The Conversation -- April 29, 2024

Sarah Fitzpatrick of NBC News: "Lawyers for Hunter Biden plan to sue Fox News 'imminently,' according to a letter sent to the network and obtained by NBC News. The letter, dated April 23, puts the Fox News Channel and Fox News Digital on notice for litigation claims arising from the network's alleged 'conspiracy and subsequent actions to defame Mr. Biden and paint him in a false light, the unlicensed commercial exploitation of his image, name, and likeness, and the unlawful publication of hacked intimate images of him.' Biden has hired attorney Mark Geragos and his firm to represent him in the Fox litigation efforts.... An earlier letter was hand-delivered to Fox's counsel two weeks ago, and the network asked for more time to respond.... The network has not yet responded to the letter sent April 23, which included a Friday evening, April 26, deadline to respond...."

Scotland. Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "Scotland's first minister, Humza Yousaf, resigned on Monday in a fresh setback for his Scottish National Party, which has been engulfed in a slow-burning crisis over a funding scandal that erupted after a popular leader, Nicola Sturgeon, stepped down last year. Mr. Yousaf's departure had looked increasingly inevitable after he gambled last week by ending a power-sharing deal with the Scottish Green Party."

Judd Legum of Popular Information: "On November 21, 2021, President Biden signed the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The new law included the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which provided up to $30 per month to individuals or families with income up to 200% of the federal poverty line to help pay for high-speed internet.... The program has particularly benefited 'rural communities, veterans, and older Americans where the lack of affordable, reliable high-speed internet contributes to significant economic, health and other disparities.'... [Tuesday], the program will abruptly end. In October 2023, the White House sent a supplemental budget request to Congress, which included $6 billion to extend the program through the end of 2024. There is also a bipartisan bill, the Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act, which would extend the program with $7 billion in funding. The benefits of the program have shown to be far greater than the costs. An academic study published in February 2024 found that 'for every dollar spent on the ACP, the nation's GDP increases by $3.89.' The program will lapse [Tuesday] because Speaker MikeJohnson (R-LA) refuses to bring either the bill (or the supplemental funding request) to a vote. The Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act has 225 co-sponsors which means that, if Johnson held a vote, it would pass." Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: It's stunning the way Bible Mike won't help even the people who support him. As Legum notes, one-third of Johnson's own constituents use the ACP to pay for Internet service. But, see, the winger Republican Study Committee opposes the ACP because it's a "government handout that disincentivize[s] prosperity." Right. Obviously, the Internet is a crucial vehicle for enhancing, not "disincentivizing," prosperity.

~~~~~~~~~~

BTW, if there's nothing that would please you more than reading transcripts of Donald Trump's New York criminal trial, the link to three days of transcripts -- April 22, 23 & 25 -- is here. ( https://pdfs.nycourts.gov/PeopleVs.DTrump-71543/transcripts/ )

Presidential Race

Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "Almost from the start of his appearance [at the White House Correspondents' Dinner] in what is traditionally a lighthearted evening, [President] Biden took the kind of personal swipes at his opponent that we have rarely heard from him.... And toward the end, Biden chastised the media: 'I'm sincerely not asking you to take sides. I'm asking you to rise up to the seriousness of the moment. Move past the horse race numbers and the gotcha moments and the distractions, the side shows that have come to dominate and sensationalize our politics, and focus on what's actually at stake.... The stakes couldn't be higher.'... Given [the forces against him], the best option for Biden now -- perhaps his only one -- ... is to start drawing a sharper, no-holds-barred contrast with Trump and what it would mean if he is allowed to return to the White House." (Also linked yesterday.)

WTF?? Marie: One headline at the top of CNN's main page this morning reads, "Biden is up against nostalgia for Trump's first term." Another reads, "More than half of voters see Trump's presidency as a success." Oh yeah? Here's a top New York Times story from April 29, 2020: "As the nation confronts one of its worst public health disasters in generations, a moment that demands a leader willing to marshal the full might of the American scientific establishment, the White House is occupied by a president whose administration, critics say, has diminished the conclusions of scientists in formulating policy, who personally harbors a suspicion of expert knowledge, and who often puts his political instincts ahead of the facts."

Donald Trump Has Been Asking, "Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Years Ago?" Let's Check. Top News in the New York Times, April 28, 2020: "To the surprise of exactly no one, President Trump resumed his daily coronavirus news briefings on Monday, just two days after tweeting that they were 'not worth the time & effort' and just hours after his own White House officially canceled the planned appearance. The lure of cameras in the Rose Garden proved too hard to resist. For a president who relishes the spotlight and spends hours a day watching television, the idea of passing on his daily chance to get his message out turned out to be untenable despite his anger over his coverage. And so he was back, defending his handling of the pandemic and promising to reopen the country soon." (Also linked yesterday.)

Chris Geidner, the Law Dork: "Arguments at the Supreme Court this week were not about law. They were about power and control.... Although each case was different, the men of Supreme Court, in the arguments I attended in person, expressed more unified concern about the hypothetical consequences for future presidents who might be open to carrying out a coup than they did for actual people needing a blanket because they lack a home or actual women who risk the loss of their ability to have children in the future if they cannot get an abortion today." ~~~

~~~ Andrew Weissmann, speaking to Jen Psaki, via Mediaite: "... at the outset, the court had already given Donald Trump the win that he was seeking, which is the delay of the DC trial.... There seem to be four justices who were really taking Donald Trump's claim of criminal immunity seriously.... We are essentially ... one vote away from sort of the end of democracy as we know it with checks and balances.... And that that is what is so shocking is how close we are. And we are really on the razor's edge of that kind of result. But for the chief justice."

~~~~~~~~~~

Israel/Palestine, et al.

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Monday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "The world's top diplomats are gathering in Saudi Arabia on Monday for the World Economic Forum, with Gaza cease-fire negotiations and regional stability set to dominate discussions on the sidelines. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the foreign ministers of Britain, Germany and France are among the expected attendees.... International pressure is growing to reach an agreement on the release of hostages. This is ahead of a planned major Israeli assault on Rafah, which Israel has said is a remaining Hamas stronghold in southern Gaza. More than a million displaced civilians have sought refuge there."

Tia Goldenberg, et al., of the AP: "The White House on Sunday said U.S. President Joe Biden had again spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as pressure builds on Israel and Hamas to reach a deal that would free some Israeli hostages and bring a cease-fire in the nearly seven-month-long war in Gaza. The White House said that Biden reiterated his 'clear position' as Israel plans to invade Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah despite global concern for more than 1 million Palestinians sheltering there. The U.S. opposes the invasion on humanitarian grounds, straining relations between the allies. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is returning to the Middle East on Monday. Biden also stressed that progress in delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza be 'sustained and enhanced,' according to the statement." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates for Monday are here.

Lauren Sforza of the Hill: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took aim at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again on Sunday, saying that Israel's actions in Gaza are 'ethnic cleansing.' Sanders reiterated his familiar call on CNN's 'State of the Union' on Sunday to hold Netanyahu responsible for Israel's actions in Gaza, pointing to the staggering death toll and the displacement of Palestinians in the region. He was asked to respond to the ongoing pro-Palestinian protests that have broken out on college campuses across the country...."

Anushka Patil of the New York Times: "The World Central Kitchen said on Sunday that it would resume operations in Gaza with a local team of Palestinian aid workers, nearly a month after the Israeli military killed seven of the organization's workers in targeted drone strikes on their convoy.... The Washington-based aid group said that it was still calling for an independent, international investigation into the April 1 attack and that it had received 'no concrete assurances' that the Israeli military's operational procedures had changed. But the 'humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire,' the aid group's chief operating officer, Erin Gore, said in a statement."

Comments

[NiskyGuy]

Quoting alito from oral arguments, seen on Psaki show:

"If an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement, but that a president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?"

Mr. alito, look at history. The guy who appointed you committed war crimes invading Iraq, and there were calls to prosecute him, but that didn't happen, even if it should have.

[Akhilleus]

Science haters’ heads will explode

Lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my! Beetles, and fishies, and humans too. And now…chemistry, physics, geology, cosmology,…everything! Oh noes!

Yes, haters of science, evolution is everywhere. It’s not just humans and plants and animals, it’s gravity, natural laws, complex systems of all kinds. All sorts of new stuff to hate on.

So, it’s not hot off the presses, but news of a paper published last October in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences is making waves in non-science specialty areas.

“It was authored by a nine-member team — scientists from the Carnegie Institution for Science, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Cornell University, and philosophers from the University of Colorado and included two astrobiologists, a data scientist, a mineralogist, and a theoretical physicist, as well as three philosophers of science”…and it’s a doozy. Here’s the idea:

“The universe is replete with complex evolving systems, but the existing macroscopic physical laws do not seem to adequately describe these systems. Recognizing that the identification of conceptual equivalencies among disparate phenomena were foundational to developing previous laws of nature, we approach a potential ‘missing law’ by looking for equivalencies among evolving systems. We suggest that all evolving systems—including but not limited to life—are composed of diverse components that can combine into configurational states that are then selected for or against based on function. We then identify the fundamental sources of selection—static persistence, dynamic persistence, and novelty generation—and propose a time-asymmetric law that states that the functional information of a system will increase over time when subjected to selection for function(s).”

What they’re suggesting is that the effects of evolutionary processes are ubiquitous. Evolution is everywhere.

Can we expect a Scopes Universe Trial anytime soon? Where is William Jennings Bryan when they need him?

[Ken Winkes]

Sanity from one who was there.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/29/opinion/student-protests-columbia-israel.html

I, too, remember those days of righteous rage...heady but also scary enough to be disturbing.

[Ken Winkes]

Akhilleus,

Those who might worry their little heads about the evolution is everywhere argument (tho' I'd need a little more clarification about what it means and how it applies before the pressure in my own head builds) could always take comfort in the doings of our SCOTUS, which, describe it how one will, is certainly not evolving.

[RAS]

Internet

"the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which provided up to $30 per month to individuals or families with income up to 200% of the federal poverty line to help pay for high-speed internet.

Today, the ACP is "helping 23 million households – 1 in 6 households across America." The program has particularly benefited "rural communities, veterans, and older Americans where the lack of affordable, reliable high-speed internet contributes to significant economic, health and other disparities."

February 2024 found that "for every dollar spent on the ACP, the nation’s GDP increases by $3.89."

Tomorrow, the program will abruptly end.

The program will lapse tomorrow because Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) refuses to bring either the bill (or the supplemental funding request) to a vote. The Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act has 225 co-sponsors which means that, if Johnson held a vote, it would pass."

[Akhilleus]

Ken,

With the Orange Monster and his horde of malignant MAGAts, there is a, shall we say, dynamism of sorts: movement, activity, change…oh, not for the better though. It’s not progress. It’s regress. As we discussed some time ago, Homo Trumpicus doesn’t e-volve, it de-volves. They get stupider, more violent, less responsive to the real world.

There are pockets of the universe where retrograde motion is visible. This is the biggest.

[Akhilleus]

Per RAS:

“The program will lapse tomorrow because Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) refuses to bring either the bill (or the supplemental funding request) to a vote. The Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act has 225 co-sponsors which means that, if Johnson held a vote, it would pass."

See? Retrograde motion. What’d I tell ya? They get stupider, less responsive to the real world.

There are some on other planets—sentient ones, not MAGAt ones—who call such retrograde morons “assholes”. Not here, of course. We’re too evolved for that kind of talk. Here we call them “fucking” assholes.

[Akhilleus]

DeSantolini and the Fat Fascist meet to kiss and make up. Ewww. On both accounts. Rhonda has apparently decided to stump for the guy who used to insult and humiliate on an hourly basis. Such manly men over on the right.

He’s no doubt decided that Amerika needs be run by a heartless, narcissistic dictator. If that’s not gonna be a short one in go-go boots, it might as well be a fat one with orange hair.

Besides, cozying up to the head MAGAt means he himself can gain access to MAGA donors.

All the best people.

[Akhilleus]

As Trumpy MAGA hero Kristi Noem doubles down on shooting her puppy in the head and tossing it into a gravel pit, it appears Hillary had her number way back in 2021:

“Never vote for someone you wouldn’t trust with your dog.”

[Bobby Lee]

While we're speaking of regressing, Florida wants to move back to pre-1986 with campaign finance laws.
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/669843-public-campaign-finance-end/

[RAS]

Also Florida

"Florida ‘callously’ strips healthcare from thousands of children despite new law
Governor Ron DeSantis’s challenging of a ‘continuous eligibility’ rule has booted over 22,000 children off insurance since January"

[RAS]

Priorities

[Republican] U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz, the first and only Ukrainian-born member of Congress, emerged early on as a natural advocate for supporting her native country in its war with Russia. But when $61 billion in additional support for the war effort came up for a vote in the House recently, she voted against it.

Instead she has called for better oversight of U.S. funds and opposed giving “blank checks” to the Ukrainian cause. She says U.S. border security should be a bigger priority.

In an emotional news conference in 2022, Spartz called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “ genocide.” She described bombings her grandmother and friends in Ukraine had witnessed.

Later that year, she began to criticize Ukraine’s leaders, including President Volodymyr Zelensky.

In the Sheridan interview, Spartz said “brave people” are “dying for freedom” in Ukraine but accused the Ukrainian government of corruption."

[Akhilleus]

Hang on…nostalgia??…fucking NOSTALGIA for Trump?

Nostalgia: a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.

Sounds like a wistful longing for the days when dead victims of Trumpvid had to be piled up in refrigerated trucks because there was not enough space in morgues from all the people dying because the guy in charge told them not to wear masks, not to worry, and on no condition to bother him about it.

Maybe a fond remembrance of daily lying screeds and diatribes, of babies torn from families and shoved into cages, of “health” recommendations that killed people? How about how great it was when the economy was tanking while Trump, his family, and their buddies were lining their pockets? Wasn’t that just the best?

What the actual fuck?!?

Are there those nostalgic for railroad cars to Auschwitz? For depression bread lines? For the Black Death? Well, join the party.

Neuralgia for (or from) Trump, maybe. But actual nostalgia??

Oh yes, remember when the president threatened foreign governments to find something he could use against his rival? ‘Member when he whipped up a horde of club and gun wielding thugs to overthrow the government? Remember how he sent them in to hang the Vice President? Man, those were the days