Friday
Mar012024
The Conversation -- March 1, 2024
Aamer Madhani, et al., of the AP: "The U.S. will begin airdropping humanitarian assistance into Gaza, President Joe Biden said Friday, a day after more than 100 Palestinians were killed during a chaotic encounter with Israeli troops. The president announced the move after at least 115 Palestinians were killed and more than 750 others were injured, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, on Thursday when witnesses said Israeli troops opened fire as huge crowds raced to pull goods off an aid convoy. Biden said the airdrops would begin soon and that the United States was looking into additional ways to facilitate getting badly needed aid into the war-battered territory to ease the suffering of Palestinians."
Can, Kicked. Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "A federal judge in Florida held a hearing on Friday to consider a new date for ... Donald J. Trump's trial on charges of mishandling classified documents, but made no immediate decision about a choice that could have major consequences for his legal and political future.... Several decisions Judge [Aileen] Cannon has reached in recent months about the pacing of the case have made it all but impossible for the trial to start in May[, as originally scheduled].... Judge Cannon's decision about whether to go with a July date, an August date or something later in the documents case could have an effect on the timing of the election case, as well. Mr. Trump attended the hearing on Friday."
Rachel Weiner & Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "A federal appeals court on Friday overturned a sentencing enhancement used against Jan. 6 defendants charged with felony obstruction, a decision that means that over 100 convicted rioters may have to be resentenced. The decision came from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Friday when it upheld the felony conviction of a Jan. 6 defendant who stormed the U.S. Capitol, reaffirming a charge also lodged against ... Donald Trump that will soon be debated by the Supreme Court. It's not clear what benefit retired Air Force lieutenant colonel Larry R. Brock Jr. or any other Jan. 6 defendant will receive because of the ruling. Enhancements raise the range of suggested sentences judges must consider. D.C. judges usually sentence below those guidelines, and regularly make clear that their punishments would be the same without the enhancement. The ruling could have an impact in plea negotiations, eliminating one bargaining chip used by prosecutors when encouraging defendants to plead guilty without a trial. If the Supreme Court reverses or pares back the use of the obstruction charge, all of those cases would have to be reconsidered anew."
** The Great Putin Puppet Show. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "... the House Republicans' year-long attempt to impeach [President] Biden, it now seems clear, was based on a Russian disinformation campaign -- and House Republicans went along with it, either as useful idiots or knowing accomplices. The Republicans' star witness, Alexander Smirnov, has been indicted by a special counsel for fabricating the claim that Joe Biden received a $5 million bribe. He was apparently doing the bidding of Russian intelligence.... Before that, the Republican sleuths' other key witness, Gal Luft, went missing. It turned out he had been charged in a sealed indictment with arms trafficking and illegal lobbying work -- for China. He remains on the lam. Republicans have also relied on the accounts of one of Hunter Biden's former business partners, who was sentenced to prison for defrauding a Native American tribe, and of a convicted fraudster House investigators went to visit last week at a prison in Alabama.... They have produced nothing that shows Joe Biden was involved in any way in the businesses of his son.
"Now, House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) and his House Republicans, some of them citing Russia's talking points, are blocking funds for Ukraine's war effort that the Senate passed overwhelmingly. Are they unwitting tools of Moscow? Or willing conduits? At the very least, they don't seem to care that they are serving as Vladimir Putin's pawns." Read on.
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Zolan Kanno-Youngs, et al., of the New York Times: "President Biden and ... Donald J. Trump made dueling visits to the U.S.-Mexico border on Thursday, with Mr. Biden challenging his predecessor to 'join me' in securing the country's southern frontier and Mr. Trump blaming the president for lawlessness at the border.... The president called on his predecessor to help pass a bipartisan bill in Congress that would significantly crack down on border crossings. Republicans, at Mr. Trump's urging, torpedoed the bill -- legislation that they themselves had demanded.... 'You know and I know it's the toughest, most efficient, most effective border security bill this country has ever seen,' [Mr. Biden] said. 'Instead of playing politics with the issue, why don't we just get together and get it done.'... In Eagle Pass, which has become a common backdrop for politicians who want to show they are tough on immigration, Mr. Trump stood near a makeshift wall of razor wire and used the language of war to describe the border crisis. 'It's a military operation,' he said after touring Shelby Park, where Gov. Greg Abbott has sent the Texas National Guard to police the border. Mr. Trump said that the migrants 'look like warriors to me,' adding that 'something's going on. It's bad.' He also highlighted crimes committed by migrants in an attempt to portray Mr. Biden as plunging the nation into crime and disorder." ~~~
~~~ Marie: This is one crappy piece of reporting, although perhaps it should get some award for both-siderism. It should have been titled something like, "Statesman-Diplotmat v. Lying Demagogue." Instead, when it wasn't horse-race commentary, it was he-said/he-said. ~~~
~~~ And in a Similar (if More Reality-Based) Vein... Yasmeen Abutaleb & Marianne LeVine of the Washington Post: "President Biden and ... Donald Trump visited separate Texas border towns 300 miles apart on Thursday, blaming each other for a surge in illegal immigration and seeking to take the offensive on an issue that is shaping up to be a critical and volatile factor in this year's presidential contest. Biden used his visit to Brownsville, a Democratic stronghold, to blame Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate, for killing a bipartisan border bill that would have provided $20 billion to hire thousands of new Border Patrol agents and asylum officers and increase detention capacity.... About 300 miles away in Eagle Pass, Trump renewed his embrace of a tough-on-immigration message that was central to his political rise in 2016 and that he has made a centerpiece of his third presidential campaign. 'This is a Joe Biden invasion, this is a Biden invasion,' the former president said of the influx of illegal migrants. 'The United States is being overrun by the Biden migrant crime,' Trump added.... Experts say most of the evidence suggests that undocumented immigrants do not cause more crime." ~~~
~~~ Politico has a horse-race story that -- unlike the Times & WashPo -- does not bother to fact-check Trump's false claims about "migrant crime."
~~~ The New York Times liveblogged the Biden & Trump trips to the U.S.-Mexico border. (Also linked yesterday.) Related story linked below under "Texas." ~~~
~~~ Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: "... the dueling border events were about something even more fundamental than immigration policy. They spoke to the competing visions of power and presidency that are at stake in 2024 -- of autocracy and the value of democracy itself.... Their disparate answers [to the border problem] represent a test of the American appetite for the systemic messiness of democracy: [President] Biden's intrinsic and institutional belief in legislating versus the 'Day 1' promises of dictatorial enactment under Mr. Trump.... In a surprise flourish toward the end of his remarks, the president offered an olive branch to Mr. Trump himself. 'Join me,' Mr. Biden urged, in calling on the two of them to work together to get the legislation passed. 'Or I'll join you.'... After passing razor wire and military Humvees, and after shaking hands with Texas National Guard members in fatigues, Mr. Trump cast himself as a battle-tested leader ready to fend off an 'invasion' by hordes of 'fighting-age men' who look like 'warriors.' 'This is like a war,' Mr. Trump said, expressing a willingness to use something akin to wartime powers."
Olympia Sonnier & Garrett Haake of NBC News: "When Donald Trump speaks at the southern border in Texas on Thursday, you can expect to hear him talk about 'migrant crime,' a category he has coined and defined as a terrifying binge of criminal activity committed by undocumented immigrants spreading across the country.... But despite the former president's campaign rhetoric, expert analysis and available data from major-city police departments show that despite several horrifying high-profile incidents, there is no evidence of a migrant-driven crime wave in the United States." Read on. The reporters cite numerous stats that defy Trump's scare tactics/campaign lies. (Also linked yesterday.) MB Update: Yeah, Trump did talk about "migrant crime." Only he called it "Biden migrant crime."
Congress Makes Down Payment on Light Bill. Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "Congress passed its latest short-term stopgap spending patch on Thursday to head off a partial government shutdown at the end of the week, giving lawmakers more time to resolve funding disputes that have persisted for months. The measure, approved first by the House and hours later by the Senate, would extend funding for half of the government for one week, through March 8, and the rest for three weeks, until March 22. President Biden is expected to quickly sign it, averting a lapse in federal funding for several agencies that otherwise would begin at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday. It passed in the House by a vote of 320 to 99, with Democrats providing the bulk of the votes and Republicans roughly split. In the Senate, lawmakers approved the measure in a lopsided 77-to-13 vote.... Congressional leaders cleared the way for the legislation on Wednesday when they said they had come to an agreement on six of the 12 annual spending bills, and planned to finalize the details, debate the package and clear it to be signed into law by March 8. If they fail to do so, they will again face the threat of a partial shutdown next week." CNN's report is here.
Remembering Mitch. Robert Reich on Substack: Mitch McConnell has "been a truly awful public official. McConnell has always put party above America. Remember when he said his most important goal as Senate leader was to make Barack Obama a one-term president?... Despite his opposition to Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election -- admitting publicly that Trump 'provoked' the attack on the U.S. Capitol -- McConnell voted to acquit Trump on the charge of inciting an insurrection on January 6, 2021.... This is the man who refused for almost a year to allow the Senate to consider President Obama's moderate Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland. Then, when Trump became president, this is the man who got rid of the age-old Senate rule requiring 60 senators to agree on a Supreme Court nomination so he could ram through not one but two Supreme Court justices, including one with a likely history of sexual assault. This is the man who rushed through the Senate, without a single hearing, a $2 trillion tax cut for big corporations and wealthy Americans -- a tax cut that raised the government debt by almost the same amount, generated no new investment, and failed to raise wages, but gave the stock market a temporary sugar high because most corporations used the tax savings to buy back their own shares of stock." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Carl Hulse of the New York Times writes an "end of an era" piece on Mitch McConnell. The gist of the story is not particularly flattering, but Nancy Pelosi, speaking to Chris Hayes last night, noted that when the first and only woman to hold the Speaker's job stepped down, there weren't any "end of an era" hagiographies splashed across the front pages of major media outlets. MB: What's odd about this is that Pelosi & Mitch managed their respective chambers in much the same way: they kept their heads down and quietly counted cats. You can see where a flame-throwing jerk like Newt Gingrich would get a lot more attention than an all-business leader, but Mitch & Nancy, for all their differences, had similar leadership styles. So I ask you, what could possibly explain the difference in their media coverage?
I never worked for a country. I am not Jared Kushner. -- Hunter Biden, during sworn testimony before House Committees ~~~
~~~ Philip Bump of the Washington Post: During "Hunter Biden's appearance in front of investigators and members of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees..., Republican legislators and interviewers challenging the president's son ... would throw out an allegation, often one that's been worn smooth after tumbling around in the right-wing media universe for the past year or two. And Biden would invariably swat it away, stripping off the layers of innuendo that had been applied by Donald Trump and Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) or Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) or any of myriad Fox News commentators.... Over and over, interlocutors presented Hunter Biden with the sorts of suspicious-sounding tidbits that have been the crux of the Republican argument for months. And, over and over, he offered credible responses.... At no point was a question left unanswered...." Politico has a story here. The AP has takeaways here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: If you've got lots of time, you can read the transcript here, via the House.
The Trials of Trump
Alan Feuer & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "In a filing to the judge [Aileen Cannon] overseeing the [purloined classified documents] case, [Trump lawyers] repeated their complaints that Mr. Trump could not be tried fairly until the election was concluded, but then proposed a new date for the trial of Aug. 12, almost three months before Election Day and just weeks after the Republican convention to choose a party nominee.... Prosecutors working for the special counsel, Jack Smith, also sent a letter on Thursday evening to Judge Cannon proposing a new date for the trial: July 8.... It was not immediately clear what led to the sudden change of heart -- or to the selection of Aug. 12 -- especially given that the lawyers spent much of their filing to the judge... claiming that the law, the Constitution and the Justice Department's own policy manual frowned on the idea of taking 'the presumptive Republican nominee' to trial at the height of his campaign for the White House. One possibility was that the lawyers, by proposing to spend much of late summer and early fall in court on the classified documents case, were seeking to prevent the former president's other federal trial -- on charges of plotting to subvert the 2020 election -- from being held before voters make their choice." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Oh, it's "immediately clear" to me. I'll elaborate on my latest conspiracy theory later in the day.
Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied. Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court's decision to hear Donald Trump's audacious claim of presidential immunity from prosecution ... all but guarantees one of two terrible outcomes. Either the forme president's trial ... will now not take place until after the 2024 election, or it will be held in the final months before Election Day. The justices are not entirely responsible for this mess, but they have just made a bad situation far worse than it needed to be. My beef isn't with the court's decision to hear the case -- it's with the outrageously lethargic timing. It would have been far better for the court to have taken up the issue back in December, when special counsel Jack Smith urged the justices to leapfrog the federal appeals court. Now, two and a half months have gone by.... Worst of all, especially given this timetable, the justices could have allowed trial preparations to go forward while the case was briefed, argued and decided.... And there might be more delay -- we'll find out, eventually -- built into the way the court has framed the question it wants to decide[.]" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "... the court's order appeared to ignore the enormous elephant in the room: the looming election that makes Mr. Trump's trial on charges that he had plotted to overturn the 2020 election a race against time. The schedule the court set could make it hard, if not impossible, to complete Mr. Trump's trial before the 2024 election. Should Mr. Trump win at the polls, there is every reason to think the prosecution would be scuttled.... The court's insistence on deciding the largest questions in American life may have effectively answered one of them: whether Mr. Trump may be held accountable for his actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election before the one in 2024." ~~~
~~~ Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post puts a positive spin on the Supreme Court's framing of the question it will consider in regard to presidential immunity. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Rick Hasen of Election Law Blog: "Early on, I called this federal election subversion case potentially the most important case in this Nation's history. And now it may not happen because of timing, timing that is completely in the Supreme Court's control. After all, this is the second time the Court has not expedited things to hear this case. This could well be game over." (Also linked yesterday.)
Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "Terrence Bradley, an Atlanta-area lawyer, had been billed as the star witness in the effort to disqualify Fani T. Willis, the district attorney leading the election interference case against ... Donald J. Trump in Georgia. But when Mr. Bradley took the stand this week --; and twice earlier this month -- he was a deeply reluctant witness.... But hundreds of text messages obtained by The New York Times show that Mr. Bradley, a former law partner and friend of Mr. Wade, helped a defense lawyer to expose the relationship between the two prosecutors. The texts reveal that Mr. Bradley, who served for a time as [prosecutor Nathan] Wade's divorce lawyer until the two men had a bitter falling-out, assisted the effort to reveal the romance and provide details about it for at least four months -- countering the impression he left on the witness stand that he had known next to nothing about the romance." This story covers the same subject as Nick Valencia & others addressed earlier (linked yesterday). (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Zachary Cohen of CNN: "The winery worker who first told CNN that he witnessed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis pay cash when she visited Napa Valley with special prosecutor Nathan Wade in 2023 is offering to testify, according to a court filing from prosecutors late Thursday, ahead of closing arguments in the fight over whether Willis should be disqualified from the Georgia election subversion case. Prosecutors are moving to admit into evidence an affidavit from Stan Brody, who told CNN earlier this month that Willis not only picked up the nearly $400 tab when she visited Acumen Wines in Napa Valley with Wade, but paid in cash -- backing up part of her earlier testimony. Prosecutors want Judge Scott McAfee to accept Brody's affidavit into evidence and if he doesn't, they ask that Brody be allowed to testify in person, according to the filing. They said Brody is willing to testify at Friday's hearing."
There is no grand conspiracy here against you. It's time for you to grow up! -- Judge Trevor McFadden, to January 6 insurrectionist Brandon Fellows ~~~
~~~ Salvador Rizzo of the Washington Post: "A tree cutter who smoked marijuana in a senator's office during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was sentenced to 3½ years in prison Thursday after his strategy of interrupting and challenging the sentencing judge seemed to blow up in his face. A jury in U.S. District Court in D.C. last year convicted Brandon Fellows, 29, of obstructing an official proceeding, entering a restricted building and disorderly conduct stemming from his 36-minute incursion into the Capitol with a mob of supporters of ... Donald Trump.... Fellows, from Upstate New York, chose to represent himself through most of his legal proceedings and was found in contempt at his trial after calling U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden a 'modern-day Nazi' running a 'kangaroo court.' 'In all my years as a judge, and before that as a litigator, I have never seen such contemptuous conduct,' McFadden said at Thursday's sentencing, recalling that Fellows also made 'lewd comments' to his probation officer, 'outlandish accusations' against prosecutors and heckling remarks to the jury as the verdicts were being read." MB: The photo accompanying the story is worth that proverbial thousand words.
Daniel Wu of the Washington Post: "Manuel Rocha, a retired U.S. ambassador, said Thursday that he will plead guilty to charges of serving as a secret agent for Cuba's spy agency, affirming what the Justice Department described as one of the most serious infiltrations of U.S. government in history.... Prosecutors alleged in December that Rocha, a former State Department employee who served on the National Security Council and as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, spied on the United States for more than 40 years as an agent of Cuba.... Rocha, who was born in Colombia and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1978, embarked on a decades-long campaign to ascend the ranks of the State Department in service of Cuba's spy agencies beginning in 1981, the Justice Department alleged. Rocha held various roles in the State Department that conferred access to classified information, according to prosecutors." The AP report, which broke the news, is here.
Julie Weil of the Washington Post: "Thousands of high-income earners have not filed tax returns for several years, but the cash-strapped Internal Revenue Service did nothing to get them to pay what they owe. That changes now, the tax agency announced Thursday. The IRS will send notices to thousands of people who made more than $400,000 and did not file returns in at least one year from 2017 to 2022, the first step to collecting any tax owed. About 25,000 cases involve people whose income is known to the agency to be above $1 million, IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said. About 100,000 instances stem from people with income from $400,000 to $1 million, as reported to the IRS by their employers and banks." The AP's story is here.
Alanna Richer & Eric Tucker of the AP: "A federal judge held veteran investigative reporter Catherine Herridge in civil contempt on Thursday for refusing to divulge her source for a series of Fox News stories about a Chinese American scientist who was investigated by the FBI but never charged. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington imposed a fine of $800 per day until Herridge reveals her source, but the fine will not go into effect immediately to give her time to appeal.... The source is being sought by Yanping Chen, who has sued the government over the leak of details about the federal probe into statements she made on immigration forms related to work on a Chinese astronaut program. Herridge, who was recently laid off by CBS News, published an investigative series for Fox News in 2017 that examined Chen's ties to the Chinese military and raised questions about whether the scientist was using a professional school she founded in Virginia to help the Chinese government get information about American servicemembers." The Washington Post's report is here.
Presidential Race
Illinois. Rachel Leingang of the Guardian: "Donald Trump has appealed a decision from an Illinois state judge who decided he should be removed from that state's ballot because of the 14th amendment, an ongoing issue for Trump in the courts. Tracie Porter, the Cook county circuit judge, made the decision on Wednesday, reversing the previous decision by the Illinois state board of elections, which said Trump could stay on the ballot. The order was put on hold pending an appeal from Trump, which came swiftly on Thursday." Related story linked yesterday. (Also linked yesterday.)
Glenn Thrush & Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "A Massachusetts Air National Guardsman accused of posting dozens of secret intelligence reports and other sensitive documents on a gaming chat group is expected to plead guilty in federal court on Monday, prosecutors said in a court filing on Thursday. The airman, Jack Teixeira, intends to withdraw his not-guilty plea in a deal that is likely to entail prison time, but less than the 60-year maximum sentence he faced on charges of improperly handling and publicly disclosing national defense secrets, according to two people briefed on the agreement."
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Texas. David Goodman of the New York Times: "A federal court in Austin on Thursday blocked the implementation of a Texas law that would allow state and local police officers to arrest migrants who cross from Mexico without authorization, siding with the federal government in a legal showdown over immigration enforcement. The ruling, by Judge David A. Ezra of the Western District of Texas, was a victory for the Biden administration, which had argued that the new state law violated federal statutes and the U.S. Constitution. The Texas law had been set to go into effect on March 5 but will now be put on hold as the case moves forward. In granting a preliminary injunction, Judge Ezra, who was appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan, signaled that the federal government was likely to eventually win on the merits." The AP's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Texas. Maria Paúl of the Washington Post: "Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) earlier this month demanded records pertaining to the support an LGBTQ+ nonprofit provides to families seeking gender-affirming care for their transgender children -- a treatment the state banned last year. But rather than turning over the information, the group, PFLAG, is now suing Paxton. The lawsuit -- filed Wednesday evening by advocacy groups Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Transgender Law Center -- asks the court to block Paxton's request, arguing that it amounts to 'governmental intimidation' and an attempt to restrict PFLAG members' 'personal freedoms and chill the exercise of their rights.'"
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Canada. Alan Cowell of the New York Times: "Brian Mulroney, Canada's 18th prime minister, whose statesmanship on what he called 'great causes,' from free trade and acid rain in North America to the overthrow of apartheid in South Africa, gave way to accusations of financial misdoing and influence-peddling after he left office, died on Thursday in a hospital in Palm Beach, Fla., where he had a home. He was 84."
Israel/Palestine, et al.
The Washington Post's live updates of developments Friday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "Global leaders expressed shock and grief over an incident in which Gaza health officials said more than 100 people were killed after a crowd converged on an aid convoy in Gaza City, and connected the event to the dire humanitarian situation in the territory. Josep Borrell, the top E.U. diplomat, said he was 'horrified by news of yet another carnage among civilians in Gaza desperate for humanitarian aid.' Palestinian and Israeli officials exchanged blame for Thursday's incident, which President Biden said will complicate hostage negotiations." ~~~
~~~ The New York Times' live updates for Friday are here. CNN's liveblog is here.
New York Times: "Israeli forces opened fire on Thursday as a crowd gathered near a convoy of trucks carrying desperately needed aid in Gaza City, part of a chaotic scene in which scores of people were killed and injured, according to Gazan health officials and an Israeli military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The details of what happened were unclear, with officials from both sides offering starkly different accounts of the event. The Gazan health ministry said in a statement that more than 100 people were killed and more than 700 injured in a 'massacre.' The Israeli official acknowledged that troops had opened fire, but said most of the people had been killed or injured in a stampede several hundred yards away. Gazans, especially in the north of the territory, have become increasingly desperate for food." This is part of the NYT liveblog. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ CNN's liveblog for Thursday is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Matt Berg of Politico: "President Joe Biden walked back his assessment that a hostage deal to pause fighting in the Gaza Strip could be reached by Monday. 'I was on the telephone with the people in the region,' Biden told reporters on the South Lawn Thursday morning, adding: 'Probably not by Monday, but I'm hopeful.'"
Russia. Valerie Hopkins of the New York Times: "Huge crowds of people, some holding flowers, turned out in Moscow on Friday for the funeral services for Aleksei A. Navalny, Russia's most prominent opposition figure, two weeks after his mysterious death in a remote Arctic penal colony. The service was taking place under tight monitoring from the Russian authorities, who have arrested hundreds of mourners at memorial sites since Mr. Navalny died. Police presence was heavy around the church where funeral services began shortly after 2 p.m. local time. People chanted Mr. Navalny's last name as his coffin was taken into the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God Soothe My Sorrows, a Russian Orthodox church in southern Moscow. Images on social media showed attendees lining up, but also security cameras that the local news media reported had been recently installed, and signs forbidding mourners to take pictures or video in the church. Almost 250,000 people were watching a livestream of the event organized by Mr. Navalny's allies, while about 150,000 watched coverage on YouTube by the independent TV Rain, according to figures provided by the streaming platform." ~~~
~~~ CNN is liveblogging developments. ~~~
~~~ ** Ukraine, et al. Putin Threatens "Destruction of Civilization." Anton Troianovski of the New York Times: "President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said the West faced the prospect of nuclear conflict if it intervened more directly in the war in Ukraine, using an annual speech to the nation on Thursday to escalate his threats against Europe and the United States. Mr. Putin said NATO countries that were helping Ukraine strike Russian territory or might consider sending their own troops 'must, in the end, understand' that 'all this truly threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons, and therefore the destruction of civilization.'" The AP's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
News Lede
New York Times: "Wildfires continued to burn out of control in the Texas Panhandle on Friday morning, and officials warned that warm, windy and dry weather was expected to return over the weekend that could fan the flames. The National Weather Service forecast 'critical fire weather conditions' in the region on Saturday and Sunday, and urged residents to refrain from outdoor activities that might generate sparks or flames over the weekend, which includes Texas Independence Day on Saturday.... Two deaths have been connected to the fires in northern Texas so far.... [One of the fires,] The Smokehouse Creek fire, has charred at least 1,075,000 acres of land, making it the largest wildfire on record in Texas history."
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Reader Comments (21)
Stepping away from the astonishingly treasonous Supreme Court (the level of which is even more astonishing given that the party most of them serve is composed almost entirely of traitors to America, the rule of law, and the elemental notion of democracy, and they leave those guys in the dust), I bring you the story of a lawsuit brought by someone who considers himself Mr. Humanitarian.
Elon Musk.
Ha! Bet you didn’t think it was gonna be him, right? I mean when you hear “humanitarian” you think “Albert Schweitzer”, “Gandhi”, “Martin Luther King”, “Mother Teresa”,…but Elon Musk?
Okay, anyway, here’s ol’ Elon, pal to white supremacists, Nazis, and Donald Trump (that’s some serious humanitarian cred right there, in’it?) suing ChatGPT founder Sam Altman. Why?
He won’t let Elon steal his code. The nerve!
“‘OpenAI has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company, Microsoft,’ said the lawsuit, which was filed Thursday in Superior Court in San Francisco.”
He also sez Altman is trying to make a profit off AI instead of giving it away to the public out of humanitarian generosity, for the good of mankind.
Because Xitter, under Musk, has become an avatar of humanitarian generosity.
But here’s the real deal. Since taking over Twitter, Musk’s arrogance and ignorance about the business has caused enormous numbers of talented programmers to flee. At least the ones he didn’t already fire, including thousands of employees whose job it was to try to rein in the most dangerous postings. Here’s tech writer Ed Zitron:
“You see, he is not done ruining things yet. Musk’s response to a catastrophic level of resignations - possibly the largest-scale rejection of an executive’s ideologies in modern history - was to demand that ‘anyone who can actually write software…report to the 10th floor [of Twitter HQ] by 2 PM today.’ Said ‘software writers’ were asked to email Musk a ‘bullet point summary of [the] code commits [they] have achieved in the past 6 months.’ He is also asking engineers to provide up to 10 screenshots of their ‘most salient lines of code,’ with a follow-up that he expects people to visit in person, and that he would ‘encourage you to fly to SF to present in person.’”
Here’s how stupid that is. This is like asking surgeons to send in pictures of their 10 best stitch jobs from the last six months. No context, no relation to outcomes or effectiveness. Did the patient live? Any further complications? You get the idea. This is sixth grade level bullshit. But it underscores Musk’s desperation. He needs coders and he needs solid working code to survive, because he has his own version of ChatGPT, called Grok, and wow, is it a doozy.
His GPT model relies solely on the postings of all the knuckleheads, liars, Nazis, traitors, Trumpbots, and malignant trolls who currently inhabit his site. More importantly, at least to Musk, large language modeling is incredibly expensive.
“Musk is already using Grok as a marketing vehicle for X Premium+’s $16-a-month subscription, and if he actually offers it to every subscriber, there’s no way in hell that this is a profitable transaction…If Grok costs even a quarter of what ChatGPT does a day, that’s still $175,000 a day from a company that said a year ago it was losing $4 million a day, and that’s before they lost such a remarkable amount of advertising revenue.”
Oops. No wonder he’s pissed that Sam Altman isn’t letting him swipe code that actually works.
But “the good of mankind”…
Right.
Mississippi Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith blocked a senate
bill that would have protected IVF treatment on a federal level
because, she says, that treatment could lead to human-animal hybrids.
Is that where that saying "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle" came from?
If Trump gets back in charge, he will probably put her in charge of all
scientific research in the USA.
https://deadstate.org/gop-senator-blocks-bill-designed-to-protect-ivf-
treatment-because-it-could-legalize-the-creation-of-human-animal-
chimeras/
Yesterday (was it yesterday? So much shit hitting the fan all at once, it’s like a poo-fling festival) I suggested that there’s no way Netanyahu will sign on to even an eight minute ceasefire if he thinks it might help Biden beat his bestie, the Orange Monster, who wouldn’t care if Israel went full-Dresden on Gaza.
And what do we see today?
Starving Palestinians machine gunned while lining up for food. Are you fucking kidding me? A hundred people murdered and many more wounded. Trying to get food. Of course, the official response is that it was their fault. Those people shouldn’t have been so frantic trying to get something to eat. They, um…yeah…they trampled each other. Yeah. That’s it. They killed themselves. Oh, the soldiers thought they were going to attack them so they HAD to fire at them.
This is the sort of stuff that drives people nuts. And I realize, unlike those Never Biden types in Michigan, that Biden cannot stop Netanyahu by just saying so. And Bibi ain’t stopping anyway. He needs this war to continue to stay out of jail. Plus he wants Biden to lose.
But Biden has to do something. He’s in a tough spot. I don’t know what he can do to stop these atrocities, maybe nothing. But it’s hurting him. To say nothing about what it’s doing to those poor buggers in Gaza.
Forrest,
You ain’t far off, brother.
I hadda look it up to be sure, but I had a feeling this expression, monkey’s uncle, had something to do with creationist Christians poking fun at evolution.
And that’s exactly it.
Except, as usual, they had it backwards. If I’m a monkey’s uncle, then the monkey is more advanced than me. Darwin’s theory of evolution proposes that humans descended from earlier species of primates, not the other way around. But I’d venture to say that plenty of idiots roaming the halls of various legislatures these days, like the lady you mention, are less evolved than monkeys.
Give her a banana.
Whoa. I’ll bet Gym N Jim and their Trumpbot Impeach Biden crew had a major sphincter event when Hunter Biden reminded everyone that he’s not a grifting scumbag on the international level of Jared Kushner, who used his White House sinecure to enrich himself to the tune of billions of dollars. What? No investigation of Jared? Hmm…wonder why.
It’s like over here is a guy who robbed a bank, shot two tellers and three customers on the way out. On the other side of the street is a guy who jaywalked. Holy shit! Arrest that jaywalker. Let’s hold a year of “investigations” based on lies, and months of closed door kangaroo court hearings.
And while we’re at it, call a cab for the bank robber. Set him up in a nice room at the Ritz so he can count his money in peace, and…and send the bills to the taxpayers.
@Marie: May I post my AutoCorrect joke?
Trump's auctioning off his beloved.
I wonder how many times this scam will work on the rubes. Too many for sure.
@Forrest Morris: Sure. I think.
A priest, a rabbit and a minister walk into a bar. The bartender asks
the rabbit "What'll it be, rabbit?"
The rabbit replies "Oh, I don't drink, I'm just here because of
AutoCorrect.
So here's my conspiracy theory:
Earlier this week, Katelyn Polantz of CNN broke the story that Trump planned "to use his criminal document mishandling case in Florida to create an impasse on his calendar for the two federal judges overseeing his major criminal cases.... One way to hamper [Judge Tanya] Chutkan [-- who is overseeing the election interference case --] is to convince the judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon, to move Trump’s Mar-a-Lago document mishandling trial from late May until the summer.... Trump’s team believes the Mar-a-Lago case, if it’s moved July, could box out Chutkan from putting the federal election subversion case on the schedule once Supreme Court appeals are addressed."
Now we learn from Feuer & Haberman of the NYT (linked above) that Trump will ask Cannon today to set the Florida court case for August 12. Given that Trump-friendly Supremes have decided to put Chutkan's case on an extended hiatus, an August 12 start would certainly "box out" the D.C. case. The Supremes haven't given Chutkan time to hold her case before August 12, and there won't be time to hold it after an August 12 case concludes: at least not before the November election.
But how did Trump know the Supremes would screw up the schedule? After all, according to Poltantz, Trump's lawyers were making these re-scheduling exercises before the Supremes announced they would spend a few months pondering the immunity question.
I suspect Ginny told Trump.
Take this uppity tree huggers. Poor little oil company is tired of being bullied.
"ExxonMobil is suing investors who want faster climate action
ExxonMobil faces dozens of lawsuits from states and localities alleging the company lied for decades about its role in climate change and the dangers of burning fossil fuels. But now, ExxonMobil is going on the offensive with a lawsuit targeting investors who want the company to slash pollution that's raising global temperatures.
Investors in publicly-traded companies like ExxonMobil try to shape corporate policies by filing shareholder proposals that are voted on at annual meetings. ExxonMobil says it's fed up with a pair of investor groups that it claims are abusing the system by filing similar proposals year after year in an effort to micromanage its business."
Times "Inside the White House Program to Share America’s Secrets
More than two years later [after the invasion of Ukraine], the White House has built a broad program to share secrets when it serves strategic goals. About once a week, White House officials see intelligence that they want to make public and get approval from Sullivan to try, more than a dozen current and former White House and national-security officials tell TIME. Intelligence officials at the NSC send requests to the ODNI, which processes them, agreeing on cleared language with those who created the secrets to begin with. “The ultimate decision on whether to green-light or red-light a given piece of information rests with the professionals in the intelligence community,” Sullivan says.
Sharing America’s secrets with the world before enemies try to influence and undermine democracies, advocates say, is one of the best ways to fight back. “We’ve learned you can beat a lie to the punch if you know it’s coming,” says Kirby. “We’re getting out ahead of them.”"
We here often comment on pusillanimous both-sides reporting. So, when we read a fact-full article that calls out all the spades, as spades, we get a good feeling. And life is all about feeling the endorphins.
Here in the WaPo today is a longish article about the sentencing of Ronald McAbee, January 6 a-hole extraordinaire, who was an aggressive mob-stoked cop beater (even though he himself was a dep sheriff on "sick leave" from a MAGAstan village). He came wearing armored gloves, his kevlar, and patches. (What is it always with the patches? Hell's Angels wannabes?)
The video evidence has him dead to rights as an instigator, brawler, and repeat assaulter; but in court his story was that he was just trying to help the cops, and he's sorry and wishes everone well, maundering on like the wimp that he is under his patches.
Six years, minus time served, and the feds are trying to get him into a prison for convicted cops. Isn't it considerate of the feds to have a place where dirty cops can avoid being surrounded by the general prison population?
Forrest: my type of joke... Love it.
Also Marie: the scheduling/unscheduling of the various trials can be blamed entirely on the judiciary, and especially the high court. (I can no longer stomach typing "Supreme" for any reason.) I don't get it, but I think everything you supposed is correct. I suppose the reason they all want Orange Slime as president again is because they can easily manipulate and "run" him, because he is so stupid? What a waste of smarts that a whole generation of highly educated criminals is willing to sell their souls to the GQP. I'm not sure there is any fixing of any of this.
People basically are lawbreakers. Just experienced in the last 24 hours drivers forcing their way into lines regardless of if my car is in the way, speeding on city streets and insane highways, running red lights and not stopping at stop signs or for school buses. Just scroll through the channels at any given time and you will see real crime and imagined crime, and lies upon more lies. I used to think people were basically good, but I'm not sure that is the baseline anymore. Take the Clarence Thomas family-- no, really, take them. Far away.
Marie,
I think so too. And here’s the thing. It would be incredible, under normal circumstances, and with a Supreme Court not shot full with traitors, double dealers, and greedy grifters, to imagine the spouse of a SCOTUS Justice slipping a defendant inside information about to work the court and how to craft an argument sure to benefit that person: incredible, unbelievable.
But not anymore. Now, it’s much more likely that the incredible, the unbelievable, is almost a certainty, or that it bears the extreme likelihood of being true.
Chiselers and crooks. And the Thomases are front and center in that lineup.
Patrick,
It’s been almost a lead pipe cinch that when these gun toting, confederate flag waving, tough talking MAGAts get in front a judge, with the prison door staring them in the face, they get all weepy, beg for mercy “I’m taking care of my invalid aunt!” and whine about how they were fooled into beating someone up, spraying them in the face with mace, or taking a crap on Nancy Pelosi’s desk.
Also…MAGAstan? Sorry. I’m gonna have to swipe that one. It’s too good for a one off.
It gets worse.
Former U.S. Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security, and longtime federal prosecutor, Mary McCord, on the “Prosecuting Donald Trump” podcast, with her partner Andrew Weissmann, lays out a very likely scenario for the traitors on the Supreme Court.
Most can’t miss systems, high security applications, mission critical servers, and I’m sure places like insurance companies, banks, and military operations, have built in redundancy, that is, if the first wall is breached or something crashes, there’s a back up system in place, a plan that ensures the desired outcome, whether it’s protecting files or launching missiles.
Looks like the traitors on the court might have their own Save Trump redundancies in place.
Here’s how it could go, per McCord’s very persuasive supposition.
Initially, back when Fatty’s mouthpieces were first yammering about immunity regarding the five major felony charges in Jack Smith’s indictment, they wanted Judge Chutkan to address each charge to prove that the actions were not part of Trump’s duties as president*. Chutkan said “Sorry, ain’t happenin’” Instead, she dispensed with that nonsense by saying none of that matters. A president does not have immunity from criminal prosecution. Full stop.
McCord suggests that, yes, the court might consider this case, but rather than address the immunity question at all, the traitors could send the case back to Chutkan and order her to do like Fatty’s lawyers said and address each of the five charges in light of whether or not they were in the presidential purview and how immunity, in each case, does not apply.
THEN, after Chutkan dispenses with that bullshit, time wasting order, Fatty will go BACK to the DC appeals court. After they make their ruling (tick tock tick tock) it will THEN come back to the traitors.
By then, they hope that Trump will be president* once again. They can issue a flowery statement about how presidents are not kings, just in case a Democratic President tries to play the immunity card, like Trump is doing.
At any rate, even if Trump doesn’t steal the election, it’ll be about 2028.
Redundancy is a great thing. Especially if you need to make sure your criminal buddy never gets to trial.
I think it was Alex Wagner on MSNBC the other night who pointed out that New York state has already gone through two Carroll defamation cases, the James fraud case, and now is getting ready for the Trump hush money case. The state courts there have gotten things done while the federal courts are allowing Trump to play his games and lead them around by the nose.
"I'm real religious"
"Tyler Owens, a defensive back for the school’s [Texas Tech] team who was among many being scouted this week at the NFL combine, spoke to the media yesterday and — who knows why? — decided to come out and proud as someone who doesn’t believe in space or “other planets.” Including the ones we can see from this planet.
"I don't believe in space," Owens said in a video posted to Twitter by Bleacher Report's Brent Sobleski. "I'm real religious, so I think we're alone right now. I don't think there's other planets and other stuff like that.""
RAS,
I can see this guy will be super when receivers score on him right, left, and center, and he says “There wasn’t anyone there. I was alone. I’m a Christian.”
Duh.
A certain amount of expertise at one thing is no guarantee that that person can’t possibly be a moron in another realm. You think anyone would credit Einstein for claiming that soccer goals scored on him— because he said he was a physicist—didn’t matter because those balls didn’t exist, would cause others to credit him with the tiniest acuity in that sport?
Just think of all the areas Trump claims to be more knowledgeable about than anyone alive, areas he’s had zero experience in.
The Judge in the Fani Willis inquiry has now heard the final arguments and will render his decision within two weeks.
Tick Tok, Tick Tok........Get off the damn pot!