;)
The Conversation -- December 8, 2023
Texas. Ashley Killough & Ed Lavandera of CNN: "Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has petitioned the Texas Supreme Court to intervene in the case of a pregnant woman who was granted permission by a lower court judge on Thursday to obtain an emergency abortion. A Texas judge ruled Kate Cox, who sued the state seeking a court-ordered abortion, can legally terminate her pregnancy." MB: Earlier today, D in MD & others came up with some ideas about how to deal with Paxton. We'll have to up the ante now.
Alan Blinder & Anemona Hartocolis of the New York Times: "Harvard's president apologized for her testimony before Congress about how she responded to antisemitism on campus -- another sign that the controversy over her remarks and similar comments by the presidents of M.I.T. and the University of Pennsylvania was not going away. 'I am sorry,' Claudine Gay, Harvard's president, said in an interview that the campus newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, published on Friday. 'Words matter.'" CNN's report is here.
Dareh Gregorian of NBC News: “A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. on Friday upheld but narrowed the gag order that had been imposed on ... Donald Trump in his D.C. election interference case prohibiting him from making critical comments about potential witnesses and prosecutors." The story has been substantially updated and extended: "The new version of the gag order bars Trump and his lawyers from making 'public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding,' but also allows him some leeway if a high-profile witness makes disparaging comments about him.... 'Mr. Trump is a former President and current candidate for the presidency, and there is a strong public interest in what he has to say. But Mr. Trump is also an indicted criminal defendant, and he must stand trial in a courtroom under the same procedures that govern all other criminal defendants. That is what the rule of law means,' [the order reads]." MB: And of course Trump responded by lying about the content of the order. It's what he does. ~~~
~~~ Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "A federal appeals court narrowed an order limiting what ... Donald Trump can say about people involved in the criminal case alleging that he tried to subvert the 2020 election results, saying he cannot talk about witnesses' involvement or single out other individuals in ways likely to interfere with the case.... The ruling upholds a ban on Trump speaking about the participation of witnesses in the investigation and likely testimony. But it removes from the gag order Special Counsel Jack Smith. Commentary on other lawyers involved in the case, as well as court staff and both groups' family members, are barred 'if those statements are made with the intent to materially interfere with, or to cause others to materially interfere with, counsel's or staff's work in this criminal case, or with the knowledge that such interference is highly likely to result.'" The story has been updated.
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post -- after excoriating Speaker Mike Johnson with some obscure details you may not know -- gets to "the Three Stooges of the House's Biden investigations... Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan is Moe, thundering and blundering in his repeated failures to prove Biden's 'weaponization' of the government. Jason Smith, the in-over-his-head chairman of Ways and Means, is Larry, brainlessly reciting whatever script is in front of him. And Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer is Curly, perpetually getting a pie in the face when the 'evidence' he produces is immediately debunked." Latest smoking gun? Joe Biden helped his son buy a pickup truck, and Hunter repaid his dad in shockingly incriminating "monthly payments." MB: Totally impeachable.
CNN Announces Top Secret GOP Debate Plans! Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "With great fanfare this week, CNN announced it would host the network's first debate of the 2024 presidential campaign, gathering the Republican candidates for a marquee event on Jan. 21 at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire.... Saint Anselm had no idea what CNN was talking about. 'We were surprised to be included on a press release by a network about a debate which we had not planned or booked,' Neil Levesque ... of Saint Anselm said in a statement on Friday. The chairman of New Hampshire's Republican Party, Chris Ager..., said in an interview. 'I'm still scratching my head. And I still haven't been contacted by CNN at all.' There is, however, a competing debate scheduled to take place three days earlier, hosted by ... ABC News. The ABC debate, on Jan. 18, is set to be held at Saint Anselm, and it has the approval of both the college and state Republican officials."
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Glenn Thrush & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "A federal grand jury charged Hunter Biden on Thursday with a scheme to evade federal taxes on millions in income from foreign businesses, the second indictment against him this year and a major new development in a case Republicans have made the cornerstone of a possible impeachment of President Biden. Mr. Biden, the president's son, faces three counts each of evasion of a tax assessment, failure to file and pay taxes, and filing a false or fraudulent tax return, according to the 56-page indictment -- a withering play-by-play of personal indulgence with potentially enormous political costs for his father.... Many of the facts laid out in Thursday's indictment were already widely known, and the litany of Mr. Biden's actions tracks closely with a narrative he drafted with prosecutors in the plea deal that collapsed over the summer under the withering scrutiny of a federal judge in Delaware." CNN's report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Not mentioned in the NYT report: Hunter has paid the taxes owed. But from the CNN report: Hunter Biden's attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement, "First, U.S. Attorney Weiss bowed to Republican pressure to file unprecedented and unconstitutional gun charges to renege on a non-prosecution resolution. Now, after five years of investigating with no new evidence -- and two years after Hunter paid his taxes in full -- the U.S. Attorney has piled on nine new charges when he had agreed just months ago to resolve this matter with a pair of misdemeanors." Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance essentially agreed with Lowell: she said on MSNBC that it was highly unusual for a prosecutor to waste time prosecuting a tax evader who has made restitution.
Kayla Guo of the New York Times: "The Republican-led House on Thursday formally rebuked Representative Jamaal Bowman, Democrat of New York, for setting off a false fire alarm in a House office building in September, the latest in a series of partisan reprisals using a once-rare form of congressional punishment. The censure resolution, which was introduced by Representative Lisa McClain, Republican of Michigan, passed 214 to 191, largely along party lines, with five members voting 'present.' After the vote, Mr. Bowman stood in the well of the House floor to be officially reprimanded. Democrats lined up in support behind him, with Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts each placing a hand on his shoulders." The AP report is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Washington Post: "Donald Trump filed notice on Thursday saying he will appeal [Judge Tanya Chutkan's] ruling that he was not immune from being charged with federal crimes for his efforts to undo the outcome of the 2020 election, either by his former role as president or the Constitution's rules for impeachment. The notice is a minor procedural step. But it sets in motion one of the most potentially consequential parts of Trump's legal saga as the first former president to be charged with crimes. How and when the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the Supreme Court handle his appeal could have a huge impact on whether Trump -- who is again running for president -- goes on trial before voters go to the polls in 2024, or ever.... Since the Supreme Court has never grappled with some of the legal questions at issue in Trump's claims -- particularly whether a president is immune from indictment and criminal prosecution for actions undertaken while in office, even after he has left office -- many lawyers say they believe the courts will have to wrestle with those aspects of the Trump case. The key issue, according to legal experts, is how long will the higher courts consider that question." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: That would be the ruling where Judge Chutkan cited George Washington warning against "cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men" like Trump. See Akhilleus' commentary in yesterday's thread. ~~~
~~~ Rebecca Beitsch of the Hill: "Former President Trump filed a motion seeking to halt activity in his election interference case after filing a notice of appeal Thursday seeking to override a decision from a federal judge who denied his motion to toss the case. The back-to-back motions ask Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the Jan. 6 case, to pause 'all district court proceedings in this case' as a higher court considers Trump's appeal of the motion to toss the entire case." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "The request to freeze the case as the appeal goes forward was part of a long-planned strategy to delay any trial on the election interference charges from starting on schedule, in March.... While Mr. Trump has sought to slow down all of his cases, he has pursued the strategy most vigorously in the election case in Federal District Court in Washington, if only because it is likely to be the first to go before a jury." ~~~
~~~ Marie: As Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out Thursday night, the judicial system is simply not ready to deal with Donald Trump. He also noted that when they wanted to, judges could get off their asses: the Supremes decided Bush v. Gore -- which determined who would be the next POTUS -- within a day.
Carl Gibson of Alternet: "... Donald Trump was dealt a major blow by the New York Court of Appeals on Thursday in the midst of his ongoing civil fraud trial.... On Thursday afternoon, MSNBC legal reporter Lisa Rubin tweeted that appellate judges denied Trump's request to stay (or halt) Judge Arthur Engoron's ruling in favor of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who won a summary judgment in September in her initial claim that Trump committed 'pervasive, widespread fraud in financial statements.'" MB: As far as I can tell, this story has not been reported elsewhere, which seems odd.
See Ken Flip. Zachary Cohen & Marshall Cohen of CNN: "The pro-Trump lawyer who helped devise the 2020 fake electors plot and already pleaded guilty to the conspiracy in Georgia is now cooperating with Michigan and Wisconsin state investigators in hopes of avoiding more criminal charges, multiple sources told CNN. In a dramatic turnaround from 2020 -- when the lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro, was at the center of efforts by ... Donald Trump to subvert the Electoral College and overturn his defeat -- Chesebro is now helping investigators in at least four states who are looking into the scheme."
Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "A former California police chief who called for the execution of Donald Trump's political enemies, joined the U.S. Capitol attack and then spread conspiracy theories about Jan. 6 was sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison Thursday. Alan Hostetter was found guilty in July on charges of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding, entering or remaining on restricted grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon and disorderly or disruptive conduct on restricted grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon. He represented himself at a bench trial before U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee, who sentenced him to 135 months Thursday.... Like GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and many far-right members of Congress, Hostetter has spread conspiracy theories about the attack on Jan. 6, 2021. Ramaswamy said, without evidence, during the Republican debate Wednesday night that Jan. 6 'now does look like it was an inside job,' while Hostetter said during his trial that he believed 'that the entire thing was staged.' Hostetter, who was found to have carried a hatchet during the attack, brought up Ramaswamy's debate comments at his sentencing hearing Thursday."
Presidential Race 2024
Steve M. is not all that exercised about Donald the Dictator. He acknowledges that he might be wrong and that Trump will place in key posts a coterie of "awfully Khmer Rouge-y [lackies], and they don't seem to suffer from Trump's attention deficit disorder." But, as for Trump himself, Steve figures, "... he's much more likely to spend a typical Tuesday trying to punish CNN for something it broadcast on Monday night than avenging some slight he experienced in 2019."
David French of the New York Times: "To understand why [Christian fundamentalists] support Trump, it's important to understand fundamentalism more broadly and to understand how Trump fits so neatly within the culture of fundamentalist Christianity.... The true distinction between fundamentalism and mainstream beliefs isn't what fundamentalists believe but how fundamentalists believe.he true distinction between fundamentalism and mainstream beliefs isn't what fundamentalists believe but how fundamentalists believe.... Certainty is the key building block.... To fundamentalists, their opponents aren't just wrong but evil.... Certainty breeds ferocity. Indeed, ferocity -- not piety -- is a principal trait of every truly fundamentalist movement I've ever encountered.... Solidarity ... [is] the sense of shared purpose and community that makes any form of fundamentalism truly potent.... Why do so many fundamentalists love Trump? Because in his certainty, ferocity and demands of loyalty, he's a far more culturally familiar figure than a person of restraint and rectitude such as ... Mitt Romney...."
David Gilbert of Wired: "For months, GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has been dog-whistling to supporters of extremist far-right ideologies and wild conspiracy theories like QAnon. On Wednesday night, at the fourth Republican presidential debate, Ramaswamy went full tilt: After blasting the three other debaters for turning on ... Donald Trump, Ramaswamy argued, without evidence, that the January 6 Capitol riot was an inside job, the 2020 presidential election was stolen, the government had lied about 9/11, and the 'deep state' was responsible for all these things. Then, Ramaswamy claimed that the 'great replacement theory is not some grand right-wing conspiracy theory, but a basic statement of the Democratic Party's platform.' Immediately, white supremacists online celebrated the reference to the racist and antisemitic conspiracy." This page is firewalled, but it takes a couple of minutes to disappear. So speed-read.
Marie: Yesterday, I mentioned in a comment that university presidents were expected to know how to handle & persuade donors and that three major US university presidents failed to appreciate their audience during Congressional testimony about antisemitism on campus. So then there was this: ~~~
~~~ Miranda Nazzarro of the Hill: "The University of Pennsylvania (Penn) lost a major $100 million donation on Thursday amid the fallout from Penn President Liz Magill's comments at a recent House hearing on campus antisemitism. In a letter to Penn Senior Vice President Wendy White, lawyers for Ross Stevens, the founder and CEO of Stone Ridge Asset Management, said Stevens would be withdrawing his gift, now valued at about $100 million, that was expected to fund the Stevens Center for Innovation in Finance.... 'Mr. Stevens and Stone Ridge are appalled by the University's stance on antisemitism on campus,' Stevens's lawyers wrote. 'Its permissive approach to hate speech calling for violence against Jews and laissez faire attitude toward harassment and discrimination against Jewish students would violate any policies or rules that prohibit harassment and discrimination based on religion, including those of Stone Ridge.'" ~~~
~~~ Matt Egan of CNN: "The walls appear to be caving in on the University of Pennsylvania's president, Liz Magill, who faces scathing criticism over her performance at a House hearing earlier this week. Prominent donor Ross Stevens threatened to claw back a $100 million donation. The university's board of trustees held an emergency meeting Thursday. And the powerful Wharton Board of Advisors that leads the university's prominent business school called for a leadership change at the university. Magill remained president after the hastily arranged board gathering concluded Thursday, a source familiar with the proceedings told CNN. But Magill faced a rebellion from Wharton's Board of Advisors, and a growing coalition of donors, politicians and business leaders who denounced her testimony.... The Wharton Board of Advisors, comprised of a who's who group of business leaders..., specifically cite[d] Magill's disastrous testimony [in a letter to her]. The strong criticism comes from an influential group of Penn alumni. Its members include billionaire NFL owner Josh Harris, former Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky, Related Companies CEO Jeff Blau, Blackstone exec David Blitzer and BET CEO Scott Mills...." ~~~
~~~ Washington Post: "The president of the University of Pennsylvania released a video walking back some of her testimony at a congressional hearing this week about antisemitism on campus after calls for her resignation followed her remarks. In the video late Wednesday, Liz Magill said she should have responded differently to questions Tuesday from Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) about whether calls for the genocide of Jewish people would violate university policies. 'I was not focused on, but I should have been, the irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate,' Magill said Wednesday. 'It's evil, plain and simple.'" ~~~
~~~ Alan Blinder, et al., of the New York Times: "Harvard, M.I.T. and the University of Pennsylvania on Thursday faced threats from donors, demands that their presidents resign and a congressional investigation as repercussions mounted over the universities' responses to antisemitism on campus.... Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, said all three presidents should leave their posts. 'You cannot call for the genocide of Jews, the genocide of any group of people, and not say that that's harassment,' she told Fox News. And Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, denounced the university leaders at the National Menorah Lighting in Washington." The Congressional "investigation" will be led by Virginia Foxx (R-NC), who continues her quest to be named Dumbest Member of Congress (even though she holds advanced college degrees). ~~~
~~~ Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "... while it might seem hard to believe that there's any context that could make the responses of the college presidents OK, watching the whole hearing at least makes them more understandable. In the questioning before the now infamous exchange, you can see the trap [Rep. Elise] Stefanik [R-N.Y.] laid.... When Stefanik again started questioning [the university presidents during a second round] about whether it was permissible for students to call for the genocide of the Jews, she was referring, it seemed clear, to common pro-Palestinian rhetoric and trying to get the university presidents to commit to disciplining those who use it. Doing so would be an egregious violation of free speech.... Finding themselves in a no-win situation, the university presidents resorted to bloodless bureaucratic contortions, and walked into a public relations disaster.... The anguished and furious reaction of many Jews to [a] viral clip [of Stefanik's questioning] is understandable.... But it seems to me that it is precisely when people are legitimately scared and outraged that we're most vulnerable to a repressive response leading to harmful unintended consequences." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Goldberg's column is in line with an item Paul Campos posted Wednesday in LG&$ and which RAS linked in yesterday's Comments.
Nuns v. Guns. Washington Post: "A coalition of Catholic nuns has filed a lawsuit against gunmaker Smith & Wesson, calling for the company to stop producing AR-style rifles, which the women claim are 'the weapon of choice for numerous mass murderers. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in a Nevada district court, alleges that Smith & Wesson has repeatedly ignored 'red flags' and failed to respond appropriately to mass shootings in the United States. The lawsuit references some of the deadliest mass killings in recent U.S. history.... Jeffrey Norton, an attorney representing the nuns, said in a statement to The Washington Post that his clients are 'activist investors,' meaning they buy stock in a company to pursue a certain goal."
You may wonder about WashPo stories linked above, "What? No byline?" There's a reason for that: ~~~
~~~ Washington Post: "More than 750 Washington Post staffers said they had walked off the job Thursday, refusing to work for 24 hours in the biggest labor protest at the company in nearly half a century. Workers marched in a picket line outside The Post's offices in downtown Washington, waving 'Strike' signs, ringing bells, blowing horns, beating drums and chanting 'Hey, hey, ho, ho, our salary floor is much too low!' But even as strikers asked readers to abstain from the newspaper and its website for the day in solidarity, editors and other managers carried on with many of the tasks that go into producing a daily news report, from writing articles to operating printing presses." The Hill's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
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North Dakota. Kate Santaliz, et al., of NBC News: "North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer's son has been charged with manslaughter after his alleged involvement in a police chase that resulted in the death of a sheriff's deputy Wednesday night. Ian Cramer, 42, faces manslaughter, fleeing an officer and other charges in connection with the incident in Mercer County, North Dakota, according to court records.... A police pursuit of Cramer ended in a crash that killed sheriff deputy Paul Martin, who had taken cover behind his vehicle after laying a tire deflation device in the road, court documents said. In a statement Wednesday, the Republican senator said that his son suffers from 'serious mental disorders which manifest in severe paranoia and hallucinations,' and that his family is grieving the death of the sheriff's deputy." ~~~
~~~ Marie: This is a family tragedy. Somehow I don't think Republicans will treat Ian's problems -- which caused loss of life -- with the same umbrage they have taken in Hunter Biden's myriad mistakes.
Texas. David Goodman of the New York Times: "A Texas judge on Thursday granted a request to allow an abortion despite the state's strict bans, in the case of a pregnant woman whose fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition. The judge, Maya Guerra Gamble of Travis County district court, sided with the woman, Kate Cox, who is 20 weeks pregnant, issuing a temporary restraining order to permit her doctor to perform an abortion without facing civil or criminal penalties under the state law. The judge, a Democrat, agreed with Ms. Cox's lawyers that the procedure was necessary to protect Ms. Cox from a potentially dangerous birth, and to preserve her future fertility. The ruling applied only to Ms. Cox, whose case was believed to be among the first attempts to seek a court-approved abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year and allowed states to enact their own abortion restrictions." An NBC News story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Update. Brendan Pierson of Reuters: "Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday threatened to prosecute any doctors involved in providing an emergency abortion to a woman, hours after she won a court order allowing her to obtain one for medical necessity. Paxton said in a letter that the order by District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Austin did not shield doctors from prosecution under all of Texas's abortion laws, and that the woman, Kate Cox, had not shown she qualified for the medical exception to the state's abortion ban." MB: In a free country, no patient in dire need of medical care would have to go through any of this. If you are wondering what it would be like to live in a totalitarian state, you probably are not a young woman living in a red state.
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Israel/Palestine
The Washington Post's live updates of developments Friday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "Humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza are 'in tatters,' the U.N.'s emergency aid chief Martin Griffiths said, saying the pace of Israel's military assault in southern Gaza left 'no place safe for civilians.' However, he expressed hope that the Kerem Shalom crossing between southern Gaza and Israel -- which had been a key route for aid entering Gaza before the war -- would reopen soon.... U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israel needed to do more to reduce civilian casualties, describing 'a gap' between 'the intent to protect civilians, and the actual results that we're seeing on the ground.' The United Arab Emirates is seeking a U.N. Security Council vote Friday on a draft resolution that demands an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza. It comes after U.N. Secretary General António Guterres invoked a rarely used power, Article 99, this week, to warn the Security Council of an impending 'humanitarian catastrophe' in Gaza." ~~~
~~~ The New York Times' live updates for Friday are here. CNN's live updates are here.
Matthew Bigg & Hwaida Saad of the New York Times: "An Oct. 13 strike that killed a videographer for the Reuters news agency and injured six others in southern Lebanon was carried out by the Israeli military and appeared to be a deliberate attack, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday. The watchdog group said that evidence it had reviewed -- including dozens of videos of the incident, photographs and satellite images, and interviews with witnesses and military experts -- showed that the journalists were not near areas where fighting was taking place and that there was no military objective near their position. 'The attack on the journalists'; position directly targeted them,' the report said, labeling the attack a war crime."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Ryan O'Neal, who became an instant movie star in the hit film 'Love Story,' the highest-grossing movie of 1970, but who was later known as much for his personal life and health problems as for his acting in his later career, died on Friday. He was 82."
CNBC: "Job creation showed little signs of a let-up in November, as payrolls grew even faster than expected and the unemployment rate fell despite signs of a weakening economy. Nonfarm payrolls rose by a seasonally adjusted 199,000 for the month, slightly better than the 190,000 Dow Jones estimate and ahead of the unrevised October gain of 150,000, the Labor Department reported Friday. The unemployment rate declined to 3.7%, compared to the forecast for 3.9%, as the labor force participation rate edged higher to 62.8%. A more encompassing unemployment rate that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time positions for economic reasons fell to 7%, a decline of 0.2 percentage point."
AP: "The man suspected of fatally shooting three people and wounding another at a Las Vegas university Wednesday was a professor who unsuccessfully sought a job at the school, a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press.... The suspect previously worked at East Carolina University in North Carolina, according to the official...."
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Reader Comments (26)
Open letter to Texas AG Paxton:
Hi Ted,
It occurs to me that you might have more empathy for a woman you would force to carry an unviable fetus at risk to her own health, if you could better identify with her situation. So I urge you to have a couple of them shove a dead rabbit up your ass, and leave it there til it rots. I think this might do wonders for your attitude.
And let me know when you've done that. I'll have some additional suggestions for you.
@D in MD: Now, why didn't I think of that? As they demonstrate again and again, Republicans so lack empathy that they never support any humanitarian cause unless they've personally experienced the need for it. So if you want them to support, say, cancer research, you have to wait till they get cancer. They're radically opposed to anything approaching LGBTQ+ rights until they find out their son is gay. And so forth.
So the rabbits up the ass is a worthwhile experiment. If it doesn't work, write back with your alternative suggestions.
Bowling ball up the ass…with spikes.
House PoT members knocked each other over racing to censure Jamaal Bowman for pulling a fire alarm. It took them months to do the same to a serial liar and criminal, Kitara Santos, and when presented with a chance to condemn the actions of a sneering fascist who tried to pull an insurrection, cheered him on.
Moral towers of jello.
@Akhilleus: Bowman was stupid to pull that alarm and as a former teacher who no doubt worked in public buildings with fire alarms, I'd say he knew what he was doing, his protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.
But how the hell can you compare a single momentary mistake (for which Bowman apologized) to a purposeful program of repeatedly defrauding and cheating donors, random people, local voters and the general public? Whether or not Kitara there is eventually convicted of criminal fraud is beside the point; the evidence that he is a serial fraudster is overwhelming.
You can't give Paxton a rabbit impaction (!) up the colon because, as he shows often, he has no bottom.
Seriously, that guy is not human.
Faux is still faux
Faux “News” has decades of experience in the up is down form of (* cough-cough*) journalism.
They’re tireless when it comes to finding new ways to lie about, well, everything.
So here they are promoting an anti-vaxxer activist and libertarian who votes Republican, as a “Democrat voter”. Just another example of their goal of pretending to be fair and balanced.
This woman, a former school teacher who refused to get vaccinated at the height of the Covid pandemic, says “Democratic candidates are an automatic ‘no’ for me.” She goes on to curry favor with her Faux pals by averring that “Democrats like me are fleeing from the Democratic Party.”
I guess if I were a self-promoting liar who voted Republican but wanted to shit on Democrats, I might say something similar. And for my money, people like that can flee, flee, flee. I’ll even chip in to buy her a bus ticket.
The real giveaway? She describes herself as a “Democrat voter”.
Sorry. No real Democrat employs that right-wing slur. I am a member of the Democratic Party. There is no such thing as the Democrat Party, except in the fetid swamp brains of traitor propagandists, Faux “journalists”, and phony baloney bullshit artists like this lady.
“Rabbit impaction”. Wow. Maybe Sean Hannity will do an hour on this new form of attack against “conservatives”. I’d be more tempted to describe the medical diagnosis as rabid impaction. And no amount of rabidectomies will succeed in its removal. Hippity hop, wingers.
MB and AK,
I'd have suggested a live porcupine, but I disapprove of cruelty to animals. Sentient ones anyway, which excludes many Republicans.
NY Times reports that US employers added almost 200,000 jobs in November.
Another sign of a strong economy.
Just wondering how long it will be before some numbnuts on the same paper’s op-Ed page will find a way to “prove” that this report indicates Biden’s continuing struggle against a weak economy, all of his own doing.
D,
Okay, so not a live porcupine, but maybe two or three could give up a few of their own free quills, for insertion (impaction?) purposes, of course. A perfect match for Republicans’ freak wills.
Child sex trafficker (alleged, my ass) Matt Gaetz, always a class act, makes sure to potshot MyKevin on his way out the door.
Now I’m certainly no fan of the craven, cowardly, codswallop peddling former Squeaker, but the guy is gone, you did your worst, so let it be.
But no, self-promoting anal cysts like Gaetz, and like Ken Paxton (as Patrick points out) have no bottom. There is no bottom rung, they just keep going down.
But hey, says child molesting Matt, McCarthy is a jerk but I—me, me, me, me, me—am wonderful! He’s touting some kind of video woo-woo that presents him as the savior of the nation for ousting McCarthy and ushering in new squeaker, Savonarola Johnson.
But don’t look now (why do people say that when what they really mean is “Holy shit! Willya look at this?”) but Gaetzy’s triumphalism may be short lived.
“CNN reports that the House Ethics Committee—currently controlled by Republicans—has ‘reached out to at least one witness as part of its investigation into GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz to schedule an interview in the coming weeks, the latest sign that the once dormant probe remains open.’ That official request, according to CNN, went out one day before the House voted to boot George Santos from Congress, following the release of an extremely damning report from the committee that is now, it seems, turning its attention to Gaetz.”
Well, isn’t that special?
I want on of these.
For those who say Congress doesn't do anything, Rick Scott is working hard to protect us all from commie garlic.
"GOP Sen. sounds alarm about national security risk posed by garlic from 'communist China'
"I write to request such an investigation into imports from Communist China of all grades of garlic, whole or separated into constituent cloves, whether or not peeled, chilled, fresh, frozen, provisionally preserved or packed in water or other natural substance, and the threat they pose to U.S. national security," Scott wrote in his letter."
@D in MD: I want one too. That brings me back to the question
I've had for years but never got an answer: 'Did Jesus have a belly
button?'
@Forrest Morris: These seemingly vexing theological questions are actually easy to answer: for instance, if you look up "famous paintings of Jesus on the cross," you will see that they painters mostly feature Jesus's belly button. Also, it turns out he looked a lot like an Italian or maybe a German guy. But definitely one with a belly button.
I'm not sure it is a bad thing that Penn might be training fewer asset managers without the Stevens Center for Innovation in Finance.
Stefanik and the GQP are trying to get an early start on their repression of free speech so that they can work out all the bugs and get the public used to it or participating with them so when their messiah returns and they can supercharge it at scale.
I believe Steve M is right that Trump is lazy with no attention span, but there will be no guard rails this time. The people around him won't check most of his impulses or threaten to resign in mass. And if someone like Stephen Miller is appointed Attorney General he won't need Trump's sign off to go after the media or critics. Also Trump is easily manipulated by flattery. Those around him have had years now to get to know what will work or not on Trump to get him onboard their plans for undermining or destroying democracy. Lots of collaborators throughout the government would help along most plans they have in a second term.
Jesus (so to speak), I thought that thing was real until I saw it was the Onion.
Wait…so Hunter Biden is accused of not paying income taxes on millions received from foreign countries?
He should have talked to the Trumps. They do that all the time.
Oh, but without all the investigations.
Keep digging, I say. Don't give up.
There has to be a Hunter Biden traffic or jaywalking ticket in there somewhere.
Drill, baby, drill.
The Fat Fascist, among many other promises of chaos and corruption to come, said that on his first day as Dictator, he would drill, drill, drill. A “promise” no doubt (all Trump promises require quotation marks) as a sop to Big Oil and Gas oligarchs who might want to throw a few million semoleons his way, and also, frankly, to own the libs.
But there are other ways of drilling, and other reasons.
I’ve been listening to the Rob Reiner-Soledad O’Brien podcast about the Kennedy assassination. It’s very well done. A lot of the stuff I’ve heard before in various places, but some details I never knew, mostly regarding Oswald’s background and grooming by the CIA. I won’t go into too much detail here other than to point out that when Oswald claimed that he was a patsy and didn’t shoot anyone, he wasn’t making that up. Oswald was carefully developed as a CIA asset, and he ended up being extremely useful for the people who actually did kill Kennedy. I’m only in the middle of the podcast but there are numerous serious contenders for the title, none of whom are named Oswald.
Anyway, so here I am on this kick about the JFK murder, and last night I see there’s a PBS documentary on about how the media responded on November 22, 1963. One of the people interviewed was Bob Schieffer of CBS 60 Minutes fame. He was there, working for a Fort Worth newspaper. He began regaling the interviewer with some of the conspiracy theories being floated around that day, one of which was that Oswald was a right-wing pawn. Schieffer sniggered and said “But of course Oswald wasn’t a right-winger at all, he was a lefty.”
Case closed. At least for old Bob.
Schieffer has long been considered (by some) an eminent journalist. I mean, he’s on 60 Minutes, right? But here he is talking about perhaps the most significant event in American political history, a president gunned down in public (yes, so was Lincoln, but everyone knew who killed him and why; there was no mystery), and rather than try to dig a little deeper, he’s satisfied with giving out the party line.
So now compare this guy with a real journalist. I’m talking about Robert Caro. Caro has never been content with going along with the received wisdom. It’s like Schieffer and Caro are geologists. They’re walking down a road. They see some rocks on the side of the road. Schieffer says “Oh, a farmer told me these fell off a truck. That’s how they got here.”
Caro gets a backhoe and digs up the land 100 yards on each side of the road to get a better idea of what’s going on under the soil. Then he drills for soil and rock samples 1,000 feet down so he can develop a clearer geological picture of the road and those rocks.
Details matter.
When writing about Lyndon Johnson, Caro moved to the Texas hill country to experience that place for himself. He talked to anybody who had even walked past Johnson in a grocery store. He wasn’t content with stories about rocks falling off a truck.
Trying to understand Johnson’s relationship with his father, Caro spent many hours taking to his brother, Sam Houston. He realized soon on that most of what he was being told was fabrication, embellishments, and outright lies. But he kept going back and back.
And here’s what he found. This is Caro, relating what he finally got from Sam Houston Johnson, from a 2019 New Yorker article:
“‘Tell me those wonderful stories again.’
‘I can’t,’ Sam Houston said.
‘Why not?’ I asked.
‘Because they never happened.’
Then, in my memory without a pause from Sam Houston or a question from me, he simply started talking—my notes tell me he began by saying, ‘No one really understood what happened’—and related, incident after incident, anecdotes of Lyndon Johnson’s youth, some of which I had heard before in shorter, incomplete, and softened versions and others that had never been mentioned to me, or, I felt, to anyone else. The shadows lengthened, the room grew darker. The voice went on.
By the time, a long time later, that it stopped, I had a different picture of Lyndon Johnson’s youth—that terrible youth, that character-hardening youth—from the one that I, or history, had had before. And now, when I went back to the men and women who had been involved in the incidents, and, armed with the details Sam Houston had given me, asked again about these incidents, I got different responses than I had gotten before. Yes, that’s what happened, they would say. And often they would say, There’s something else I remember. More details would come. The story at last would be coherent—and closer to the truth.”
That’s how it’s done. Not the “Oh, Oswald was a lefty” way, the way too much journalism is practiced today. Not the “Oooh, Hunter Biden’s laptop” way.
Gotta drill for the details
So lemme get this straight. Hunter Biden gets a loan of a few thousand bucks from his dad, which he repays: IMPEACH!!!
Jared Kushner, grifting off his sinecure with his criminal father-in-law, Donald Trump, gets a gift of billions from a Saudi prince who murders those who piss him off: Good job, Jared. Nothing to see here.
If MBS had given Hunter Biden a $2 cigarette lighter, Jordan, Comey, et al, would be waving this around as proof of corruption and demanding the death penalty.
How much more will that asshole cost the American taxpayer?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2023/12/08/trump-migrants-family-separations-biden/?
Not to mention what must by now be multi-millions in court costs?
An essay....
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/08/us/tyranny-of-the-minority-american-democracy-cec/index.html