;)
The Conversation -- October 11, 2023
Nicholas Fandos & Robert Jimison of the New York Times: :A clutch of Republican House members from New York began pushing on Wednesday to expel ... Representative George Santos, amid mounting federal charges that he defrauded donors and lied about his campaign finances. The group of six New York freshmen announced plans to swiftly introduce an expulsion resolution to try to capitalize on a spate of new charges against Mr. Santos and a vacuum in House Republican leadership.... As the House's most extreme form of punishment, expulsion requires a two-thirds supermajority to pass, a barrier so high that it has only been cleared five times in the institution's history -- making it far from clear if the move was little more than a messaging exercise by Republicans preparing to defend swing seats next year. House Republicans repelled an earlier attempt by Democrats to expel Mr. Santos in May...."
Republicans in Disarray, Ctd. Lisa Mascaro & Kevin Freking of the AP: "Republicans nominated Rep. Steve Scalise on Wednesday to be the next House speaker but struggled to quickly unite their deeply divided majority and elect the conservative in a public floor vote.... In private balloting at the Capitol, House Republicans narrowly pushed aside Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the firebrand Judiciary Committee chairman, in favor of Scalise, the current majority leader.... The House was gaveled into a brief session, then broke indefinitely, with next steps uncertain.... It's an extraordinary moment of political chaos at a time of uncertainty at home and crisis abroad, moving into a second week without a House speaker." ~~~
~~~ The New York Times is liveblogging developments in House Republicans' attempts to choose a candidate for speaker: ~~~
Luke Broadwater @ about 12 noon ET: "House Republicans, deeply divided over who should lead them, gathered in a closed-door meeting on Wednesday morning to try to choose a nominee for speaker. Should they unite around a candidate, a vote could come on the House floor as early as Wednesday afternoon, but that possibility was looking increasingly unlikely."
Broadwater @ about 12:15 pm ET: "Republicans are now voting on whether to select Scalise or Jordan as their nominee for speaker. The winner needs 111 votes."
Catie Edmondson @ about 2:45 pm ET: "It's impossible to overstate how unusual the scene playing out now is. For decades, the status quo was that a House speaker would be easily elected, in one vote, after the party that controlled the House nominated them. Kevin McCarthy's speakership was the first in a century to break that convention. Every speaker since 1923 has been able to clinch the gavel after just one vote."
Robert Jimison @ about 2:55 pm ET: "Not only is the House paralyzed until a new speaker is officially installed but the process of filling other positions in Republican leadership, such as majority leader and majority whip, are also largely on hold until the decision on speaker is finalized."
Broadwater & Annie Karni @ about 3:15 pm ET: "Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana narrowly scraped together enough Republican support [113 to 99] on Wednesday to become his party's choice to lead the House, but deep divisions in the G.O.P. ranks threatened to complicate his election as speaker. Mere minutes after a slim majority of Republicans voted in a closed-door party meeting to select him as the party's candidate, Mr. Scalise's fate was thrown into doubt. Several G.O.P. lawmakers announced they would not back him on the House floor without concessions, complaining of a rushed process to choose a new speaker. Republicans delayed a vote of the full House that had been planned for midafternoon so the party could regroup.... 'I just voted for Jim Jordan for speaker on a private ballot in conference, and I will be voting for Jim Jordan on the House floor,' said Representative Marjorie Taylor Green[e]...."
More fun reads throughout. Marie: Not casting any asparagus on Miss Margie & cohort, but they do not play well with others. It's obvious that over the years many members left their caucus -- where they voted for a speaker's candidate who failed to get the majority of the party's vote -- and went out onto the House floor and voted for a speaker who was not their first choice. IOW, they stuck together as a party so the House could get down to business. ~~~
~~~ NBC News live updates are here.
** David Firestone of the New York Times outlines why Salise & Jordan are both even worse than McCarthy.
Monica Alba, et al., of NBC News: "In a private phone call Tuesday, President Joe Biden urged Israel's prime minister to minimize civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip as Israel sets out to destroy Hamas in reprisal for the deadliest attack the country has suffered in the last 50 years, two Biden administration officials and a former official told NBC News. The Biden administration is coordinating with other countries on a plan that would offer safe passage out of Gaza for civilians who risk getting caught in the crossfire in the densely populated coastal enclave, administration officials said."
Dan Williams, et al., of Reuters, via Yahoo! News: "Israel formed an emergency unity government on Wednesday as it pounded Gaza to root out Hamas and deployed forces north of the densely populated Palestinian enclave, where the militants said they were still fighting after their cross-border assault. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to form a war cabinet with former defence minister and centrist opposition party leader Benny Gantz and focus entirely on the conflict, a joint statement from Gantz's National Unity party said."
Adam Entous, et al., of the New York Times: "The United States has collected multiple pieces of intelligence that show that key Iranian leaders were surprised by the Hamas attack in Israel, information that has fueled U.S. doubts that Iran played a direct role in planning the assault, according to several American officials. These key Iranian officials did not know the attack was coming, according to the intelligence. The United States, Israel and key regional allies have not found evidence that Iran directly helped plan the attack, according to the U.S. officials and another official in the Middle East."
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Republicans in Disarray, Ctd. Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "Republicans toiled on Tuesday to unite around a candidate for speaker but appeared no closer to consensus on the eve of an internal party contest that has highlighted their divisions and deep uncertainty in the House of Representatives. Emerging from an hourslong closed-door candidates' forum on Tuesday evening, several Republicans said they remained deadlocked as several competing factions had become dug in for their candidates. That paved the way for a potentially raucous and drawn-out G.O.P. election on Wednesday morning and suggested that the House might go without a new speaker for days as the party worked through its rifts. Asked what the chances were that the House would select a new speaker by Wednesday as scheduled, Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, said: 'I'd put it at 2 percent.'" The AP's story is here.
Corky Siemaszko of NBC News: "Four of the former Ohio State University wrestlers who have accused Rep. Jim Jordan of failing to protect them from a sexual predator when he was the team's assistant coach in the 1980s and '90s said Tuesday he has no business being the next speaker of the House. 'Do you really want a guy in that job who chose not to stand up for his guys?' said former OSU wrestler Mike Schyck, one of the hundreds of former athletes and students who say they were sexually abused by school doctor Richard Strauss and have sued the university. 'Is that the kind of character trait you want for a House speaker?'"
Michael Gold & Grace Ashford of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors on Tuesday filed a significant array of new charges against Representative George Santos of New York, accusing him of new criminal schemes, including stealing the identities and credit cards of donors to his campaign. The new accusations were made in a 23-count superseding indictment that laid out how Mr. Santos had charged his donors' credit cards 'repeatedly, without their authorization,' distributing the money to his and other candidates' campaigns and to his own bank account. The new indictment filed in the Eastern District of New York added 10 charges against Mr. Santos: conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, access device fraud, false statements to the Federal Election Commission and falsifying records to obstruct the commission." Politico's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
The Trials of Trump
Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors asked a judge on Tuesday to force ... Donald J. Trump to tell them months before he goes to trial on charges of seeking to overturn the 2020 election whether he intends to defend himself by blaming the stable of lawyers around him at the time for giving him poor legal advice. In a motion filed to the judge, Tanya S. Chutkan, the prosecutors sought an order that would compel Mr. Trump to tell them by Dec. 18 if he plans to pursue the blame-the-lawyers strategy -- known as an advice of counsel defense -- at his federal election interference trial.... Defendants who pursue advice of counsel arguments waive the shield of attorney-client privilege that would normally protect their dealings with their lawyers. And, as prosecutors reminded Judge Chutkan, if Mr. Trump heads in this direction, he would have to give them not only all of the 'communications or evidence' concerning the lawyers he plans to use as part of his defense, but also any 'otherwise-privileged communications' that might be used to undermine his claims."
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post:"While arguing against the motion by [Donald] Trump's lawyers to delay the May 20 trial, special counsel Jack Smith's lawyers ... said they are ready to prove ... why Trump allegedly took and kept [classified] documents.... The government apparently thinks it knows 'what Trump intended' with the documents.... Smith's team has clearly shown an interest in whether Trump used the documents for his personal advantage." (Also linked yesterday.)
Michael Sisak & Jennifer Peltz of the AP: "Donald Trump signed a document 30 years ago that gave the true size of his New York penthouse which was later listed as far larger on financial statements, according to evidence Tuesday at the former president's civil business fraud trial. The evidence appeared in an email attachment shown as Allen Weisselberg, the former finance chief of Trump's company, testified in New York Attorney General Letitia James' fraud lawsuit against Trump and his Trump Organization. Trump denies any wrongdoing. The attachment was a 1994 document, signed by Trump, that pegged his Trump Tower triplex at 10,996 square feet -- not the 30,000 square feet later claimed for years on financial statements that were given to banks, insurers and others to make deals and secure loans.... [During testimony,] Weisselberg repeatedly said he couldn't remember whether he discussed the financial statements with Trump while they were being finalized. The ex-CFO said he reviewed drafts 'from a 30,000-foot level' ... but paid special attention to something 'very important' to Trump: the descriptions of his properties.... 'He might say, "Don't use the word 'beautiful' -- use the word 'magnificent,"' or something like that,' Weisselberg testified."
David Edwards of Crooks & Liars: "Donald Trump on Monday bragged that he had been indicted more times than mobster Al Capone.... 'This was a seriously tough mobster. He was the, I guess you'd call him the king of the mobsters, right? Al Capone only got indicted once. I got indicted four times in mine.'" MB: While it may be that Trump has more charges against him -- 91 -- than Capone had in total, Trump's claim that Capone was indicted only once is false. Capone's Wikipage list a number of arrests, indictments & a conviction before the feds hit him with 22 counts of tax evasion & with violation of prohibition laws. But how pathetic is it that a candidate for president* boasts that he's been charged with more crimes than was "the king of the mobsters."
Mark Landler of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump has claimed in a lawsuit in a London court that Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, inflicted 'personal and reputational damage and distress' on him by leaking a dossier detailing unsavory, unproven accounts of links between him and Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. Lawyers for Mr. Trump argue that Mr. Steele's firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, breached British data protection laws with the dossier, which triggered a political earthquake when it was published just before Mr. Trump's inauguration in 2017. The lawsuit, the first filed by Mr. Trump in Britain related to the dossier, could offer the former president more favorable legal terrain than the United States. Last year, a federal judge in Florida threw out his lawsuit claiming that Mr. Steele, as well as Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, was involved in a concerted plot to spread false information about Mr. Trump's ties to Russia." (Also linked yesterday.)
Michael Luciano of Mediaite: "A judge in Fulton County, Georgia ordered conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel to testify in a criminal case against Donald Trump. District Attorney Fani Willis ... filed a petition seeking testimony from Jones and McDaniel, which Judge Scott McAfee granted. He ruled that each is 'a necessary and material witness in this prosecution' and 'will be required to be in attendance and testify.'"
Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Georgia prosecutors say a key Trump campaign legal adviser's memos -- which guided efforts to subvert the 2020 election despite ... Donald Trump's defeat -- cannot be shielded by attorney-client privilege because they were about politics, not law. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis argued Tuesday that the memos by Ken Chesebro, one of 18 defendants charged alongside Trump in a sprawling racketeering conspiracy related to the 2020 election, were not about a litigation strategy or legal advice, which would typically be protected by confidentiality rules.... Willis' argument hewed closely to the rulings of a federal judge in California, who found that many of [John] Eastman's emails in the aftermath of the 2020 election were not subject to attorney-client privilege because of their political character -- or because they were shared with non-lawyers and lost their confidentiality. That judge, U.S. District Judge David Carter, also found that some of Eastman's emails would be disclosed to the House Jan. 6 select committee because they constituted evidence of a likely conspiracy between Eastman and Trump." (Also linked yesterday.)
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Justice Clarence Thomas renewed his call on Tuesday for the Supreme Court to reconsider New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark 1964 ruling interpreting the First Amendment to make it more difficult for public officials to prevail in libel suits. Justice Thomas wrote that the decision had no basis in the Constitution as it was understood by the people who drafted and ratified it. He added, quoting an earlier opinion, that it 'comes at a heavy cost, allowing media organizations and interest groups "to cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity."' Justice Thomas has been the subject of a series of news reports raising questions about whether he had violated ethics rules.... Justice Thomas's latest opinion came in a case brought by Don Blankenship, a former coal company executive and Senate candidate in West Virginia. He sued several news organizations for calling him a felon after he was convicted of conspiracy, a misdemeanor, in connection with the aftermath of a mine explosion." A related NBC News story, which concentrates on Blankenship's failed suit, is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Presidential Race 2024. Still Crazy. Alex Tabet, et al., of NBC News: "... Donald Trump has been insinuating for weeks that former President Barack Obama is secretly still in control of the White House. On Monday in New Hampshire, he explicitly said it. 'It's never been worse than it is now under crooked Joe Biden and, frankly his boss, Barack Hussein Obama,' Trump told a crowd of hundreds at a campaign stop. 'I think it's his boss.' It's not a new conspiracy theory: A 2020 video of Obama on late-night television circulated in conservative corners of the internet this fall, showing him deadpanning to late-night TV host Stephen Colbert that in an ideal world, he would have a stand-in with an earpiece so he could deliver lines and stay out of the spotlight."
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Alabama. Laura Clawson of Crooks & Liars: "A children's picture book called 'Read Me a Story, Stella' wa added to an Alabama library's list of potentially sexually explicit books in need of further review.... 'Stella' is a book about a sister and brother reading books and building a doghouse. But! The author's name is Marie-Louise Gay. And in Alabama in the year 2023, that is apparently enough to get your books flagged for further review.... No, really."
Arizona Senate Race. Caroline Vakil of the Hill: "Kari Lake announced her bid for Arizona Senate on Tuesday, entering the race for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema's (I-Ariz.) seat as the heavy favorite for the GOP nomination. Lake, a Trump ally who has denied her loss in last year's Arizona governor's race, will face off against Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb in the Republican primary. The announcement comes a week after Lake filed paperwork to run in the critical swing state.... Trump immediately endorsed Lake in the GOP primary in a video posted on his Truth Social platform.... Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) is running on the Democratic side, while Sinema has stayed mum on any campaign plans."
Arkansas. Gov. Sarah Gets a Very Nice Lectern. Anna Betts of the New York Times: "Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas is facing some of the sharpest scrutiny of her early tenure after a public records request revealed that her office bought a lectern for $19,000 -- and a whistle-blower accused the office of altering records to cover up the spending. Late last month, it came to light that the state had purchased the lectern and an accompanying traveling case in June, paying $19,029.25 to Beckett Events LLC, an events management company with ties to Ms. Sanders.... The information was obtained by Matthew Campbell, a lawyer and blogger who had filed a broad public records request.... According to documents shared online by Mr. Campbell, the Republican Party of Arkansas reimbursed the state for the lectern with a $19,029.25 check dated Sept. 14, three months after the purchase. The reimbursement, according to Mr. Campbell, occurred several days after he filed the Freedom of Information Act request for the records, and a day before he received the state's response...."
North Carolina. Patrick Marley of the Washington Post: "North Carolina Republican lawmakers on Tuesday overrode the Democratic governor's veto of a bill that overhauls who runs elections and achieves a long-sought goal of the state's GOP. The legislation creates bipartisan boards that could deadlock on establishing early voting locations or certifying results in a state that may prove crucial in next year's presidential election. Democrats and election experts warn the changes risk creating dysfunction in 2024, with Gov. Roy Cooper saying they 'could doom our state's elections to gridlock and severely limit early voting.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Sarah Fortinsky of the Hill: "The Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the North Carolina Democratic Party on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the North Carolina State Board of Election immediately after a pair of GOP-backed election laws went into effect when the state legislature voted to override the Democratic governor's veto on Tuesday. The lawsuit challenges Senate Bill 747, which the plaintiffs claimed 'is designed to undermine the right to vote in North Carolina.'"
Wisconsin. Patrick Marley of the Washington Post: "Republican lawmakers ... appear to be easing off an effort to impeach a new liberal state Supreme Court justice who in her campaign promoted abortion rights and condemned gerrymandering. Shortly after Janet Protasiewicz was sworn into office in August, Wisconsin State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) said he would consider impeaching her if she did not remove herself from a case challenging the state's legislative districts.... On Friday, Protasiewicz in a lengthy decision said she would not step aside in the case.... But rather than move ahead with impeachment proceedings, as threatened, Vos fell silent.... On Tuesday, documents were made public that showed a conservative former state Supreme Court justice tasked with advising Vos concluded that impeachment was not warranted.... State Sen. Duey Stroebel (R), one of the most conservative lawmakers in Wisconsin, told Milwaukee's CBS affiliate in remarks reported Tuesday that he opposed impeaching Protasiewicz, in part because Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) could replace her with someone else. Republicans hold 22 of the 33 seats in the state Senate -- exactly the number needed to remove an official who has been impeached by the State Assembly."
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Israel/Palestine
Jin Yu Young of the New York Times: "The first shipment of U.S. weapons arrived in Israel, and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken is heading there to help assess the country's needs as flare-ups with Lebanon and Syria fuel fears of a broader conflict.... The scale of Saturday's attacks is coming into focus as the Israeli military enters towns in the south that were overrun by more than 1,500 Palestinian gunmen. As they clear the towns, evidence is emerging -- in the form of videos, photographs and witnesses accounts -- of the atrocities Hamas committed against civilians. Israel said the death toll there rose to 1,200. Israel intensified its retaliation, launching missiles at the Gaza Strip for a fifth day, in attacks that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his top military leaders have said would be 'bigger than before and more severe.' More than 900 Palestinians have been killed." This is a liveblog.
The New York Times publishes videos documenting some of the bloodshed in Israel: "Hamas gunmen, hitting more than 20 sites in southern Israel, killed more than 1,000 people, including women and children, and abducted an estimated 150 more people. Officials from Israel, the United States, Europe and the United Nations have condemned the violence in the starkest terms, with the U.N. secretary general saying, 'Nothing can justify these acts of terror and the killing, maiming and abduction of civilians.'... They were killed waiting for the bus, dancing at a festival, doing morning chores and hiding as best they could. Searching bullet-riddled houses, streets and lawns, Israeli soldiers are still finding them.... The evidence emerging from Israeli sites near Gaza is being found by the authorities, emergency workers and survivors tentatively returning to their homes." MB: I had hoped the tales of atrocities were exaggerated. Apparently not.
CNN's liveblog of developments is here. The AP's live updates are here.
An Eye for an Eye. Josef Federman & Issan Adwan of the AP: "Israeli warplanes hammered the Gaza Strip neighborhood by neighborhood Tuesday, reducing buildings to rubble and sending people scrambling to find safety in the tiny, sealed-off territory now suffering severe retaliation for the deadly weekend attack by Hamas militants. Humanitarian groups pleaded for the creation of corridors to get aid into Gaza and warned that hospitals overwhelmed with wounded people were running out of supplies. Israel has stopped entry of food, fuel and medicines into Gaza, and the sole remaining access from Egypt shut down Tuesday after airstrikes hit near the border crossing." ~~~
~~~ AND Jospeh Krauss & Wafaa Shurafa of the AP: "Palestinians in the sealed-off Gaza Strip struggled to find any safe area Wednesday, as Israeli strikes demolished entire neighborhoods, hospitals ran low on supplies and a power blackout was expected within hours, deepening the misery of a war sparked by a stunning and deadly assault by Hamas militants. Airstrikes smashed entire city blocks to rubble in the tiny coastal enclave and left unknown numbers of bodies beneath mounds of debris. The bombardment raged on even though militants are holding an estimated 150 people snatched from Israel -- soldiers, men, women, children and older adults."
Aamer Madhani, et al., of the AP: "President Joe Biden on Tuesday condemned the militant group Hamas for 'sheer evil' for its shocking multipronged attack on Israel launched from the Gaza Strip that has killed hundreds of civilians, including at least 14 American citizens. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke by phone earlier on Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the situation on the ground." The Washington Post story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: "Donald Trump and Jared Kushner drafted a so-called peace plan that at least one expert claims actually enabled the terrorist attacks in Israel over the weekend. University of Illinois international relations professor Nicholas Grossman wrote for the Daily Beast Tuesday that the Abraham Accords led to false hopes, ignored the Palestinians and let Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu run roughshod over the whole process.... 'Claims that 'Trump brought peace to the Middle East' are almost an inversion of reality. He shifted U.S. policy fully in Israel's favor -- reducing support for the Palestinians and treating their quest for statehood as something that could be ignored -- and shaped the regional context by heightening confrontation with Iran without strategic benefit,' [Grossman wrote].... Trump gave Israel everything it wanted without getting anything in return."
Jodi Rudoren of the Forward: "The failure of Israeli -- and U.S. -- intelligence to detect plans for this unprecedented, coordinated assault, and Israel's inadequate response in the first 36 hours afterward, will rightly be the subject of investigatory commissions and commentary for months to come. The most plausible explanation I have heard so far is that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government took its eye off the ball, moving thousands of troops from the Gaza Command to protect Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, and focusing far too much energy on suppressing pro-democracy protests rather than thwarting actual threats.... The horrific acts of terror these militants filmed themselves carrying out are every bit as bad as their fiercest critics ever described. Our empathy for individual Palestinians in Gaza, our support for Palestinian national sovereignty, must never obscure the cold truth of Hamas militants: They are hateful, antisemitic terrorists who want to wipe Israel from the map.... Israel and her allies have to find a way to crush Hamas -- and to make peace with the Palestinians."
Ukraine, et al. The Washington Post's live updates of developments Wednesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here.
U.N./Russia. Emma Farge & Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber of Reuters: "Russia failed in its bid to return to the United Nations' top human rights body on Tuesday, with rivals winning considerably more votes at the General Assembly in an election seen as a key test of Western efforts to keep Moscow isolated. In the secret ballot, Russia won 83 votes versus 160 for Bulgaria and 123 for Albania, which had competed against it in the same eastern Europe grouping for two seats on the Geneva-based Human Rights Council for a three-year term beginning on Jan. 1.... A U.N.-mandated investigative body said in March that Russia had committed a wide range of war crimes in Ukraine such as wilful killings, torture and the deportation of children." (Also linked yesterday.)
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Reader Comments (11)
How it works…
For the loutish lemmings lounging about MAGA media bordellos, nothing causes their gruesome ganglia to twitch quite as reliably as a marching order from the Dear Leader.
For a while, the delicious prospect of a Kennedy siphoning off votes from Joe Biden, made RFK, Jr. a hero on the right. Hosannas were raised and fatted calves were killed in his honor.
But then he monkey wrenched their pipe dreams by declaring himself an independent. Some slithering sycophant whispered into Fatty’s cauliflower ear that this move could be equally, if not more, threatening to his latest shot at the brass ring.
And the word went out across MAGA world: Aieeeee!! Get him!
So Hannity, who hosted a fawning “town hall” for Gish Gallop Man only weeks ago, now sez “I’ve been looking into you! You’re a LIBERAL!! We had no idea!!”
Other Trump toadies croak “We’ve got a lot on this guy!”
Hey, they’re nothing if not predictable.
Trump did not have the full story on Obama being the boss of President Biden. In fact, on The Tonight Show when you saw Obama sitting near Colbert, "Obama" was really a hologram from the future. Obama doesn't even have to move around in this time anymore, he can just send his commands from a few years down the road. Doesn't he look older now? Do your research, the facts are everywhere!
And ... JFK jr. is still on Mars.
Kari Lake is running for the Senate? Wait…I thought she was the governor, the one who actually won that election which was “stolen” from her.
What’s gonna happen when she loses in this next race but claims she won that one too? She’ll be governor AND senator?
Funny how small children, very early on learn that you don’t always win, and figure out how to lose without throwing a hissy fit and screaming “I did too win at Candy Land! I beat those other little bastards to Candy Castle but they hid it from me! Candy interference!”
But hey, it wouldn’t matter if she was both governor and senator. MAGAts don’t do any actual work anyway. They just buy themselves a $20,000 lectern so’s they can stand at it and pretend to be doing something.
"The Washington Post plans to cut 240 jobs, or almost 10% of its workforce, through voluntary buyouts, the company announced Tuesday."
"
A Trump Supporter Was Seated Next To An Older Woman On An Airplane,..."
I also had hoped the tales of atrocities committed by Hamas were exaggerated, given the amount of way out whacko disinformation floating around. There's probably no pleasant way to end the bloodshed without killing every Hamas person, and worse, the 'acceptable losses' that will pile up in the process.
Steve M. at nomoremisterniceblog makes an interesting if not surprising observation about the source of actual witch hunts.
First he references a comment from another blog that addresses the way Twitter (X, Sloppy Joe’s, whatever it’s called today) points the mob at a new target every day (more like hundreds of new targets daily). But then he drafts off this observation to go somewhere else:
“I think there was a lot more to Twitter than that (such as the ability to take powerful and famous people down a peg, which is one of the things I liked it for), but the opportunity it offered to launch or participate in mob attacks was certainly part of its appeal for a lot of people. But I think what Hough offers here is an excellent description of Fox News and modern conservatism: It's about turning the mob on one witch after another, until the right-wing public doesn't care whether its allies in politics can actually keep government running, as long as there's an endless series of witches to burn.”
The post begins by pointing out how Trump hacks are going after Gretchen Whitmer for not, in their opinion, being harder on the Palestinians. This, according to the hacks, is cause for instant resignation. I guess they’re still pissed that the kidnapping, torture-murder plot didn’t work against Whitmer. (I find it funny how so many on the right who are typically uninterested in Jews, if not downright antisemitic, use “Israel! Israel!” as just another wingnut shibboleth to stick it to those outside their benighted tribe.)
“I know that the right fears Gretchen Whitmer, because she's a Democrat with political talent who's popular in a purple state. I know she could be a 2028 presidential contender, and some think she could run for president next year if something happens to Joe Biden. But this is not a scandal, except in Fox Land. Yet it's probably politically shrewd to begin flinging mud at her now -- at least some people, want to burn a witch every day. And Fox, unlike the mainstream media, satisfies that craving as often as possible.”
The real witch hunts…every hour of every day. Faux News.
@RAS: I suppose that's an old chestnut, but I thought it was quite funny. I may have to use it some day. This "old woman," however, would correct the fictional old woman in the story: deer -- like goats -- eat mostly leafy parts of plants (not to mention my tulips and hostas) rather than grass, though they will eat grass absent the tastier stuff.
RAS and Marie,
Hand this to a MAGA and ask if they know what's inside.
Traveling with only intermittent computer access, so won't be much of a presence or help here until near the end of the month. Will check in when I can...
Best to all.
BTW, Marie, most of the s---- hit the fan BEFORE I departed, so this time it ain't my fault.
@Ken Winkes: Right you are. I attributed great powers to you. Now it turns out it's not all your fault.