The Conversation -- December 4, 2023
Please, Please, Let Me Keep Doxxing & Dissing the Clerk. ABC News is live-updating developments in the Trump Organization's civil fraud trial in New York: "... Donald Trump's request for an expedited grant of leave to appeal the gag orders in his civil fraud trial was denied Monday afternoon. The gag order is now likely to still be in effect on Monday when Trump takes the witness stand in his own defense. Trump's lawyers requested that Judge David Friedman, who initially lifted the gag order, permit them to appeal the final decision that reinstated the gag order to New York's Court of Appeals. 'You had a decision by a panel of judges. A single judge cannot undo a panel's decision,' Lauren Holmes, a court attorney, said during a scheduling meeting Monday afternoon at the Appellate Division First Department. Dennis Fan, a lawyer for the New York Attorney General, also declined to consent to expediting the briefing schedule."
Pennsylvania. Olafihimihan Oshin of the Hill: "Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have publicly condemned the antisemitic protest that took place outside a restaurant that serves Israeli food in Philadelphia. Demonstrators supporting Palestinians gathered outside of Goldie, which is part of a restaurant group co-owned by Israeli-born Michael Solomonov, calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war Sunday night, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Protesters were seen chanting 'Goldie, Goldie you can't hide, we charge you with genocide.' They also marched through the Center City neighborhood, calling out Philadelphia Eagles fans who were watching their team play in local bars.... 'Tonight in Philly, we saw a blatant act of antisemitism -- not a peaceful protest," Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) wrote on X.... 'A restaurant was targeted and mobbed because its owner is Jewish and Israeli.'... The Biden administration also condemned the demonstrators in front of Goldie's, calling it 'completely unjustifiable.'"
Kierra Frazier of Politico: "North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum dropped his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination on Monday after repeatedly polling in the single digits and failing to qualify for the third and fourth GOP debates. Burgum is the latest candidate to drop out of the race, following former South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, Vice President Mike Pence, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, former Rep. Will Hurd and businessperson Perry Johnson."
~~~ Thanks to D in MD for the link.
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Joshua Goodman & Eric Tucker of the AP: "A former American diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia has been arrested in a long-running FBI counterintelligence investigation, accused of secretly serving as an agent of Cuba's government, The Associated Press has learned. Manuel Rocha, 73, was arrested in Miami on Friday on a criminal complaint.... [A person] said the Justice Department case accuses Rocha of working to promote the Cuban government's interests.... Rocha's 25-year diplomatic career was spent under both Democratic and Republican administrations, much of it in Latin America during the Cold War, a period of sometimes heavy-handed U.S. political and military policies."
Scenes from an Expulsion. Kara Voght, et al., of the Washington Post: "This is the paradox of [George] Santos's downfall. His falsehoods and alleged crimes have been bold enough to be galling, yet frivolous enough to be funny. Unlike a certain other Republican politician whom the Justice Department recently charged with federal crimes, Santos is not a presidential contender with an army of supporters.... America may disagree on the political villains of our time, but a mostly powerless political villain is a court jester at best." ~~~
~~~ Jorge, the Movie. Edward Helmore of the Guardian: "A book about the improbable rise and rapid fall of former congressman George Santos has been optioned by HBO Films, it was reported Saturday, and will be produced under the guidance of Frank Rich, a former New York Times columnist known for executive production credits on Emmy awards-winning Succession and Veep. HBO reportedly optioned the rights to Mark Chiusano's The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos, published last week."
Presidential Election 2024
Caleb Howe of Mediaite: "... Donald Trump on Saturday said at a rally that he believes he would win California [and other states] in a presidential election if Jesus and God came down to oversee the ballots." MB: Apparently, the evil elections officials and voting machines are the collective anti-Christ.
God's Favorite Candidate Is a Confused Liar. Phillip Nieto of Mediaite: "... Donald Trump claimed he saved Obamacare after calling the Affordable Care act a 'disaster' and bragging about his efforts to remove it. During a rally a campaign rally in Iowa on Saturday, the Republican frontrunner started bragging to his supporters about how he nearly took down Obamacare while also invoking the name of deceased Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona). Trump attempted to pressure Congressional Republicans to repeal Obamacare during his first year in office when the GOP maintained a majority in the House and Senate. However, on July 27, 2017, McCain, the deciding vote in the matter, famously gave a thumbs down during the floor vote on its repeal. 'Obamacare is a disaster. And I said we're going to we're going to do something about it. I saved Obamacare when we got John McCain's negative vote,' Trump told the crowd." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Nieto doesn't say so, but after failing to repeal Obamacare, Trump did manage to sabotage it six way from Sunday. That's not exactly "saving" Obamacare.
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Florida. Stephanie Saul of the New York Times: Many liberal-leaning professors at Florida's universities "are giving up coveted tenured positions and blaming their departures on Governor [Ron] DeSantis and his effort to reshape the higher education system to fit his conservative principles.... They raised concerns that the governor's policies have become increasingly untenable for scholars and students." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Not exactly breaking news. My mother went to Florida State in the early 1940s, when it was Florida State College for Women. The board harassed her journalism teacher, Earl Vance, and a decade later tried to remove him from his job even though (I think) he had tenure. His offense? Too liberal. The board failed, even though they made life miserable for him. I recall seeing a teevee news report in which he was pictured climbing to his fourth-floor cubbyhole of an office via a fire escape because the board had removed him from a "normal," comfortable office in the department's HQ. What saved "Mistavance," as my mother called him, was that graduates of his classes worked as reporters all over Florida, and they raised a public fuss, exposing the board's antediluvian bias. Florida, and no doubt many other states, have a history of tensions between fatcat college board members and "egghead" faculty members.
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Israel/Palestine
The Washington Post's live updates of developments Monday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "Israel's military is expanding its ground operation against Hamas across the Gaza Strip, a spokesman said. As the hostilities resume, many civilians already displaced by the conflict are again being forced to flee as the fight moves south. An estimated 1.8 million people -- or 80 percent of the population of Gaza -- are now internally displaced, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Aid groups and Palestinian families say maps posted online by Israel directing them to 'safer' areas are sowing confusion because they lack specifics or those areas are overcrowded or under attack. The death toll continues to rise, with at least 316 people killed in the past day, the Gaza Health Ministry said Sunday, adding that more are likely buried under the rubble."
Peter Baker & Karoun Demirjian of the New York Times: "The U.S. government is making an intense effort to persuade Israel and Hamas to resume negotiations so they can once again pause hostilities and exchange more prisoners for hostages, a White House spokesman [John Kirby] said on Sunday.... In appearances on several Sunday talk shows, Mr. Kirby emphasized that Hamas was to blame for the breakdown in talks, saying that it had not lived up to the terms of its original agreement to begin handing over captives held in Gaza.... Israel has since resumed its attacks on Hamas, and Mr. Kirby urged it to avoid civilian casualties, while crediting its forces with making efforts to do so. He said Israeli authorities had been open to U.S. advice about how to make their assault more precise." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I wish newspapers would stop citing Republicans as experts on anything. For instance, in this article, they cite Lindsey Graham, who said Sunday that he had "lost confidence" in Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Or, if the reporters insist upon quoting these doofuses, they would describe them as, say, "Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), whose opinions and concerns are premised on whatever will get him on the teevee."
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Reader Comments (11)
"...Governor [Ron] DeSantis and his effort to reshape the higher education system to fit his conservative principles..."
In the gaslighting NYT, right wing grandstanding for Vern-awtNaTrawk is washed and brushed up to "conservative principles." Conservative principles! WTF???
Ground Zero for protest against Republican nitwits should be right in front of the NYT HQ. Denying any responsibility whatsoever, they put him in office in 2016. They want to do it again in 2024. And again, it's "who? us?"
NYT is the oboe to which the orchestra of MSM gaslighters tune their "coverage" instruments. To attack Republicans and their fascist ambitions, attack the NYT. Their decades of connivance is even more insidious than FOX.
@mKaneJeeves: "Conservative principles," at least when used to describe the motivating force behind most Republicans, is an oxymoron.
And I agree with you that the Times' constant whitewashing of GOP connivance is inexcusable. It's as if their insidious "conservative" columnist David Brooks is also working as their copy editor on every political story, making sure to airbrush the truth out of every possible implication that wingers have nefarious ulterior motives.
As you were writing your comment, coincidentally I was dissing the Times for quoting Lindsey Graham, who like DeSantis, lacks any "principle" at all.
Marie,
Party of Traitors hacks like Aunt Pittypat don’t entirely lack principles, such as they are. As you point out, a singular principle is A) to get on TV, any way they can. That enables them to show constituents, who also have very few principles beyond owning the libs that they’re still there. Next down the list of PoT “principles” are pander points: B) tax cuts for wealthy donors (along with SCOTUS help in keeping those donors a secret), total bans on abortion to keep uppity, sex crazed females in their place, which pleases the Jesus crowd, and finally C) voter suppression and gerrymandering, thus B and C allow them to not worry about being re-elected in order to continue pursuing A.
Repeat as needed.
See? Principles.
@Akhilleus: Well, okay, I stand corrected.
Marriage in trouble! Aieeee!
Of course the Gray Lady (starting to look a tad reddish gray, no?) is not the only major MSM outlet that tends to scold liberals while coddling (and inaccurately reporting on) wingers/traitors.
“The Washington Post editorial board (11/22/23) has its knickers in a twist over marriage. ‘If Attitudes Don’t Shift, a Political Dating Mismatch Will Threaten Marriage,’ it recently warned. The Post lamented the increase in political polarization because it portends ‘the collapse of American marriage.’
You see, the Post has identified a ‘growing ideological divide” between single young men and women, with far more women identifying as liberal—a gap that’s “particularly pronounced among Gen Z white people,’ the Post board takes care to point out.
When you add this to a 2021 survey of college students that found ‘71% of Democrats would not date someone with opposing views,’ the Post says, you find yourself with a ‘mismatch [that] means that someone will need to compromise.’ And since it’s the Democrats who say they won’t date Republicans, that would mean the young liberal women are the ones who need to do the compromising.”
So see? It’s not “Both Sides”! It’s the liberals’ fault. And not for nothin’, but as soon as you see a lede that says “Traditional marriage in danger!!” you can bet the farm there aren’t going to be many quotes from Mother Jones or Bella Abzug.
Okay, a couple of things. First, we’re not talking about normal “opposing views”, you say potato, I say potahto. No. This is I say potato, you say “you’re all gonna fucking die!”
For views to be oppositional, there has to be some common ground, a point at which the rules for distinguishing views based in a shared understanding are accepted by both sides. If you’re going to work on math problems together, both parties have to agree that 2+2=4. If the other guy says 2+2=child sex trafficking by the Clintons, you’re in trouble.
Liberals, pretty much, haven’t changed their basic tenets at least since the Depression. Some tweaks here and there, sure, but any one of us could take a Doc Brown DeLorean back to 1935, ‘45, ‘65, ‘85 and find plenty of commonality with contemporary liberals.
Right wingers? Not a chance. Just go back 15 years and tell most conservatives that the President* ordered a violent insurrection to stay in power, that the Speaker demands the nation abide by Biblical law as he interprets it, that one of the leaders of the Party talks about Jewish space lasers, and another gives hand jobs in a public theater, and they’d think you were nuts. Sure, there’d be some who would think “Wow! That sounds great!” but the Post writers here would have readers believe that it’s liberals who have changed and must now get back in line.
One other point. Marie points out the problem with sitting at the feet of pretenders and charlatans and pronouncing them experts whose opinions must be accorded the dignity of wisdom. The Post editors, for this piece about how young liberal women better wise up and start dating guys wearing face paint and battle helmets while storming the Capitol, find their own “experts”:
“In fact, the right-wing Institute for Family Studies lurks throughout the editorial, along with its senior fellow Brad Wilcox, who was involved in discredited anti-same-sex marriage research that was influential in that political battle a decade ago. Together, the Post references or links to them three separate times in its editorial.”
Gee, think that skews the analysis a bit? So here we have 2+2=Gays go to hell! Aieeee!
Sounds like a match to me.
But the Post and the Times are liberal rags…
I don't think Jesus and God will be coming down to oversee ballot
counting for Donald.
They're much too busy condemning gays to hell, denying abortions
when necessary to save a life, and trying to destroy the Affordable
Care Act.
Or is that Republicans doing those things? I get the two confused,
I can attest to the fact that traditional marriage is down, at least for
2023. It's the first time in many years that we had no wedding parties
asking permission to photograph in the garden.
So I got no free champaign this year and it's all Biden's fault.
@Forrest Morris: On my way to the post office (and the dump!), I pass a Second Empire house of the Charles Adams/"Psycho" style. It could be beautiful, but it's in some disrepair and it's painted ugly brown & peeling beige. Along the road in front of the house are about a dozen Trump yard signs. Most just say "Trump," but one says, "Let's Go, Brandon," and on the back of that sign (also visible from the road) is a hand-written note "Biden owes me a tank of gas." I surmise that's because the house's owners blame Biden every time the price of gas rises (but don't credit him when gas prices drop).
I'd say Biden owes you a bottle of champagne.
Orange Jesus? see
AK, my friend Barry Friedman does an analysis every week of one Sunday political TV interview, usually these days with a Republican who spouts ten kinds of nonsense with little or no follow-up. This week was Sen. James Lankford of OK, who actually comes across as too coherent for the party he represents: "The American people make this choice, and then we actually, as leaders, work with other leaders to be able to go through the process." I commented that I pictured Sarah Palin using this answer in her interview with Katie Couric. when asked the question, "What's your favorite part of governing?" Yes, Sarah Palin, bless her heart, these days would be primaried from the right.
(https://barrysfriedman.substack.com/p/where-the-rationalization-comes-sweepin)
As for the media and the parties, it's sad but true that when confronted with two contending sides, you ignore the reasonable one and concentrate on meeting the demands of the other. These days, the "other" includes people who are sick and tired of having to live in a world ruled by science and "those people" rather than Jesus.
Tim Alberta's new book, "THE KINGDOM, THE POWER, AND THE GLORY: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism," includes this passage: "Trump himself used decidedly less vivid language to describe the evangelicals who supported Senator Ted Cruz in the 2016 Republican primaries, telling an Iowa Republican official: 'You know, these so-called Christians hanging around with Ted are some real pieces of shit.' Many of Cruz’s evangelical supporters eventually backed Trump in 2016; in the 2020 election, Trump increased his share of the white evangelical vote even more, to a whopping 84 percent."
Making America great again is restoring the rule of white people and Jesus. That's pretty much it. Oh, and guys get to call all the shots. No wonder young women would rather go without than mate for life with these stunads.
Supremes conflicted:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-tackles-sackler-family-liability-protections-opioid-sett-rcna127663
If they'd give me a call, I'd help them out.
Just listened to Rachel interview Liz Cheney-- drives me insane to agree with Liz...It was a good interview.
Agree with the young women declining to even go to the movies with wingers.Why date someone from another planet?
Jack: your friend Barry: is that the same one that Charlie features all the time, Friedman of the Plains? I guess I didn't realize I could read him too...he is a whiz.