Lazy Caturday Reads

Autumn Cat Leaves, by Erin Martin Lowell Herrero

Happy Caturday!!

It has been another busy week in politics, with Trump’s businesses on trial in New York as well as new evidence that Trump shared top secret information with foreign nationals; the House of Representatives in chaos without a speaker; a violent attack by Hamas on Israel overnight; and other odds and ends. Let’s get started.

The story getting the most attention today is the attack on Israel.

The New York Times and The Washington Post are running live updates.

From The New York Times: ‘We Are at War,’ Netanyahu Says After Hamas Attacks.

The Israeli prime minister ordered a call-up of reservists after Palestinian militants fired thousands of rockets and invaded several Israeli towns. More than 250 people have been killed, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials.

Israel battled on Saturday to repel one of the broadest invasions of its territory in 50 years after Palestinian militants from Gaza launched an enormous and coordinated early-morning assault on southern Israel, infiltrating several Israeli towns and army bases, kidnapping Israeli civilians and soldiers, and firing thousands of rockets toward cities as far away as Jerusalem.

By early evening, the Israeli military said fighting continued in at least five places in southern Israel, around 70 Israelis had been reported dead by emergency medical groups, and Israel had retaliated with huge strikes on Gazan cities. At least 198 Palestinians were killed in either gun battles or airstrikes, the Gazan Health Ministry said….

At least 100 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian militant assault began on Saturday morning, said Zaki Heller, a spokesman for the Magen David Adom emergency service. The number is expected to continue to rise in the coming hours and days.

From The Washington Post: Netanyahu says Israel ‘at war’ after Hamas attack; Israeli civilians and military personnel held captive in Gaza Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday “we are at war, and we will win it” after the Islamist militia Hamas launched an assault and took captives following the 50th anniversary of the start of the 1973 Yom Kippur war. The confrontation, which has killed at least 40 Israelis and injured at least 740, is one of the most serious in years after weeks of rising tensions along the volatile border. Israeli air force strikes killed nearly 200 people on the Gaza Strip and injured 1,600, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Israeli authorities said that an unknown number of Israeli civilians, soldiers and commanders have been taken captive by Hamas….

Autumn Cat, by Tatiana Feoktistova

Israel ordered residents in areas around Gaza to remain inside after militants infiltrated Israeli territory — including by paraglider and by sea — and launched more than 3,000 rockets, the Israel Defense Forces said. The Israeli air force began striking targets late Saturday morning, the military said, adding that gun battles were taking place in Israeli areas near the border.

U.S. officials including President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and numerous members of Congress condemned the attacks on Israel. Biden described the attacks as “appalling” and said he offered Netanyahu “rock-solid and unwavering” support.

And from The Hill: Pentagon says it will support Israel after Netanyahu declares war.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. stands squarely by Israel and will ensure it “has what it needs to defend itself” after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war against Palestinian militants that launched a surprise attack on his country.

Austin said in a statement he was “closely monitoring developments in Israel” and extended his condolences to families of the victims who lost their lives in the Saturday attack.

“Our commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself remains unwavering,” Austin said. “Over the coming days the Department of Defense will work to ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself and protect civilians from indiscriminate violence and terrorism.”

The U.S. is one of Israel’s staunchest allies and has provided around $3.8 billion a year to the country.

This doesn’t sound good.

The House without a Speaker

Burgess Everett at Politico: Empty speaker’s office aggravates House-Senate beef.

The chaos-ridden, speaker-less House is threatening to stymie a host of bipartisan legislative efforts across the Capitol — and senators are getting really tired of it.

Forget the expectations earlier this year of achieving even modest policy reforms, or passing spending bills under so-called “regular order.” Senators will consider themselves lucky to escape the calendar year without a catastrophe. Among the possibilities: a shutdown and a crush of blown deadlines on expiring legislation addressing aviation law, surveillance authority and flood insurance.

Possibly, the best case is lurching from crisis to crisis until the presidential election.

“It’s hard to pass legislation and send it to the president when one House is not able to function,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said of the prognosis for the months ahead, one of several senators interviewed who implied the legislative calendar is looking bleak.

One of the frontrunners for House speaker, Jim Jordan of Ohio, didn’t even support the stopgap spending bill that avoided a shutdown. And he opposes new aid for Ukraine — the two biggest priorities among Senate Democrats and at least half of the Senate Republicans.

What’s more, with no speaker and no clear candidate who has the votes to wrap up an election quickly, there’s no one currently empowered to negotiate with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the White House on behalf of the only Republican-controlled lever of the federal government.

“Only a new speaker [can negotiate], if they’re willing to do that,” echoed Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a former House member. “Somebody has to face the reality.”

The Senate’s challenges for the next few months are tough to square with the disorderly state of the House GOP majority. Aviation law, surveillance authority and flood insurance all expire later this year. That’s not to mention modest Senate policy priorities that bipartisan gangs are coalescing around.

There’s much more at the link.

Igor Bobic at HuffPost: Jim Jordan, Who’s Running For Speaker, Played A Key Role In Trump’s 2020 Election Plot.

More on Jordan’s role at HuffPost.

Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries has an op-ed at The Washington Post: A bipartisan coalition is the way forward for the House.

Trump New York Fraud Trial

From NBC News: Trump trial Day 5 highlights: Ex-Trump executive says Allen Weisselberg asked for help in committing tax fraud.

What to know about Friday’s court session:

On the final day of the first week of the trial, lawyers for New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office again grilled Jeffrey McConney, a former Trump Organization senior vice president.

In a dramatic finale, McConney admitted that ex-Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg asked for his help in committing tax fraud. He said he kept engaging in this illegal conduct because Weisselberg was his boss and if he refused, he would probably have lost his job.

Judge Arthur Engoron later in the day turned down an effort from Trump’s lawyers to suspend the trial.

Trump went to the appeals court to try to stop the trial: Appeals court stays cancellation of Trump biz certificates.

Also:

An appeals court judge denied Trump’s bid to halt the fraud trial, but agreed to stay enforcement of Engoron’s order canceling business certificates involving the former president and top officials at his company.

An Appellate Division judge who heard emergency arguments Friday wrote the application is “granted solely to the extent of staying enforcement of Supreme Court’s order directing the cancellation of business certificates. The interim application is denied in all other respects.”

In a court filing earlier in the day, Trump’s attorneys argued that part of Engoron’s ruling was tantamount to “corporate death sentences” for various Trump companies that would have to be dissolved.

Attorney General Letitia James had already said she would hold off on the cancellation of certificates until the end of the trial, so not a big deal.

Trump once again blabbed top secret information

Here’s the background from ABC News: Trump allegedly discussed US nuclear subs with foreign national after leaving White House: Sources.

Months after leaving the White House, former President Donald Trump allegedly discussed potentially sensitive information about U.S. nuclear submarines with a member of his Mar-a-Lago Club — an Australian billionaire who then allegedly shared the information with scores of others, including more than a dozen foreign officials, several of his own employees, and a handful of journalists, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Autumn Pumpkin Cat, by Ryan Conners

The potential disclosure was reported to special counsel Jack Smith’s team as they investigated Trump’s alleged hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, the sources told ABC News. The information could shed further light on Trump’s handling of sensitive government secrets.

Prosecutors and FBI agents have at least twice this year interviewed the Mar-a-Lago member, Anthony Pratt, who runs U.S.-based Pratt Industries, one of the world’s largest packaging companies.

In those interviews, Pratt described how — looking to make conversation with Trump during a meeting at Mar-a-Lago in April 2021 — he brought up the American submarine fleet, which the two had discussed before, the sources told ABC News.

According to Pratt’s account, as described by the sources, Pratt told Trump he believed Australia should start buying its submarines from the United States, to which an excited Trump — “leaning” toward Pratt as if to be discreet — then told Pratt two pieces of information about U.S. submarines: the supposed exact number of nuclear warheads they routinely carry, and exactly how close they supposedly can get to a Russian submarine without being detected.

It’s far from the first time Trump has done this. In fact, very early in his term as “president,” Trump outed an Israeli spy to Russians in the oval office. Remember that? It was the day after he fired James Comey and he thought the Russia investigation was over. 

Tori Otten recalls a few instances at The New Republic: Trump Loves Sharing National Security Secrets With Random Strangers.

Trump allegedly told Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt in April 2021 that Australia should start buying its submarines from the U.S. Trump then told Pratt the supposed exact number of nuclear warheads a U.S. sub can carry, and how close it can supposedly get to a Russian sub without being detected, ABC News reported late Thursday, citing anonymous sources.

Pratt then told at least 45 other people—including six journalists, 11 employees at his company, 10 Australian officials, and three former Australian prime ministers—about Trump’s comments before he was approached by special counsel Jack Smith’s team….

The incident with Pratt is far from the first time that Trump shared classified information with people unauthorized to hear it. In May 2017, Trump shared highly classified information with the Russian foreign minister and the Russian ambassador to the United States that the U.S. hasn’t shared with some of its closest allies. Current and former U.S. officials warned that Trump had jeopardized a crucial intelligence source on the Islamic State group.

Later that month, Trump told then-Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte that the U.S. had positioned two nuclear submarines off the Korean peninsula. The locations of nuclear subs are meant to be kept secret, as a matter of national security. In fact, only the captains and crews know the sub’s exact location.

Then, in July 2017, CNN reported that the U.S. was forced to extract a spy embedded in the Russian government after concerns that Trump had shared classified information that could have exposed them.

Rather than learn his lesson, Trump met privately with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the G20 summit (also in July 2017). Trump confiscated the interpreter’s notes at the end of the meeting, an unusual move that led intelligence officials to believe he had shared more classified information.

Trump tweeted a video in December 2018 of the Al Asad Airbase in Iraq, exposing a SEAL team’s faces and location. The next year, he bragged about U.S. nuclear weapons capabilities to reporter Bob Woodward and tweeted photos that revealed the location of U.S. spy satellites.

And of course, it didn’t stop after he left office. One of the documents he allegedly kept detailed a plan to attack Iran. He is accused of waving the paper around in front of people.

Weird Odds and Ends

Republicans and Fox News are once again up in arms about something Hillary Clinton said. 

The Guardian: Hillary Clinton says Trump supporters may need to be ‘deprogrammed.’

Supporters of Donald Trump may need to be “deprogrammed” as if they were cult members, Hillary Clinton said.

“Sadly, so many of those extremists … take their marching orders from Donald Trump, who has no credibility left by any measure,” the former first lady, senator, secretary of state and Democratic nominee for president told CNN.

“He’s only in it for himself. He’s now defending himself in civil actions and criminal actions. And when do they break with him? Because at some point maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members. But something needs to happen.” [….]

By Atey Ghailan

Clinton said: “I think, sadly, he will be the nominee and we have to defeat them. And we have to defeat those who are the election deniers, as we did and 2020 and [in the midterms of] 2022. And we have to just be smarter about how we are trying to empower the right people inside the Republican party.”

Clinton was speaking after the fall of Kevin McCarthy, who became first US House speaker ever ejected by his own party thanks to pro-Trump extremists.

Clinton called Trump “an authoritarian populist who really has a grip on the emotional [and] psychological needs and desires of a portion of the population and the base of the Republican party, for whatever combination of reasons.”

Republicans, she said, “see in him someone who speaks for them and they are determined they will continue to vote for him, attend his rallies and wear his merchandise, because for whatever reason he and his very negative, nasty form of politics resonates with them.

“Maybe they don’t like migrants. Maybe they don’t like gay people or Black people or the woman who got the promotion at work they didn’t get. Whatever reason.”

Hey, she’s right. But now all the Trump fans have something else to have fun being outraged about. 

CBS News: Florida man, sons sentenced to years in prison after being convicted of selling bleach as fake COVID-19 cure.

Three months after a Florida man and his three sons were convicted of selling toxic industrial bleach as a fake COVID-19 cure through their online church, a federal judge in Miami sentenced them to serve prison time.

Jonathan Grenon, 37, and Jordan Grenon, 29, were sentenced on Friday to 151 months in prison for conspiring to defraud the United States by distributing an unapproved and misbranded drug, and for contempt of court, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office Southern District of Florida. Mark Grenon, 66, and Joseph Grenon, 36, were sentenced to 60 months in prison, the statutory maximm for conspiring to defraud the United States by distributing an unapproved and misbranded drug.

All four had been found guilty by a federal judge this summer after a two-day trial where the Grenons represented themselves, according to The Miami Herald. Mark Grenon is the father of Jonathan, Jordan and Joseph Grenon.

Prosecutors called the Grenons “con men” and “snake-oil salesmen” and said the family’s Genesis II Church of Health and Healing sold $1 million worth of their so-called Miracle Mineral Solution, distributing it to tens of thousands of people nationwide. In videos, the solution was sold as a cure for 95% of known diseases, including COVID-19, Alzheimer’s, autism, brain cancer, HIV/AIDS and multiple sclerosis, prosecutors said.

But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had not approved MMS for treatment of COVID-19, or for any other use. The FDA had strongly urged consumers not to purchase or use MMS for any reason, saying that drinking MMS was the same as drinking bleach and could cause dangerous side effects, including severe vomiting, diarrhea, and life-threatening low blood pressure. The FDA received reports of people requiring hospitalizations, developing life-threatening conditions, and even dying after drinking MMS.

Read more nutty stuff at the link if you so desire.

Have a nice weekend, everyone!!