I’m still rattled by the overwhelming use of fireworks last night by my little house along the Mississipi. It was like the ghosts of the Battle of New Orleans had taken up arms again! It went on for hours. The cats completely disappeared, and Temple and I hung out in the pillow fort. I can’t believe that with all the wars raging in the world right now, some people’s children would find like-sounds appealing. I’ve started my year with a jury summons. I wish I lived in the District, and summons was for you know who’s felonies. I have no idea how I will manage it, but I hope my doctor can explain the challenges I face this year. The process has been automated, so it might be easier if I don’t have to appear and then be sent home daily.
Mother Earth started the New Year off with a bang and a rattle. Japan experienced a 7.5 earthquake that was followed by a tsunami threatening Japan’s and South Korea’s coasts. About 100.000 people had to evacuate, 10s of thousands are still without power, and a building collapse killed one man. A 4.1 earthquake hit South of L.A. this morning. This one was par for the course for Coastal California.
The big question is, will 2024 bring worse climate change disasters than 2023? This is from the Washington Post. “The climate future arrived in 2023. It left scars across the planet. The year will mark a point when humanity crossed into a new climate era — an age of “global boiling,” as the U.N. Secretary General called it.” This is reported by Chico Harlen.
One explanation for 2023’s extreme heat is El Niño — a recurring oceanic phenomenon that warms the waters in the Pacific and causes a global ripple of consequences. But the scale of this year’s heat — amplified by human-caused factors and the burning of fossil fuels — is still well beyond what most scientists had thought possible. Some have theorized that planetary warming may be accelerating. Others have said there’s not enough evidence. What they agree upon, though, is that the earth is trending toward more extreme heat.
The list of examples from around the globe should shock a few politicians into taking action. I can say that it won’t happen here in America’s Oil Coast. Our politicians are wholly owned subsidiaries of oil and gas companies. Our next Governor will be worse than Jindal, which says a lot. All Republican pols are saying that we’re not drilling enough and 2023 has evidence to the contrary. This is also from The Washington Post. “U.S. oil production hit a record under Biden. He seldom mentions it. The politics of oil are particularly tricky for Democrats, whose chances for victory in next year’s elections can hinge on whether young, climate-focused voters come out in big numbers.”
You won’t hear President Biden talking about it much, but a key record has been broken during his watch: The United States is producing more oil than any country ever has.
The flow of huge amounts of crude from American producers is playing a big role in keeping prices down at the pump, diminishing the geopolitical power of OPEC and taming inflation. The average price of a gallon of regular gasolinenationwide has dropped to close to $3, and analysts project it could stay that way leading up to the presidential election, potentially assuaging the economic anxieties of swing-state voters who will be crucial to Biden’s hopes of a second term.
But it is not something the president publicly boasts about. The politics of oil are particularly tricky for Democrats, whose chances for victory in the 2024 elections could hinge on whether young, climate-conscious voters come out in big numbers. Many of those voters want to hear that Biden is doing everything in his power to keep oil in the ground.
“If you are not looking carefully at what the administration is actually doing, it is easy to get the wrong impression,” said Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, a research firm. “There are a lot of things going on at once. This is an administration which is focused on the energy transition, but also taking a pragmatic approach on fossil fuels.”
The United States is producing about 13.2 million barrels of crude oil per day. That is millions of gallons more than is coming out of Saudi Arabia or Russia. It is more oil than was being produced even at its peak during the pro-fossil-fuels administration of former president Donald Trump, when production was 13 million barrels a day in November 2019.
There are plenty more theats than promises on our horizon for 2024. This reminder from ABC News should focus attention on getting another Blue Wave. “Former Trump White House insiders call possible 2nd term a threat to American democracy. “We don’t need to speculate,” one told “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.” Is it just me or are all these Baby New Year cartoons a bit dystopian? We need a Shero!!
Three women who served in former President Donald Trump‘s White House are now warning against a possible second Trump term, with one of them saying it could mean “the end of American democracy as we know it.”
For the first time, former White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin, former White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, and former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson sat down together with ABC News “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl to discuss their roles in speaking out against Trump in the wake of Jan. 6.
“Fundamentally, a second Trump term could mean the end of American democracy as we know it, and I don’t say that lightly,” Griffin, now a co-host of ABC’s “The View,” told Karl, accusing the former president of having gone to “historic and unconstitutional lengths” in attempting to “steal a democratic election” and to stay in power.
“I’m very concerned about what the term would actually look like,” Griffin continued.
“We don’t need to speculate what a second Trump term would like because we already saw it play out,” Matthews told Karl.
“To this day, he still doubles down on the fact that he thinks that the election was stolen and fraudulent,” Matthews said, claiming Trump’s rhetoric has become “increasingly erratic,” citing his threats to skirt the Constitution and suggestions about weaponizing the Justice Department to retaliate against his political enemies.
Hutchinson, who served as a top aide to Trump’s last White House chief of staff Mark Meadows – and who stood by Trump the longest after the 2020 election – said there’s a large portion of the population that’s not recognizing their mistakes, that’s not working to continue to better our country.”
“This is a fundamental election to continue to safeguard our institutions and our constitutional republic,” Hutchinson said. “We’re extremely fragile as a country, and so is the democratic experiment.”
This was the first time Griffin, Matthews, and Hutchinson, who all cooperated with the House select committee that investigated the Capitol attack by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, gathered to share their experiences.
Gustaf Kilander of The Independent has a major reform in mind that’s been discussed quite a bit this century. “The Electoral College is a ‘bad’ and ‘undemocratic’ system. So why does the US still use it? In the most powerful democracy in the world, two of its last four leaders have been chosen by a minority of voters. The US’s Electoral College system is now functioning far from how its creators originally intended,” Indeed.
In the 2016 election, it was Hillary Clinton who won the popular vote with almost three million more votes than Donald Trump. But the showboating businessman ended up in the West Wing regardless.
To put it simply, in the most powerful democracy in the world, two of the nation’s last four leaders have been the less popular option among voters – due to an Electoral College system that many feel is undemocratic and needs to change.
“They came up with the Electoral College at the very end of the Constitutional Convention,” Kermit Roosevelt, professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, tells The Independent about the founding of American democracy.
“They didn’t really pick it because it had features that they liked, so much as they couldn’t figure out any other way to accommodate people’s concerns.”
As it currently stands, to get to the White House, a candidate has to reach at least 270 out of the 538 electoral votes which are distributed to the states according to population.
However, most states have instituted winner-take-all systems.
This means that a candidate could win the most votes across the country but lose the electoral college by running up the numbers in some states and losing by smaller margins in others.
Partisan sorting appears to have worsened this phenomenon, as people move to areas where their neighbours share their political beliefs.
The size of some states is also so vastly different that smaller states have ended up with more representation in the Electoral College than their population may justify.
This is a really long read with a lot of history and some analysis that really will wake you up even though we’re all aware of the issue.
The end result of this system is that very few voters actually matter.
“We’ve got sort of an aristocracy of the Dakotas and Wyoming, and Rhode Island,” Mr Roosevelt says.
“The big way in which the Electoral College distorts our political process … is that it makes people focus on the swing states” both when it comes to campaigning and governing, he adds.
“This is a point that I think is often lost or distorted – people say, ‘Well, if you didn’t have the Electoral College, no one would pay attention to the small states’. And I don’t think that’s true because a vote from a small state will matter just as much,” he says.
“Candidates don’t pay attention to small states, they pay attention to swing states. So you get all of this attention on Pennsylvania and Florida and Ohio and Wisconsin, North Carolina – the states that are in play.
“And no one pays attention to California or New York – or even Texas. There are millions of people in those states who may be persuadable, and maybe if you address their concerns, you could win their votes, but no one even tried.”
It’s frightening that Trump could win again without even approaching the 50% mark.
Please remember throughout 2024: History shows that when our democracy rolls into action, with Americans engaged in our system, voting and alert to both the joys and tragedies of our past, it can be an awesome and glorious machine. But only if you are not a passive spectator.
Is Israeli justice finally catching up to Bibi? The weekend was full of protests in the streets and calls for an election. Will the electorate and courts deal with this crook also? This is from the New York Times. This is especially important since Netanyu has just announced the war will continue for an unspecified period of time of months. “Israel-Hamas WarIsraeli Justices Reject Netanyahu-Led Move to Limit Court. The law, passed by the Israeli Parliament in July, had sharply divided Israelis and sparked mass protests. Monday’s ruling raised the prospect of renewed discord as Israel wages war in Gaza.” This is written by Isabel Kershner.
In a momentous ruling that could ignite a constitutional crisis, Israel’s Supreme Court on Monday struck down a law passed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government that was meant to limit the court’s own powers, by a majority of eight judges to seven.
The decision is likely to rekindle the grave domestic crisis that began a year ago over the right-wing government’s judicial overhaul plan — which sparked mass protests that brought the country to a near standstill at times — even as Israel is at war in Gaza.
The court, sitting with a full panel of all 15 of its justices for the first time in its history, rejected a law passed by Parliament in July. The law barred judges from using a particular legal standard to overrule decisions made by government ministers.
The court’s decision heralds a potential showdown between the top judicial authority and the ruling coalition, and could fundamentally reshape Israeli democracy, pitting the power of the government against that of the court.
Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition, the most right-wing and religiously conservative in Israel’s history, has argued that the Supreme Court has overreached its authority and subverted the will of the voters and the function of the elected government. They argue that the legal concept of “reasonableness” — which the court used a year ago to strike down Mr. Netanyahu’s appointment as finance minister of a political ally who had been convicted of tax fraud — is ill defined and subjective.
But in a country that has one house of Parliament, no formal written constitution and a largely ceremonial president, many defenders of Israel’s liberal democracy view the Supreme Court as the only bulwark against government power, and the standard of reasonableness to be one of the primary tools at the judges’ disposal.
You may read more about the decision at the breaking news at the links. The war itself is moving South which is exactly where Bibi sent Palenstian civilians. This is from the AP. “Israel is pulling thousands of troops from Gaza as combat focuses on enclave’s main southern city.”
Thousands of Israeli soldiers are being shifted out of the Gaza Strip, the military said Monday, in the first significant drawdown of troops since the war began as forces continued to bear down on the main city in the southern half of the enclave.
The troop movement could signal that fighting is being scaled back in some areas of Gaza, particularly in the northern half where the military has said it is close to assuming operational control. Israel has been under pressure from its chief ally, the United States, to begin to switch to lower-intensity fighting.
Word of the drawdown came ahead of a visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the region and after the Biden administration bypassed Congress for the second time this month to approve an emergency weapons sale to Israel.
But fierce fighting continued in other areas of Gaza, especially the southern city Khan Younis and central areas of the territory. Israel has pledged to charge ahead until its war aims have been achieved, including dismantling Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for 16 years.
The year is definitely going to be a challenging one. Al-Jezeera reports on the latest coming from Ukraine. Putin plans to escalate. We need to help the fast! “Putin vows to ‘intensify’ strikes on Ukraine after deadly Belgorod attack. At least five people are killed in New Year’s Day attacks on Odesa, southern Ukraine and Russian-occupied Donetsk.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised to intensify strikes on Ukraine after an unprecedented attack on the Russian city of Belgorod over the weekend.
Saturday’s air attack killed at least 25 people and wounded more than 100, according to Russian officials.
Russia has blamed Ukraine for the attack, which was one of the deadliest to take place on Russian soil since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started more than 22 months ago.
“We’re going to intensify the strikes. No crime against civilians will rest unpunished – that’s for certain,” Putin said on Monday during a visit to a military hospital.
He said Russia would continue hitting what he called “military installations”.
“We are doing that today, and tomorrow, we will continue doing it,” Putin said.
Putin previously called the destruction in Belgorod a “terrorist attack” and accused Ukrainian forces of targeting “the city centre, where people were walking before New Year’s Eve”.
He said Ukraine was being used by the West to “settle its problems” and insisted the course of the war was changing in Russia’s favour.
The Russian Ministry of Defence said Ukraine hit Belgorod with two missiles and several rockets. It said most of the weapons were shot down, but some debris fell on the city.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region, said the attack damaged 30 apartment buildings and several houses and cars.
I don’t want to get to deep in the weeds, but North Korea and China are sabre-rattling again too. This is from the AP. “North Korea’s Kim says military should ‘thoroughly annihilate’ US and South Korea if provoked.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his military should “thoroughly annihilate” the United States and South Korea if provoked, state media reported Monday, after he vowed to boost national defense to cope with what he called an unprecedented U.S.-led confrontation.
North Korea has increased its warlike rhetoric in recent months in response to an expansion of U.S.-South Korean military drills. Experts expect Kim will continue to escalate his rhetoric and weapons tests because he likely believes he can use heightened tensions to wrest U.S. concessions if former President Donald Trump wins the U.S. presidential election in November.
In a five-day major ruling party meeting last week, Kim said he will launch three more military spy satellites, produce more nuclear materials and develop attack drones this year in what observers say is an attempt to increase his leverage in future diplomacy with the U.S.
It looks like Secretary Blinken and his team have their hands full. I’m still concerned about this news from two days ago via Reuters. I’m all for giving Israel defense equipment and keeping their shield at-ready, but have serious doubts about gifting them more offensive weapons. “US skips congressional review to approve sale of artillery projectiles to Israel.” It’s going to be a tough year for us Peaceniks and Justice Freaks.
But, anyway, I hope you have the ability to hunker down in peace and quiet in your home! And …
Here’s one with John, Yoko, and the late Tommy Smothers live from Bed in 1969,
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Happy New Year! Hang in here with us for 2024!
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I’ve spent some time this week having to find Keely Cat, who escaped Saturday afternoon and showed up 5 days later. Everyone was relieved she was home. She’s included in that number. Many neighbors helped us, and I got some very good suggestions from online friends, too. Both BB and JJ have been holding me together and giving me some time to worry and search. She hadn’t had her seizure meds since Saturday morning. She’s a bit more animated than the Turtle when she has one. I gave her a dose today and yesterday after a seizure yesterday morning. All of us here are much more relaxed and a bit cooler. We’ve finally escaped the excessive heat, and the house cools down at night. All of this is a relief for me, and now it’s back to fretting about our national problems.
Several well-respected law professors and judges are insisting that Trump is not qualified to hold office again because of the 14th Amendment, and the argument is turning into court cases. This is from ABC News.”State election officials prepare for efforts to disqualify Trump under 14th Amendment. New Hampshire, Michigan and Arizona are bracing for lawsuits.”
Efforts to keep former President Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot under the 14th Amendment are gaining momentum as election officials in key states are preparing for or starting to respond to legal challenges to Trump’s candidacy.
The argument to disqualify Trump from appearing on primary or general election ballots in 2024 boils down to Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which states that an elected official is not eligible to assume public office if that person “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the United States, or had “given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,” unless they are granted amnesty by a two-thirds vote of Congress.
Several advocacy groups have said that Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021, fit that criteria — that he directly engaged in an insurrection. The legal theory has been pursued, unsuccessfully, against a few other elected Republicans; arguing their actions around Jan. 6 and support for overturning the 2020 election results amounted to the disqualifying behavior.
Trump has denied any involvement in the attack on the Capitol.
“Joe Biden, Democrats, and Never Trumpers are scared to death because they see polls showing President Trump winning in the general election,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Chung told ABC News in a statement. “The people who are pursuing this absurd conspiracy theory and political attack on President Trump are stretching the law beyond recognition much like the political prosecutors in New York, Georgia, and DC. There is no legal basis for this effort … “
The push to disqualify Trump under this constitutional clause gained more traction when two members of the conservative Federalist Society, William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, recently supported the idea in the pages of the Pennsylvania Law Review. Following the Baude and Paulsen article, retired conservative federal appeals judge J. Michael Luttig and Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Laurence Tribe made the same argument in The Atlantic.
Now, threats of filings against Trump under this clause are gaining steam in a number of states, including New Hampshire and Arizona and in Michigan, a lawsuit to disqualify Trump was filed on Monday. Secretaries of state say they have started to take steps to prepare for the possibility of administering elections without the current GOP front-runner.
In an interview with ABC News, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, said that she and other secretaries of state from Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire and Maine started having conversations over a year ago about preparing for the legal challenges to Trump’s candidacy.
“I’m talking every day with colleagues about this, we’re all recognizing that our decisions that we make may in some cases be the first but won’t be the last and there may be multiple decision points throughout the course of the election cycle,” Benson said. “So, I think the public needs to be prepared for this to be an ongoing issue that is it has several resolution points and evolutions points throughout the cycle.”
But as conversations grow around the use of the 14th Amendment provision, some legal scholars and election officials are increasingly concerned about the practicality of the emerging lawsuits.
I just want to get rid of him one way or another. Mitch McConnell is getting a lot of attention after his second freeze-up that was captured in pressers. BB wrote about this and the possible causes yesterday. While McConnell has been “medically cleared” by the physician who attends Congress, many political pundits are now suggesting something “be done” about him. This is from Jack Schafer, writing for Politico. “Why Is Nobody Doing Anything About Mitch McConnell? Washington is paralyzed as the Senate minority leader freezes up.”
If McConnell were a bus driver or broadcaster or teacher engaged in any other occupation that, like serving as a legislative leader, demands real-time responses, he would have been benched pending a medical examination. Instead, Mitch’s verbal stoppage has been met with paralysis by the political order, which seems incapacitated by his condition. The president and others have voiced their “concerns” for McConnell’s episodes, offering verbal placeholders for the stark questions that demand answers. Instead, apart from the barest of acknowledgments that McConnell will consult a physician, and the prospect of an internal Senate GOP discussion, it’s the Washington establishment that is acting lightheaded and professing that things are fine.
These aren’t the 81-year-old senator’s only recent medical misadventures. He suffered a fall and concussion in March that sent him to the hospital for treatment. In a 2019 tumble at his Louisville, Ky., home, he fractured his shoulder. In October 2020, when reporters noticed his bruised and bandaged hands, he fended off their questions with what has become his boilerplate. “I can just tell you that I’m just fine,” he said. At that time, McConnell aides, aware of the senator’s perambulatory instability, were warning journalists not to get underfoot of the GOP leader as he walked the halls of the Senate lest they prompt another spill.
Older people fall. It’s a fact. President Joe Biden, 80, tripped on a sandbag in June. Older people experience mental lapses. That’s a fact, too. Neither a fall nor a lapse in isolation constitutes a crisis. But McConnell is not your standard-issue example of a stumbling elder who can be patched up and returned to service with little inconvenience to his peers. He’s a leader of the U.S. Senate — brokering judicial and Cabinet appointments, stewarding legislation, mobilizing his party to compete in the 2024 elections, not to mention representing Kentucky. Even a layman could assert McConnell needs advanced treatment and rest without being accused of practicing medicine without a license. And yet, only muffled words of interest in McConnell’s health by other senators have been sounded, mostly upbeat. “After he fell, obviously he was a little bit groggy when he first got back. But he’s picked up a lot more energy since then,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) in July.
McConnell isn’t even the leading example of an aged legislator whose diminished capacity is ignored by the Senate so he can maintain his plush seat of power. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) appears to be in rapid physical and mental decline — and her supporters have, at least initially, concealed the severity of her health battles. In July, the 90-year-old was so out of it she had to be coached by Democratic colleague Sen. Patty Murray to say “aye” in a committee meeting. Feinstein’s condition has received more attention than McConnell’s, with a half-dozen members of the House calling on her to resign. But for senators, the Feinstein story is like a reel from the black comedy The Death of Stalin, as the senators remain as timid as the Politburo members gathered around Joseph Stalin’s deathbed who refused to replace him until he was absolutely cold.
What the Senate needs is not a legal measure like the 25th Amendment, which governs the replacement of a mentally or physically faltering president. Nor would age limits for senators, which would reduce the body’s gerontological problem, automatically remedy the current state. People under 65 can have debilitating strokes or other mentally sapping medical problems. Neither would a medical board empowered to certify the mental and physical health of legislators do the trick. Some of us barely want to heed our doctors’ advice. Who wants to assign them to review who can serve in Congress?
What the Senate needs is some spine. Instead of playing the supportive colleague for other legislators who struggle to do their jobs or otherwise turn their backs on the infirm and doddering, senators need to use their powers of persuasion, their parliamentary skills at replacing leadership and old-fashioned jawboning to persuade the mentally muddled or seriously ill to remove themselves from the pinnacles of power and even, if necessary, to resign.
Haley, who is running in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, called McConnell’s situation “sad” while appearing onFox News’ “The Story” on Thursday, where she described the Senate as the “most privileged nursing home in the country.”
“No one should feel good about seeing that any more than we should feel good about seeing Dianne Feinstein, any more than we should feel good about a lot of what’s happening or seeing Joe Biden’s decline,” Haley said, targeting the senior Democratic senator from California and the Democratic president.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle have questioned 90-year-old Feinstein’s fitness for office following her extended absence from the capital earlier this year after a prolonged bout with shingles.
And conservatives have frequently cited Biden’s age among the reasons they believe he’s not fit to be president. Biden, who turns 81 in November, became the oldest candidate ever elected commander in chief when he won the 2020 presidential election.
“What I will say is, right now, the Senate is the most privileged nursing home in the country,” Haley went on. “I mean, Mitch McConnell has done some great things, and he deserves credit. But you have to know when to leave.”
She then repeated her call for term limits and mental competency tests for elected officials over the age of 75.
“I wouldn’t care if they did them over the age of 50,” added Haley, who is 51. “But these people are making decisions on our national security. They’re making decisions on our economy, on the border.”
“We need to know they’re at the top of their game,” she continued. “You can’t say that right now, looking at Congress.”
Haley suggested it was time for “new faces, new voices [and] younger generations” to work in government before saying, “We need to have everybody else understand when it’s time to go.
Please, please tell me that the new voice for Trumperz isn’t Vivek Ramissmarmy. The last thing we need is another TechBro in a position to wreck society. This is an opinion from the New York Times by David French. French is not one of my favorites, and he’s Republican, but this is the voice of reason here. “The Articulate Ignorance of Vivek Ramaswamy.”
Now let’s fast-forward to the present moment. Instead of offering a plausible explanation for their mistakes — much less apologizing — all too many politicians deny that they’ve made any mistakes at all. They double down. They triple down. They claim that the fact-checking process itself is biased, the press is against them and they are the real truth tellers.
I bring this up not just because of the obvious example of Donald Trump and many of his most devoted followers in Congress but also because of the surprising success of his cunning imitator Vivek Ramaswamy. If you watched the first Republican debate last week or if you’ve listened to more than five minutes of Ramaswamy’s commentary, you’ll immediately note that he is exceptionally articulate but also woefully ignorant, or feigning ignorance, about public affairs. Despite his confident delivery, a great deal of what he says makes no sense whatsoever.
As The Times has documented in detail, Ramaswamy is prone to denying his own words. But his problem is greater than simple dishonesty. Take his response to the question of whether Mike Pence did the right thing when he certified the presidential election on Jan. 6, 2021. Ramaswamy claims that in exchange for certification, he would have pushed for a new federal law to mandate single-day voting, paper ballots and voter identification. Hang on. Who would write the bill? How would it pass a Democratic House and a practically tied Senate? Who would be president during the intervening weeks or months?
It’s a crazy, illegal, unworkable idea on every level. But that kind of fantastical thinking is par for the course for Ramaswamy. This year, for instance, he told Don Lemon on CNN, “Black people secured their freedoms after the Civil War — it is a historical fact, Don, just study it — only after their Second Amendment rights were secured.”
Wait. What?
While there are certainly Black Americans who used weapons to defend themselves in isolated instances, the movement that finally ended Jim Crow rested on a philosophy of nonviolence, not the exercise of Second Amendment rights. The notion is utterly absurd. If anything, armed Black protesters such as the Black Panthers triggered cries for strongergun control laws, not looser ones. Indeed, there is such a long record of racist gun laws that it’s far more accurate to say that Black Americans secured greater freedom in spite of a racist Second Amendment consensus, not because of gun rights.
Ramaswamy’s rhetoric is littered with these moments. He’s a very smart man, blessed with superior communication skills, yet he constantly exposes his ignorance, his cynicism or both. He says he’ll “freeze” the lines of control in the Ukraine war (permitting Russia to keep the ground it’s captured), refuse to admit Ukraine to NATO and persuade Russia to end its alliance with China. He says he’ll agree to defend Taiwan only until 2028, when there is more domestic chip manufacturing capacity here in the States. He says he’ll likely fire at least half the federal work force and will get away with it because he believes civil service protections are unconstitutional.
The questions almost ask themselves. How will he ensure that Russia severs its relationship with China? How will he maintain stability with a weakened Ukraine and a NATO alliance that just watched its most powerful partner capitulate to Russia? How will Taiwan respond during its countdown to inevitable invasion? And putting aside for a moment the constitutional questions, his pledge to terminate half the federal work force carries massive, obvious perils, beginning with the question of what to do with more than a million largely middle- and high-income workers who are now suddenly unemployed. How will they be taken care of? What will this gargantuan job dislocation do to the economy?
Ramaswamy’s bizarre solutions angered his debate opponents in Milwaukee, leading Nikki Haley to dismantle him on live television in an exchange that would have ended previous presidential campaigns. But the modern G.O.P. deemed him one of the night’s winners. A Washington
Post/FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll found that 26 percent of respondents believed Ramaswamy won, compared with just 15 percent who believed Haley won.
Miss Keely is home.
Republicans make me want to run away from my own country. Trumper and his cult make our country look like something from a Dystopian Science Fiction novel. But for right now, Keely is back, my children and their children are in safe states, and I live in a community of Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs. Cultural pride and civic responsibility are a thing down here, even though some of our elected politicians seem to forget about it as quickly as others.
Even apparent frontrunner Attorney General Jeff Landry, who’s firmly aligned himself with former President Trump and his far-right followers, is a man of mystery to many. He will bypass all but one televised debate, a key opportunity to get his message to the public. The one event he’s committed to so far will take place in a friendly setting he could attempt to pack with his own supporters.
Landry has said he intends to call a special session once in office on the topic of crime. He hasn’t shared any specifics on what he has in mind, other than vilifying authorities in the state’s largest cities for a “catch and release” approach to criminal justice. His plans for education are equally uncertain, other than his frequent conservative appeal to parental rights and rejection of the “woke mob.”
It’s hard to say whether this lack of detail from Landry’s stances will affect his appeal with moderate voters who have been key in recent governor’s races. Sure, Louisiana has grown more conservative as of late, but it’s in question whether its citizenry has moved as far to the right as other Southern states.
Stephen Waguespack and Treasurer John Schroder are positioning themselves as the anti-Landry candidate, although both are strongly conservative in their own right.
Waguespack’s recurring campaign message attempts to frame him as the outsider in the race, but many view him as the quintessential insider given his business lobby background and position in the Jindal administration. He has laid out policy plans if he becomes governor, but he still has to win over voters who may not be convinced he’s the most qualified for the job.
Schroder has been by far the most aggressive in taking on Landry. The two have a history of clashes going back to their time together on the State Bond Commission, which the treasurer chairs and whose procedural financial decisions Landry has attempted to politicize.
Yet in some ways, Schroder is farther right than anyone in the field. He’s selectively played this card on the campaign trail, but it’s not clear yet whether or how he would manifest these views if elected governor.
Hunter Lundy has attempted to position himself as the Christian conservative alternative in the field. Thanks to his ample self-funded campaign, he’s conveyed that message fairly well based on his showing recent polls. Chances are low he can find enough far-right leaning fellow independents to make a serious bid, but he could possibly take enough votes away from Republicans in the race to make the primary more interesting.
And Colorado Springs has the same problem we do in Louisiana. Business Handouts that do nothing but secure political contributions to their puppets.
There are more Republicans and each of them are pretty out there in right field. We do have a candidate for the Democratic party who is likely to win the run-off. But, the race won’t be easy for Shawn Williams.
Democrat Shawn Wilson could well fall into this same category, even as a favorite to make the runoff as the endorsed candidate of his party. People know him primarily for his role as former secretary of the state transportation department, but that’s not necessarily the positive association Wilson wants it to be.
It’s questionable whether he can follow the path of his old boss, Gov. John Bel Edwards, and appeal to enough moderate voters to give Landry, should he make the runoff, a serious run. Edwards made his anti-abortion stance clear from the start, and Wilson, though personally “pro-life,” espouses the political views of the abortion rights crowd.
What Edwards also had going for him in the 2015 election was running against a hugely unpopular candidate in David Vitter, who didn’t even carry his home Jefferson Parish in the runoff. Edwards also had the support of trial lawyers and his West Point pedigree
For every effort to paint Landry in a negative shade comparable to Vitter, the state Republican Party and political action committees have responded with huge ad buys to boost the attorney general’s profile.
Whether any other candidate can take the momentum away from Landry — or he somehow does so himself — is increasingly in doubt as Election Day nears.
Let us know how things look in your state! It’s important we keep democracy alive in our states. It’s also important we don’t elect people with massive discrimination plots and an eye on decimating the local public school systems.
Anyway, I’m going to try to have a nice relaxing day today and just enjoy the return of my prodigal kitty.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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Hurricane Hilary swirls near Baja California, Mexico, on Friday. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The stress from extreme weather should be sending a huge wake-up call to the community of humans sharing the planet. Relentless heat here is setting records week after week. Now we’re staring down a map of disturbances in the Atlantic and the Gulf that reminds me of Multiball mode in pinball. We’re still receiving unsettling news from Maui after fires destroyed a historic town. Now, we’re watching a Hurricane threatening a good portion of the west coast. I’m still worried about the koala population decimated by fires in Australia in 2020.
As the federal government prepares its response to the tropical storm expected to hit parts of Southern California on Sunday afternoon, FEMA is bracing for potentially devastating flooding.“Hurricane Hilary is going to produce some really significant impacts to Southern California,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said Sunday during an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Though the total amount of rain appears unlikely to exceed that of similar storms that more frequently make landfall on the East Coast, people should not downplay this threat, Criswell said.
“People really need to take this storm in California serious,” she said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I think it’s interesting that the total rain amounts aren’t like what we see in some of our Atlantic storms and Gulf storms, but it’s going to really be potentially devastating for them in these desert areas.
The emergency management agency already has a team embedded in California, and is moving additional resources into the state, Criswell said, as the storm moves north toward Mexico and the southwest United States, where it’s expected to cause “catastrophic” flooding.
“They’re a very capable state as well and they have a lot of resources,” Criswell said of California Sunday. But if it does exceed what their capability is, “we’re going to have additional search-and-rescue teams, commodities on hand to be able to go in and support anything that they might ask for.”
The storm is the latest in a series of natural disasters and extreme weather that left communities in need of federal assistance. Wildfires in Hawaii recently raged across a historic Maui town, leaving more than 100 dead and even more without shelter. President Joe Biden will visit Lahaina on Monday to see the devastation first-hand and “reassure” residents “that the federal government is there,” Criswell said.
Volunteers from the West Orange County Community Emergency Response Team load sandbags for local residents as the hurricane approaches. Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
The obscure federal agency that oversees the nation’s immense tangle of pipelines, power lines, and transfer stations is unfamiliar to most Americans. But it has very much been on Sen. Joe Manchin III’s mind.
By the end of last year, the West Virginia Democrat had become deeply displeased with how the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was helping the Biden administration advance its aggressive climate goals. Manchin, a staunch ally of fossil fuel interests, was particularly critical of the agency’s efforts to write regulations that more fully consider climate impact when it reviews new natural gas infrastructure.
So he kneecapped the agency. The chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Manchin refused to hold a confirmation hearing for the reappointment of Richard Glick, the agency’s chair and a key ally of President Biden, after Glick’s term expired at the end of the year. That has effectively stripped the board of its Democratic majority, leaving it deadlocked and limiting its ability to advance renewable energy projects.
Manchin isn’t the essential tiebreaking vote for Democrats in the Senate anymore, but a year after the enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act — which wouldn’t have passed without his support — he’s irate at the way Biden is implementing the law. And he’s fighting back: Besides his pressure on FERC, Manchin has vowed to oppose appointments to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department. He is even publicly flirting with running for president in 2024, an unlikely prospect but one that could be devastating for Biden — and a situation that senior White House officials are closely monitoring.
In this photo provided by Tiffany Kidder Winn, burned-out cars sit after a wildfire raged through Lahaina, Hawaii, on Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023. The scene at one of Maui’s tourist hubs on Thursday looked like a wasteland, with homes and entire blocks reduced to ashes as firefighters as firefighters battled the deadliest blaze in the U.S. in recent years. (Tiffany Kidder Winn via AP)
The cause of Maui’s wildfires has been attributed to multiple factors. When the blazes first began raging, experts pointed to drought conditions, dry vegetation, and strong winds caused by Hurricane Dora, which was several hundred miles away from Hawaii at the time. Media reports suggested the island’s first fire was likely caused by a power line in the woods of the Maui Bird Conservation Center. Hawaiian Electric, which services 95% of Hawaii’s residents, is facing several negligence lawsuits from residents alleging failure to maintain their equipment and clear vegetation located near utility poles. However, the power company told Forbes this week a cause for the fire had yet to be determined.
Believe me, it’s odd to live in a tropical zone, experiencing basically desert conditions week after week after week. It’s not normal. I haven’t opened my curtains in days, and I judge the heat by how many cold baths I take. Early in the morning, Temples panting worried me, and I put her in a cold bath. The relentless heat has been the most significant weather topic we’ve had since Hurricane Katrina. The biggest question is, “Will this be the new normal?
The summer of extremes continues. July was the hottest month ever recorded. The high-impact weather is continuing through August.
“This is the new normal and does not come as a surprise,” said Alvaro Silva, a climate expert with WMO. “The frequency and intensity of many extremes, such as heatwaves and heavy precipitation, have increased in recent decades. There is high confidence that human induced climate change from greenhouse emissions is the main driver,” he told a regular media briefing in Geneva.
WMO stresses the need to follow authoritative warnings from national meteorological and hydrological services to stay safe.
During the weekend of 19-20 August, maximum temperatures may reach up to 40 °C in parts of southern France, according to Meteo-France. It said it would be the most intense heatwave of the summer of 2023. This situation is due to a strong high pressure and subtropical warm air from North Africa. Meteo-Suisse has issued level 3 amber alerts for most of the country, with maximum daytime temperatures between 33 and 35 °C and high nighttime temperatures.
Spain, including Canary Islands and Portugal, also experienced extreme heat, fuelling an extremely severe fire risk. As of 17 August, the Tenerife wildfire continued out of control, with more than 2600 ha burnt area and people evacuated in some sites. Dry conditions, maximum temperatures above 30 °C, night temperatures above 20 °C, peak wind gusts above 50 km/h were observed on 16 and 17 in some AEMET weather stations of Tenerife.
Japan has also suffered a prolonged heatwave, with many station records broken, according to the Japanese Meteorological Agency, which issued concurrent warnings for torrential rain and typhoon-related floods.
While climate change is controversial to interests aligned with the oil, coal, and gas industries, data shows that America’s voters aren’t as skeptical as some would have you believe. “Climate change issues have a reputation for being divisive. Data show it’s not quite true. The majority of the country believes climate change is happening and is worried for the future. But experts say real change won’t happen until the beliefs are more personal.” This is reported by Grace Manthey.
Climate perspectives vary across the country, but by smaller margins than political leanings.
Yale’s program produces Climate Opinion Maps based on a large national survey dataset with more than 28,000 respondents collected between 2008 and 2021. And, the strong majorities nationwide don’t just apply to believing climate change is impacting the weather and might harm people. The data show widespread support for government intervention:
77% of Americans support funding research into renewable energy sources and tax credits for electric vehicles and solar panels
72% believe the government should regulate CO2 as a pollutant
66% support imposing strict limits on coal power plants and taxing fossil fuel companies
For context, the largest popular vote percentage in a presidential election in American history was in 1964, when President Lyndon B. Johnson won 61% of the popular vote.
President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 win was considered a landslide when he nearly swept electoral votes. But Reagan only won about 59% of the popular vote.
These climate change opinions vary by geography with some resemblance to political trends, and democrats are more likely to have pro-climate leanings, a recent Pew survey found.
But the issue isn’t black and white: republicans are not completely against climate-friendly changes and geographic trends on climate opinions aren’t as extreme as political ones.
Here’s something that seems contradictory.
In 92% of counties in the country, more than half of residents are worried about global warming.
That includes Mobile County, AL – the county surrounding the city of Mobile – where 58% of residents are worried about global warming and 59% believe it will harm people.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump received 55% of the 2020 presidential vote in Mobile County.
Lipsky is a contributor to the Rolling Stone. “How Sun Myung Moon ‘Digested the Scientists’ and Fueled Climate-Change Denial. In an excerpt from his new book The Parrot and Igloo, Rolling Stone contributor David Lipsky reveals a forgotten chapter in the climate crisis — when two once-respected scientists became merchants of doubt and mouthpieces for the Unification Church’s controversial leader.
IF THERE WERE A DENIAL Mt. Rushmore the two biggest heads would be S. Fred Singer and Frederick Seitz. Dishonesty’s Lincoln, lying’s Washington. Together, the two graybeard prophets launched a movement.
Frederick Seitz’s slab would be the larger and more solemn. Most decorated scientist ever to slip over to the dark side, the non-truth side. With just about the grandest possible resume entry: former President of the National Academy of Sciences.
He did it for the old man reasons. Because the new politics made him nervous. Because the new generation made him feel vulnerable and defensive, rickety. (Seitz called students “the youth.”) There are accomplished people who fear any change to the order that once promoted them is really a portent of chaos and doomsday. When Seitz was a university president, one student said hello — and he coolly explained college presidents are not people you say hello to. Fifty years later, climate denial’s most coveted honor is the Frederick Seitz Memorial Award. Its first statuette was delivered by Dr. S. Fred Singer.
Singer’s Rushmore head would smaller, sneakier, giving visible side-eye. He is the man responsible for all of it. There was a big denier convention a decade ago. (Held in Las Vegas; because denial is classy.) The president of a denial think tank raked his eyes across the denial ballroom, took in the denial faces at the denial tables making up his denial audience. “Fred Singer is the most amazing and wonderful person participating in the global warming debate today,” this president explained. “If there’s any person in the world responsible for the development of a skeptics movement on global warming, it’s Dr. S. Fred Singer… Fred is a giant. He is a hero.” Singer is the origin of denial. And here is his origin as a denier.
At this stage of the denial story — end of the eighties, that John Hughes decade — Frederick Seitz is already a denier. This is a story about how and where S. Fred Singer joined him. Singer began as a straight scientist — an environmentalist. Did not attain promotion at the EPA. (HR Departments: be careful who you disappoint.) So he quit. And came back changed. Served briefly in Washington as the Department of Transportation’s chief scientist. And then the surprising part, the historical part of Fred Singer’s journey — his real travels and adventures — began.
The thing this story shows about deniers: they will accept money from . . . anyone. (And once you deny — once your lips break that truth barrier — the succeeding denials become easier and easier. In a sense, you become deaf to the sound made by your own life. As you must.) That openness is what this story is also about. And about how everybody, even people with the most powerful friends, can eventually require the services of a professional denier.
Our friend @repeat1968 (John Buss) gets the last word.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today? And please stay safe wherever you are!
I had the pleasure of meeting, setting up her microphone, and listening close up to Etta James at Jazz Fest. Believe me, it’s one of the performances I’ve witnessed that I will never forget.
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John (repeat1968) Buss, @repeat1968 Panic in MAGAville as Fani is swinging for the fences. #FaniWillis #IndictmentWatch #GeorgiaOnMyMind #FoldingChair
Good Morning, Sky Dancers!
There’s some exciting news out from Congressman Jamie Raskin. Finally, after all the grifting, emoluments violations, and stealing items from the White House, Congressional Democrats will be releasing a report on how much money has gone missing since the Trump Family Crime Syndicate infested the White House. I’m still waiting for answers for Jerad and that 2 billion dollar deal with the Saudis.
This is from The New York Daily News. “As GOP attacks Bidens, Rep. Jamie Raskin promises report on ‘foreign government emoluments’ to Trump.” This is reported by Shant Shahrigian.
The Maryland Democrat promised a new report on cash that foreign governments gave to Trump businesses, though he did not go into detail.
“We’re going to release a report about all of the foreign government emoluments — millions of dollars — we can document that Donald Trump pocketed at the hotels, at the golf courses [and] business deals when he was president and that his family got,” Raskin told ABC’s “This Week.”
The comment came amid a series of questions to Raskin about GOP and federal probes of Hunter Biden. Republicans in Congress have been investigating whether the troubled son inappropriately benefited from his powerful father, among other accusations that remain unproven.
Raskin said his Republican counterparts should look closer to home.
“During the Trump administration, we saw the development of a completely new public philosophy, which is that government is not an instrument of the common good in the public interest,” he said.
While a frequent news subject during the Trump years, the former president’s business dealings with foreign governments drew no legal consequences. In 2021, the Supreme Court ended lawsuits accusing the president of taking illegal payments, saying they were irrelevant since he was out of office.
But Raskin accused Republicans including Rep. James Comer of Kentucky of having a double standard by probing the Bidens while ignoring Trump and his family.
Former Republican Lt Governor Geoff Duncan said he has been requested to appear on Tuesday, 15 August.
“I did just receive notification to appear on Tuesday morning at the Fulton County grand jury and I certainly will be there to do my part in recounting the facts,” he told CNN. “I have no expectations as to the questions, and I’ll certainly answer whatever questions are put in front of me.”
Journalist George Chidi also has announced that he is preparing to testify on Tuesday.
The case is the culmination of a wide-ranging investigation over the last two years following the former president’s pressure campaign targeting state officials to reject the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state.
Ms Willis opened an investigation shortly after news of Mr Trump’s call to Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the state’s top elections official, who was pressed to find “11,870 votes” – just enough needed for then-President Trump to beat Joe Biden in the state.
A special grand jury previously heard testimony from 75 witnesses, including aides and former attorneys to Mr Trump. That jury concluded its report in January with recommendations for state prosecutors to bring charges that will soon be reviewed by the newly impaneled grand jury.
The investigation is among several facing the former president, who was separately charged with three criminal conspiracies and obstruction in a federal case stemming from the US Department of Justice special counsel probe into his attempts to subvert the election outcome.
Donald Trump slammed the judge presiding over his newest criminal case early Monday, testing her three-day-old warning that he refrain from “inflammatory” attacks against those involved in his case.
In a Truth Social post just before 1 a.m., Trump assailed U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan as “highly partisan” and “very biased and unfair,” citing as evidence a statement she made during the sentencing of a woman who participated in the mob that breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“She obviously wants me behind bars,” Trump wrote.
Trump was alluding to Chutkan’s remark during the October 2022 sentencing of Christine Priola of Ohio. Chutkan admonished Priola, before sentencing her to 15 months in jail, about the Jan. 6 mob’s threat to the peaceful transfer of power.
“I see the videotapes. I see the footage of the flags and the signs that people were carrying and the hats that they were wearing, and the garb,” Chutkan said. “And the people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty to one man, not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant; not to the ideals of this county and not to the principles of democracy. It’s blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”
Chutkan’s sentiments have been common among judges who have sentenced Jan. 6 rioters. Several have expressed discomfort over punishing rioters — who had been deluged with lies about the election by Trump and steered to the Capitol with a warning that their country was being stolen and their livelihoods were in danger — while those who misled them have faced no consequences. But Chutkan is the first of those judges to end up with Trump as a defendant in her court, charged by special counsel Jack Smith with seeking to subvert the 2020 election with lies and a plan to violate the constitution.
Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Sunday said he would support a federal ban on abortion after the first three months of pregnancy, but his campaign later said he “misunderstood” the question.
Speaking to NBC from the Iowa State Fair, Kennedy said, “I believe a decision to abort a child should be up to the women during the first three months of life,” but added: “Once a child is viable, outside the womb, I think then the state has an interest in protecting the child.”
He said he would sign a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks or 21 weeks of pregnancy if he were elected president.
A longtime advocate of what he calls “medical freedom,” Kennedy has been in the public eye in recent years largely for discussions about public health issues, in particular his stated doubts about mandates for vaccinations and some conspiracy theories about Covid-19, including widely condemned suggestions that the virus could have been engineered to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. (Kennedy used the phrase “medical freedom” in his exchange with Vitali.)
In June in a town hall in New Hampshire, he called himself “pro-choice” and spoke in favor of legal abortion.
“I’m not going be in a position, put myself in a position, where I am going to tell a woman to bring a child to term,” he said at the time.
I actually saw the wife of a friend in an RFK campaign shirt. Wow, was she taking big hits in the comments section. It’s nice to see the Bernie Bros go after some one else for a change besides a woman candidate.
AND speaking of that … save the date! It’s tonight!
So, that’s about it for me today. We’re breaking a record for the third week in a row of at least 4 days over 100 back-to-back. The entire city of New Orleans is crazy from the heat. I’m just still just hanging out in the bathtub.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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As usual, Trump steals the headlines. He’s good at this. As every toddler learns, not all attention is good attention. It’s also some of his worst schticks. He loves to attack strong women. He’s especially insecure about strong, brainy black women in powerful positions. I loved Mike Luckovich’s cartoon featured today. It’s easy to find the ongoing attack on these especially talented women.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Wednesday flatly denied that she had a relationship with a former client and other rumors spread by former President Donald Trump in a new campaign ad.
In an email to her colleagues, obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Willis called the information in a television spot bankrolled by the Trump campaign “derogatory and false.” She urged her staff not to respond to any of the allegations.
“You may not comment in any way on the ad or any of the negativity that may be expressed against me, your colleagues, this office in the coming days, weeks or months,” Willis wrote in the email, sent early Wednesday. “We have no personal feelings against those we investigate or prosecute and we should not express any.”
In the minute-long ad, titled “The Fraud Squad,” the narrator refers to Willis as “Biden’s newest lackey.” It says that Willis presided over a sharp rise of violent crimes in Atlanta and highlights her office being disqualified from investigating Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in her long-running election interference case due to a political conflict of interest.
But the most incendiary allegation is that Willis “got caught hiding a relationship with a gang member she was prosecuting.” It cites as evidence a Jan. 25, 2023, article in Rolling Stone.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to seek more than a dozen indictments when she presents her case regarding efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia before a grand jury next week, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
Willis, a Democrat, has been eyeing conspiracy and racketeering charges, which would allow her to bring a case against multiple defendants. Her wide-ranging criminal probe focuses on efforts to pressure election officials, the plot to put forward fake electors and a voting systems breach in rural Coffee County, Georgia.
Trump acolytes who took part in each of those schemes believe they will face charges in Georgia next week, people familiar with their thinking said. Trump also believes he will be charged in the case, CNN has reported.
Willis’ office declined to comment.
The witnesses Willis has subpoenaed when she presents her case include former Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, former Georgia Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan and independent journalist George Chidi. All of them previously testified before a special purpose grand jury that was tasked with investigating the Trump case and heard from more than 75 witnesses.
Willis launched her investigation into Trump in early 2021, soon after he called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and pressured the Republican to “find” the votes necessary for Trump to win the state.
At a campaign event Tuesday, Trump continued to insist it was a “perfect phone call.”
Willis has been reportedly weighing racketeering charges in the Trump case. RICO is a statute the district attorney has spoken fondly of and used in unorthodox ways to bring charges against teachers as well as musicians in the Atlanta area.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi is off the bench as former President Trump’s top adversary on Capitol Hill.
After stepping down as Speaker last year, Pelosi (D-Calif.) has flown largely under the radar in the Democratic caucus, allowing a crop of new leaders to take control of the group she steered for two decades.
But the California Democrat — now with the title of “Speaker Emerita” — resumed her role of top Trump antagonist following his latest indictment, landing blows on the former president, praising the charges, and showcasing her unique ability to get under the skin of the man with whom she went toe-to-toe during the four years he occupied the White House.
The bitter dynamics between the two leaders were on full display as Trump was indicted on charges stemming from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol rampage — a day for which Pelosi has said she would “never forgive” Trump.
“I wasn’t in the courtroom, of course, but when I saw his coming out of his car and this or that, I saw a scared puppy,” Pelosi on Friday told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell of Trump arriving at his arraignment. “He looked very, very, very concerned about the fate.”
“I didn’t see any bravado or confidence or anything like that,” she continued. “He knows the truth — that he lost the election and now he’s got to face the music.”
Trump responded to the remarks on Tuesday, tearing into Pelosi — “She is a Wicked Witch” — while referencing last year’s violent attack on her husband, Paul Pelosi. An assailant looking for the then-Speaker entered the couple’s San Francisco residence and hit Paul Pelosi in the head with a hammer, leaving him with serious injuries.
Trump at the time called the attack “a terrible thing” without remarking further.
Trump continues to hold a grudge against the U.S. Women’s World Cup Soccer Team. He especially hates the athletic and erudite Megan Rapinoe. This is also from The Hill as reported by Sarah Fortinsky. “Trump knocks ‘woke’ US women’s soccer team after World Cup departure.”
Former President Trump knocked the “woke” U.S. women’s soccer team after its loss in the round of 16 of the Women’s World Cup over the weekend.
“The ‘shocking and totally unexpected’ loss by the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team to Sweden is fully emblematic of what is happening to the our once great Nation under Crooked Joe Biden,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Sunday evening.
“Many of our players were openly hostile to America – No other country behaved in such a manner, or even close. WOKE EQUALS FAILURE. Nice shot Megan, the USA is going to Hell!!! MAGA,” Trump continued, taking aim at 38-year-old midfielder Megan Rapinoe.
It is almost like Trump is begging to be thrown into custody. This is from The Rolling Stone.“Trump Promises to Violate Protective Order. The former president once again attacked Judge Chutkan, who is set to rule on a protective order requested by the Justice Department later this week.” Of course, his side thrill was to attack Judge Chutkan. This is reported by Nikki McCann Ramirez.
While speaking at a campaign event in New Hampshire, the former president told the crowd that prosecutors were attempting to take away his First Amendment rights through the protective order.
“Crooked Joe now wants the thug prosecutor, this deranged guy, to file a court order taking away my First Amendment rights so that I can’t speak…I will talk about it. I will. They’re not taking away my First Amendment right.”
Trump: I will talk about it. They are not taking away my first amendment right pic.twitter.com/HdFCWXbN12
At his arraignment on Thursday, the former president affirmed his understanding that — as explained by Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya — “it is a crime to try to influence a juror or to threaten or attempt to bribe a witness or any other person who may have information about your case, or to retaliate against anyone for providing information about your case to the prosecution, or to otherwise obstruct the administration of justice.”
Security has been increased around the federal judge overseeing the criminal case alleging Donald Trump used “unlawful means” in an effort to stay in power after he lost the 2020 presidential election.
U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan was seen by NBC News Thursday walking into the cafeteria inside Washington’s E. Barrett Prettyman courthouse for a cup of coffee while accompanied by U.S. Marshals. Some of the marshals then accompanied her back to her chambers.
Judges typically do not receive such escorts when moving around the courthouse and Chutkan was observed as recently as last week walking around the building without security.
The heightened security for the judge was first reported by CNN.
The change comes after the former president complained about the judge on his social media platform, Truth Social, this past week.
“There is no way I can get a fair trial with the judge ‘assigned’ to the ridiculous freedom of speech/fair elections case. Everybody knows this and so does she! We will be immediately asking for recusal of this judge on very powerful grounds,” he wrote in all caps in one of the posts on Sunday.
His legal team has yet to file a motion asking the judge to recuse herself. Trump has pleaded not guilty in the case and maintains the charges are part of a political “witch hunt” aimed at derailing his 2024 presidential run.
PROVO, Utah (AP) — An armed Utah man accused of making violent threats against President Joe Biden was shot and killed by FBI agents hours before the president landed in the state Wednesday, authorities said.
Special agents were trying to serve a warrant on the home of Craig Deleeuw Robertson in Provo, south of Salt Lake City, when the shooting happened at 6:15 a.m., the FBI said in a statement.
Robertson was armed at the time of the shooting, according to two law enforcement sources who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of an ongoing investigation.
Robertson posted online Monday that he had heard Biden was coming to Utah and he was planning to dig out a camouflage suit and begin “cleaning the dust off the M24 sniper rifle,” a post that came after months of graphic online threats against several public figures, according to court documents. Robertson referred to himself as a “MAGA Trumper,” a reference to former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, and also posted threats against top law enforcement officials overseeing court cases against Trump.
Neighbors described Robertson as a frail, elderly man — his online profile put his age as 74 — who walked with the aid of a hand-carved stick. Though he regularly carried guns, they said he didn’t seem a threat.
I really can’t wait to be rid of this all. Just lock him the fuck up already!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
I’m in a Ramones sorta mood.
I hear the bells of freedom chimin’ And inside my heart, I feel I’m dyin’ Wise guys never compromise Then they lose their rights and they act surprised Jail really cuts ya down to size
Let the punishment fit the crime The footprints on the sand of time The philosophy of the poet’s rhyme Makes a man humble in his prime
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
The list of examples from around the globe should shock a few politicians into taking action. I can say that it won’t happen here in America’s Oil Coast. Our politicians are wholly owned subsidiaries of oil and gas companies. Our next Governor will be worse than Jindal, which says a lot. All Republican pols are saying that we’re not drilling enough and 2023 has evidence to the contrary. This is also from The Washington Post. “U.S. oil production hit a record under Biden. He seldom mentions it. The politics of oil are particularly tricky for Democrats, whose chances for victory in next year’s elections can hinge on whether young, climate-focused voters come out in big numbers.”
There are plenty more theats than promises on our horizon for 2024. This reminder from ABC News should focus attention on getting another Blue Wave. “Former Trump White House insiders call possible 2nd term a threat to American democracy. “We don’t need to speculate,” one told “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.” Is it just me or are all these Baby New Year cartoons a bit dystopian? We need a Shero!!
Gustaf Kilander of The Independent has a major reform in mind that’s been discussed quite a bit this century. “The Electoral College is a ‘bad’ and ‘undemocratic’ system. So why does the US still use it? In the most powerful democracy in the world, two of its last four leaders have been chosen by a minority of voters. The US’s Electoral College system is now functioning far from how its creators originally intended,” Indeed.
This is a really long read with a lot of history and some analysis that really will wake you up even though we’re all aware of the issue.
You may read more about the decision at the breaking news at the links. The war itself is moving South which is exactly where Bibi sent Palenstian civilians. This is from the AP. “Israel is pulling thousands of troops from Gaza as combat focuses on enclave’s main southern city.”
The year is definitely going to be a challenging one. Al-Jezeera reports on the latest coming from Ukraine. Putin plans to escalate. We need to help the fast! “Putin vows to ‘intensify’ strikes on Ukraine after deadly Belgorod attack. At least five people are killed in New Year’s Day attacks on Odesa, southern Ukraine and Russian-occupied Donetsk.”I don’t want to get to deep in the weeds, but North Korea and China are sabre-rattling again too. This is from the AP. “North Korea’s Kim says military should ‘thoroughly annihilate’ US and South Korea if provoked.”
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I just want to get rid of him one way or another. Mitch McConnell is getting a lot of attention after his second freeze-up that was captured in pressers. BB wrote about this and the possible causes yesterday. While McConnell has been “medically cleared” by the physician who attends Congress, many political pundits are now suggesting something “be done” about him. This is from Jack Schafer, writing for Politico. “Why Is Nobody Doing Anything About Mitch McConnell? Washington is paralyzed as the Senate minority leader freezes up.”
GOP Candidate and former South Carolina Governor and Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, is less than subtle about McConnell’s condition. “Nikki Haley Calls Senate A ‘Privileged Nursing Home’ After McConnell Freezes. “We need to know they’re at the top of their game,” Haley told Fox News. “You can’t say that right now looking at Congress.” HuffPo writer Kelby Vera watched Fox, so we don’t have to.
Please, please tell me that the new voice for Trumperz isn’t Vivek Ramissmarmy. The last thing we need is another TechBro in a position to wreck society. This is an opinion from the New York Times by David French. French is not one of my favorites, and he’s Republican, but this is the voice of reason here. “The Articulate Ignorance of Vivek Ramaswamy.”
I’m eagerly awaiting this report. Meanwhile, the Fulton County, Georgia Grand Jury will meet this week and will likely return Trump’s 4th indictment. This is from The Independent. “At least two witnesses have been called to testify, signalling that a vote to indict could be imminent.”
Trump continues to attack Judge Chutkan. I hope she fines him, jails him, or gags him. I’m getting tired of all the news being about this bellicose, belligerent old man. This is from Politico. “Trump jabs at judge in election case, testing warning against ‘inflammatory’ statements. Overnight, Trump called Chutkan ‘biased and unfair’ for comments during 2022 sentencing of Jan. 6 defendant.” This is reported by Kyle Cheney.
We haven’t had this much bullshit in courts since they brought down the Mafia. Speaking of crazy old men, RFK Jr. makes Bernie look like a kind beacon of light. I can’t imagine how much he embarrasses his family, who are constantly releasing statements that state that he doesn’t represent any of them or the family trust. This is from Politico. “RFK Jr. backs 15-week federal ban on abortion, then reverses himself. “Today, Mr. Kennedy misunderstood a question,” his campaign said.” Yeah, right, there was interference in the tinfoil hat. He definitely doesn’t understand the gestation cycle.
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The Atlanta-area D.A. is expected to “seek more than a dozen indictments” according to CNN. This certainly leads to the question of how many will gladly turn on Trump.
Trump returns to Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi for his latest move in the Small Penis Energy category. This is from The Hill as reported by Mychael Schnell. “Pelosi reemerges as top Trump adversary.” 
Trump continues to hold a grudge against the U.S. Women’s World Cup Soccer Team. He especially hates the athletic and erudite Megan Rapinoe. This is also from The Hill as reported by Sarah Fortinsky. “Trump knocks ‘woke’ US women’s soccer team after World Cup departure.”
And here’s the result of his verbal threats as reported by NBC News today. “Security bolstered for judge overseeing Trump election case. The increase in security around U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan comes as the former president has been criticizing her on social media.
How many people does Orange Caligula need to threaten and how many of his droogs have to be caught in plots to follow through for someone to do something? Here’s the latest incident as reported by the AP. “Utah man suspected of threatening President Joe Biden shot and killed as FBI served warrant.”
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