’s gavel — escalated its attacks Tuesday morning, also vowing to sink a procedural measure needed to consider his plan.
During a weekly Republicanmeeting Tuesday morning, Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.) upped the ante when he stood and called on Johnson to resign after announcing that he had signed on to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s plan to depose him, known as a motion to vacate.
That means that if Democrats chose not to rescue Johnson, Republicans would need just a simple majority to oust their second speaker in six months, causing the House to descend further into chaos during an election year when their slender grasp on the majority is at stake. Republicans appear seriously divided not only about the possible effort to eject Johnson, but also on the foreign aid bills, especially the Ukraine aid that a strident faction staunchly opposes.
Massie said he had warned the speaker in a private conversation “weeks ago” that if the motion to oust him was called to the floor, and Democrats did not help bail him out, Republicans would be successful in removing him as speaker because “we’re steering everything toward what [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer wants.”
“The motion is going to get called, okay? Does anybody doubt that? The motion will get called, and then he’s going to lose more votes than Kevin McCarthy,” Massie said, referencing the previous GOP speaker, who lost the gavel when eight Republicans joined all Democrats to oust him in October.
“I am not resigning,” Johnson said defiantly at a news conference Tuesday, calling the threat “absurd” as Republicans are “trying to do their job.”
If Republicans don’t watch out, they could end up with Speaker Hakim Jeffries. But loyalty to Putin is these Republicans’ top priority.
Yesterday, Senator Tom Cotton recommended that drivers should mow down protesters who block roads. After being criticized, he “doubled down.” Allison Quinn at The Daily Beast: Tom Cotton Doubles Down on Calls for Mob Violence Against Protesters.
A day after encouraging members of the public to “take matters into their own hands” to deal with peaceful protesters, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) is doubling down on his endorsement of mob violence.
The Arkansas Republican shared a video on X on Tuesday morning of climate protesters who were blocking a road in France being grabbed and tossed on the side of the road by angry drivers. “How it should be done,” he captioned the video.
[Wordpress won’t let me post the video, but you can watch it at the link above.]
Cotton was apparently unfazed by backlash he received over comments made a day earlier, when he said protesters who blocked part of the Golden Gate Bridge would’ve been tossed off the bridge if it had happened in Arkansas.
“I encourage people who get stuck behind the pro-Hamas mobs blocking traffic: take matters into your own hands to get them out of the way. It’s time to put an end to this nonsense,” he wrote on X about protesters criticizing the U.S. response to the Israel-Hamas war.
Cotton, who famously penned an op-ed in 2020 calling for troops to be deployed to crush nationwide protests, also suggested in comments to Fox News that protesters blocking the road should have their hands “glued … to a car or the pavement,” noting that it’d be “probably pretty painful to have their skin ripped off.”
Nice guy.
On Trump’s NYC criminal trial
Travis Gettys at Raw Story: Trump allies concerned about ‘physical toll’ of trial on elderly ex-president: DC insider.
Donald Trump has apparently dozed off during each of the first two days of his criminal trial, and MSNBC’s Jonathan Lemire said allies are concerned about the “physical toll” of sitting through hours of courtroom proceedings on the 77-year-old former president.
Judge Juan Merchan has already told the ex-president he must attend the trial or face potential jail time, and those who know Trump understand that he lacks discipline and will likely find it hard to control himself in the courtroom during a trial that’s expected to last for more than a month.
The Convalescent, by Gwen John, 1876-1939
“He has a legendary short attention span, ricocheting from one thought to the next, would frustrate his business advisers and his White House staff,” said Lemire, who hosts “Way Too Early” and also serves as Politico’s White House bureau chief. “He’s been, best I can tell, disciplined only a handful of times in his life – the last week of the [2016] election, he was convinced to stay off Twitter, and we know that helped him win in the last few days with an assist from FBI director [James] Comey, but that’s certainly the exception rather than the rule. He is undisciplined.”
“I was speaking to someone in Trumpworld last night who did acknowledge that, that the physical toll this is taking on Trump already,” Lemire added. “A couple of times we have seen him close his eyes, potentially asleep. Though he’s been in courtrooms a lot in recent months, most of those appearances relatively brief, an hour here, a couple of hours there – lots of breaks. He never had to be there for eight, nine hours at a time, and he’s going to have to do that each and every day. He gets today off but he’ll be back tomorrow, he’ll be back Friday. He’ll be back Monday, and there’s concern in Trumpworld about the physical toll this will take on him.”
I’ll bet Trump just loves that story.
The Hill: Toobin implies Trump remarks after court may hurt him if played for jury.
Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin suggested former President Trump’s remarks after the second day of his hush money trial — centered on the falsification of business records — could possibly hurt him.
Toobin implied to CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Tuesday night that the comments, which “could be played before the jury,” may come back to haunt the former president in the case. But, the analyst added, Trump could also turn it around and say he doesn’t handle his own business records.
“Remember, the whole case is about the falsification of these business records. And you know, Trump has potentially the argument, ‘Look, I run a multibillion-dollar company. I don’t know how the accountants, how the bookkeepers record things,’” he said. “That’s going to be a big issue in the case.”
“How is the government going to prove that Trump knew and initiated or at least supported the idea that these payoffs were recorded as legal fees?” Toobin asked, adding that the former president “caught himself” in his remarks. “But you know that that video could be played before the jury, no question.”
While speaking to reporters Tuesday after the second day of jury selection wrapped up in the historic criminal trial, the former president said he marked the reimbursements at the center of the case as a “legal expense,” before noting that the accountants did that.
“I was paying a lawyer, and we marked it down as a legal expense — some accountant. I didn’t know,” Trump told reporters. “Mark it down as a legal expense. That’s exactly what it was. And you get indicted over that?”
“When he started to say, I marked it down as legal expenses, my ears perked up because it’s been a little bit unclear exactly how the state is going to prove that Trump falsified the records because many of these entries may have been made by the accountants for the Trump Organization,” she added.
Stephen Collinson at CNN: A jury that will decide Trump’s fate begins to take shape as first criminal trial powers ahead.
There are two Donald Trump criminal trials now taking place.
There’s the one in a Manhattan courtroom, where a judge, attorneys for both sides and prospective jurors are making strenuous efforts to lay the foundation of the fair trial to which the ex-president and every other citizen is entitled.
And there’s the imaginary trial that exists in Trump’s rhetoric, led by “heartless thugs” and a “very conflicted judge” who is “rushing the trial” that the presumptive GOP nominee claims is a “Biden inspired witch-hunt.”
In court on Tuesday, Trump made eye contact with potential jurors and was admonished by Judge Juan Merchan for muttering while one was questioned. But the surprisingly snappy pace of the process confounded initial expectations that putting on trial possibly the most famous man on Earth would be a laborious and prolonged process. While there were occasional moments of levity in the court and reminders that Trump’s status make him a defendant like none other, conversations that members of the jury pool had with the judge and defense lawyers and prosecutors hinted at the gravity of what will unfold in the coming weeks.
Reading Woman, by Henri Matisse
One potential juror, for instance, noted: “This is real. This man’s life is on the line, the country’s on the line, this is serious.”
As Trump’s hush money trial quickened on its second, compelling day — with seven jurors seated — Trump stepped up efforts to discredit the proceedings and the legal system itself. He bolstered the argument that is both his primary defense and his main campaign message — that he’s a persecuted victim being prosecuted because he’s on course to win back the White House in November. The former president’s strategy encapsulates one of the most consequential challenges to the American courts system in modern memory — one that is likely to leave it tarnished in the eyes of tens of millions of his supporters whatever the jury decides. And it exemplifies the unprecedented circumstances of the first former president going on trial in the middle of an election campaign that is now running more through multiple court rooms than swing states.
But outside the courtroom, the former president raged, offering a skewed commentary on the good faith efforts inside.
When the search for 12 jurors plus alternates paused for the day, Trump motorcaded to a bodega uptown, to highlight what he says is rising crime faced by the owners of small stores that are often open all night and especially serve immigrant communities. Trump was in his element, waving to a crowd that chanted “Four more years” and “We love Trump,” as he belted out quotes that dripped with falsehoods about foreign nations emptying their prisons and asylums to send a tide of migrants to American cities.
In a rowdy event in which he looked more like a mayoral candidate than a presumptive presidential nominee, he made two points. First that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg should be going after ‘real’ criminals and not him, and that his obligation to attend the trial was keeping him off the campaign trail, as his rival, President Joe Biden, sweeps this week through swing-state Pennsylvania.
Poor, pitiful Donald.
That’s all I have for you today. What do you think? What other stories are you following?
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Posted: April 13, 2024 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: abortion, election interference, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Hush money, Mar-a-Lago, Trump finances, Trump NY criminal trial, Truth Social |
Katsushika Hokusai, A view of Mt Vesuvius with fat cats
Happy Caturday!!
Today’s cat art comes from Svetlata Petrova’s Fat Cat Art website. As you probably recall, Petrova inserts her now deceased orange cat into famous works of art.
As if we didn’t have enough to worry about in the Middle East, it appears there’s a danger of open conflict between Israel and Iran. Here’s the latest.
Reuters: Iran seizes cargo ship in Strait of Hormuz after threats to close waterway
DUBAI, April 13 (Reuters) – Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized an Israeli-linked cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, days after Tehran said it could close the crucial shipping route and warned it would retaliate for an Israeli strike on its Syria consulate.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that a Guards helicopter had boarded and taken into Iranian waters the Portuguese flagged MSC Aries, saying it was linked to Israel.
MSC, which operates the Aries, confirmed Iran had seized the ship and said it was working “with the relevant authorities” for its safe return and the wellbeing of its 25 crew.
MSC leases the Aries from Gortal Shipping, an affiliate of Zodiac Maritime, Zodiac said in a statement, adding that MSC is responsible for all the vessel’s activities. Zodiac is partly owned by Israeli businessman Eyal Ofer.
Video on Iranian news channels purporting to show the seizure included a figure abseiling from a helicopter on to a ship. Reuters was able to verify that the ship in the video was the MSC Aries but not the date it was recorded.
The incident comes amid rising regional tensions since the start of Israel’s campaign in Gaza in October, with Israel or its ally the United States clashing repeatedly with Iranian-aligned groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
Iran has threatened to retaliate for suspected Israeli airstrikes on its consulate in Syria’s capital Damascus on April 1 that killed seven Revolutionary Guards officers including two senior commander
A bit more from NBC News:
The move could escalate tension in a region reeling from the war in Gaza and a recent strike, suspected to have been carried out by Israel, that killed senior Iranian military officers. Since Hamas’ Oct. 7 deadly terror attack and mass hostage taking and Israel’s subsequent fullscale assault on the Gaza Strip, more than 33,000 people have died and 75,000 others have been injured.
Van Gogh’s The Siesta, with fat cats
And attacks by Iran-backed Houthi militants on ships in the Red Sea have already rocked global trade as several major shipping lines and oil transporters suspended their services through the waterway.
As companies avoid the Suez Canal, which feeds into the Red Sea, and opt instead to go around Africa to get to the Indian Ocean, it can add up to 14 days to a shipping route, incurring higher fuel costs. And since ships take a longer time to get to their destinations, delays in container and commodity deliveries are inevitable.
IRNA stated that the Portuguese-flagged ship was operated by the Zodiac shipping company, which is part of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Group. Zodiac said in a statement that the ship is managed and operated by the U.K.-based shipping company, MSC, which confirmed on Saturday that the MSC Aries has been “boarded by Iranian authorities via via helicopter.” The shipping company also said there were 25 crew members onboard and that it is working with “relevant authorities” to ensure their safety….
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said on X that the MSC Aries had been seized 50 nautical miles northeast of the Fujairah, an area close to the Strait of Hormuz that forms the entrance to the Persian Gulf.
David Ignatius at The Washington Post: Opinion–The Middle East is on the precipice of the wider war no one wants.
The Biden administration is using every diplomatic and military tool to contain what officials expect will be an imminent Iranian reprisal attack against Israel — in the hope that U.S. pressure can keep the conflict from escalating into a regionwide catastrophe.
Call it “the guns of April.” Though this is hardly a conflagration on the order of World War I, it’s a moment that eerily evokes the dynamics of summer 1914, when a war that every power sought to avoid suddenly appeared inevitable, with consequences that no one could predict. Officials hope that any exchange between Iran and Israel will be short and contained — and won’t draw in other powers. But they truly don’t know what’s ahead.
President Biden said on Friday that he expects that Iran will strike Israel “sooner [rather] than later” in retaliation for an April 1 attack that killed seven Quds Force operatives in Damascus, Syria. U.S. intelligence has observed signs of Iranian preparation for attack, sources said, and the expectation on Friday was that the strike could happen within 24 to 48 hours. Biden’s message to Tehran was: “Don’t.”
Long Way Home at Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s World
The United States is moving on two tracks to steer this crisis away from what could be a devastating cycle of escalation. On the military front, the United States and Israel are both stressing defenses that could neuter an Iranian attack. But if Iran or its proxies succeed in a major strike, Israeli and U.S. officials have warned that it could trigger an offensive spiral that might eventually involve the United States.
Israel has the best air-defense system in the world, and U.S. officials hope the Israelis could shoot down Iranian drones, cruise missiles or ballistic missiles — the three most likely forms of attack. Israel’s defense will be supplemented by antimissile systems on U.S. destroyers that have been rushed to the region, as well as an aircraft carrier and other forces that are already there.
The Biden team warned Iran this week about the danger of overreaching, in messages sent through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran. Administration officials also asked diplomats from China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Iraq to pass the same signal to Iranian leaders.
A bit more:
The Iranians have responded through the Swiss, as recently as Wednesday, that they don’t want a confrontation with the United States. Tehran has sent the same message through China and other nations that have been passing messages.
“Iran has to respond, but it will be contained,” is how one source described the Iranian messages that have been sent through diplomatic channels. But U.S. officials worry that these reassurances might not be reliable — and that once direct conflict begins, it could move in unpredictable and dangerous ways.
The tension within the administration was palpable Friday as the window opened for expected Iranian action. The wider war that the White House has sought to avoid since Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack and Israel’s devastating response seemed possible within hours. “Praying that things stay calm,” one Israeli official messaged me.
This is not good.
Here in the U.S., we are still dealing with narcissistic psychopath Trump and his Republican supporters in the House. Speaker Mike Johnson is refusing to bring Ukraine military aid to a vote and increasing the danger that Russia will crush Ukraine and move to attack other European countries.
BBC News: Ukraine could face defeat in 2024. Here’s how that might look.
The former commander of the UK’s Joint Forces Command has warned that Ukraine could face defeat by Russia in 2024.
General Sir Richard Barrons has told the BBC there is “a serious risk” of Ukraine losing the war this year.
The reason, he says, is “because Ukraine may come to feel it can’t win”.
“And when it gets to that point, why will people want to fight and die any longer, just to defend the indefensible?”
Ukraine is not yet at that point.
But its forces are running critically low on ammunition, troops and air defences. Its much-heralded counter-offensive last year failed to dislodge the Russians from ground they had seized and now Moscow is gearing up for a summer offensive.
So what will that look like and what are its likely strategic objectives?
“The shape of the Russian offensive that’s going to come is pretty clear,” says Gen Barrons.
“We are seeing Russia batter away at the front line, employing a five-to-one advantage in artillery, ammunition, and a surplus of people reinforced by the use of newish weapons.”
These include the FAB glide bomb, an adapted Soviet-era “dumb bomb” fitted with fins, GPS guidance and 1500kg of high explosive, that is wreaking havoc on Ukrainian defences.
Scene from Hieronymus Bosch’s Temptation of St. Anthony
“At some point this summer,” says Gen Barrons, “we expect to see a major Russian offensive, with the intent of doing more than smash forward with small gains to perhaps try and break through the Ukrainian lines.
“And if that happens we would run the risk of Russian forces breaking through and then exploiting into areas of Ukraine where the Ukrainian armed forces cannot stop them.”
Last year the Russians knew exactly where Ukraine was likely to attack – from the direction of Zaporizhzhia south towards the Sea of Azov. They planned accordingly and successfully blunted Ukraine’s advance.
Now the boot is on the other foot as Russia masses its troops and keeps Kyiv guessing where it is going to attack next.
This is all the fault of Trump sycophantic asshole Mike Johnson.Business Insider: Russia’s firing new, long-range Kh-69 cruise missiles, war experts say, piling on the misery for Ukraine’s dwindling air defense.
Russian Forces are deploying a new, long-range cruise missile, known as the Kh-69, as it steps up attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
The Washington DC-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), noted in its Friday report that the new air-to-surface missiles were part of Russia’s “continued efforts to improve strike packages and penetrate Ukraine’s degraded air defense.”
Russia has renewed its attacks against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in recent weeks, exploiting Kyiv’s dwindling air defense systems.
“We need air defense systems and other defense assistance, not just turning a blind eye and having lengthy discussions,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X.
The post was in response to a Russian missile attack overnight on April 11 that destroyed the Trypillia Thermal Power Plant. The plant is one of the primary energy suppliers to Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. The plant was hit by the new Kh-69 missiles, according to the Ukrainian military.
“ISW has not previously observed the Russian use of Kh-69 missiles in Ukraine,” it said.
“Russian forces have reportedly launched Kh-69 missiles from 400 kilometers away from their targets, exceeding a previous estimated range of 300 kilometers and the 200-kilometer range of the most recent Kh-59MK2 variant,” wrote the ISW.
Johnson is now talking about a “compromise” method for passing Ukraine aid. He’s terrified of the far right House members, even though an aid bill would easily pass without their votes. The New York Times: Johnson Floats Voting on Senate Ukraine Bill, With Conservative Policies as Sweeteners.
Shortly after congressional leaders met with Japan’s prime minister in Speaker Johnson’s ceremonial office in the Capitol on Thursday morning, the conversation turned to Ukraine aid.
Mr. Johnson was in the middle of another agonizing standoff with the ultraconservatives in his conference, after they had blocked legislation to extend a major warrantless surveillance law that is about to expire. His chief Republican antagonist, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, had intensified her threat to oust him. But on Ukraine, he offered his counterparts an assurance.
Henri Rousseau, Tyger’s Dream with fat cat
His comments, confirmed by multiple people familiar with the meeting, were consistent with what Mr. Johnson has been saying for weeks, both publicly and privately: that he intends to ensure the House will move to assist Ukraine, a step that many members of his party oppose.
Even as right-wing Republicans have sought to ratchet up pressure on their speaker, Mr. Johnson has continued to search for a way to win the votes to push through a Ukraine aid. He is battling not only stiff resistance to the idea among House Republicans, but also mounting opposition among Democrats to sending unfettered military aid to Israel given the soaring civilian death toll and humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza….
Mr. Johnson earlier this month floated bringing up the $95 billion emergency national security spending package for Ukraine and Israel passed by the Senate in February — and moving it through the House in tandem with a second bill containing policies endorsed by the conservative wing of his party, according to people familiar with the discussions.
That plan envisioned two consecutive votes — one on the Senate-passed bill, and another on a package of sweeteners geared toward mollifying Republicans who otherwise would be infuriated by Mr. Johnson’s decision to push through a bipartisan aid package for Ukraine. The second bill could include the REPO Act, which would pay for some of the aid by selling off Russian sovereign assets that have been frozen, as well as a measure forcing President Biden to reverse a moratorium on new permits for liquefied natural gas export facilities. It could also include some kind of border security measure.
Meanwhile, Johnson traveled to Mar-a-Lago yesterday to kiss Trump’s ring. ABC News: Trump holds Mar-a-Lago joint appearance with Johnson amid speakership threat.
Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared together Friday at the former president’s Florida estate, a show of unity as the embattled Johnson faces a threat to his leadership.
“He’s doing a really good job under very tough circumstances and I appreciate that he came to Mar-a-Lago,” Trump said of Johnson.
William Holman Hunt, The Awakening of CATscience
The focus of their joint appearance was on what they call “election integrity” — a chief priority for Trump, who continues to lie about the results of the 2020 presidential race. Trump’s attention on the issue comes in an election year when there is expected to be another tight matchup against President Joe Biden.
Johnson, who was one of the 147 GOP lawmakers who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election, said Friday congressional Republicans will introduce legislation to require people who register to vote in a federal election to prove that they are an American citizen.
As he outlined the proposal, Johnson made several false claims about noncitizens voting in elections — repeating assertions Trump has made in recent days.
Both leaders also used the opportunity to continue to slam President Joe Biden and Democrats over their handling of the southern border, with Johnson falsely stating that they wanted to turn migrants crossing the border illegally into voters, claiming that they could sway the November presidential election.
It is already a felony for non-citizens to vote in the U.S., even though Trump pretends otherwise. CNN: Fact checking Trump and Johnson’s election integrity announcement.
Former President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson raised concerns Friday about the integrity of US elections in a joint appearance at Mar-a-Lago that featured false claims about voting, immigration and other topics.
Trump’s team billed the event as being about “election integrity”– a phrase he often uses to describe the lie that the 2020 election was rigged, as well as his unfounded claims about future mass voter fraud….
House Speaker Mike Johnson raised baseless concerns about “potentially hundreds of thousands of votes” being cast by undocumented immigrants in the November presidential election.
“If an individual only asserts or simply states that they are a citizen, they don’t have to prove it, and they can register that person to vote in a federal election,” Johnson said, adding that “we only want US citizens to vote in US elections.”
To solve this issue, which he called a “serious problem,” Johnson said House Republicans would propose a bill that requires people to directly provide proof of US citizenship when registering to vote for federal elections.
Facts First: The system, as it is currently set up, is working, and effectively prevents mass voting by non-citizens in US elections. Despite Johnson’s focus on this topic, it is extremely rare, according to decades of voting data and nonpartisan experts. It’s so uncommon that voting experts don’t see it as a problem plaguing US elections.
In federal and state elections, where voting by non-citizens is illegal, it occurs on a microscopic level. (It’s true that a handful of municipalities have passed laws letting non-citizens participate in local elections, like for school board. But this wasn’t the focus of Johnson’s concerns about federal elections.)
When people register to vote, they must provide a driver’s license or social security number, and their identity is checked against existing databases. Voters are required to swear under penalty of perjury that they are a US citizen, and multiple federal laws make it illegal for non-citizens to vote, which can lead to imprisonment or deportation.
This system, as shown from decades of data, is very effective at stopping non-citizens from registering and voting in federal elections.
“It happens almost never,” said David Becker, founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research. “Making something illegal doesn’t stop it from happening, but we know how often it happens, and it’s extremely rare. This is a problem that is very small. And it has almost always occurred because of a misunderstanding.”
At least we can look forward to Trump having to sit in court next week for his criminal election interference trial after his last frivolous effort to get the case dismissed failed. AP: Judge declines to delay Trump’s NY hush money trial over complaints of pretrial publicity.
The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money criminal case on Friday turned down the former president’s request to postpone his trial because of publicity about the case.
It’s the latest in a string of delay denials that Trump has gotten from various courts this week as he fights to stave off the trial’s start Monday with jury selection.
After Van Gogh, Catcher in the Irises
Among other things, Trump’s lawyers had argued that the jury pool was deluged with what the defense saw as “exceptionally prejudicial” news coverage of the case. The defense maintained that was a reason to hold off the case indefinitely.
Judge Juan M. Merchan wrote that Trump “appears to take the position that his situation and this case are unique and that the pre-trial publicity will never subside. However, this view does not align with reality.”
Pointing to Trump’s two federal defamation trials and a state civil fraud trial in Manhattan within the past year, Merchan wrote that the ex-president himself “was personally responsible for generating much, if not most, of the surrounding publicity with his public statements” outside those courtrooms and on social media.
“The situation Defendant finds himself in now is not new to him and at least in part, of his own doing,” the judge added. He said questioning of prospective jurors would address any concerns about their ability to be fair and impartial.
Michael Gold, Jonah E. Bromwich, and Ben Protess at The New York Times: Trump Says He Intends to Testify in His Manhattan Criminal Case.
Donald J. Trump, having failed to fend off a criminal trial in Manhattan that begins on Monday, said that he planned to testify in the case stemming from a hush-money payment to a porn star.
Taking questions Friday from reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., Mr. Trump, when asked whether he would take the stand, responded that he would.
“I’m testifying. I tell the truth,” he said, standing just off a sunny patio of the private club with Speaker Mike Johnson behind him. “I mean, all I can do is tell the truth. And the truth is that there’s no case. They have no case.”
That is highly unlikely, but NYT reporters prefer stenography to actual reporting.
Despite Mr. Trump’s comments, it is far from a sure thing that he will testify. Instead, his comments initiate a familiar two-step: It will not be clear whether the former president will take the stand until the moment he actually does.
Mr. Trump will most likely wait to see whether the prosecution presents a strong case — and whether the judge presiding over the trial plans to restrict prosecutors’ efforts to cross-examine him, according to people with knowledge of his planning.
In past cases, Mr. Trump has wavered after saying that he would testify, including during his civil fraud trial last year, when he canceled his defense testimony the day before he was scheduled to take the stand.
When he was called to testify by the New York attorney general’s office, which filed the case, it did not go well. The judge in the case, who found Mr. Trump liable for conspiring to inflate his net worth, criticized the former president for not answering directly and questioned his credibility.
Testifying in a criminal case would be even riskier. In the trial scheduled to start next week, Mr. Trump is for the first time facing the threat of criminal conviction. He will be at a disadvantage with a jury in Manhattan, a heavily Democratic county.
And Trump is still in trouble financially.
Lloyd Green at The Guardian: For all his bombast, Trump is plummeting – financially, legally and politically.
Donald Trump is doing his best Wizard of Oz imitation. These days, Trump is not looking like the “winner” he needs voters to believe him to be. Like the title character in L Frank Baum’s 1900 children’s fantasy and the 1939 movie, there is less there than meets the eye. The 45th president’s lead in the polls evaporates while his cash stash shrinks.
His upcoming felony fraud trial in Manhattan looms. For the record, he is zero for three in his bids to adjourn the trial, and lawyers are expensive.
At the same time, the stock price of Trump Media & Technology Group – his eponymous meme stock, DJT – has plummeted this week. “DJT stock is down again,” announced Barron’s on Thursday. “Trump’s stake in Truth Social parent has taken a hit.”
Elsewhere a headline blared: “Trump’s ‘DJT’ stock dives to lowest close since Ron DeSantis dropped out”. Reminder, Trump is a guy whose businesses are no stranger to bankruptcy or allegations of fraud. He leaves wreckage in his wake.
The spirit of Trump University remains alive. Like life in Oz, so much in Trump World is illusory.
Meanwhile, Trump’s attempts to bond New York state’s $454m judgment have run into a legal roadblock. The purported bond posted to avoid enforcement pending appeal may be legally insufficient. Letitia James, the state’s attorney general, demands clarification. Whether the paperwork will be sustained will be decided at a court hearing later this month.
If the court finds the bond to be insufficient or invalid, James may be able to immediately seek to collect what the state is owed. Financial humiliation set against the backdrop of the campaign is something that Trump can ill afford.
For the record, he has already posted a $91m bond to stave off enforcement in the second E Jean Carroll defamation case. His assets are getting tied up, his liquidity ebbs. To him, image is almost everything.
To push or not to push? Rene Magritte, Memory of a Journey with fat cat
Green next addresses Trump’s political problems because of the abortion issue.
At the same time, abortion has re-emerged as a campaign issue, to the horror of the presumptive Republican nominee and his minions. The death of Roe v Wade cost the Republican party its “red wave” in the 2022 midterms. This time, it may lead to another Trump loss and Hakeem Jeffries of Queens wielding the speaker’s gavel in the US House of Representatives.
Hell hath no fury like suburban moms and their daughters. The last thing they need is a thrice-married libertine seventysomething with a penchant for adult film stars and Playboy models telling them how to raise their kids or meddling in their personal lives.
When a guy who hawks Bibles for a side-hustle refuses to say whether any of his partners ever had an abortion, it’s time to roll your eyes and guard your wallet.
Read the rest at The Guardian.
As expected, Truth Social stock is tanking. Noah Kirsch at The Daily Beast: Truth Social Investors Try to Keep Hope Alive as Stock Tanks.
Donald Trump’s acolytes gathered at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday evening to celebrate the public listing of his social media firm, even as the company’s stock continued to crater. Under the Palm Beach sky, right-wing radio host Sebastian Gorka sucked on a cigar, actor Jon Voight posed for photos, and country singer turned Bible salesman Lee Greenwood belted his runaway hit “God Bless the USA.” At the end of the song, he and the former president saluted.
In a speech, Trump encouraged investors to keep calm. “We have over $200 million dollars in cash, which is very liquid,” he said, according to a reporter from Right Side Broadcasting Network in attendance.
On Trump’s social media site, Truth Social, the mood is less ebullient. “Man I really thought we were gonna see a jump today. Especially after that party last night. There is always tomorrow,” one user lamented on Thursday morning.
“Doesn’t it seem strange that the price goes down steadily every day? Haven’t seen a green day for a while,” wondered another.
Shares of Truth Social’s parent company, Trump Media and Technology Group, have fallen more than 50 percent since late March, as the company’s dire financial position has become more clear. Last year, it brought in just $4.1 million in revenue and posted a $58.2 million loss.
Even after tanking, however, the business is still worth more than $4 billion on paper—a number that defies normal valuation metrics. Trump loyalists have helped keep the stock afloat as a way to financially support him, though TMTG remains heavily shorted by investors who believe its shares will continue to fall.
On Truth Social, retail investors are encouraging each other to keep the faith. “When the whole world is set on ruining you with everything that they have got, it’s a good sign that you are likely on the right side of things,” one person wrote on Thursday.
Another user sought to liken TMTG to high-growth tech companies: “I don’t understand all the concern about this stock going down. All of the big stocks were very low at the beginning,” the person said. “We are less than a month into this being an actual stock. I am optimistic about [Truth Social] and will continue to hold and keep buying when I can.”
Suckers.
That’s all I have for you today. Have a great weekend, everyone!!
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Posted: November 4, 2023 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: abortion rights, Afternoon Reads, cat art, Cats, caturday, just because, LGBTQIA+ | Tags: Brian Karam, conversion therapy, House Speaker Mike Johnson, israel, Mark Meadows, Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project, Michael T. James, Mike Johnson's adopted son, military promotions, people accused of witchcraft, Tommy Tuberville, Ukraine |
By Daniel Ryan
Happy Caturday!!
It’s the weekend, and I don’t feel like getting down in the weeds about all the bad stuff that’s happening; so I’m going to share a mixed bag of recent stories that caught my fancy. Since it’s Caturday, I’m going to begin with a story about cats.
Margaret Osborne at Smithsonian Magazine: Cats Make Nearly 300 Different Facial Expressions.
…[R]esearchers have discovered that cats use nearly 300 distinct facial expressions to communicate with one another, according to a study published in October in the journal Behavioral Processes.
“Many people still consider cats—erroneously—to be a largely nonsocial species,” Daniel Mills, a veterinary behaviorist at the University of Lincoln who was not involved in the study, tells Science’s Christa Lesté-Lasserre. “There is clearly a lot going on that we are not aware of.”
To collect data on these furry subjects, researcher Lauren Scott of the University of Kansas Medical Center frequented a cat cafe located in Los Angeles for about a year and recorded video footage of interactions between 53 cats. All were adult domestic shorthairs, and the group included males and females, per the study.
In total, Scott gathered 194 minutes of feline footage that contained 186 interactions. With the help of her co-author, evolutionary psychologist Brittany N. Florkiewicz of Lyon College, she analyzed the cats’ facial signals.
By Michael Bridges
The pair discovered 276 expressions made up of a combination of 26 facial movements, including shifts in ear position, blinks, nose licks and whisker and mouth movements. (In comparison, humans make about 44 facial movements, and dogs have 27.) Of all expressions, about 45 percent—or 126—were categorized as friendly, 37 percent were aggressive and 18 percent were ambiguous, writes Jennifer Nalewicki for Live Science.
“These findings show it is good to look at a cat’s ears, eyes and whiskers to understand if they are feeling friendly,” Florkiewicz tells Earth.com’sAndrei Ionescu. “Their mouth provides a lot of information about whether a cat fight is likely. People may think that cats’ facial expressions are all about warning other cats and people off, but this shows just how social and tolerant pet cats can actually be.”
The team also identified a “common play face” among cats, which was characterized by a dropped jaw and drawn back corners of the mouth, per Live Science. People, dogs and monkeys share similar expressions in playful scenarios.
There’s a bit more at the link.
NBC News published an interesting AP story from Massachusetts: Group seeks to clear names of all accused, convicted or executed for witchcraft in Massachusetts.
In 1648, Margaret Jones, a midwife, became the first person in Massachusetts — the second in New England — to be executed for witchcraft, decades before the infamous Salem witch trials.
Nearly four centuries later, the state and region are still working to come to grips with the scope of its witch trial legacy.
The latest effort comes from a group dedicated to clearing the names of all those accused, arrested or indicted for witchcraft in Massachusetts, whether or not the accusations ended in hanging.
The Massachusetts Witch-Hunt Justice Project, made up of history buffs and descendants, is hoping to persuade the state to take a fuller reckoning of its early history, according to Josh Hutchinson, the group’s leader.
Hundreds of individuals were accused of witchcraft in what would become the Commonwealth of Massachusetts between 1638 and 1693. Most escaped execution.
While much attention has focused on clearing the names of those put to death in Salem, most of those caught up in witch trials throughout the 1600s have largely been ignored, including five women hanged for witchcraft in Boston between 1648 and 1688.
“It’s important that we correct the injustices of the past,” said Hutchinson, who noted he counts both accusers and victims among his ancestors. “We’d like an apology for all of the accused or indicted or arrested.”
For now, the group has been collecting signatures for a petition but hopes to take their case to the Statehouse.Among those accused of witchcraft in Boston was Ann Hibbins, sister-in-law to Massachusetts Gov. Richard Bellingham, who was executed in 1656. A character based on Hibbins would later appear in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter,” published in 1850.
Another accused Boston witch, known as Goodwife Ann Glover or Goody Glover, was hanged in the city in 1688. A plaque dedicated to her is located on the front of a Catholic church in the city’s North End neighborhood, describing her as “the first Catholic martyr in Massachusetts.” It’s one of the few physical reminders of the city’s witch trial history.
The group has also encouraged Connecticut to clear the names of accused witches in their state. Read more at the NBC News link.
Mark Meadows is in more trouble–his book publisher is suing him. The Daily Beast: Mark Meadows’ Publisher Sues Him for Millions Over Election Lies in Book.
The publisher of Mark Meadows’ book The Chief’s Chief has filed suit against the former White House chief of staff, seeking millions in damages after he reportedly copped to lying in the book about the 2020 election being “rigged” and “stolen.”
Meadows reportedly met repeatedly with Jack Smith’s team in its investigation into election interference and had admitted the 2020 election was the most secure in U.S. history—contradicting much of what he’d claimed in his book and allegedly breaking his agreement with the publisher.
“Meadows’ reported statements to the Special Prosecutor and/or his staff [sic] and his reported grand jury testimony squarely contradict the statements in his Book, one central theme of which is that President Trump was the true winner of the 2020 Presidential Election and that election was ‘stolen’ and ‘rigged’ with the help from ‘allies in the liberal media,’ who ignored actual evidence of fraud, right there in plain sight for anyone to access and analyze,” the lawsuit from All Seasons Press states.
ABC News, citing unnamed sources, reported that Meadows negotiated an immunity agreement with the special counsel’s office and in the process admitted to his lies about the 2020 election. Meadows’ lawyer later disputed the accuracy of the report….
The lawsuit claims that Meadows agreed that “all statements contained in the Work are true and based on reasonable research for accuracy,” and that he claimed to have “not made any misrepresentations to the Publisher about the Work.”
The book weighs heavily on Meadows’ claims that the election was “rigged” —debunked claims that All Seasons Press was happy to run at the time, but that now come under renewed scrutiny with Meadows’ reported admission that he propagated falsehoods.
More details at the link.
Some Senate Republicans have finally had it with Tommy Tuberville’s antics. Politico: Republicans, fed up with Tuberville, plot ways to bust his military blockade.
Republicans have had it with Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s nine-month blockade of military promotions. And after publicly putting pressure on the Alabama Republican to lift his hold on hundreds of officers, GOP senators are plotting new ways to break the impasse.
During a special meeting planned for next week, some will ask Tuberville to focus his obstruction on only the Pentagon’s civilian nominees and not uniformed officers who have nothing to do with the policy he’s protesting. Others want to shift the fight to the courts to challenge the policy at the center of the hold, which reimburses troops who have to travel to obtain abortions and other reproductive services.
Fare Thee Well, by Elisheva Nesis
Democrats, meanwhile, are devising their own ways to get around the blockade, and are hoping the GOP frustration they see will push Republicans to support their idea.
The deadlock reached a dramatic and very public phase when a cadre of GOP senators confronted Tuberville on the Senate floor Wednesday night, blaming the Alabama lawmaker’s blanket hold for weakening the military at a precarious moment for the world.
The four-hour-plus event, which forced Tuberville to object to votes on 61 nominees, marked a pivotal moment for Republicans as their private frustrations with the freshman lawmaker spilled over onto live TV for all to see.
“I think what it says about where things are is Tommy’s losing support,” Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said of the Republican-on-Republican fight. “And you’re seeing the frustration build up because the consequences are building up.”
And while the attempt was doomed — those Republicans knew Tuberville wouldn’t budge — it’s also made some Senate Democrats optimistic that enough GOP members will join their push to confirm most of the promotions in one big bloc.
What an idiot. Alabama should be ashamed. Tuberville doesn’t even live there. He’s reportedly lived in Florida for decades.
Rolling Stone’s Cameron Joseph on Tuberville: Is Tommy Tuberville the Most Ignorant Man in D.C.?
Tommy Tuberville’s Republican colleagues had finally had it with him.
For months, the Alabama senator and former college football coach has blocked the confirmation of hundreds of senior military officers because he’s mad about a Pentagon policy that ensures soldiers have abortion access.
The group of anti-abortion Republicans had worked with him since February to try to find a solution. They’d flattered his ego. They’d mostly defended him in public as his game of chicken stretched nine months, punishing hundreds of senior service members who have no say over the policy and hurting U.S. military readiness at a time of global chaos.
But on Wednesday, their patience had worn out.
Five of Tuberville’s GOP colleagues took to the Senate floor to lambast his positions, begging him to relent and forcing him to object over and over again to allow a vote on more than 60 nominations that he’s blocked. The senators read off the sterling biographies of dozens of service members with increasing frustration.
Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, a colonel in the Marine reserves who served as assistant secretary of state during George W. Bush’s administration, was particularly irate.
“Xi Jinping is watching this right now,” Sullivan, at times yelling, declared on the Senate floor as Tuberville looked on from his desk. “He’s loving this. So is Putin. They’re loving this! How dumb can we be, man?”
“We’re going to look back at this episode and just be stunned at what a national-security suicide mission this became,” Sullivan exclaimed later on during the hours-long standoff. He later mocked Tuberville’s repeated claim that his holds weren’t hurting the military’s preparedness: “That this is not impacting readiness is patently absurd.”
On Tuberville’s history:
Tuberville spent most of his career coaching football — most notably at Auburn University, which made him a household name in the state he now represents. He still prefers being called “coach” instead of by his current job title — his official Senate website calls him “Coach Tommy Tuberville.” But his old nickname from his sideline days may be more appropriate: “The Riverboat Gambler.”
Back then, Tuberville was known to ignore the odds and pick the most aggressive play. It’s a habit that’s stuck now that he’s in the Senate.
That policy that triggered Tuberville’s anger was put in place by the Biden administration after the Supreme Court struck down the federal right to an abortion. Fifteen states, including Tuberville’s Alabama, have banned the procedure. Enlisted service members don’t get to choose where they and their families live — they’re stationed wherever they’re needed, many of them in ruby-red states where abortion access no longer exists and other reproductive care is severely limited. The Pentagon’s fix was to offer soldiers and their families time off and funds to travel to states where abortion remains legal.
Tuberville was irate when he found out about the workaround. His obstructionist response has hamstrung the Pentagon and forced officers who have nothing to do with the policy to serve as pawns in his policy fight….
There’s some irony that Tuberville, who frequently says he ran for office so he could give back to America in the same way his own father did with his years of military service, has almost single-handedly paralyzed the entire leadership of the U.S military — in a time of global conflagration, no less. (Tuberville reiterated that he won’t budge even after Hamas attacked Israel.)
In some ways, Tuberville is a mustache away from being the bizzarro Ted Lasso of the Senate — a folksy and affable former college football coach who makes a radical career change, then makes things up as he goes along while blithely ignoring the status quo. But instead of an aw-shucks success story, he’s a testament and a cautionary tale for those who wing it.
There’s still more at the link.
Speaking of idiots, a couple of stories on the new House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Andrew Kaczynski at CNN: Before he became a politician, House Speaker Mike Johnson partnered with an anti-gay conversion therapy group.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson closely collaborated with a group in the mid-to-late 2000s that promoted “conversion therapy,” a discredited practice that asserted it could change the sexual orientation of gay and lesbian individuals.
Prior to launching his political career, Johnson, a lawyer, gave legal advice to an organization called Exodus International and partnered with the group to put on an annual anti-gay event aimed at teens, according to a CNN KFile review of more than a dozen of Johnson’s media appearances from that timespan.
Founded in 1976, Exodus International was a leader in the so-called “ex-gay” movement, which aimed to make gay individuals straight through conversion therapy programs using religious and counseling methods. Exodus International connected ministries across the world using these controversial approaches.
Hug Needed, by Anita Zotkina
The group shut down in 2013, with its founder posting a public apology for the “pain and hurt” his organization caused. Conversion therapy has been widely condemned by most major medical institutions and has been shown to be harmful to struggling LGBTQ people.
At the time, Johnson worked as an attorney for the socially conservative legal advocacy group, Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). He and his group collaborated with Exodus from 2006 to 2010.
For years, Johnson and Exodus worked on an event started by ADF in 2005 known as the “Day of Truth” – a counterprotest to the “Day of Silence,” a day in schools in which students stayed silent to bring awareness to bullying faced by LGBTQ youth.
The Day of Truth sought to counter that silence by distributing information about what Johnson described as the “dangerous” gay lifestyle.
“I mean, our race, the size of our feet, the color of our eyes, these are things we’re born with and we cannot change,” Johnson told one radio host in 2008 promoting the event. “What these adult advocacy groups like the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network are promoting is a type of behavior. Homosexual behavior is something you do, it’s not something that you are.”
Sigh . . .
The New York Post got the goods on Johnson’s so-called “adopted son.”: Mike Johnson’s adopted son says he’s thankful to the House Speaker’s family after his troubled past is revealed.
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s adopted son has had a string of run-ins with law enforcement for crimes ranging from drug possession to theft since leaving the care of the Louisiana Republican congressman and his wife Kelly, records show, but he’s since turned his life around.
The Johnsons met Michael T. James, now 40, when he was a teenager while the couple were doing charity work for a Christian ministry in Baton Rouge, La., in 1996.
The newlyweds took the troubled then-14-year-old into their home and filed court papers to become his legal guardians in 1999 after James became homeless.
However, once the Johnsons moved from Baton Rouge to Mike’s hometown of Shreveport in 2002, James stayed behind and struck out on his own, as he was then legally an adult.
Since 2003, James has been arrested more than a dozen times, according to records reviewed by The Post.
Charges against him in Florida ranged from marijuana and cocaine possession, theft, possession of a concealed weapon, violating a protective order, and possession of drug paraphernalia.
On two occasions he was sentenced to prison time, serving 37 days on the cocaine possession rap in 2003 and a 30-day term in 2007 on a retail theft charge.
He was also ordered by a court to take an anger management class in 2017.
James is understood to have moved around to a number of places during this time period, at times living with his biological mother and older brother, moving to both Florida and Texas.
Additional court documents seen by The Post indicated James was indicted on a theft charge in 2003 while living in Houston.
One more read before I wrap this up. This is the best thing I read this week.
Brian Karam at Salon: Far-right MAGA theocrats: Most dangerous threat to America.
The world inches closer to a war that only psychopaths want to see.
On Tuesday the FBI issued a warning that the chance of staged terrorist attacks in the United States has grown since the war began in Gaza. In the White House briefing later that day, Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked National Security Council spokesman John Kirby: “Has the White House considered the possibility that a terrorist could be in the country right now after crossing the southern border?”
Obviously they have, or the FBI wouldn’t have issued the warning. The question remains, however, what our government response would be to such an attack. That has already been discussed at the highest levels in our government, and the public has a right to know what that reaction would be.
So, although I wasn’t called on, as Kirby left the stage I interrupted to ask the only question I thought mattered: “John, wait a minute. Before you leave: If Hamas terrorists attack the U.S., would the U.S. put boots on the ground in the Middle East?”
Cat Messenger, by Elisheva Nesis
Kirby stopped his retreat from the stage, and press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre let him answer. Kirby was succinct: “I won’t speculate about that, Brian. We’ll obviously do what we have to do to protect our troops and our people.”
On that same day, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer showed up at the White House with a bipartisan group — Sens. Todd Young, R-Ind., Mike Rounds, R-S.D. and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. — to talk to President Biden and help steer a congressional response to the threat posed by SKYNET … sorry, I mean AI. It’s a bipartisan effort, but there are both Republicans and Democrats who remain opposed.
Bipartisanship, once seen as a laudable goal on many issues, is now sneered at by most remaining members of the Republican Party. Working with Democrats, for them, is like choosing death over a slice of cake. (Apologies to Eddie Izzard.)
Most Republicans are so dismayed at the prospect of working with Democrats that they want to scuttle efforts to fund the war in Ukraine, virtually isolating Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who seems to be nearly alone on an island calling for aid to continue. It’s a rare display of common sense from the 81-year-old Kentuckian, whose primary focus is on political power.
“No Americans are getting killed in Ukraine,” McConnell said. “We’re rebuilding our industrial base. The Ukrainians are destroying the army of one of our biggest rivals. I have a hard time finding anything wrong with that. I think it’s wonderful that they’re defending themselves — and also the notion that the Europeans are not doing enough. They’ve done almost $90 billion, they’re housing a bunch of refugees who escaped. I think that our NATO allies in Europe have done quite a lot.”
Few Democrats have said it any better, and it spelled out exactly what the stakes are for the U.S. in the ongoing war in Ukraine. Remember that Vlad “The Impaler” Putin has clearly suggested that he wants to get the old Soviet Union band back together — Ukraine is just the first stop in a quest for global hegemony.
Karam on Mike Johnson:
Fellow Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said that McConnell was “out of touch” with his party’s base while Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley chided McConnell for siding with Democrats — and that was before Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas gave Hawley a tongue-lashing on border issues later that afternoon. It looks like Putin still has a few fans in the GOP.
In the House, those would likely include newly-minted House Speaker Mike Johnson (and that still sounds like a Bart Simpson prank call to Moe’s Bar), who took on McConnell directly, pushing to unlink aid to Israel from aid to Ukraine.
While the world burns, Johnson and the MAGA wing of the Republican Party — which seems to have swallowed the evangelical movement while also embracing it (a T-1000 morphing into Sarah Connor is just about the right image) — is embracing the darkest verses of the Bible, apparently pushing for apocalypse with an enthusiasm only rivaled by Saul’s slaughter of Christians before he changed his name to Paul.
I’m waiting for Mel Brooks to break out into song: “Let all those who wish to confess their evil ways and accept and embrace the true church convert now or forever burn in hell — for now begins the Inquisition!”
The House of Representatives, now run by Johnson, offers a discount version of the apocalyptic orgasm the holy rollers have dreamed of for years. They’ve renewed the Inquisition and seem determined to convert the U.S. into a theocracy run by people who will thump you with the Bible, but haven’t read much of it.
Lord, how they love to preach fire and brimstone. But the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes? Forget it. Matthew 25:40: “Whatever you did it for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me”? Not a chance. They’ve embraced only the Old Testament angry God and the apocalyptic parts of Revelation brought on by ergot poisoning.
I know I’ve quoted too much, but there’s still a lot more to read at the link.
That’s my contribution for today. Let me know what you think. And have a great weekend!!
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Posted: November 1, 2023 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: Afternoon Reads, Donald Trump | Tags: fascism, Gaza, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Israeli-Hamas war, New York fraud case, Trump family, Trump legal problems, Trump trials, Trump's violent rhetoric |
Good Afternoon!!
Paul Gauguin, Pêcheur et baigneurs sur l’Aven
How long has it been since we had normal news cycles during the week and slow news days on the weekends? Was it this crazy before 2015, when Trump decided to make our lives a living hell?
I know there were crises during the Obama administration–the financial meltdown, the Tea Party, but it wasn’t this insane, was it? I don’t know. I don’t recall lying awake at night from anxiety over the state of our nation when Obama was president. That has been happening to me since Trump’s 2016 campaign.
I don’t think we lived in fear of losing our democracy before Trump came along. There was a rise in racist incidents after Obama was elected, but we didn’t have public officials inciting an insurrection with neo-fascist groups leading a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol, injuring hundreds of police officers in the process.
Now we have a former “president” who was impeached twice and has been indicted four times running for the Republican nomination for president in 2024. The man is also on trial for damages in two civil cases, having already been found liable for bank, tax, and insurance fraud, defamation, and sexual assault.
His plans if elected include pulling the U.S. out of NATO, handing over Ukraine to Russia, firing long-term federal employees and replacing them with political appointees, politicizing the DOJ in order to prosecute his political enemies, and getting rid of the FBI. I’m sure I’ve left things out of this list.
Despite all this, the media largely treats Trump as if he were a legitimate political candidate, ignoring his violent threats against judges, prosecutors, and other “enemies,” and his obviously declining cognitive abilities, while accepting Republicans’ claims that President Biden is the one who is too old and befuddled to be president.
There have been more unsettling developments just recently, with the terrifying war between Israel and Hamas and the new House Speaker who openly promotes policies that would overturn the Constitution. We’ve already focused quite a bit on Speaker Mike Johnson, but there is still more to examine.
But first, the latest on the war.
NBC News: Desperate search for survivors after Gaza refugee camp is hit in Israeli airstrike.
Desperate Palestinians were using their bare hands Tuesday to retrieve bodies buried in the ruins of a Gaza refugee camp moments after it was hit by an airstrike that reduced more than a dozen buildings to rubble, killed dozens and wounded hundreds of people, according to local health officials.
The Israeli military said its attack on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza killed senior Hamas commander Ibrahim Biari, who they said was an architect of the Oct. 7 terror attack that left more than 1,400 people dead in Israel across kibbutzim, at a music festival and throughout in the nation’s south, with hundreds more taken hostage.
“Tonight we eliminated the murderous terrorist Ibrahim Biari,” IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said.
Biari was the commander of Hamas’ Central Jabaliya Battalion and he was targeted as part of a wide-scale “strike on terrorists and terror infrastructure,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.
“During his assassination, many terrorists were killed, terrorists who stayed with him in Mena and in the underground area of the building,” Hagari said.
The aftermath:
Footage of the aftermath of the attack showed hundreds of anguished people clambering in and out of what appears to be several giant craters and struggling to find buried victims.
“My three kids are gone, my kids, no one is alive,” one despondent man named Jabar could be heard saying as his friends tried to console him.
Dr. Atef Al-Kahlot, director of the nearby Indonesian Hospital, said the total number of people wounded and killed is about 400.
“We are still searching for missing persons and carrying out rescue operations from under the rubble in Jabalia,” Al-Kahlot said at a press conference.
Mohammad Al-Khatib, who lives in the Beit Lahia project, next to the Indonesian Hospital, said that after they heard the bombs, then ambulances and private cars trying to rescue people, he and others rushed to the hospital.
“Oh God! The things we found!” he said.
“We found people reducing the wounded and the martyred and taking them to the hospital. … The problem is that there’s no empty spaces in the hospital. The people and the wounded are lying on the floor.”
CBS News: First foreigners leave Gaza through Rafah border crossing into Egypt.
Hundreds of foreign passport holders and some of the wounded trapped in Gaza started leaving the war-torn territory Wednesday as the Rafah border crossing to Egypt opened to them for the first time since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. A list of foreign passport holders who can leave Gaza via the Rafah crossing has been released by Gaza’s Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry.
At least five NGO workers who have been confirmed as Americans are listed as approved to cross on Wednesday, but it remains to be seen how many of at least 400 American citizens the U.S. State Department says are stuck in Gaza will be able to cross in coming days.
One American trapped in Gaza told CBS News she does not expect to cross yet.
“They started letting foreigners out today but it’s not Americans because I guess we’re not as important as we thought,” Utah resident Susan Beseiso told CBS News on Wednesday.
“The American Embassy and the State Department haven’t called us since the last time we went to the border and got bombed four times. They haven’t been communicating with us or doing anything to get us out,” Beseiso said….
Footage showed the gate of the crossing on the Palestinian side of the border being opened Wednesday morning as people began to cross into Egypt for the first time since the war began. Convoys of desperately needed aid have previously passed between Egypt and Gaza but no people had been allowed through the Rafah crossing up until now.
At least 320 foreign passport holders had crossed into Egypt from Gaza, Reuters reported Wednesday. Some 545 foreigners and dual nationals along with dozens of sick and wounded were expected to leave throughout the day.
AP (via Politico) reports on more Israeli attacks that took place today: Another wave of Israeli strikes hit Gaza refugee camp as crossing opens for foreigners and wounded.
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli airstrikes hit apartment buildings in a Gaza refugee camp for the second day in a row Wednesday, Palestinian officials said, as the territory’s only functioning border post opened to allow foreign passport holders to leave for the first time since war broke out over three weeks ago.
Autumn Landscape, Vincent Van Gogh
Al-Jazeera television, one of the few media outlets still reporting from northern Gaza, aired footage of devastation in the Jabaliya camp near Gaza City and of several wounded people, including children, being brought to a nearby hospital. The Hamas-run government said the strikes killed and wounded The Al-Jazeera footage showed nearly identical scenes as the day before, with dozens of men digging through the gray rubble of demolished multistory buildings in search of survivors.many people, but the exact toll was not yet known.
The toll from Tuesday’s strikes was also unknown, though the director of a nearby hospital said hundreds were killed or wounded. Israel said those strikes killed dozens of militants, including a senior Hamas commander who was involved in the militants’ bloody Oct. 7 rampage that ignited the war, and destroyed militant tunnels beneath the buildings.
The strikes came as Israeli ground forces pushed to the outskirts of Gaza City, days after launching a new phase of the war that Israel’s leaders say will be long and difficult. As when Israeli troops first pushed into Gaza in larger numbers over the weekend, internet and phone service was cut for several hours Wednesday.
Just one story about the new House Speaker–on his response to war–and a few more links to check out.
The Washington Post: GOP plan to fund Israel aid with IRS cuts would cost $90 billion, tax chief says.
House Republicans’ plan to pay for emergency aid to Israel by cutting the Internal Revenue Service’s budget would increase the deficit by $90 billion over 10 years, the chief of the tax agency said Tuesday.
Seeking to pay for $14 billion in proposed aid to Israel sought by both parties, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Monday unveiled legislation that would cut roughly $14 billion from funds recently approved by Democrats to expand the IRS. But Daniel Werfel, who was appointed by President Biden as the IRS commissioner last year, said the cuts would make the bill more expensive, by reducing audits of the wealthy and large corporations and hampering the agency’s ability to collect revenue that funds the government.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said last year that the $80 billion IRS expansion would cut the deficit by more than $100 billion by improving collections and enforcement. The IRS expansion was approved to pay for Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature economic legislation, in 2022.
Although it specifies that taxpayer services would be spared from cuts, the House GOP bill does not identify precisely how it would cut $14 billion from that $80 billion expansion that has improved a broad range of agency functions. The legislation would also prohibit the CBO from counting the legislation against existing domestic spending caps. The nonpartisan budget office estimated that the bill would add $12.5 billion to the deficit through 2033 — far less than Werfel’s estimate.
“This type of the cut, over the cost of the Inflation Reduction Act, would actually cost taxpayers $90 billion — that’s with a ‘B,’” Werfel told The Washington Post.
Of course this bill is going nowhere, because Democrats and Senators of both parties won’t support it. And if it got to Biden’s desk, he would veto it. What it will do is slow down necessary support for Israel and Ukraine.
More interesting stories on Johnson:
David Firestone at The New York Times: Mike Johnson Just Confirmed How Unserious He Is.
Amanda Marcotte at Salon: “A kind of Stepford wife”: It’s more than a prayer keeping Mike Johnson’s wife suddenly out of view.
Thomas Zimmer at Substack: “Faith and Family” vs Democracy. On the normalization of Mike Johnson, the media’s inclination to accommodate power, and the perpetuation of “real American” extremism.
Roger Sollenberger at The Daily Beast: Does New Speaker of the House Mike Johnson Have a Bank Account?
On Trump’s trials
Today Don Jr. is expected to testify in the New York fraud case. Ivanka and Eric Trump, as well as Donald Trump himself are also scheduled to testify in coming days.
The Washington Post: Transformed Trump family will take center stage in New York courtroom.
Donald Trump had been a pariah on Wall Street for years when a banker in Deutsche Bank’s private wealth department started speaking with his daughter Ivanka. After a number of meetings, the banker emailed a supervisor in 2011with an important update about the future of the Trump business.
“Ivanka Trump will become a client for sure. She is the heir apparent of this Empire,” wrote the banker, Rosemary Vrablic,according to an email that is part of a filing in a civil case against Trump now underway in New York.
Autumn Leaves, John Everett Millais
Grounded in its real estate empire, the family’s future seemed clear then.
But Trump’s four-year presidency — and the tumultuous period of investigations and criminal and civil litigation since he left office — have reshaped much of the Trump family’s wealth, business and dynamics with one another, according to court filings, financial records, emails and interviews with people close to the family.
Ivanka Trump, once considered by Trump’s business partners to be the most likely of his children to take over the Trump Organization, has largely stepped away from the limelight of both business and politics, at times telling others she was stung by the scrutiny she received in Washington,according to people who know her. She and husband Jared Kushner, who both served as senior White House aides when her father was in office, now spend most of their time in Miami, after purchasing a mansion on a private island while Kushner luresMiddle Eastern business for his investment fund.
These days, it is Trump’s second son, Eric,who as executive vice president of the Trump Organizationis most involved in the family real estate business, while his eldest, Donald Trump Jr., is said by campaign advisers to be more interested in politics. Of the three, Eric Trump now speaks most regularly to his father, Trump advisers say, as the two have grown closer as a result of the second Trump son’s leadership of the family business. One adviser estimated the two now speak multiple times a day.
The relationships between Trump and his three eldest children are likely to be on display over the next two weeks, as Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka are all scheduled to take the witness stand in the civil fraud trial in New York over the Trump Organization’s business practices. Donald Jr., 45, is up first, scheduled to appear on Wednesday; Eric Trump, 39, is scheduled to appear the following day, and Ivanka Trump, 42, on Nov. 8. Trump himself is scheduled to testify on Monday.
The four criminal trials Trump separately faces potentially threaten his freedom and could affect next year’s elections, as Trump is the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. They involve allegations that he tried to overturn a presidential election, mishandled classified documents, obstructed justice and directed a hush money payment to an adult-film actress.
But the New York civil trial potentially has more immediate ramifications for Trump’s family.
Read more at the WaPo.
One more on Trump, recommended by J.J. This is by Mark R. Reiff of UC Davis from The Conversation, via Raw Story: Trump’s rhetoric echoes a fascist commitment to a destructive and bloody rebirth: expert.
Reiff highlights the media’s failure to deal with Trump’s insane, violent rhetoric.
Former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric has regularly bordered on the incitement of violence. Lately, however, it has become even more violent. Yet both the press and the public have largely just shrugged their shoulders.
As a political philosopher who studies extremism, I believe people should be more worried about this.
Mark Milley, the outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, is guilty of “treason,” Trump said in September 2023, just for reassuring the Chinese that the U.S. had no plans to attack in the waning days of the Trump administration. And for this, Trump says, Milley deserves death.
Watts, James Thomas; Autumn Evening on the Wharfe
And back in April, Trump said that his indictment by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg would result in “death and destruction.” Then, in early October, Trump urged people to “go after” Letitia James, the New York attorney general who filed suit against him for business fraud.
Trump’s prior rhetoric is also now on record as having inspired many of those convicted to engage in insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
But it is not just government officials whom Trump suggests be targeted for extrajudicial killings. Mere shoplifters should be killed too. “Very simply, if you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving,” Trump said to cheers at the California Republican Party convention in September.
This rhetoric may seem like crazy bluster, which is no doubt why many people appear prepared to ignore it. But put in its historical context, what Trump is doing is echoing views that are part of a long tradition of illiberal and outright fascist thought. For fascists have always seen the use of violence as a virtue, not a vice.
First, this is the natural result of the way that fascist communities define themselves. According to Carl Schmitt, a prominent Nazi and for a time the official legal theorist of the party under Adolf Hitler, one builds and maintains a community by identifying and vilifying its enemies. And in this kind of highly polarized environment, the threat of violence always hangs in the air.
Second, among fascists, machismo is much admired. Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, whose own outrageous rhetoric has also encouraged violent behavior by his supporters, simply “beamed” when Russian President Vladimir Putin praised him for his masculinity.
Trump often acts as a sycophant for Putin too, and machismo also is a big part of Trump’s own public persona.
Third, fascists are obsessed with purity. They long for a world where they can live among their own racial, ethnic, religious and ideological kind on land they view as exclusively theirs.
But in the real world, people are too intermixed for this to occur naturally. True purity of community is an aspiration that can be made real only through violence and subjugation. Hence the Holocaust,genocide and ethnic cleansing, and other more limited attacks on minority and immigrant populations.
Please read the rest at the link above.
That’s all I have for you today. What’s on your mind?
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