Monday
Mar272023
March 27, 2023
Afternoon Update:
Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: “President Biden on Monday signed an executive order restricting American government use of a class of powerful surveillance tools that have been abused by both autocracies and democracies around the world to spy on political dissidents, journalists and human rights activists. The tools in question, known as commercial spyware, give governments the power to hack the mobile phones of private citizens, extracting data and tracking their movements. The global market for their use is booming, and some U.S. government agencies have studied or deployed the technology. Commercial spyware, including Pegasus, made by the Israeli firm NSO Group, has also been used against American government officials overseas."
William Rashbaum, et al., of the New York Times: "The former publisher of The National Enquirer testified on Monday before the Manhattan grand jury hearing evidence about Donald J. Trump's role in a hush-money payment to a porn star, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The publisher, David Pecker, also testified in January, soon after the grand jury was impaneled by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg.... Mr. Pecker, who was seen leaving the building where the grand jury sits at about 3:30 Monday afternoon, was a key player in the hush-money episode. He and the tabloid's top editor helped broker the deal between the porn star, Stormy Daniels, and Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump's fixer at the time."
The News about Fox "News":
Katie Robertson of the New York Times: "Fox News Media has fired a producer who last week accused the network of discrimination and of coercing her into providing misleading testimony in a blockbuster defamation case, according to court documents filed on Monday. Lawyers for the producer, Abby Grossberg, who had worked for the hosts Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson, said in the complaints that she was fired on Friday in retaliation for a pair of lawsuits she had filed against the company several days earlier."
Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "A woman on Monday hijacked a Fox News live broadcast of a school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, to make an impassioned case for gun safety legislation. As Fox News carried a live feed of the aftermath of a shooting at Nashville's Covenant School that left at least six people dead, Ashbey Beasley started speaking to reporters and asking them why they weren't tired of covering mass shootings involving school children. Beasley said ... that she has been lobbying for stricter gun safety measures for months after she survived a mass shooting last year. 'How is this still happening?' she demanded to know. 'How are our children still dying and why are we failing them? Gun violence is the number one killer of children and teens -- it has overtaken cars! Assault weapons are contributing to the border crisis -- we are arming cartels with our guns and our loose gun laws! And these mass shootings will continue to happen until our lawmakers step up and pass gun safety legislation!'" Includes video.
Colby Hall of Mediaite: "Fox & Friends" co-anchor Brian "Kilmeade really tore into [Donald] Trump for his celebration of January 6th rioters, calling it 'absolutely awful' and 'insane' that he would do such a thing.... '... the United States former president opened up with January Six video,' Kilmeade noted, adding, 'which is insane!... He should be running from that, period,' he continued. 'I don't care his point of view, that is not a good thing for him. I thought that was absolutely awful. Even though he is winning in the polls, that will not help.' Trump appeared for a political rally in Waco, Texas, this past weekend and opened with an anthemic pro-Trump song that is currently at the top of the iTunes charts. Images of January 6th were played on the video screens at that time, which many outlets deemed to be something of a celebration of the event."
Florida, the Cruelest State. Prof. Elizabeth Aranda in a Tampa Bay Times op-ed: "If passed, [Florida bill] SB 1718 would criminalize lending a helping hand if the object of that help is an undocumented immigrant.... Mmny believe SB 1718 will likely become law.... U.S. citizens [and DACA immigrants] could be convicted of a felony for simply taking their parents to the grocery store under this bill.... Understandably, religious leaders, lawyers and landlords are among those who are deeply concerned about this bill.... The medical community in particular, should also be alarmed.... But we should all be worried -- how do you even know that someone you are helping is undocumented?" Thanks to Bobby Lee for the lead. See also commentary in today's thread. ~~~
~~~ Marie: This bill strikes me as not only immoral, as commentators have pointed out below, but also essentially unconstitutional. If it passes, courts may strike it down, but think of all the harm that will transpire before that happens.
Israel. Patrick Kingsley of the New York Times: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel announced on Monday that he was delaying his government's contentious plans to overhaul the judiciary, which have set off civil unrest and work stoppages and incited one of the deepest domestic crises in the country's history." This is part of a liveblog also linked below.
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Zolan Kanno-Youngs & Abdi Dahir of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris has begun a weeklong tour of Ghana and two other African nations as the Biden administration hopes to set a new path for U.S.-Africa ties that focuses on collaboration rather than crises, a trip seen as a significant step toward revitalizing a relationship with Africa that was widely thought to be lagging in recent years. Ms. Harris, the highest-ranking Biden administration official to visit the continent, will hold an official meeting and news briefing with President Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana on Monday before traveling to Tanzania and Zambia, where she had visited more than 50 years ago to learn about public service from her grandfather."
Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: "The worst-kept secret in Washington is that Democrats could not be more delighted with the inept, unhinged and entirely unproductive hearings that House Republicans insist on conducting in search of pay dirt on Democrats. For that, they can thank Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.... Comer has become infamous for making unfounded, cringeworthy allegations. He recently claimed with zero evidence that [President Biden's dead son, Beau, should have been prosecuted for campaign finance crimes.... Comer has not come up with anything to back up his accusation. Some of Comer's allegations have been downright absurd. He was among those Republicans who rushed forward to claim that Silicon Valley Bank failed because of 'wokeness.'... Even sillier, Comer went on Fox News to suggest that the Chinese balloon that floated over the United States contained 'bioweapons.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: The problem with gloating over the GOP's fake scandal investigations is that sometimes the "investigations" lead to something they can hang their MAGA caps on. Oh, it doesn't have to be a real scandal; there just has to be a microscopic grain of truth to convince the gullible press there might be some there there. The best example in recent American history of a fake investigation leading to a fake scandal is "But Her Emails!," which arose out of the endless Benghaaazi! hearings. (A close cousin of the fake GOP Congressional investigation is the fake GOP special prosecutor/counsel investigation. Most famously, one of those nearly kayoed the Other Clinton when what was supposed to be a special counsel investigation of an Arkansas land deal ended up as the Big Blow Job scandal, for which Bill Clinton was impeached.) So Comer & Co. may bumble along, making fools of themselves, but somewhere in their fishing expeditions, they could come upon something they can spin into a history-changing event.
Stephen Collinson of CNN: Donald "Trump's wild rhetoric at his first official 2024 campaign rally Saturday previewed the divisive national moment ahead should he be indicted in any of multiple criminal probes. As he whipped up a demagogic fervor in Waco, Texas, to try to secure a new presidency dedicated to 'retribution,' Trump's extremism -- laced with suggestions of violence -- left no doubt he would be willing to take the country to a dark place to save himself.... An extraordinary prolonged character attack on Ron DeSantis, in which Trump depicted his biggest potential rival of 2024 tearfully begging for his endorsement in 2018, demonstrated the political firestorm the Florida governor will have to deal with if he jumps into the White House campaign."
Kelly Garrity of Politico: "Joe Tacopina, an attorney for ... Donald Trump, on Sunday called Trump's social media attacks on the officials involved in New York's hush-money probe 'ill-advised,' but declined to directly condemn the posts. 'I'm not his social media consultant,' Tacopina said during an interview on NBC's 'Meet the Press' in discussing Trump's posts, one of which warned of 'death and destruction' should he face a criminal indictment.... In one post that has since been deleted, Trump shared an article with a picture of him holding a baseball bat next to a photo of [Manhattan DA Alvin] Bragg.' Joe Tapioca claimed one of Trump's aides was responsible for the re-posted tweet. ~~~
~~~ digby is reminded there was someone to corroborate Stormy Daniels' story.
Presidential Race 2024. Olafimihan Oshin of the Hill: "Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is leading former President Trump in a hypothetical head-to-head primary race in Iowa and tied in New Hampshire, according to new polls. The polls, which were provided to Axios, found that 45 percent of Iowa respondents said they would vote for DeSantis, while 37 percent said they'd cast their vote for Trump." ~~~
~~~ Marie: There are a number of reasons I don't often report on poll results, but this story is an example of one of those reasons: Oshin treats the two "rivals" as if they were normal people, not menaces to society. So do most other reporters. The headline of every one of these Trumpolini v. DeSantolini poll-result stories should be "Which Fascist Will Win?" I'm fairly serious. Every story that doesn't mention the authoritarian extremism of these guys serves to normalize them.
To call a party democratic -- committed to democracy -- they've got to do three basic things: They have to unambiguously accept election results, they have to unambiguously renounce violence, and they have to consistently and unambiguously break with extremists or antidemocratic forces. -- Prof. Steve Levitsky ~~~
~~~ ** Thor Benson in Wired: "The US Republican Party has become increasingly authoritarian and extreme in recent years.... Nearly half of Republicans say they would prefer 'strong, unelected leaders' over 'weak elected ones,' according to a September Axios-Ipsos poll, and around 55 percent of Republicans say defending the 'traditional' way of life by force may soon become necessary. About 61 percent of Republicans don't believe the results of the 2020 presidential election." Read on.
Lauren Hirsch of the New York Times: "First Citizens BancShares will acquire Silicon Valley Bank, the California lender whose collapse this month sent shock waves across the financial sector."
Way Beyond the Beltway
Israel
Bethan McKernan of the Guardian: "Israel's embattled prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is expected to announce a halt to his far-right government's proposals to overhaul the judiciary after 12 weeks of escalating political crisis.... Israeli media outlets, citing sources in Netanyahu's Likud party, reported on Monday morning that in a televised address the prime minister was expected to announce a freeze to the bitterly contested legislation, which would limit the powers of the country's supreme court. Shortly before he was due to speak, the statement, originally announced for 10.30am (08.30am BST), was delayed, allegedly due to threats from the far-right of the coalition to bring down the government if he paused the judicial overhaul.... Even as protests raged across the country overnight, a parliamentary committee continued to approve parts of the legislation, meaning the bills can go to the Knesset plenum for new readings."
New York Times: "Israelis were bracing Monday for one of the most pivotal days in their domestic history, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said to be considering whether to delay a judicial overhaul that has divided society and set off civil unrest -- even as hard-line members of his coalition gathered in Parliament to proceed with the plan. Unrest broke out overnight in parts of Israel after Mr. Netanyahu fired his defense minister late Sunday for criticizing the overhaul, prompting demonstrators to surge into the streets, universities to shut their doors in protest at the judicial plan, and union leaders to hint of a looming general strike." This is part of a liveblog. ~~~
~~~ Steve Hendrix & Shira Rubin of the Washington Post: "Israeli universities, workers' unions and hospitals announced a general strike, and the international airport began freezing outgoing flights. Local council leaders began gathering in front of the prime minister's residence to begin what they said would be a hunger strike.... [Prime Minister Netanyahu's] nighttime dismissal [of his defense minister] rocked a country already in turmoil, ratcheting up the backlash to an excruciating pitch. Within minutes, protesters rushed into streets around the country, vowing to escalate demonstrations and public strikes until the legislative drive is frozen. Police clashed with protesters at several sites, using water cannons, cavalry and other unusually aggressive tactics to push thousands of demonstrators who blocked Ayalon Highway and who massed outside Netanyahu's Jerusalem residence. Israel's consul general in New York resigned in a tweet, and [Israeli President Isaac] Herzog ... pleaded with the prime minister and the coalition to stop their legislative push with the nation on the edge of catastrophe." An AP story is here.
Patrick Kingsley of the New York Times: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Sunday fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, setting off raucous late-night protests, a day after Mr. Gallant became the first member of his cabinet to call for a halt to the government's contentious plan to weaken the country's judiciary. Announced in a one-line statement by the prime minister's office, the dismissal intensified an already dramatic domestic crisis -- one of the gravest in Israeli history -- set off by the government's proposal to give itself greater control over the selection of Supreme Court justices and to limit the court's authority over Parliament." CNN's report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Ukraine, et al. The Washington Post's live briefing of developments Monday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "The European Union threatened sanctions against Belarus after Russia announced it would store tactical nuclear weapons in the Kremlin-aligned country, which shares a long border with northern Ukraine. Russia continued to attack the embattled city of Bakhmut as a Ukrainian counteroffensive looms. Ukraine's military said Monday that its forces still hold the eastern city." ~~~
~~~ The Guardian's live updates for Monday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here.
News Ledes
CNN is live-updating developments in a mass shooting at Covenant School, a Christian grade school in Nashville, Tennessee. The print updates don't say so yet (at 1:10 pm ET), but CNN is reporting on-air that the assailant murdered at least three children and two adults. Law enforcement officers reportedly killed the shooter. ~~~
~~~ CNN Update: "At least three children and three adults are dead after a shooting Monday at the Covenant School, a private Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, that teaches preschool through 6th grade, police said. The shooter, who was identified as a 28-year-old Nashville woman, was killed during gunfire with police, authorities said. Her identity and motive is yet to be confirmed." ~~~
~~~ AP Update: "A former student shot through the doors of a Christian elementary school and killed three children and three adults after elaborately planning the massacre by drawing out a detailed map and conducting surveillance of the building, police said. The massacre at The Covenant School in Nashville was the latest in a series of mass shootings in a country that has grown increasingly unnerved by bloodshed in schools. The victims included three 9-year-old children, the school's top administrator, a substitute teacher and a custodian.... Police gave unclear information on the gender of the shooter. For hours, police identified the shooter as a 28-year-old woman and eventually identified the person as Audrey Hale. Then at a late afternoon press conference, the police chief said that Hale was transgender. After the news conference, police spokesperson Don Aaron declined to elaborate on how Hale currently identified."
New York Times: "The authorities continued to search for the cause of a powerful explosion that ripped through a chocolate factory in West Reading, Pa., on Friday, killing seven people, sending a plume of smoke into the air and shaking houses blocks away."
AP: "Philadelphia residents are being told that they may want to drink only bottled water following a chemical spill into the Delaware River in neighboring Bucks County. Bucks County health officials said Sunday that a leak late Friday evening at the Trinseo Altuglas chemical facility in Bristol Township spilled between 8,100 and 12,000 gallons of a water-based latex finishing solution into the river. Officials said it is non-toxic to humans and no known adverse health effects have been reported in the county."
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Reader Comments (12)
Marie’s cogent observation about the idiot jackass congressional “hearings” chaired by drooling fabulists like Gym Jordan and Jim Blowmer has a flip side.
It’s 100% true that the KKKeystone KKKops, should they find a microscopic scintilla of truthiness, will use it (with the obsequious and assiduous assistance of both the Traitor media and the MSM) to cover their wildest lies with the mantle of credibility.
On the other side of the aisle, a much different outcome obtains. Should the tiniest crumb of potentially questionable actions surface against a Democrat, that crumb transmogrifies into a giant wedding cake and is visited, by the aforementioned media whores, with the power to contravene everything that person, and by extension, their party, has ever done.
Should a Biden official forget to file a certain form connected to a government funded agricultural study of the boll weevil biome in Iowa, or should the filing be delayed fifteen minutes, this outrage is taken as evidence of massive corruption and deep state perfidy which naturally calls into question the entire Biden oeuvre.
Evidence? A blow job pretty much destroyed Bill Clinton’s second term (while Trump gets a full pass on admitted sexual assaults), but lying to start a war that still rages, and detonating the world economy by the Bush Administration was given (and STILL IS!!!) a complete pass, because, oh, well Saddam COULD have had WMD, in a different universe, maybe.
Same as it ever was.
I see where Bibi is tapping the brakes, momentarily, on turning Israel’s Justice system into his personal rubber stamp. Don’t worry. He’ll find another way to do it. Let things cool off then in the dead of night, institute his intended warping of that system.
No doubt he’s seen the astonishing success the Party of Traitors in the US has had by salting the judiciary with unqualified Nazi hacks and unconstitutionally curtailing the right of a sitting president to name a Supreme Court Justice, thereby ensuring complete right-wing dominance over the courts, enabling them to ignore precedents, settled law, and the essence of Justice itself to guarantee that their every dream of revenge and hatred comes true with the bright sheen of pseudo legality.
He wants the same.
And he’ll find a way to get it.
Don’t Say Groomer
Hmmm…ain’t this innerestin’? A bit of tinpot dissimulation, it looks like.
So here we have Ronito DeSantolini, bruising, blustering lib ball breaker, being asked a simple question. And lying.
“Where were you on 9/11?”
“Ummm…well, you know, just hanging around, something, something, then BAM!”
Oh…”BAM!”, eh. That’s it?
I bet if you asked some guy in Mogadishu where he was on 9/11 he could tell you where he was, what he was doing, who he was talking to, and what the temperature was. But Ronito, the man who would be dictator, doesn’t remember.
As that guy on Laugh-in used to say, “Veddy interesting”.
Maybe it’s because he was teaching at an elite prep school where he was photographed knocking back a few cocktails with underage girls.
Maybe we should start calling him Groomito. You can just imagine what his little fascist brain would come up with if a picture surfaced of, say, Hunter Biden, drinking with adolescent girls. So he knows the best thing to do is what Republicans always do when cornered: lie.
But whatever you do, don’t say groomer.
https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1639613297447305217/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1639613297447305217¤tTweetUser=ProjectLincoln
Florida marches on! Senate Bill 1718 would make it a felony to give aid or assistance to an undocumented immigrant. This would include things like driving someone to the emergency room, or simply buying someone a meal or giving them shelter.
From today's Tampa Bay Times.
Bobby Lee,
So much for the Potemkin Christianity which is so often trotted out as irrefutable proof of the perfect correctness of inhuman, atrocious desires of the Traitors.
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”
Nope. Sorry, Jesus. We adhere to the Book of DeSantolini Bigotry:
For they were hungry and we told them to beat it. They were thirsty and we handed them a bottle of urine. They’re strangers, so fuck them. They were naked and we said “too damn bad”. They were sick and we said “serves you right for coming to OUR country”. They were in prison. Of course they were. We put them there.
But in the next breath they’ll quote the Bible, chapter and verse as support for their claims that gay people are going to hell and should be imprisoned.
Montaigne, in one of his essays on religion and the wars and terror brought alongside it, wonders how cocksure the zealots must be of their own beliefs that they can casually roast another human being for not agreeing with them.
Wonder what he’d say if he realized that those beliefs were merely incidental, useful only to score political points and cover their asses when indulging in inhumane and evil actions.
One other thought from Montaigne (channeling Plutarch), thinking about how a population responds to a totalitarian state. The inhabitants of Asia, he said, were slaves to a tyrant because they were incapable of uttering one syllable: no.
The difference between those Asians and the Trump cultists (which includes all R politicians and media hacks who go along to get along) is not their inability to say no to the tyrant(s), it’s their readiness to say yes to any and all totalitarian demands, hatreds, fears, lawlessness, and bigotry.
They are willing participants in tyranny and treason.
I guess no more photo ops at the soup kitchen in Florida. Wouldn't want to end up in jail for feeding a starving man. Their new law would criminallize most real charities, but no doubt they see that as a good thing. If those people had been worthy they would already be rich.
News of today's Christian school shooting in Nashville calls to mind scenes from Robert Altman's "Nashville."
Lordy, that was long ago....or at least I thought it was.
Ken,
Good thing that killer in Nashville didn’t have a couple of Republican approved assault rifles with her…
Oh, wait…
“Fox News Media has fired a producer who last week accused the network of discrimination and of coercing her into providing misleading testimony in a blockbuster defamation case…”
Because of COURSE they did.
Just imagine the Fox screams of outrage had NPR or NBC fired a producer who had been strong armed into lying to protect the network. TuKKKer and Sean Hannity would howl for hours about the horror of such an attack on the sanctity of journalistic integrity (something as foreign to Fox as truth is to the entire Trump family).
Same as it ever was.
Confessions of a Pornographer
I was just looking around the living room of my little stone cottage thinking about what-all I should move to my other house when my eyes landed on -- OMG -- a naked statue!!! It's a copy of a Degas dancer I bought at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC. I've had it about 10 years, and I don't think it ever really registered with me that the dancer is nude. She just is.
But here's the worst part. I have had elementary school children in this house AND in my Florida house, where the naked statue also was on display. It's a good thing I don't live in Florida any more or my new Florida "residence" would probably be a high-security jail.
I just hope the kids I exposed to this pornography are okay and don't need therapy for the rest of their lives.
Oh Ken, now you are bringing back memories of "Nashville" the movie also. One of my all-time favorites. I don't think I have been there since I was in a high school Latin class field trip to their Parthenon; of course, my memories are much stronger about that trip because my classmates and I discovered a shoe store with beautiful pearlized pastel shoes with a little heel and buckles on the toes. $4.95 or so. We all came home to western Kentucky with them. Mine were pale pink. Now a brother-and-sister-in-law live there. Sorry the residents belong to that special club now...
Tots and pears. It just gets worse and worse and the R crapweasels don't care. But we know that...