The Conversation -- October 8, 2023

"The Trump Top Secret Challenge!" Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump has two modes of conversation. He is either ranting about all the things he intends to do when he becomes dictator of the country -- so many rights to strip away! so much vengeance to extract against his enemies! so many guardrails to dismantle! -- or he is volunteering classified information. Those are really it.... Is this a private party, or can anyone play? Yes! All you have to do is pay money to be around Donald Trump by, say, attending a fundraiser or joining Mar-a-Lago, the most valuable golf club on the planet..., and you, too, can take the Trump Top Secret Challenge! See how long you can go without having Donald Trump just hand you some classified information."

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Digby isn't entirely convinced by Tom Rosenstiel's suggestions (first published in the Los Angeles Times) on how to cover Donald Trump, but she presents them here. MB: I do think that one way -- though certainly not the only way -- to cover Trump is to take Alexandra Petri's tack & mercilessly mock his outrageous behavior, if only because mockery certainly enrages Trump.

How George "Got Rich" Quick. Josh Kovensky & Hunter Walker of TPM have figured out how Rep. George Santos increased his annual income from $55,000 to more than $700,000 in just a few months & how he amassed a $1MM bank balance. According to his FEC filings, Santos lent his campaign more than $500,000 from these sources. But prosecutors' filings related to Santos campaign treasurer Nancy Marks, who pleaded guilty this week to conspiracy fraud, "accused Santos and Marks of falsely filing documents that showed their family members made donations to the campaign that were not actually received." The filings also alleged that Santos never the lent the half-million dollars to his campaign, and he "did not have the funds necessary to make such loans at the time." The reason for claiming the fake campaign donations was to qualify for a Republican Congressional Committee program that helps GOP candidates who bring in at least $250,000. MB: You don't have to be rich to say you're rich. See also "Trump, Donald & Co. New York Fraud Case." (Also linked yesterday.)

Alexa Spreads Stolen Election Lies. Cat Zakrzewski of the Washington Post: "Amid concerns the rise of artificial intelligence will supercharge the spread of misinformation comes a wild fabrication from ... Amazon's Alexa, which declared that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Asked about fraud in the race..., the popular voice assistant said it was 'stolen by a massive amount of election fraud,' citing Rumble, a video-streaming service favored by conservatives. The 2020 races were 'notorious for many incidents of irregularities and indications pointing to electoral fraud taking place in major metro centers,' according to Alexa, referencing Substack, a subscription newsletter service. Alexa contended that Trump won Pennsylvania, citing 'an Alexa answers contributor.'... Amazon promotes the tool as a reliable election news source.... Amazon declined to explain why its voice assistant draws 2020 election answers from unvetted sources.... Jacob Glick, who served as investigative counsel on the Jan. 6 committee, called Alexa's assertions nearly three years after the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol 'alarming.... If major corporations are helping to give life to the "big lie" years after the fact, they're enabling the animating narrative of American domestic extremism to endure.'..."

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Texas. David Goodman of the New York Times: "In the dense, damp forests northeast of Houston, a pair of brothers [-- John & William Harris --] hit on a viable real estate business model: Offer plots of cheap land and unconventional loans for people who wanted to build their own houses, with few restrictions. The concept took off, not least among the large population of undocumented immigrants in Texas, who often do not have the legal paperwork needed for most bank loans. The Colony Ridge community, whose first residents moved in a decade ago, is now home to 40,000 people or more, with plans to more than double in size. Over the years, its swift growth and predominantly Hispanic population drew opposition from the mostly white residents of a small nearby town and some local officials, who lodged complaints and filed lawsuits.... The sprawling development has become a lightning rod for conservatives in the state and highlighted a growing tension within the Republican Party: those who focus on business freedom, and others determined to control the border.... [Gov. Greg] Abbott [ARRRR] directed the Legislature to hold hearings on Colony Ridge during a special session that starts on Monday....

"William Harris, who has donated more than $1 million in recent years to Mr. Abbott's campaigns, said he was disappointed to see the governor attack Colony Ridge on national television [that would be Fox 'News"]. 'He's a politician, it is what it is, he's got to cover his butt first,' Mr. Harris said. 'But don&'t expect a million dollars next year. It ain't happening again, brother.'" MB: I'm not sure how much it's politics and how much Greggers just hates Mexicans. He's a nasty man. The photos accompanying the article let on that Colony Ridge is not Utopia, but it is a place for people who cannot manage ordinary home ownership to acquire their little piece of the U.S.A.

Wisconsin. Reid Epstein & Julie Bosman of the New York Times (Oct. 6): "The liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a case challenging the state's Republican-drawn legislative districts, a decision that could spur impeachment proceedings against a newly elected justice, Janet Protasiewicz, who refused to recuse herself from the case. The decision to accept the case -- known as an original action because it means the case will bypass Wisconsin&'s trial and appeals courts -- comes over the objections of at least two of the court's three conservative justices and the state's leading Republicans, who have threatened to impeach Justice Protasiewicz before she can rule on it.... The court's conservative members reacted with fury to their liberal colleagues' decision to accept the maps case."

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** Israel/Palestine

Patrick Kingsley & Isabel Kershner of the New York Times: "Israel battled on Saturday to repel one of the broadest invasions of its territory in 50 years after Palestinian militants from Gaza launched an early-morning assault on southern Israel, infiltrating 22 Israeli towns and army bases, kidnapping Israeli civilians and soldiers and firing thousands of rockets toward cities as far away as Jerusalem. By early evening, the Israeli military said fighting continued in at least five places in southern Israel; multiple Israelis had been abducted and taken to Gaza, including an elderly grandmother; and at least 250 Israelis had been reported dead by officials and more than 1,400 wounded. Israel retaliated with huge strikes on Gazan cities, and the Gaza Health Ministry said at least 234 Palestinians had been killed in either gun battles or airstrikes. In an assault without recent precedent in its complexity and scale, the militants crossed into Israel by land, sea and air, according to the Israeli military...." This is the top, pinned story in a liveblog that began & was linked here yesterday. ~~~

     ~~~ Here are the New York Times live updates for today. The main AP story is here. CNN's live updates are here.

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "The stunning Hamas assault on Israel on Saturday served as a gut-wrenching reminder that the decades-old conflict with Palestinians remains a cancer that has not gone away even as leaders in Washington, Jerusalem, Riyadh and other Arab capitals would prefer to focus on building a revamped region. American officials said it was too early to say whether the attack was explicitly motivated by a desire by Hamas or its patron Iran to disrupt President Biden's effort to broker a landmark deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia that would profoundly reorient the Middle East. But they acknowledged that it could complicate the already delicate negotiations and make it that much harder to reach an agreement akin to the Abraham Accords between Israel and smaller Arab nations." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Time for Donald Trump to announce he could solve all the problems in a day.

Nick Robertson of the Hill: "The attacks ... were met with shock and prompted widespread support for Israel from most world leaders and governments. European and American leaders were quick to denounce the attacks, while governments in the Middle East often declined to explicitly back Israel in official comments while urging both sides to stop the violence." ~~~

     ~~~ Steve Holland & Matt Spetalnick of Reuters: "U.S. President Joe Biden offered Israel on Saturday 'all appropriate means of support' after a deadly attack from Palestinian militant group Hamas and warned 'any party hostile to Israel' not to seek advantage. U.S. and Israeli officials were coordinating about Israel's military needs in the wake of the attack, with a decision expected soon, a senior U.S. official said.... Biden spoke by phone to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday to offer U.S. support, with scenes of violence playing out on American news networks. The two leaders have had strained relations but met in New York last month in a show of solidarity." ~~~

     ~~~ Here is the "Statement from President Joe Biden Condemning Terrorist Attacks in Israel," via the White House.

GOP: Biden Responsible for 4,000-Year-Old Conflict. Neil Vigdor of the New York Times: "Republican presidential candidates seized on the Hamas attack on Israel Saturday to try to lay blame on President Biden, drawing a connection between the surprise assault and a recent hostage release deal between the United States and Iran, a longtime backer of the group.... On several occasions, [Donald] Trump ... [said] that the hostage deal was a catalyst of the attacks. 'The war happened for two reasons,' he said. 'The United States is giving -- and gave to Iran -- $6 billion over hostages.'... 'Iran has helped fund this war against Israel, and Joe Biden's policies that have gone easy on Iran has helped to fill their coffers,' [Ron DeSantis] said.... 'This is what happens when @POTUS projects weakness on the world stage, kowtows to the mullahs in Iran with a $6 Billion ransom, and leaders in the Republican Party signal American retreat as Leader of the Free World,' [Mike] Pence wrote on X. 'Weakness arouses evil.'... , Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, said in a statement, 'These funds [MB: released to restricted accounts in Qatar to provide humanitarian aid to Iran] have absolutely nothing to do with the horrific attacks today, and this is not the time to spread disinformation.'" ~~~

     ~~~ The NBC News story is here.

Brian Murphy, et al., of the Washington Post: "The violence erupted suddenly Saturday morning -- but comes after a year of rising tensions between Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, which has been under a joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade since 2007. This year alone has seen a spate of deadly attacks in Israel and the Palestinian territories, an escalation that followed [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's move to cobble together the most far-right government in Israeli history. Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip and carried out Saturday's attacks, said the operation was in response to the blockade, as well as recent Israeli military raids in the West Bank and violence at al-Aqsa Mosque, a disputed religious site in Jerusalem known to Jews as the Temple Mount.... Here are some of the major incidents that took place this year in the lead-up to the current conflict."

Now What? Steven Erlanger of the New York Times: "Nearly 50 years to the day after the Yom Kippur war of 1973, Israel has again been taken by surprise by a sudden attack, a startling reminder that stability in the Middle East remains a bloody mirage. Unlike the series of clashes with Palestinian forces in Gaza over the last three years, this appears to be a full-scale conflict mounted by Hamas and its allies, with rocket barrages and incursions into Israel proper, and with Israelis killed and captured.... There are few good options for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has declared war and is being pressured into a major military response.... A major war could have unforeseen consequences. It would be likely to produce sizable Palestinian casualties -- civilians as well as fighters -- disrupting the diplomatic efforts of President Biden and Mr. Netanyahu to bring about a Saudi recognition of Israel in return for defense guarantees from the United States. There would also be pressure on Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group that controls southern Lebanon, to open up a second front in northern Israel, as it did in 2006 after an Israeli soldier was captured and taken prisoner in Gaza."

Juan Cole of Informed Comment: "Periodic kinetic conflicts are the price of the American elite's studied inaction and, worse, coddling of the ugliest political forces on the Israeli side, as well as failure to offer ordinary Palestinians a dignified life that could allow them to develop alternatives to the ambitious and bloodthirsty fundamentalists who run Gaza. More recently, the standard line from both Israeli politicians such as Binyamin Netanyahu and from American politicians such as Jared Kushner... and Biden's Secretary of State Antony Blinken, has been that Palestinian citizenship in a state is not essential to a peace settlement.... As with all trickle-down theories, this one is a chimera, an illusion, in brief, a scam.... The rhetoric about making the Palestinians forget all about being Palestinians by luring them with a good economy always consisted of empty rhetoric. It was nothing more than a smokescreen for predatory projects of colonizing and appropriating Palestinian land or making Gaza into an open air penitentiary."

The New York Times has maps showing where Hamas hit Israel and where Israeli retalitory strikes hit Gaza. (Also linked yesterday.)

Ecuador. Samantha Schmidt & Diana Duran of the Washington Post: "Seven men arrested in the assassination of an Ecuadorian presidential candidate were found dead in the prisons where they were being held, authorities said. The suspects were all facing charges in the investigation into the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio, a former investigative journalist and National Assembly Member who was shot in the head as he left a political rally on Aug. 9. The brazen attack occurred just days before the first round of voting in Ecuador's presidential elections. The suspected gunman in the assassination was killed by police, but six other alleged collaborators were detained shortly after. All of them were identified as Colombian nationals who were believed to have links to organized crime groups. Last month, seven additional people -- all Ecuadorian citizens -- were arrested in connection with the killing.... The Colombians were all found dead on Friday in their prison ward, authorities said. Hours later, on Saturday morning, officials said they found a seventh suspect dead in a prison near the capital of Quito.... Days earlier, the [Colombian] men had asked the attorney general's office and Ecuador's prison agency to be moved to a safer prison and were denied...."

News Lede

Afghanistan. AP: "Powerful earthquakes killed at least 2,000 people in western Afghanistan, a Taliban government spokesman said Sunday. It's one of the deadliest earthquakes to strike the country in two decades."

Comments

[Akhilleus]

Someone must have suggested to Eric Trump that Junior is stupider than he is. Determined to prove that not to be the case Eric set out to once again claim the title “The Stupid One”.

As a court in New York gets set to formally admit the Trumps into the hierarchy of loserdom, Eric, peeing his pantaloons because the valuation on daddy’s gaudy mausoleum in Florida, aka “Top Secrets 4 Sale”, does not comport with the family’s self-declared multi-billionaire status, came out and yapped that their sleazy honky-tonk is worth well over a billion dollars.

Great! But you guys have been paying taxes on a joint worth no more $37M. This means your property tax should be far more than you’ve been paying, so fork it over, moron.

Yes, kids, Eric truly is the stupid one.

[Marie Burns]

@Akhilleus: Now that you mention it, maybe Mar-a-Lardo really is worth a bajillion dollars on account of the valuable top-secret docs Donald probably still has squirreled away in a secret sock drawer.

Of course, Donald, who never met a dollar he couldn't lose, probably daily lowers the value of Mar-a-Lardo by passing out some of those top-secret tidbits as party favors. Could be it's time, after all, for Dumb & Dumber to take over.

[Ken Winkes]

Pundits are calling the Hamas attack on Israel Israel's 9/11. Maybe. Or maybe in this respect at least.

Won't attempt to sort out the rights and wrongs of the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict because I know I can't (to misquote our own idiot in chief, "There are bad people on both sides"). but I have to think Netanyahu, not unlike Bush II, has to be a little grateful for the eruption of violence.

Not unlike the Baby Bush, who won the 2000 presidency by only one vote, Netanyahu is also seeing a country unite behind him after his 9/11.

One more thing, since it's Sunday.

I don't expect to see the essential insanity of religion front and center in the reams of explanations we can expect to see of the cause of the current conflict.

Tho' in a sane world, we would.

[Marie Burns]

@Ken Winkes: Nope, it's all Biden's fault.

I think religion plays a smaller part in the conflict that we suppose. Both sides, after all, are "descendants of Abraham." The main problem, I think, is tribalism, with religion/"God's will" serving merely as a symbol/excuse for each tribe, not as the true cause of the historic friction. Like Catholic & Protestant Irishmen, the outsider can't tell the difference between a Palestinian and a Jew (okay, except by their outfits).

While I agree with everyone who says there's no excuse for violence, there's also no excuse for the oppression that led to this round of violence (nor of course for the violence that led to the oppression). It's vicious cycle, and the only way to break it is for everyone to lay down not only their arms but also their egos and the chips on their shoulders. Good luck with that.

[Akhilleus]

I read recently about an effort by geneticists to resurrect extinct species such as the dodo and the Tasmanian tiger. For my money, there are already plenty of dodos and vicious predators lounging in gerrymandered Republican sinecures in Congress. But instead of bringing back birds and tigers, how about using DNA from now extinct Republicans who weren’t democracy hating terrorists, liars, incompetents, white supremacists, or religious thugs to recreate the likes of Howard Baker or maybe Lowell Weicker?

I realize what a chancy endeavor it would be to resurrect Republicans who believe in civility and the Constitution, but what could we lose?

The Party of Traitors has already successfully brought back some of the worst political genetic traits in history. Maybe science (which they don’t believe in) can help stop this regression to club wielding ignoramus cavemen and women.

Then again, the newly Jurassic Parked legislators might not survive for long given that their natural habitat has been bulldozed into oblivion. But just think of how things might have played out with five or six Howard Bakers helping Democrats impeach the Orange Monster.

I guess we’re stuck in Jurasshole Park.

[unwashed]

Another tragedy took place this past week. Nearly 1000 birds were found dead, "after crashing into the McCormick Place Lakeside Center’s windows, the result, according to avian experts, of a deadly confluence of prime migration conditions, rain and the low-slung exhibition hall’s lights and window-lined walls.

It was just like a carpet of dead birds at the windows there..."

"Conditions were ripe for a massive wave of songbird southern migration over Chicago on Wednesday evening, said Stan Temple, a retired University of Wisconsin-Madison wildlife ecology professor and avian expert..."

I had Prof. Temple for a course in Wildlife Ecology circa 1976.

[Akhilleus]

Re: strategies for media coverage of the Orange Monster.

Nope. Ain’t gonna work. Not until Both Sides journalism is beaten into the ground, set afire, and buried under a 1,000 year mudslide.

Not until we no longer have to put up with bullshit like “So, okay, Trump is facing 3,498 felony counts, is responsible for hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths, hands out national defense secrets like gum drops, calls military personnel killed in the line of duty “suckers”, and tried to take over the government by initiating a violent coup. But Joe Biden wears SNEAKERS!! Aieeee!“

And it’s not just the usual Fox bottom feeders who play this game. A NY Times reporter one-upped the Faux bothsiderism by reporting that Biden wore sneakers…WITHOUT SOCKS!! Mother of mercy!

The apparently existential need to counter any report about the enormous number of crimes, lies, and acts of treason on the part of Party of Traitors thugs and their fat fuck of a leader with screeching tales of Joe Biden’s choice of footwear and dick pics on Hunter Biden’s laptop pretty much puts the kibosh on the efforts of most serious journalists to offer a realistic, fact based picture of the crisis that threatens the very fabric of the nation and democracy itself.

And Both Sides might be forgiven if the goings on on the Democratic side were within a mile of the daily atrocities on the right. But there’s just no comparison. It’s ludicrous.

But, oh! The sneakers, the emails, the tan suit, the biting dog, the laptop.

“Trump waves around top secrets and threatens enemies with death. But Joe Biden RODE A BIKE TODAY!! Oh, the humanity! Both sides!!”

[RAS]

It's no wonder that Alexa can't keep her facts straight. The MSM also has a hard time keeping reality in context. Surprise, CNN headlines for Biden and TFG's jobs reports have wildly different spins. Do some of these negative Biden articles count as in kind campaign contributions?
Last night I came across this take from Peter Nicholas and Natasha Korecki from NBC News "but the armed conflict that broke out in Israel threatens to undercut Joe Biden’s argument that his foreign policy expertise is making the world more secure." The alternative is most likely Trump, but many of the people running for the GOP nomination have lied about the election, showed support for insurrectionists, talked about bombing Mexico, ignoring constitutional provisions they don't like, helping Russia beat Ukraine, locking up their enemies, and extra judicial killings just to name a FEW. But they are just reporting what people, on one side, are saying.

That is when they bother to cover it at all. "After waiting nearly 24 hours, Fox News briefly mentions report Donald Trump revealed nuclear secrets to a foreign national
Jessica Tarlov, the liberal co-host of The Five, mentioned the report about Trump; none of her co-hosts responded to her comment. A Fox anchor then spent 19 seconds on the report."

[D in Md]

re Tribalism:

Some time ago, Ted Ooze asked, rhetorically or so he thought, "Are babies racist?"

The more accurate term is tribalist, and the answer is yes.
Humans evolved in small kinship groups: tribes. When tribes competed for scarce resources, the frequent outcome was warfare, whence the victors slaughtered the men, raped the women, and enslaved the children of the vanquished. Hundreds of thousands of years of social, cultural, and biological evolution combine to make humans tribalistic, chauvinistic, and xenophobic. It is hard wired in human nature.

But, as Catherine Hepburn so beautifully put it in The African Queen, "Human nature... is what we are put on Earth to rise above." And whether or not you believe we were put here, we had damed well better start rising above it if we expect to survive here much longer.