U.S. Senate Results

Republicans will regain the Senate majority. As of Thursday, November they hold 53 seats.

Unless otherwise indicated, the AP has called these races:

Arizona. Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego is projected to have defeated the execrable Kari Lake.

California. Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff is projected to win. Schiff will have won both the general election and a special election to fill the seat of former Sen. Dianne Feinstein, deceased, which is currently held by Laphonza Butler, a "placeholder" appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). Schiff will be seated immediately.

Connecticut: Democrat Chris Murphy is projected to win re-election.

Delaware: Democrat Lisa Blunt is projected to win.

Florida: Republican Rick Scott is projected to win re-election.

Hawaii. Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono is projected to win re-election.

Indiana: Republican Jim Banks is projected to win.

Maine: Independent Sen. Angus King is projected to win re-election. King caucuses with Democrats.

Maryland. Democrat Angela Alsobrooks is projected to win over former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan. Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin (D) is retiring.

Massachusetts: Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren is projected to win re-election.

Michigan: Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin is projected to win.

Minnesota. Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar is projected to win re-election.

Mississippi: Republican Roger Wicker is projected to win re-election.

Missouri. Republican Road Runner Sen. Josh Hawley is projected to win re-election.

Montana. Republican Tim Somebody-Shot-Me-Sometime Sheehy is projected to have defeated Sen. Jon Tester.

Nebraska. Republican Sen. Deb Fischer has held off a challenge from an Independent candidate.

Nebraska. Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts is projected to win re-election. This is a special election.

Nevada: Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen is (at long last) projected to win re-election.

New Jersey: Democrat Rep. Andy Kim is projected to win the seat previously vacated by Democrat Bob Menendez, who resigned in disgrace after being convicted on federal bribery & corruption charges. Kim will be the first Korean-American to hold a U.S. Senate seat.

New Mexico. Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich is projected to win re-election.

New York. Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is projected to win re-election.

North Dakota. Republican Sen. Kevin Kramer is projected to win re-election.

Ohio. Republican Bernie Moreno is projected to have defeated Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. This is the second pick-up for Republicans Tuesday.

Pennsylvania. Republican Dave McCormick is projected to have defeated incumbent Democrat Bob Casey, although Casey has not conceded.

Rhode Island: Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse is projected to win re-election.

Tennessee: Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn is projected to win re-election.

Texas: Republic Sen. Ted Cruz, the most unpopular U.S. senator, is projcted to win re-election.

Utah. Republican Rep. John Curtis is projected to win the seat currently held by Sen. Mitt Romney (R).

Vermont: Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders is projected to win re-election.

Virginia. Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine is projected by NBC News to win re-election.

Washington. Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell is projected to win re-election.

West Virginia: Republican Gov. Jim Justice is projected to win the seat currently held by Independent Joe Manchin, who is retiring.

Wisconsin. Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin is projected to win re-election. Hurrah!

Wyoming. Republican Sen. John Barrasso is projected to win re-election.

U.S. House Results

By 1:30 am ET Tuesday, the AP had called 211 seats for Democrats & 219 seats for Republicans. (A majority is 220.)

But bear in mind that Trump is removing some members of the House & Senate to serve in his administration, which could -- at least in the short run -- give Democrats effective majorities.

Gubernatorial Results

Delaware: Democrat Matt Meyer is projected to win.

Indiana: Republican Sen. Mike Braun is projected to win.

Montana. Horrible person Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte is projected to win re-election.

New Hampshire. Republican Kelly Ayotte, a former U.S. Senator is projected to win.

North Carolina. Democrat Josh Stein is projected to win, besting Trump-endorsed radical loon Mark Robinson.

North Dakota. Republican U.S. Rep. Kelly Armstrong is projected to win.

Utah. Republican Gov. Spencer Cox is projected to win re-election.

Vermont: Republican Phil Scott is projected to win re-election.

Washington: Democrat Bob Ferguson, the Washington State attorney general, is projected to win.

West Virginia: Republican Philip Morrisey is projected to win.

Other Results

Colorado. NBC News projects that the abortions-rights constitutional amendment will pass.

Florida. NBC News projected the abortion-rights state constitutional amendment will fail.

Georgia. Fani Willis is projected to win re-election as Fulton County District Attorney.

Missouri. The New York Times projects that Missouri voters have passed a measure to protect abortion rights.

Nebraska. New York Times: "A ballot amendment prohibiting abortion beyond the first three months of pregnancy passed in Nebraska, according to The Associated Press, outpolling a competing measure that would have established a right to abortion until fetal viability."

***********************************************

The Ledes

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

New York Times: Married to each other for 54 years, two Democratic Missouri poll workers died together in an Election-Day flood.

New York Times: “Law enforcement officials have captured a man who was wanted for murder in rural Tennessee, ending a multistate manhunt in a bizarre case involving a suspicious emergency call, a false identity and a fake bear attack. Sheriff Tommy J. Jones II of Monroe County, Tenn., announced on Sunday that Nicholas Wayne Hamlett, 45, had been taken into custody in Columbia, S.C., more than three weeks after police found a dead body near a bridge on the Cherohala Skyway.... Mr. Hamlett faces first-degree murder charges related to the death of Steven Douglas Lloyd, 34, of Knoxville, Tenn.... Mr. Lloyd’s body was discovered by the police as they responded to a 911 call made on Oct. 18. The caller, who had identified himself as Brandon Kristopher Andrade, told the dispatcher that he had been chased off a cliff by a bear, leaving him injured and partially submerged in the water. When the police arrived at the scene, they found a deceased man with the ID of Mr. Andrade. But the injuries on the body, the sheriff’s office said, weren’t consistent with a bear attack or a fall. And neither the deceased man nor the 911 caller, they determined, were Mr. Andrade. It was a case of stolen identity, and Mr. Andrade’s name had been used on multiple occasions in other fraudulent schemes.”

The Wires
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Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

Link Code:   <a href="URL">text</a>

OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

New York Times: “Chris Wallace, a veteran TV anchor who left Fox News for CNN three years ago, announced on Monday that he was leaving his post to venture into the streaming or podcasting worlds.... He said his decision to leave CNN at the end of his three-year contract did not come from discontent. 'I have nothing but positive things to say. CNN was very good to me,' he said.”

New York Times: In a collection of memorabilia filed at New York City's Morgan Library, curator Robinson McClellan discovered the manuscript of a previously unknown waltz by Frédéric Chopin. Jeffrey Kallberg, a Chopin scholar at the University of Pennsylvania as well as other experts authenticated the manuscript. Includes video of Lang Lang performing the short waltz. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The Times article goes into some of Chopin's life in Paris at the time he wrote the waltz, but it doesn't mention that he helped make ends meet by giving piano lessons. I know this because my great grandmother was one of his students. If her musical talent were anything like mine, those particular lessons would have been painful hours for Chopin.

New York Times: “Improbably, [the political/celebrity magazine] George[, originally a project by John F. Kennedy, Jr.] is back, with the same logo and the same catchy slogan: 'Not just politics as usual.' This time, though, a QAnon conspiracy theorist and passionate Trump fan is its editor in chief.... It is a reanimation story bizarre enough for a zombie movie, made possible by the fact that the original George trademark lapsed, only to be secured by a little-known conservative lawyer named Thomas D. Foster.”

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

 

Contact Marie

Email Marie at constantweader@gmail.com

Monday
Aug072023

The Conversation -- August 8, 2023

Betsy Swan & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Special counsel Jack Smith's probe of efforts by Donald Trump and others to subvert the 2020 election remains ongoing -- with at least one interview this week that focused on fundraising and spending by Trump's political action committee. Meanwhile, the grand jury that indicted Trump last week was spotted meeting Tuesday in the federal courthouse in Washington. In a closed-door interview on Monday with Bernard Kerik, investigators asked multiple questions about the Save America PAC's enormous fundraising haul in the weeks between Election Day and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to Kerik's lawyer, Tim Parlatore...."

Nicholas Nehamas, et al., of the New York Times: "Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is shaking up his presidential campaign -- again. For the third time in less than a month, Mr. DeSantis's campaign announced a major restructuring, this time removing his embattled campaign manager, Generra Peck, and replacing her with a loyalist from his governor's office, as he continues to search for a campaign team and a political message that can compete with ... Donald J. Trump. The reorganization -- in which a top official at the main pro-DeSantis super PAC will also take on an influential role inside the campaign -- caps a turbulent period of layoffs, financial worries and a shift in strategy for the Florida governor, who is increasingly banking on an Iowa-or-bust approach." MB: DeSantolini doesn't need a new campaign manager; he needs a new personality and a moral character implant.

Melanie Hicken of CNN: "The then-leader of the US Coast Guard covered up an explosive investigation four years ago into rapes and sexual assaults at the agency's academy despite prior plans by top officials to come clean about the inquiry, a CNN investigation found. Commandant Karl L. Schultz took charge of the agency in June of 2018 as the secret investigation, dubbed Operation Fouled Anchor, was concluding. The inquiry revealed a dark history of sexual misconduct at the prestigious academy, substantiating dozens of rapes and assaults from the late 1980s to 2006.... The [Department of Homeland Security] said in a statement that '[current commandant Linda] Fagan was not included in the group of senior leaders who oversaw closing the operation, nor was she consulted when it was closed regarding disclosure in or outside the Coast Guard."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily revived the Biden administration's regulation of 'ghost guns' -- kits that can be bought online and assembled into untraceable homemade firearms. In defending the rule, a key part of President Biden's broader effort to address gun violence, administration officials said such weapons had soared in popularity in recent years, particularly among criminals barred from buying ordinary guns. The court's brief order gave no reasons, which is typical when the justices act on emergency applications. The order was provisional, leaving the regulation in place while a challenge moves forward in the courts. The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the court's three liberal members -- Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — to form a majority." The NBC News story is here.

Alabama Is Still Alabama. Remy Tumin & Chang Che of the New York Times: "Police in Montgomery, Ala., detained several people over the weekend after a brawl broke out at the city's popular Riverfront Park when a group of white boaters appeared to attack a Black security guard. The violent scene, captured on video by bystanders, has stoked memories of the city's racist history."

~~~~~~~~~~

Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "A federal judge said late Monday that she will order a hearing this week over prosecutors' demand that ... Donald Trump keep government evidence turned over in his criminal election interference case secret until trial.... Prosecutors explained that they wanted to immediately turn over evidence to speed the defense's trial preparations, but were concerned in part over Trump's history of posting on social media about 'witnesses, judges, attorneys and others' associated with cases against him.... But Trump's defense team complained the government's proposed limits were overbroad and would limit the First Amendment rights of President Biden's main political opponent.... Prosecutors shot back [three hours after Trump's attorneys filed their motion late Monday afternoon] that Trump this weekend attacked ... potential government witness Mike Pence, while one of his attorneys discussed the case on five Sunday talk shows. The prosecution turns over evidence 'to afford defendants the ability to prepare for and mount a defense in court -- not to wage a media campaign,' Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas P. Windom replied, noting that court rules bar defense counsel from feeding pretrial publicity that could prejudice jurors." The New York Times story, by Alan Feuer, is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Obviously, the judge & the prosecution are not messing around. On the other hand, that's all Trump & his lawyers are doing. ~~~

     ~~~ Andrew Weissmann was incensed (for some strange reason) that the Trump lawyers had the gall to claim that "... I'M COMING AFTER YOU" is "generalized political speech, not directed to this case." (See footnote 8, which begins on page 7 of their filing, via Politico.) And more than one participant in this discussion on Lawrence O'Donnell's MSNBC show had something to say about the false claims the response makes about President Biden (begins at page 3 of the filing) (So did the prosecutors, who argued in their filing that Trump's "proposal would permit Trump or his team to disseminate 'snippets' of witness testimony in a way they described as 'antithetical to the interests of justice'." A "snippet" in Trump's response uses a longer remark by President Biden to twist Biden's meaning & rob the full Biden comment of context). ~~~

     ~~~ UPDATE. Marie: Yesterday I posted a pirated copy of a big chunk of O'Donnell's show. As I suspected, YouTube took down the video & it's not available on MSNBC. ~~~

~~~ Kyle Cheney of Politico: "... Donald Trump argued Monday that he should be allowed to share evidence in his latest criminal case with 'volunteer attorneys' and other unpaid advisers as he prepares to defend himself against charges related to his effort to subvert the 2020 election." MB: This is rich, considering that it was "volunteer attorneys" like John Eastman & Sidney Powell who aided & abetted the very actions that this indictment charges.

Holmes Lybrand of CNN: "Security for the federal judge [Tanya Chutkan]assigned to oversee the criminal case against ... Donald Trump over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election has been increased in the federal courthouse in Washington, DC."

** Trump's Best Gal Puts Two Thumbs on the Scale. Josh Fiallo of the Daily Beast, via Yahoo! News: "More questions were asked of Judge Aileen Cannon's fitness to preside over Donald Trump's high-profile classified documents case on Monday after the South Florida federal judge rejected special counsel Jack Smith's bid to preserve 'grand jury secrecy' through sealed filings. In her ruling, Cannon questioned the 'legal propriety' of Smith using an 'out-of-district grand jury to continue to investigate and/or to seek post-indictment hearings.' She demanded that Smith explain [by Aug. 22] why prosecutors are doing this.... While much of the Mar-a-Lago docs case is being handled out of Cannon's district, a portion of the grand jury work ahead of Trump's indictment was done by a D.C. grand jury, which Cannon appeared perplexed by. Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance wrote online that Cannon's latest order 'may tee up the issue of her fitness on this case.' Andrew Weissmann, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney, suggested the same -- writing that Cannon's order is 'off base.' 'Judge Cannon clearly shows her ignorance (bias? both?); the obstruction crimes that were investigated are charges that could have been brought in [Florida] or in DC and thus could be investigated in either district,' he wrote on Twitter. 'And there was conduct that is alleged to have occurred outside [Florida].'

In a separate blow to Smith, Cannon also removed two filings by prosecutors -- about defense attorney Stanley Woodward's potential conflicts of interest -- from the record entirely. Prosecutors had asked for a so-called Garcia hearing to alert Woodward's clients of the potential conflicts of interest, so they filed a motion in hopes they could do so while keeping information off the public record. Cannon shot down that request, however, writing that prosecutors didn't do enough to explain why the meeting needed to be kept under wraps." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The chief judge for the district should just remove & replace Cannon. A high-profile trial in which a former POTUS* is a defendant should not be used as a training exercise for a judge-intern. There may be some inexperienced judges who could intellectually and emotionally handle the burdens of such an historic trial; Judgette Aileen is not one of them. The world is watching and Judge Barbie Aileen is embarrassing the U.S. judicial system. ~~~

     ~~~ In reply to a comment on her post about Cannon's order, Marcy Wheeler says of the order, "This is a pretext to dismiss the case." In a later reply, she notes, "If Nauta goes to trial with conflicted counsel it creates the basis for mistrial -- rightly so."

Another Loss for the Biggest Loser. Kara Scannell of CNN: "A federal judge has dismissed Donald Trump's counter defamation lawsuit against E. Jean Carroll, dealing another legal blow to the former president. In an order Monday, Judge Lewis Kaplan said that Trump had not proven that Carroll';s statements on CNN the day after the jury awarded her $5 million after finding that Trump sexually abused Carroll and defamed her were false or 'not at least substantially true,' which is the legal standard. Trump sued Carroll in June based on her response to questions posed on CNN. Carroll was asked about the verdict finding Trump sexually abused Carroll, but did not rape her as defined under New York law and as she alleged. Carroll said, 'Oh, yes he did.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Marie: Yesterday I linked to a New York Times story that mentioned, down the page, that Donald Trump had attacked Nancy Pelosi on his knock-off X-Twitter site. I criticized Trump for attacking a woman whose husband had been severely injured as a result of the political unrest largely fomented by Trump himself. But the Times article didn't elaborate much on what Trump wrote about Pelosi, so my criticism was too kind. Here's what that lousy POS wrote. (BTW, Griffin was one of Trump's communications directors; she resigned December 3, 2020):


** Donell Harvin, a homeland security expert, in a Politico Magazine opinion piece: "While generally highly decentralized and fractured, violent extremist groups have begun to mesh over a unifying figure: [Donald] Trump. The former president has become a focal point of domestic extremism, and by not denouncing them -- and sometimes courting them -- he has been adopted by these groups as a de facto spiritual leader. In some ways, Trump has also co-opted these groups to boost his own support.... Trump's willingness to fan the worst flames of discord and division is why, in my assessment, he is currently the greatest threat to our nation.... The indictment of Trump for his push to overturn the 2020 election puts that in stark relief....

"The former president is fomenting a radicalism that affects not only those in extremist groups or far-right individuals (lone actors), but has also permeated the mainstream of civil society, the media and public life.... Of the over 1,000 individuals charged for attacking the Capitol, the vast majority have a minor or no prior criminal record and were, by all accounts, law-abiding citizens up until the day Trump radicalized them.... His exhortations that the left or the 'Deep State' is coming after you or trying to take your country away provides the type of existential threat to his followers that is essential for the pathway to violence."

John Eastman Is in a Bind. Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Attorney John Eastman, an architect of Donald Trump's last-ditch efforts to subvert the 2020 election, is asking a California judge to postpone disbarment proceedings lodged against him, saying he's increasingly concerned he's about to be criminally charged by special counsel Jack Smith.... [Eastman's attorney Randall] Miller said the growing concern about criminal charges might prompt Eastman to assert his Fifth Amendment rights during disbarment proceedings.... But invoking the Fifth Amendment in the disbarment proceedings would jeopardize Eastman's ability to defend his law license, his lawyers wrote.... Eastman's bar discipline trial began in June -- and he had even testified for several hours without asserting his Fifth Amendment rights. But it was postponed to late August after the proceedings ran longer than the initially anticipated two weeks." (Also linked yesterday.)

Philip Bump of the Washington Post , in a post titled "John Eastman shows the path from misinformation to revolution, "takes a look at Eastman's interview with Tom Klingenstein, "a major donor to Republican political candidates and the chairman of the board of directors of the right-wing Claremont Institute." Bump concentrates on how Eastman continues to rely on debunked conspiracy theories to justify overturning the 2020 presidential election. Bump notes that Eastman also is mightily concerned about the perfidy of what Eastman describes as "the modern left wing, which is in control of the Democrat Party[:]... 'You're going to let 50-year-old men, naked, into teenage girls' showers at public pools?' he said, echoing overheated but increasingly common right-wing rhetoric. 'Or -- or drag queens doing story hours to 6-year-olds?' What choice did he have but to try to overthrow Biden's election?"

Presidential Race 2024

Jennifer Medina of the New York Times: "As [Donald] Trump escalates his attacks on American institutions, focusing his fire on the Justice Department as he faces new criminal charges, his competitors for the Republican nomination have followed his lead. Several have adopted much of Mr. Trump's rhetoric sowing broad suspicion about the courts, the F.B.I., the military and schools. As they vie for support in a primary dominated by Mr. Trump, they routinely blast these targets in ways that might have been considered extraordinary, not to mention unthinkably bad politics, just a few years ago.... The proliferation of attacks has alarmed both Republicans and Democrats who worry about the long-term impact on American democracy. Public confidence in core institutions -- from the justice system to voting systems -- is fundamental to a durable democracy, particularly at a time of sharp political division.... Mr. Trump is still the loudest voice.... After he was indicted last week..., his campaign cited 'abuse, incompetence and corruption that is running through the veins of our country at levels never seen before.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This of course fits right in with Donell Harvin's essay linked above. If you don't trust government institutions, if you think bureaucrats embedded in the government are out to get you, it's not a huge leap to think it's a good idea to overthrow them. Obviously, the lawful way to deal with corrupt institutions is to reform them or throw the bums out, but that isn't quick or easy (see, uh, Supreme Court). In the meantime, Media, quit calling the bums "conservatives."

News Flash!! Stop the Presses! More than 1,000 Days After Election, DeSantis Admits Biden Is President! Nicholas Nehamas & Alexandra Berzon of the New York Times: "Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida clearly stated in a new interview that Donald J. Trump lost the 2020 election, diverging from the orthodoxy of most Republican voters as the former president's struggling G.O.P. rivals test out new lines of attack against him. 'Of course he lost,' Mr. DeSantis said in an interview with NBC News published on Monday. 'Joe Biden's the president.'... For years, [DeSantis] dodged direct answers to questions about whether he believed the contest was stolen, and during the 2022 midterms, he campaigned for election deniers." The NBC News story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ And then there was this bit of crap from the interview. Fortunately, Dasha Burns (no relation) was having none of it and fact-checked DeSantolini right there on the national teevee:

     ~~~ Marie: You know, Ron just looks like a nine-year-old brat telling a lie. I suppose he thinks his animated high voice and wide eyes make him seem sincere. They're more like a tell. ~~~

DeSantis Uses His Young Children in Attacks on Rivals. Hannah Knowles of the Washington Post: "The Florida governor is prominently featuring his three kids in his 2024 campaign and doing so in an unusually political way, observers said -- not just regaling voters with parenting stories but also weaving them into sharp attacks on his frequent targets of criticism and referencing them as he taps into conservative angst about what kids learn about race, gender and sexual orientation in the classroom and beyond.... 'You're not going to have to worry about them [his children] bringing cocaine into the White House,' DeSantis quipped to several dozen voters in [an Iowa] barn, taking a shot at President Biden's adult son, Hunter Biden, who has struggled with drug addiction. (Cocaine found last month in the White House has not been linked to Biden.)... It's more common for kids to feature in a biographical ad, said Travis Ridout, who tracks political advertising.... 'Usually when a candidate has small children, they use them very selectively,' he said."


MEANWHILE, Joe Biden Keeps Doing Good Stuff. Zolan Kanno-Youngs & Lisa Friedman
of the New York Times: "President Biden will designate nearly a million acres of land near the Grand Canyon as a new national monument on Tuesday to protect the area from uranium mining, administration officials confirmed on Monday.... During his first stop of a three-state tour, Mr. Biden will announce that he is creating a national monument -- the fifth such designation of his presidency -- in an area sacred to Native American tribes, administration officials told reporters on Monday.... Native tribes and environmental groups have long lobbied for the government to permanently protect the area around the Grand Canyon from uranium mining, which they say would damage the Colorado River watershed as well as areas with great cultural meaning for Native Americans." A Politico story is here.

Minnesota. Anna Betts of the New York Times: "A judge in Minneapolis has sentenced Tou Thao, a former police officer who held back bystanders as other officers restrained George Floyd, to four years and nine months in state prison. In May, Mr. Thao was found guilty of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter in Mr. Floyd's killing. This is the final sentencing in the killing of Mr. Floyd." CNN's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

New York. A Conspiracy of Cuomos. Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Made up almost entirely of women inspired by [then-Gov. Andrew] Cuomo's handling of the Covid pandemic, We Decide New York rapidly joined forces in spring 2021 to defend an increasingly isolated governor as traditional allies abandoned him [over sexual harassment claims]. The group swarmed his critics on social media, sold Cuomo swag and pushed for due process. But four of the group's current leaders said in interviews that even as their work appeared organic to the outside world, [Mr. Cuomo's sister Madeline] Cuomo, 58, began privately exerting control. Starting just weeks after the group was formed, she steered its volunteer activists -- many in their 50s, 60s and 70s -- to prop up her brother and hound his accusers ever more aggressively. It is unclear how much Mr. Cuomo knew about his sister's efforts.... But in the messages reviewed by The Times..., Ms. Cuomo repeatedly stated that she was keeping her brother updated and acting at his direction.... Ms. Cuomo, in a statement on Monday..., insisted that her brother played no role.... Chris Cuomo, the youngest sibling, lost his job as an anchor at CNN after the extent of his involvement in the governor’s affairs became public.”

Ohio. Another GOP Attack on Women. Michael Wines of the New York Times: "For more than a century, Ohio voters have been able to amend the State Constitution with a simple majority vote. That could end on Tuesday, because the state's Republican-controlled Legislature has called for a special election that would raise the bar for amendments from a simple majority to 60 percent of the vote. The reason is no secret. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, voters across the country, in multiple elections, have approved ballot measures protecting the right to abortion. A similar election has been scheduled for November in Ohio, and legislators are hoping the higher bar for passing amendments will lead to its defeat. The blowback has been withering. Beyond denunciations from the Legislature's usual liberal critics, there have been bipartisan statements from former governors and other former officeholders....

"[Not-So-Fun Fact:] The 2022 election brought single-party control of the governor's office and legislature to 39 states, the most in at least three decades. And 29 states, 20 of them Republican, have veto-proof supermajorities that control both houses of the state legislatures. That has given legislatures, many of them heavily gerrymandered, extraordinary power to exert influence and to stay in power."

Ukraine. David Stern & Siobhán O'Grady of the Washington Post: "Ukrainian security officials said Monday they had arrested a Ukrainian woman on suspicion of aiding Russia's intelligence services, including involvement in an assassination attempt on President Volodymyr Zelensky last month.... [A] government official said Ukrainian security services prevented the woman from collecting information about Zelensky's visit [to the Mykolaiv region] and foiled the assassination plot."

Reader Comments (10)

Mentally and morally comatose Donald J. (for jagoff) Trump blames “wokeness” AND Joe Biden for the recent loss by the US Women’s Soccer Team in the World Cup.

Gee, was Joe Biden out there on the field? Musta missed that.

This is just more of the same idiocy by the Prime Idiot. Biden is to blame for everything. Also “wokeness”, whatever that means.

Funny, the US lost to Sweden. Is there a more “woke” country than Sweden? Facts, as they always do, stab the Fat Fascist in the back. Oh, he also goes on a rant about Megan Rapinoe for “losing” the match.

It’s actually pretty amazing that Rapinoe is still playing at such a high level at 38 years of age. As for being a “loser”, she was the “Winner of the Ballon d'Or Féminin and named The Best FIFA Women's Player in 2019,[3][4] Rapinoe won gold with the national team at the 2012 London Summer Olympics, 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup, and 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup”, per Wikipedia.

And she didn’t need help from Russia or a weasely FBI director to win all those gold medals, unlike a certain actual loser.

August 8, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

By the by, that link generator is great!

August 8, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Thanks for putting on Lawrence–--watching it again as I did last night makes my head hurt ––-the "law is an ass" as someone once said, and that may be but I say trying to understand the ways and means of it is more like a complicated puzzle that one discovers has missing pieces.

Am also glad the Ohio story has been put on ––I was about to do the same. As Rachel said last night when covering it–––"Keep your eye on many state's sneaky maneuvers in the dead of night or in this case, August, when the voting public as on vacation.

August 8, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterP.D.Pepe

Judge Loose Cannon's incoherent, untethered rulings are simply bizarre.

She'd give a bad name to Federalism, if it did not already have one.

August 8, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

The Dear Leader wants a new judge (can Loose Cannon be the “judge” for all his trials? Pleeeaaase?) and a new venue: West Virginia. Cuz diversity. And all you whiny lib’rul A-holes who say 92.8% white isn’t diverse, shut up, shut up, shut up! as Loofah Boy O’Reilly used to say.

You want diverse?

How ‘bout this…

You got yer white Christian nationalists, white Nazi Christian nationalists, yer reg’lar gun nuts, yer really crazy gun nuts, yer white Evangelicals, yer Trumpbots, yer mountain men (wimins don’t count), yer shit kickers, yer Fox stay at homes, yer average bigots, yer crazy bigots, you got yer ‘lection deniers, climate change deniers, democracy deniers, LGBTQ deniers, LGBTQ haters, yer survivalist militia groups, yer guv’mint overthrow militia groups, yer book burning school board ladies, yer Shoot Biden Gun Clubs (just funnin’), yer paleocons, sadist cons, pickpocket cons, and con cons, and don’t forget them Deliverance boys out in the backwoods.

Who says we ain’t diverse?

C’mon down, Dear Leader, you’ll get just the kind of Justice yer lookin’ fer.

August 8, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

@Akhilleus: Thank you for accurately describing the ethnic diversity of West Virginia, where Trump thinks the trial for the latest charges against him should be held. You got me to wondering how racially diverse Washington D.C. is, because Trump is so worried a D.C. jury would be unfa-a-a-ir to him. I didn't find one central site that gave an easy answer, but it turns out D.C. is way more diverse than Trump imagines: according to the 2020 Census (so ably administered by Trump & Wilbur Ross), "The city’s Black residents accounted for 40.9% of the city’s population in 2020, only barely leading white residents at 38%." It's true that there may have been an undercount of Blacks & Hispanics because Trump.

There are quite a few sites that break down the demographics, but they're in chart form, or use numbers rather than percentages or are outdated, and I'm too lazy to figure out who-all makes up the residents who aren't Black or White.

I suppose another Trump worry is that a number of the jury of his peers will be diabolical members of the "deep state." If that's his concern, he has only himself to blame for promoting a conspiracy theory against government workers. As ye sow....

August 8, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterMarie Burns

From July, 2015:

Listened to the whole Trump/Katy Tur/ interview last night. There is nothing that the Donald couldn't solve––he's the best, the brightest, and the only one who can save this country from itself. People love him., especially all those undocumented immigrants, many who are working on his new building but who, in Donald's eyes do not exist. He's still worked up about China who, he says, are out to destroy us, yet the Donald's ties and other garments are MADE IN CHINA. He repeats himself––his vocabulary suffers from a lack of language acumen, hence, he presents as the bully in the schoolyard. But, not to worry, he knows exactly how to deal with foreign leaders––Putin would be under his thumb––-he'd have him eating out of his hand. He's confident he'd make a great President!

One wishes this was presented on stage like a vaudeville act where the audience could throw rotten tomatoes and that large theatrical hook would capture him at the end and drag him off stage. Thunderous applause!!! would follow.

August 8, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterP.D.Pepe

PD,

I was thinking what might be useful would be a voiceover track, like a director’s track that can be accessed in many DVDs on which the director and maybe an actor or technical person, cinematographer, eg, comment on the action. “In this scene, we had to use a dummy thrown off the roof because Denzel didn’t think it was a great idea to be tossed off a twelve story building into a burning oil barge…”

So…”Here we have Trump making shit up again…oh..and there’s the seventh gigantic lie in 65 seconds…”

I’ll volunteer.

August 8, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Pssst…

Just a word to all RCers, reg’lars, ‘ occasionalls, and tutti, )as classical composers might put it)…

Marie has agreed to continue this oasis of sanity on the condition that we all help out mit der linkensteins. Ja?

Soooo…she has provided a very useful, and amazingly wicked EZ to use link creator thingie, in hopes (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) that we all will pick up the slack so she can concentrate on kicking the crap out of the morons constructing her domicile (why is the cellar upstairs?!?).

So here’s the thing. You don’t have to add much commentary type stuff if you don’t want to. Just check out what’s going on, do the one linky-dinky, two linky-dinky, (apologies to Lily Tomlin) and say “Hey kids, here’s something cool-stupid-outrageous-monstrous-weird-coked up-abusive-eight balled-Jiminy Cricketed-or otherwise useful to know thing”, add the link, and yer done. And we’re all the better for it.

If you’d like to include a mini, maxi, or apoplexy rant (which I never do…nevah…) go right ahead. It was so neat to hear from people who don’t normally post. Don’t keep those finely tuned, filigreed thoughts to yourselves. Let ‘er rip.

Tanks.

August 8, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

DeSantolini campaign martini:

Shaken, not stirred.

Or should that be forsaken, not stirring.

Release the Kraken, not fur?

Blackened, not slurred. Oops…sorry…plenty of slurs.

Never mind.

August 8, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus
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