Israeli Getting Serious Out There, Con't

 Some truly good news out of Gaza today: Israel has agreed to daily humanitaria pauses in its attack to allow more Palestinians to escape Northern Gaza.

In a crucial breakthrough for the global effort to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza, Israel has agreed to daily, four-hour pauses in fighting across northern Gaza, the White House said Thursday.

U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the Israelis had committed to announcing each four-hour window at least three hours in advance starting Thursday. Israel also was opening a second corridor for civilians to flee the areas being pounded by Israel's military campaign aimed at wiping out Hamas after the brutal Oct. 7 attack on border communities, with a coastal road joining the territory’s main north-south highway, he said.

Pauses in the fighting have been taking place intermittently for days while tens of thousands of civilians flee northern Gaza for the south. The U.S. and several other nations have been urging Israel to provide more time for safe passage and for the safe flow of humanitarian aid into war-battered Gaza.

Kirby also said the pauses could help the effort to win freedom for at least some of the approximately 240 hostages, including several Americans, held by Hamas and other militants since the war began. President Joe Biden told reporters he asked the Israelis for a “pause longer than three days” in talks about freeing the hostages.

So the Biden administration was able to negotiate a daily pause window and a second escape route. I'll take it, frankly. This will save lives.

We'll see how many. 

The Squad Steps In It Again, Con't

Most of the time it's not fair to compare the members of The Squad, House Democrats on the far left, to the bombthrowers, insurrectionists. and terrorists on the GOP far right like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Bobert or Chip Roy. I say "most of the time" because House Democrat Rashida Tlaib absolutely crossed a big red line on Palestine and Israel and got deservedly rung up by her House colleagues.

The House passed a GOP-led resolution on Tuesday to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib over comments critical of Israel and in support of Palestinians amid Israel’s war against Hamas.

The move amounts to a rare and significant rebuke of the Michigan Democrat, who is the first Palestinian-American woman to serve in Congress. The vote was 234 to 188 with four Republicans voting against and 22 Democrats voting in support of the censure resolution.

The resolution, which was introduced by Georgia GOP Rep. Rich McCormick, advanced earlier in the day after a Democratic-led effort to block the measure failed.

Tlaib has defended herself against the censure attempts, arguing that they are an effort to silence her and saying that her “colleagues have resorted to distorting my positions in resolutions filled with obvious lies.”

Following the vote to advance the censure resolution, Tlaib delivered an emotional speech on the House floor and argued that her criticism of the Israeli government should not be conflated with antisemitism.

“It is important to separate people and governments. No government is beyond criticism. The idea that criticizing the government of Israel is antisemitic sets a very dangerous precedent, and it’s been used to silence diverse voices speaking up for human rights across our nation,” she said.

She grew emotional and had trouble speaking after she said, “I can’t believe I have to say this, but Palestinian people are not disposable.”

“We are human beings just like anyone else,” she said after a long pause, during which Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota stood up to comfort her and put her hands on Tlaib’s shoulder as the congresswoman braced herself against the podium.

After the House voted to block a resolution from GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to censure Tlaib last week, Greene put forward a new version of the resolution that drops a reference to a pro-Palestinian protest at the Capitol as an “insurrection,” which had made some Republicans uncomfortable. But McCormick’s resolution had been expected to have more support from Republicans because the language is narrower and more tailored to recent events.

A censure resolution is one of the most severe forms of punishment in the House, which has historically been saved for the most egregious offenses such as a criminal conviction. A censure does not remove a member from the House and carries no explicit penalties beyond a public admonition.

Most recently, the House voted to censure Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California in June, a key lawmaker in the Democrats’ congressional investigations into former President Donald Trump.

In addition to the Republican criticism directed at Tlaib, a number of Democrats have been critical of the congresswoman over her defense of the pro-Palestinian chant “from the river to the sea.”

The Anti-Defamation League describes the chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” as “an antisemitic slogan” and “rallying cry (that) has long been used by anti-Israel voices, including supporters of terrorist organizations such as Hamas.”

Tlaib has defended the phrase, writing on X, “From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate. My work and advocacy is always centered in justice and dignity for all people no matter faith or ethnicity.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “Of course I do,” when asked by CNN on Monday if he has concerns over Tlaib’s use of the chant.

Both censure resolutions reference the chant. McCormick’s resolution states that it is “widely recognized as a genocidal call to violence to destroy the state of Israel.”

Republicans censuring Adam Schiff earlier this year was a prime example of their hateful nonsense. But I'm siding with the ADL on this one. They know exactly what documenting antisemitism looks like, and Tlaib trying to pass this off as an "aspirational chant" is quite frankly, bullshit of the highest degree. The Squad keeps catching primary challengers, and deservedly so.  

Yes, Israel has killed over 10,000 Gazans in their ground invastion. They are terribly wrong for doing this.

But you don't get to act like a Hamas terrorist in Congress and use a wildly documented call for the extermination of the Jewish State, folks. Full stop.

Last Call For Israeli Getting Serious Out Here, Con't

Two wild post-Gaza invasion stories from Team WIN THE MORNING this week, first, that the US Senate is looking at a peacekeeping force in Gaza "after it falls".

Talks are underway to establish a multinational force in Gaza after Israel uproots Hamas, two senators confirmed Wednesday, the clearest sign yet that the U.S. and its partners are seriously weighing deploying foreign troops to the enclave.

Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told POLITICO that there’s early, closed-door diplomacy over establishing a peacekeeping force in Gaza, though it was not likely to include American troops.

“There are ongoing conversations regarding the possible composition of an international force,” Van Hollen said, refusing to go into specific detail. “They are very preliminary and fragile.”

“I do think it’d be important to have some kind of multinational force in Gaza as a transition to whatever comes next,” he continued.

Hamas, the militant group that killed 1,4000 people in Israel on Oct. 7, has ruled Gaza for more than 15 years. Israel launched a retaliatory military operation after the attack to end Hamas’ rule, including a massive bombing campaign, ground invasion and siege that has killed more than 8,000 people.

The National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bloomberg News first reported that the United States and Israel were in discussions about establishing a peacekeeping force to maintain order in the enclave. In a statement to Bloomberg, NSC spokesperson Adrienne Watson denied that “sending U.S. troops” to be part of the coalition was under discussion.

Blumenthal said the congressional delegation that he traveled with to Israel last month discussed the possibility of having Saudi Arabian troops in the force. He noted, however, that he hadn’t heard of U.S. troops heading to Gaza as part of the deliberations.

“There certainly has been discussion with the Saudi about their being part of some international peacekeeping force if only to provide resources, and, longer term, supporting Palestinian leadership and a separate state, obviously. Reconstruction of Gaza will require a vast amount of resources, which the Saudis potentially could help provide,” he said.

“I’m not sure how active the conversation is about U.S. troops,” Blumenthal continued. “I would think that maybe an international force could be mustered without U.S. troops.”

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who traveled to the Middle East with Blumenthal, said lawmakers discussed with Israeli officials how aid and security would be administered in Gaza after the war. He said he favored the idea of a multinational force, but said sensitivities in the region to U.S. troops would prevent them from being a major part of any such force.

“It’s got to be credible, it’s got to provide security, and it has to involve the surrounding states that believe in a two-state solution,” Cardin said.

 

I can't believe for a moment that there would be any GOP support for a single US soldier as part of said Gaza peacekeeping force, especially in an election year.  If the Bonesaw Boys in Riyadh want to handle it, well, we've certainly provided enough weapons to the House of Saud for a force, but all of this seems...pretty damn grim, even for the pragmatism of Senate Dems.

On the other hand, that brings us to story two, where the White House doesn't seem to think Netanyahu is going to survive politically anyway, and they're probably right.

Joe Biden and top aides have discussed the likelihood that Benjamin Netanyahu’s political days are numbered — and the president has conveyed that sentiment to the Israeli prime minister in a recent conversation.

The topic of Netanyahu’s short political shelf life has come up in recent White House meetings involving Biden, according to two senior administration officials. That has included discussions that have taken place since Biden’s trip to Israel, where he met with Netanyahu.

Biden has gone so far as to suggest to Netanyahu that he should think about lessons he would share with his eventual successor, the two administration officials added.

A current U.S. official and a former U.S. official both confirmed that the administration believes Netanyahu has limited time left in office. The current official said the expectation internally was that the Israeli PM would likely last a matter of months, or at least until the early fighting phase of Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip was over, though all four officials noted the sheer unpredictability of Israeli politics.

“There’s going to have to be a reckoning within Israeli society about what happened,” said the official who, like others, was granted anonymity to detail private conversations. “Ultimately, the buck stops on the prime minister’s desk.”

The administration’s dimming view of Netanyahu’s political future comes as the president and his foreign policy team try to work with, and diplomatically steer, the Israeli leader as his country pursues a complicated and bloody confrontation with Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza and attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

 

This of course all depends on how the Gaza ground invasion goes. If things get as bad as I think they will, the backlash could end Netanyahu's war government quickly.

 

But if the US gets sucked into Yet Another Middle East Quagmire™ all bets are off, and it's not Netanyahu's political shelf life we'll be talking about, but Biden's.

 

Luckily Biden is smarter than that, and so are the people surrounding him on foreign policy. Biden's decades of foreign policy experience in the Senate is exactly what we need now.

Israeli A Serious Problem Here, Con't

While the Israeli ground war ramps up and the death toll in Gaza is now well over 8,000, the world is not standing idly by as Palestinians are bombed and Israelis are hit with rockets, and while the most obvious candidate and route for this disaster to expand is Hezbollah and Iran, it turns out the more immediate threat may in fact be Turkey.

President Tayyip Erdogan addressed hundreds of thousands of supporters at one of the largest pro-Palestinian rallies since the Israel-Hamas war began, courting his Islamist political base a day ahead of the centenary of Turkey's secular republic.

"Israel has been openly committing war crimes for 22 days, but the Western leaders cannot even call on Israel for a ceasefire, let alone react to it," Erdogan told the crowd in Istanbul, who waved Palestinian flags.

"We will tell the whole world that Israel is a war criminal. We are making preparations for this. We will declare Israel a war criminal," he said.

In an hour-long speech, Erdogan also repeated his assertion that Hamas was not a terrorist organisation, describing Israel as an occupier.

Turkey has condemned Israeli civilian deaths caused by Hamas's Oct. 7 rampage through southern Israel, which killed 1,400, but Erdogan this week called the militant group Palestinian "freedom fighters".

He also criticised some Western nations' unconditional support for Israel, drawing sharp rebukes from Italy and Israel.

Unlike many NATO allies, the European Union and some Gulf states, Turkey does not consider Hamas a terrorist organisation. It has long hosted its members, supports a two-state solution and has offered to play a role in negotiating the release of hostages abducted by Hamas during the Oct. 7 assault.

Political analysts said Erdogan was keen to reinforce his criticism of Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip and to overshadow Sunday's celebrations marking Turkey's secular roots.

Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat and director of the Centre for Economic and Foreign Policy Studies, an Istanbul-based think-tank, said Gaza's worsening humanitarian crisis and pressure from political allies had prompted Erdogan to sharpen his rhetoric.

Turkey "will protect its principles and share these with the international community, but it needs to do this with a more delicate diplomacy if it expects to play such a diplomatic role," Ulgen said.

The heads of allied nationalist and Islamist parties - which helped Erdogan secure victory in tight May elections - attended the rally at Istanbul's old airport. Erdogan criticised opposition parties for not calling Netanyahu a "terrorist" and for using the same term with reference to Hamas.

Needless to say, a NATO ally coming in on the side of Hamas against Israel right now would be the definition of catastrophic. Erdogan spouting saber-rattling rhetoric is one thing, but if this gets worse, or gets military, all bets are off. 

Turkey could in fact be the key to brokering a cease fire, but not if Ankara continues down this path.

Of course, there's always the usual suspects who could make things worse as well

We'll see.

Last Call For The Return Of Syria's Business

We're bombing Syria now in retaliation for attacks on US bases in the Middle East, and this all feels like October 2001 again.

U.S. fighter jets launched airstrikes early Friday on two locations in eastern Syria linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Pentagon said, in retaliation for a slew of drone and missile attacks against U.S. bases and personnel in the region that began early last week.

The U.S. strikes reflect the Biden administration’s determination to maintain a delicate balance. The U.S. wants to hit Iranian-backed groups suspected of targeting the U.S. as strongly as possible to deter future aggression, possibly fueled by Israel’s war against Hamas, while also working to avoid inflaming the region and provoking a wider conflict.

According to a senior U.S. military official, the precision strikes were carried out near Boukamal by two F-16 fighter jets, and they struck weapons and ammunition storage areas that were connected to the IRGC. The official said there had been Iranian-aligned militia and IRGC personnel on the base and no civilians, but the U.S. does not have any information yet on casualties or an assessment of damage. The official would not say how many munitions were launched by the F-16s.

A senior defense official said the sites were chosen because the IRGC stores the types of munitions there that were used in the strikes against U.S. bases and troops. The two officials briefed reporters after the strikes on condition of anonymity to provide details on the mission that had not yet been made public.

According to the Pentagon, there have now been at least 19 attacks on U.S. bases and personnel in Iraq and Syria since Oct. 17, including three new ones Thursday. Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said 21 U.S. personnel were injured in two of those assaults that used drones to target al-Asad Airbase in Iraq and al-Tanf Garrison in Syria.

In a statement, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the “precision self-defense strikes are a response to a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups that began on October 17.”

He said President Joe Biden directed the narrowly tailored strikes “to make clear that the United States will not tolerate such attacks and will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests.” And he added that the operation was separate and distinct from Israel’s war against Hamas.

 

Of course the fear is that strikes on Iranian positions won't be distinct and separate from the current Israel-Hamas conflict for much longer. More attacks on US bases and troops will continue if the last two decades are indicative, no matter how many F-16 sorties we run.

Of course, if Trump were in charge instead of Biden right now, there wouldn't be fear of a global war, we'd be neck deep in one, so I'll take the hope that Biden and company know what they are doing when it comes to deterring a wider war any and every day over that.

Last Call For Israeli Getting Serious Out There, Con't

As I mentioned last week, nothing good will come from Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's war cabinet government, and apparently that fact is going to be proven in near-record time with a planned emergency suspension of civil liberties for journalists across the country.

Israel's communications minister is proposing emergency regulations that would allow police to arrest citizens and journalists who publish content deemed to "harm national morale".

Under Shlomo Karhi's proposal, those restrictions could be placed upon publications that have been used as a "base for enemy propaganda".

Journalists and other citizens could have their homes searched, property seized and could be placed under arrest for speech the government deems undesirable.

The proposal comes on the ninth day of fighting between Israel and Palestinian groups, which has killed at least 2,450 Palestinians in Gaza, including 724 children and 458 women. In the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, 56 people have been killed by Israeli fire. Meanwhile, at least 1,300 people have been killed in Israel.

Earlier on Sunday, Karhi said he was seeking a possible closure of Al Jazeera's local bureau, accusing the Qatari news station of pro-Hamas incitement and of exposing Israeli soldiers to potential attack from Gaza.

The proposal to shut down Al Jazeera had been vetted by Israeli security officials and was being vetted by legal experts, Karhi said at the time, adding that he would bring it to the cabinet later in the day.

Al Jazeera and the government in Doha had no immediate comment.

"This is a station that incites, this is a station that films troops in assembly areas [outside Gaza]... that incites against the citizens of Israel - a propaganda mouthpiece," Karhi told Israel's Army Radio.

In the age of TikTok war correspondents, Instagram military analysis and Twitter/X/Whatever propaganda and disninformation, locking up journalists is bad enough, but locking up citizens for spread of information deemed "harmful" by Israel shouldn't surprise anyone. 

The folks who brought you "Hamas beheads babies!!!!" which of course turned out to be completely fabricated is a reminder that nobody does disinformation quite like the IDF. And when Al Jazeera called bullshit on that story this weekend, well, no wonder Israel wants to get rid of them.

Last Call For Israeli Getting Serious Out There, Con't

Looks like Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu will not only stay in power, but now he will lead a war cabinet emergency government that will almost certainly suspend civil liberties while bombing Gaza to rubble and glass.

 

An emergency government was formed on Wednesday afternoon after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and National Unity leader Benny Gantz met in the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv earlier in the morning.

The meeting lasted half an hour after which lawyers representing the Likud and National Unity stayed behind to finalize the details.

As part of the deal, Gantz and fellow party members Gadi Eisenkot, Gideon Sa'ar, and two others will be sworn in as ministers for the duration of the war.

Gantz will join a war cabinet with Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Eisenkot and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer will be observers. A spot will be kept open for opposition leader Yair Lapid should he join the emergency government.

The agreement also states that throughout the war, no legislation that is unrelated to the war will be done in Knesset.

 

Anyone older enough to remember the PATRIOT Act will recognize the sheer size of this loophole, which Israel will drive multiple tank brigades though.

There has been a widespread call for an emergency government in Israel since Netanyahu declared war on Hamas on Saturday following their massive attack on Israel that morning.

Gantz was immediately joined by opposition leader Yair Lapid and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman in saying that they would be willing to join an emergency government. Coalition members also expressed support for the move.

Netanyahu and Gantz have held multiple meetings over the past few days to discuss the details of the emergency government, but it took five days to come together.

 

So all the gang is here: Bibi, Gantz, and Liberman, and everyone's going to get their piece of the pie, along with several thousand dead Gaza residents.

Already Gaza has been cut off without power, water, and food, with no escape until further notice. An Israeli ground offensive is imminent. A lot of people are going to be killed over the next week or so on both sides, because Hamas isn't going to sit still, they're continuing to fire rockets into Israeli cities.

It's going to get a lot worse.

Israeli Getting Serious Out There, Con't

Bibi wants a ground war in Gaza, and he's almost certainly going to get it.

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told President Biden on Sunday that Israel does not have any choice but to unleash a ground operation in Gaza. "We have to go in," the Israeli leader said, according to three Israeli and U.S. sources briefed on the call.

Why it matters: Netanyahu's message signals what his country's response to Hamas' attack will look like in the days and weeks ahead in what the Israeli prime minister has said will be a "long and difficult war."

Driving the news: The Israeli military announced on Monday it has mobilized 300,000 reserve soldiers — the largest number of reservists called to duty in decades — as part of preparations for a possible ground offensive in Gaza.

Behind the scenes: During his call with Netanyahu, Biden raised the issue of Israeli hostages in Gaza, according to the three sources."We have to go in. We can't negotiate now," Netanyahu said.

The White House and the Israeli Prime Minister's Office declined to comment.

Netanyahu told Biden that Israel had no other choice but to respond with force because a country can't show weakness in the Middle East. "We need to restore deterrence," Netanyahu told Biden, according to the three sources. Biden did not try to press Netanyahu or convince him not to go through with a ground operation.

Between the lines: According to a U.S. source, Biden is expected to handle the current Gaza war in a similar way to how he handled the 2021 Gaza war. The U.S. gave Israel public backing and held frequent and low-profile diplomatic engagement with Netanyahu and other leaders in the region.

 

Kevin McCarthy, sensing a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the greatest upward white guy fail since Dubya, is now demanding his own job back because of course we can't have a leadership battle after a terrorist attack on our ally.

McCarthy called it the “wrong” message for the world to not have a speaker amid the crisis: “Is our conference just going to select somebody, only to throw them out in another 81 days?”

Any attempt to reinstall McCarthy would face long odds. Scalise and Jordan have already lined up endorsements for the speakership, and McCarthy’s detractors remain dug in against him.

The former speaker acknowledged being in uncharted territory with the powers of Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) to lead the chamber unclear. But McCarthy said the House should act to support Israel.

In a speech evocative of the pomp and circumstance of a speakership, McCarthy outlined five prongs to address the Middle East crisis: Rescuing U.S. hostages currently being held by Hamas, supplying Israel with new weapons, confronting Iran, addressing U.S. domestic national security and confronting anti-Semitism.

McCarthy last week became the first speaker in U.S. history to be ousted. McCarthy noted he lost his post despite overwhelming support from the GOP conference, pointing out that just eight Republicans joined with Democrats to toss him from the speakership.

McCarthy said the U.S. goal should be to “destroy Hamas” and additional assistance should go beyond replenishing the Iron Dome missile defense system.

“This will not be Afghanistan. We will not leave Americans on the ground,” McCarthy said.

 

Now, Hamas butchering hundreds at a Peace for Gaza rally and taking hundreds more hostage is a terrorist act of war, full stop. But it's pretty scuzzy for both Bibi and Kevin as they figure using this attack as impetus to keep them in power for years to come is going to pay off for them in the end.

 

A lot of other people, places and things in Gaza are going to be destroyed over the next several weeks and months other than Hamas. 

Last Call For Israeli Getting Serious Out There, Con't

Republicans have been falsely accusing President Biden of "funding Hamas's attack on Israel through Iran" all weekend, because they are suddenly very concerned with the security of the Jewish state. Secretary of State Tony Blinken called bullshit:

In response to this weekend's expansive attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to "destroy Hamas" and signaled that the country's forces will soon go on the offensive as the IDF evacuates civilians living near the border with Gaza.

Blinken said Sunday that the U.S. would stand behind Israel as it did whatever necessary to ensure "this doesn't repeat itself."

"I don't want to get ahead of what Israel may or may not do when it comes to Gaza," he said when asked whether Israel could control the situation if it invaded. "No country should be expected to live with the fear, the possibility and now the actuality of terrorists crossing a border, coming into people's homes, gunning them down in the street, dragging them across the border and making hostages of them. That is intolerable for any democracy. It's intolerable for Israel."

Republicans have criticized the Biden administration approach toward Iran, Hamas' largest sponsor, contending that the White House in effect enabled the attack and emboldened the extremists by facilitating Iran's access to sanctioned finances for humanitarian expenditures as part of a separate deal to free American detainees.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in a statement that the money transfer was a sign of "appeasement." Other critics said it would free up Iran to better financially support Hamas.

Blinken, on "This Week," pushed back.

"There's a long relationship between Iran and Hamas. In fact, Hamas wouldn't be Hamas without the support that it's gotten over many years from Iran. We haven't yet seen direct evidence that Iran was behind this particular attack or involved," he said.

"It's unfortunate that some are, in effect, saying things that may be motivated by politics at a time when so many lives have been lost and Israel remains under attack," he continued, noting the funds are held in a restricted account monitored by the U.S. Treasury Department.

"By the way, not a single dollar from that account has actually been spent to date," Blinken asserted, adding, "So, some who are advancing this false narrative -- they're either misinformed or they're misinforming. And either way, it's wrong."

 

Mysteriously, obviously constructed disinformation is spreading all over Twitter/X/Whatever.

 

A doctored White House press release posted online falsely claimed that the Biden administration had authorized $8 billion in emergency aid to Israel on Saturday. The fact that it was faked didn't stop it from being posted across the internet and rising to the top of Google search results.

The faked document is one of the most far-reaching instances of misinformation to come out of the most recent violent conflict between Hamas and Israel, fooling several online publications into writing full articles about the fake news, which are still surfacing prominently in online search results.

The faked document appears to be an edited version of President Joe Biden's July memo announcing $400 million in aid to Ukraine. Despite images of the faked document appearing on social media, it was never published on the White House website or in the government's Federal Register of presidential documents.

The faked document first started appearing on social media accounts Saturday morning. Around noon on Saturday, a collection of verified accounts on X, formerly Twitter, began disseminating the fake release. Verified accounts are eligible for monetization on the platform.

Posts sharing the faked document and its claims, many of which are still up, have accrued hundreds of thousands of views on the platform.

Several of the posts on X now have "community notes" attached to them clarifying that the document is faked, but many more posts that are still up have no such clarification.

Under Elon Musk's ownership, Twitter has scaled back its operations which would have attempted to moderate misinformation on the platform.

As the fake release spread on X, it was reposted to other social media websites like TikTok, but on a much smaller scale. X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

 It's all very, very bonkers, but of course the Netanyahu administration hates President Biden. Of course, this is convenient for Israel here.

Expect a lot more of this.

Israeli Getting Serious Out There

Apparently today is the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War and Hamas marked the occasion with a massive rocket attack from Gaza into Israel, the thousands of rockets overwhelming Israel's Iron Dome defense system and killing dozens as a new uprising is underway. Needless to say, the Israeli counterstrike into Gaza is unprecedented as PM Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that Israel is now at war.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hopes Israel's response to the Hamas incursion on Saturday will "exact a huge price" from the militant group.

Speaking at the beginning of a political-security cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said the following:

"Since this morning, the State of Israel has been at war. Our first goal is first of all to cleanse the area of the enemy forces that have infiltrated and restore security and peace to the towns that were attacked.

The second goal, at the same time, is to exact a huge price from the enemy, also in the Gaza Strip. The third goal is to fortify other arenas so that no one makes the mistake of joining this war.

We are at war, in war you have to keep calm. I call on all citizens of Israel to unite, to achieve our highest goal -- victory in the war.'

Netanyahu may have survived scandal after scandal that divided the nation but Israel will 100% rally around hum and the flag while pounding Gaza into ash this weekend. 

More on this as it develops, but this is the strongest attack from Hamas in decades, and Israel's response is going to be bloody as all hell.

Last Call For Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Once again, the open threat of Trump's stochastic violence cannot be allowed to dissuade his prosecution. But we have to have that national conversation about the fact that innocent people are almost certainly going to get hurt or killed as those prosecutions move forward.

As the prosecutions of Mr. Trump have accelerated, so too have threats against law enforcement authorities, judges, elected officials and others. The threats, in turn, are prompting protective measures, a legal effort to curb his angry and sometimes incendiary public statements, and renewed concern about the potential for an election campaign in which Mr. Trump has promised “retribution” to produce violence.

Given the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, scholars, security experts, law enforcement officials and others are increasingly warning about the potential for lone-wolf attacks or riots by angry or troubled Americans who have taken in the heated rhetoric.

In April, before federal prosecutors indicted Mr. Trump, one survey showed that 4.5 percent of American adults agreed with the idea that the use of force was “justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.” Just two months later, after the first federal indictment of Mr. Trump, that figure surged to 7 percent.

 

Seven percent of US adults is about 15 million people. The number is higher now, and will increase.

 

The indictments of Mr. Trump “are the most important current drivers of political violence we now have,” said the author of the study, Robert Pape, a political scientist who studies political violence at the University of Chicago.

Other studies have found that any effects from the indictments dissipated quickly, and that there is little evidence of any increase in the numbers of Americans supportive of a violent response. And the leaders of the far-right groups that helped spur the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 are now serving long prison terms.

But the threats have been steady and credible enough to prompt intense concern among law enforcement officials. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland addressed the climate in testimony to Congress on Wednesday, saying that while he recognized that the department’s work came with scrutiny, the demonization of career prosecutors and F.B.I. agents was menacing not only his employees but also the rule of law.

“Singling out individual career public servants who are just doing their jobs is dangerous — particularly at a time of increased threats to the safety of public servants and their families,” Mr. Garland said.

“We will not be intimidated,” he added. “We will do our jobs free from outside influence. And we will not back down from defending our democracy.”

Security details have been added for several high-profile law enforcement officials across the country, including career prosecutors running the day-to-day investigations.

The F.B.I., which has seen the number of threats against its personnel and facilities surge since its agents carried out the court-authorized search of Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida, in August 2022, subsequently created a special unit to deal with the threats. A U.S. official said threats since then have risen more than 300 percent, in part because the identities of employees, and information about them, are being spread online.

“We’re seeing that all too often,” Christopher A. Wray, the bureau’s director, said in congressional testimony this summer.

The threats are sometimes too vague to rise to the level of pursuing a criminal investigation, and hate speech enjoys some First Amendment protections, often making prosecutions difficult. But the Justice Department has charged more than a half dozen people with making threats.

This has had its own consequences: In the past 13 months, F.B.I. agents confronting individuals suspected of making threats have shot and fatally wounded two people, including one in Utah who was armed and had threatened, before President Biden’s planned visit to the area, to kill him.

 

It's good to see protection for prosecutors, judges, and other court officers and investigators. But we need to talk about the fact that these assholes have a number of softer targets to choose from and the increase in violence will include more schools, synagogues, supermarkets, community centers, abortion clinics, LGBTQ+ centers,  malls, and more.

These folks won't have federal protection, just sayin'.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Me, last week, on the gag order requested by Special Counsel Jack Smith given Donald Trump's threatening social media outbursts against Smith, Judge Tanya Chutkan, and other court officers:

This is hardball stuff on the part of Smith and the DoJ, and of course nobody should be surprised by the part where Trump violated this order almost immediately Friday evening and is risking Chutkan citing him for contempt.  In fact, I expect Trump will absolutely push this as far as he can because he wants the process to break down. He wants riots and violence and bloodshed if she does try to put him behind bars, and he's going to all but openly dare her to do so.

 

Conservative former WSJ columnist Jason Willick writing in the NY Times about the gag order request:

I think the election interference case against Trump is legally flawed and — to the extent that it is valid — unwise to prosecute in the middle of an election season. The criminal-legal system, with all its punitive strictures, wasn’t designed to function with leading presidential candidates as defendants. And the presidential election system, with all its fierce competition and vituperative debate, wasn’t designed to function with defendants as candidates.

But there’s no going back. Smith’s insistence on indicting Trump over the 2020 election and trying him in the 2024 election year, combined with Republican voters’ insistence on making Trump their party’s presidential front-runner, has set up an inexorable clash between democratic politics and the law. There’s no fine-tuning it, no gentling of the legal and political processes to satisfy both. This is a head-on collision, and one or the other must yield.

I’m tempted to condemn Smith’s request for a gag order as an intrusion on the 2024 election, but that would miss the point. The Justice Department has already decided to thrust itself into the middle of the election. It might as well follow through: Prohibit Trump from attacking the proceedings, and when he doesn’t comply, jail him for contempt mid-campaign. Isn’t that what Attorney General Merrick Garland means when he says “no person is above the law”? Prosecutors have made their bed; they should lie in it.

 

Willick goes on hitting every conservative talking point on the January 6th case: that Trump cannot be prosecuted as a former president or current candidate (meaning Trump is above the law), that this is really a first amendment case that should be dismissed out of court (which it's not given the dozens of charges in Smith's case), that the people won't stand for the prosecution (when the majority of Americans do support the prosecution), that Democrats will suffer the most in the future being rounded up and jailed (which is all the more reason to make Trump an example), that only the voters should be able to determine Trump's fate (which they have, twice) and that this doesn't happen in civilized countries (where South Korea, Mexico, France and plenty of other US allies have prosecuted former presidents and PMs.)

 

In other words, it's steaming bullshit. But the taunting of Willick for Merrick Garland to follow through on ringing up Trump for violating the gag order is again, deliberate.

 

Trump wants this in order to justify massive national violence, and Willick is well aware of the plan. 

We'll see if Trump forces Judge Chutkan's hand, but if it happens, it's going to have consequences.

Sunday Long Read: Ore-Gone Next Door

Conservatives in Oregon, a state founded as a white supremacist sanctuary, are finding that in 2023, the 86% white state isn't white supremacist enough, so they want the eastern part of the state to leave and become part of significantly more racist Idaho. WaPo's Scott Wilson takes a look at the white hot new imports into the Gem State in our Sunday Long Read this week.

 

The Snake River has formed the border of Oregon and Idaho for more than a century and a half, slicing through fields of onions, sugar beets and wheat that roll out for miles through Treasure Valley.

Here on the Oregon side, where Bob Wheatley has lived his entire life, are a collection of high-end cannabis shops, a new Planned Parenthood clinic, and gas prices a dollar higher than those just over the river.

Across the river in the town of Fruitland, in western Idaho, new housing subdivisions stretch out for miles from the main streets. Agriculture, bottling and construction businesses that just months ago were based in Oregon are thriving. One of Fruitland’s new problems is building enough schools to accommodate the out-of-state arrivals, many of them from Oregon.

“Things have changed,” said Wheatley, who retired recently after five decades as a local pharmacist. “And it’s the politics that have changed fastest.”

So far 12 counties in central and eastern Oregon have voted in favor of local ballot measures that compel county leaders to study the idea of moving the border about 270 miles west. The movement envisions 14 full counties joining Idaho, along with parts of others.

A 13th county is scheduled to take up the question on the May 2024 ballot. The region accounts for less than 10 percent of Oregon’s population, but most of its territory.

The push to change the border is rooted in policy differences and a sense that, in Oregon, there will be no way for conservatives to influence the laws and regulations made by the elected representatives of the far more numerous Democratic voters who live on the western side of the Cascades.

Idaho offers a much more comfortable political home for eastern Oregon’s conservatives, who live in many of the most racially homogenous counties in the state. In nearly every county that has voted to explore joining Idaho, White residents account for more than 80 percent of the population.

The political contrast between the states is stark.

Oregon Democrats have a more than 30 percent edge in voter registration over Republicans, and Joe Biden won the state by 16 percentage points in 2020. Idaho offers a mirror image: Republican voters outnumber Democrats more than 5 to 1, and Donald Trump defeated Biden by 30 percentage points. Both states have sent two senators from the same party to Washington — Democrats in Oregon, Republicans in Idaho.

At 74, Wheatley has been considering a move across the river for years, returning his wife, Chrystine, a retired nurse, to the state where she grew up. But he could not sell his home for enough money to buy something comparable in Fruitland, where prices are rising because of the Oregon arrivals.

So, in late 2020, Wheatley, never before a political activist, volunteered to gather signatures to place a measure on the May 2021 ballot compelling Malheur County commissioners to study joining Idaho. It passed easily.

“I told Chrys, ‘I can’t move you, but maybe I can move the border,’” Wheatley said. “So that’s what we’re trying.”

These twin towns across an old border straddle a seam in the nation’s deepening political polarization, neighboring opposites living under starkly different laws. The river separates states that, perhaps more than in any other part of the nation, embrace the two parties’ most extreme positions on gun control, abortion rights, environmental regulation, drug legalization and other issues at the center of the American political debate.

The result in eastern Oregon, from the volcanic Cascade Range to this border town, is a sense of profound political alienation. The disaffection among conservatives has spawned a movement to change the state’s political dynamic in a novel if quixotic way — rather than relocate or change the politics, which seems impossible to many here, why not move the border and become residents who live under the rules of Idaho?

This is no small task.

Both the Oregon and Idaho state legislatures, which are controlled by Democrats and Republicans respectively, would have to approve a border shift, which in this case would be the most significant geographically since western states began forming in the mid-19th century. The issue would then go to the U.S. Congress.

But, as more than two dozen interviews across the state made clear, there is momentum behind the cause among a lightly populated region of ranch land, swift rivers, and vast pine forests. It is known formally as the Greater Idaho movement.

 

I've talked about Idaho's growing white supremacist problem before, from Boise's openly racist white supremacist police department to the state's efforts to criminalize getting abortions in neighboring Oregon to the effort to include Northern California and Western Montana into Greater Idaho along with Eastern Oregon to the state's favorite heavily armed white supremacist domestic terrorist family, the Bundys.

The whole area along the Snake River and Willamette Valley is a powder keg. I hope the feds understand this.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

The constant attacks by Donald Trump against federal law enforcement and his calls for his MAGA faithful to "fight together" has resulted in the Justice Department getting so many credible threats that the agency now has an anti-domestic terrorism task force to deal specifically with all the threats against agents and prosecutors.

 

Prosecutors and FBI agents involved in the Hunter Biden investigation have been the targets of threats and harassment by people who think they haven’t been tough enough on the president’s son, according to government officials and congressional testimony obtained exclusively by NBC News.

It’s part of a dramatic uptick in threats against FBI agents that has coincided with attacks on the FBI and the Justice Department by congressional Republicans and former President Donald Trump, who have accused both agencies of participating in a conspiracy to subvert justice amid two federal indictments of Trump.

The threats have prompted the FBI to create a stand-alone unit to investigate and mitigate them, according to a previously unreleased transcript of congressional testimony.

“We have stood up an entire threat unit to address threats that the FBI employees’ facilities are receiving,” Jennifer L. Moore, then an executive assistant director of human resources for the FBI, told the House Judiciary Committee in June. “It is unprecedented. It’s a number we’ve never had before.”

“It’s going to be about 10 people when it’s finished,” she said. “We are still in the process of staffing it right now. But their sole mission on a daily basis is threats to FBI employees at facilities.”

Moore told lawmakers that threats to FBI agents and facilities had more than doubled — there were more in the six months from October to March than in the previous 12 months. More recent data was not available; officials say the pace of threats increased after the FBI investigations of Trump became public last summer and has not slowed since.

The FBI declined to comment.

Natalie Bara, president of the FBI Agents Association, a nonprofit group that advocates for current and retired agents, said in a statement, “FBI Special Agents and their families should never be threatened with violence, including for doing their jobs. This is not a partisan or political issue. Calls for violence against law enforcement are unacceptable, and should be condemned by all leaders.”

Federal prosecutor Lesley Wolf, who had been part of U.S. Attorney David Weiss’ team investigating Hunter Biden, got such a barrage of credible threats that she sought security help from the U.S. Marshals Service, according to previously unreleased testimony from an FBI official to the House Judiciary Committee last week. Two IRS agents on the case have accused Wolf of making decisions that appeared favorable to Biden. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

Special counsel Jack Smith and his team have long been protected by an armed security detail, as is Robert Hur, the special counsel appointed to investigate classified documents found at President Joe Biden’s home and office.

On Thursday, the Atlanta office of the FBI said in a statement that it is aware of threats of violence against officials in Fulton County, Georgia, and is working with the county sheriff's office. Trump and 18 other defendants face state charges in Fulton County in connection with alleged election interference.

The field office declined to provide details of any investigations, but said, "[E]ach and every potential threat brought to our attention is taken seriously. Individuals found responsible for making threats in violation of state and/or federal laws will be prosecuted."

 

Republicans have found agents ready to accuse FBI and Justice Department officials of wrongdoing in the Hunter Biden and Donald Trump cases, and those officials are being targeted by constant, consistent, credible threats to their lives. This includes Georgia officials prosecuting Donald Trump and his election interference case.

Nobody's been hurt, yet. But Trump and other GOP 2024 hopefuls keep turning up the heat, and eventually someone's going to get burned. Remember, we have an entire series of trials, convictions, and sentencings because Donald Trump fomented a violent insurrection against the federal government. People were hurt and killed as a result of Trump's statements leading up to January 6th, 2021.

The Justice Department is scrambling to contain the growing threats now. Remember, the FBI office here in Cincy was attacked for this reason last year. More violence leading up to the 2024 election has always been part of the GOP plan. This is being done deliberately.

Keep that in mind.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

In response to his dozens of criminal indictments in federal court and in Georgia, Trump continues to openly campaign on eliminating the people who indicted him, and Saturday's authoritarian rally in North Dakota was the most ominous rhetoric so far.

Donald Trump is conjuring his most foreboding vision yet of a possible second term, telling supporters in language resonant of the run-up to the January 6 mob attack on the US Capitol that they need to “fight like hell” or they will lose their country.

The rhetorical escalation from the four-times-indicted ex-president came at a rally in South Dakota on Friday night where he accused his possible 2024 opponent, President Joe Biden, of ordering his indictment on 91 charges across four criminal cases as a form of election interference.

“I don’t think there’s ever been a darkness around our nation like there is now,” Trump said, in a dystopian speech in which he accused Democrats of allowing an “invasion” of migrants over the southern border and of trying to restart Covid “hysteria.”

The Republican front-runner’s stark speech raised the prospect of a second presidency that would be even more extreme and challenging to the rule of law than his first. His view that the Oval Office confers unfettered powers suggests Trump would indulge in similar conduct as that for which he is awaiting trial, including intimidating local officials in an alleged bid to overturn his 2020 defeat.

Characteristically, Trump also turned criticism of his behavior against his political foes, implicitly arguing that the true peril for America’s political freedoms did not spring from his attempt to invalidate a free and fair election, but from efforts to make him face legal accountability for doing so. “It’s really a threat to democracy while they trample our rights and liberties every single day of the year,” he said.

“This is a big moment in our country because we’re either going to go one way or the other, and if we go the other, we’re not going to have a country left,” he told supporters in South Dakota. “We will fight together, we will win together and then we will seek justice together,” he added. This followed a March rally in which he billed his 2024 campaign and potential second term as a vessel of “retribution” for supporters who believe they’ve been wronged.

Alarm bells, airhorns, large stacks of guitar amps, all of these need to be going off around the country. This is the language authoritarians use when they promise to annihilate their political enemies. Trump isn't running on anything other than putting Democrats in jail or worse.

Trump isn't seeking justice at all. He's seeking revenge, and he's giving his tens of millions of followers permission to seek that revenge along with him in a blood-soaked pogrom crusade. He's giving them the justification they need to do it, and tens of millions of Trump supporters are looking forward to the carnage.

It'll only get worse as we get closer to the election. 

Meanwhile, speaking of those dozens of indictments against Donald Trump, his lawyers are trying to get Judge Tanya Chutkan thrown off the January 6th case.

 

In a filing Monday, they argued that Judge Tanya Chutkan should recuse herself from the case for previous statements they say give the appearance of bias. They did not outright accuse Chutkan of being biased against Trump, but highlighted statements they claimed "create a perception of prejudgment incompatible with our justice system."

"Judge Chutkan has, in connection with other cases, suggested that President Trump should be prosecuted and imprisoned. Such statements, made before this case began and without due process, are inherently disqualifying," Trump's attorneys wrote in the filing.

Trump has entered a not guilty plea in the case, filed by special counsel Jack Smith, in which he is charged with four felony counts relating to an alleged scheme to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power after he lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.

Trump's filing highlights several instances during hearings related to defendants in Jan. 6 riot cases in which Trump's attorneys say Chutkan appeared critical of the former president.

"This was nothing less than an attempt to violently overthrow the government, the legally, lawfully, peacefully elected government, by individuals who were mad that their guy lost," Chutkan said during one October 2022 hearing, later adding, "it's blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day."

Trump's attorneys called that statement "an apparent prejudgment of guilt."

"The public meaning of this statement is inescapable — President Trump is free, but should not be," they wrote.

The filing also highlights statements Chutkan made to rioter Robert Palmer, who was sentenced to more than five years in prison for using a wooden plank and a fire extinguisher to attack police.

"The people who exhorted you and encouraged you and rallied you to go and take action and to fight have not been charged," Chutkan said during Palmer's December 2021 sentencing hearing.

Ultimately, it is up to Chutkan to decide if these past statements create a perception of bias. If she does, a new judge would be assigned to the case. If she disagrees with Trump's attorneys, she will continue to preside over the matter. If the recusal is denied, Trump's attorneys could petition an appeals court for a writ of mandamus, essentially an order requiring her to recuse. These efforts are not often successful.

 

It's all bullshit of course, but Trump's playing winning on a SCOTUS appeal down the road, if not pardoning himself with a successful 2024 election. I still have massive doubts that he'll spend a single day in prison for anything.

 

We can hope however.

Last Call For Twenty-Two Years Later

As the country marks the 22nd anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, NYC officials are confirming that the total number of first responders who have died to 9/11 related illnesses has now equaled the number of FDNY firefighters who were lost that day.

 

The number of first responders who have died from 9/11-related illnesses now almost equals the number of firefighters who died during the terror attacks themselves.

A total of 341 New York City Fire Department firefighters, paramedics and civilian support staff who died from post-911 illnesses are now memorialized at the FDNY World Trade Center Memorial Wall, according to the Uniformed Firefighters Association. The memorial commemorates both first responders who died during the attacks and those who died from related illnesses in the years since.

That count almost equals the 343 New York firefighters who died during the 2001 attacks.

The fire department added 43 names to the memorial on September 6, according to a news release.

“As we approach the 22nd anniversary of 9/11, the FDNY continues to feel the impact of that day. Each year, this memorial wall grows as we honor of those who gave their lives in service of others,” said Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh in the release. “These brave men and women showed up that day, and in the days and months following the attacks to participate in the rescue and recovery efforts at the World Trade Center site. We will never forget them.”

Exposure to the dust at the World Trade Center has been tied to heightened risk of cardiovascular disease among firefighters who responded to the scene. Additionally, respiratory disease and thousands of cancer diagnoses have been linked to the toxic pollutants released during the attacks.

More than 71,000 people are currently enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Registry, a long-term study seeking to understand the physical and mental health effects of the terror attacks. In addition to first responders, the attacks have left lasting health impacts on workers in the World Trade Center who evacuated their workplaces, passersby, residents of the surrounding buildings and volunteers who spent time at Ground Zero in the weeks after.

Lt. Joseph Brosi was one of the dozens of firefighters added to the memorial last week. The FDNY veteran died in February after a long battle with lung cancer.

His son Jim Brosi said not a day has gone by where he has not thought about his father.

“We just miss him,” he told CNN. “He was just always present in everything we did.”

 

As with everything 9/11 related, it's all complex and complicated. 9/11 was one of the watershed moments in global history, one that shifted the axis of billions over the last two-plus decades. But there are those who have lost their lives as a direct result of the attack even now, and that list continues to grow.

Another year passes, and more are lost. Maybe an entire country lost their way, too. I know many of you have been around for far longer, and that like many of my generation, you remember exactly where you were when the towers fell.

Everything changed after that, and very little of it for the better.

 

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Former Proud Boys leader and convicted seditious terrorist Enrique Tarrio got 22 years in federal prison for his role leading the insurrection on January 6th, 2001.

A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio to 22 years in prison -- the longest sentence to date handed down for any individual charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.

Prosecutors had sought 33 years in prison for Tarrio, their harshest recommendation yet for someone charged in the Justice Department's sweeping investigation into the Capitol assault -- despite the fact that Tarrio wasn't present in Washington the day of the attack.

In their sentencing recommendation, prosecutors described Tarrio as a "naturally charismatic leader" and "a savvy propagandist" who used his influence over hundreds of followers to orchestrate an assault on democracy -- for which he was convicted of seditious conspiracy and several other felonies.

"This defendant, and his co-conspirators targeted our entire system of government," assistant U.S. Attorney Conor Mulroe said during Tuesday's hearing. "This offense involved calculation and deliberation. We need to make sure that the consequences are abundantly clear to anyone who might be unhappy with the results in 2024, 2028, 2032 or any future election for as long as this case is remembered."

Prosecutors argued Tarrio helped rally members of the far-right group to come to Washington in advance of Jan. 6 with the goal of stopping the peaceful transition of power, that he monitored their movements and egged them on as they attacked the Capitol, and continued to celebrate their actions in the days after the insurrection.

They also pointed to a nine-page strategic plan to "storm" government buildings in Washington on Jan. 6 that was found in Tarrio's possession after the riot, as well as violent rhetoric he routinely used in messages with other members of the group about what they would do if Congress moved forward in certifying President Joe Biden's election win.

Tarrio's attorneys contended that the government overstated his intentions with respect to Jan. 6, and that his real goal rallying members of the group to Washington, D.C., was to confront protesters from the far-left Antifa movement. They also argued he never directed any of his followers' movements during the riot itself and that he otherwise had no ability to control members who became violent during the riot.

"My client is no terrorist. My client is a misguided patriot, that's what my client is," Tarrio's attorney Sabino Jauregui said. "He was trying to protect this country, as misguided as he was."

Tarrio also spoke at the hearing, apologizing profusely for his actions and heaping praise on members of law enforcement who he said have been unfairly mistreated and maligned after the Jan. 6 attack -- which he called a "national embarrassment."

"I will have to live with that shame and disappointment for the rest of my life," Tarrio said. "We invoked 1776 and the Constitution of the United States and that was so wrong to do. That was a perversion. The events of Jan. 6 is something that should never be celebrated."

He's really sorry he organized a terrorist attack with the intent to kill Democratic members of Congress and to serve as pretense for a coup to overthrow the rightfully elected President.  

Of course, the real terrorist leader here is one Donald J. Trump, and 22 years is the least he should get for maybe a fraction of the dozens of charges he's facing.

And yet it's a coin flip if the country actually puts him back in power or not.

Jesus wept, took the wheel and crashed the Winnebago.

Trump Cards, Con't

Last night's GOP primary debate was essentially meaningless as the losers scrambled for who would be the biggest loser to Trump, and Trump was busy having a nice chat with Tucker Carlson and laying down markers for justifying spectacular violence against liberals in the months ahead.

In a rambling interview, speckled with discussion of conspiracy theories from whether the billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was murdered in his jail cell to the role of federal agencies limiting the amount of water in washing machines, Trump took aim at critics on all sides in his traditional derisory fashion.

But the social media broadcast took a dark turn when, after discussion of the numerous criminal charges against Trump and divisions in the US, Carlson asked if he thinks the US is headed to “civil war” and “open conflict”.

Trump said he didn’t know but then added: “I can say this. There’s a level of passion that I’ve never seen, there’s a level of hatred that I’ve never seen, and that’s probably a bad combination.”

Carlson responded: “That is a bad combination.”

Earlier in the 46-minute interview broadcast on Twitter, Carlson asked Trump if he is concerned “the left”, after impeaching and then indicting him, would try to kill him.

“They’re savage animals. They are people that are sick, really sick,” Trump responded. “You have great people that are Democrats. Most of the people in our country are fantastic. And I’m representing everybody … But I’ve seen what they do.”

Carlson, who is engaged in a protracted dispute with his former network after being taken off air, launched the interview five minutes before the Republican debate aired on Fox. If that was an attempt to upstage both Trump’s rivals in the 2024 election and Carlson’s ex-employer, then it would appear to have been successful. The interview had more than 80m views on Twitter within two hours of being posted.

Carlson opened with a question about why Trump wasn’t at the Milwaukee debate.

“You see the polls that have come out and I’m leading by 50 and 60 points and some of them are at one and zero and two. And I’m saying do I sit there for an hour or two hours or whatever it’s going to be and get harassed by people who shouldn’t even be running for president?” he said.

“I just felt it would be more appropriate not to do the debate.”

 

A casual conversation about the animals - not humans - on the left trying to have Trump killed, and what you, the loyal Trump cultist, should do about it.  Totally normal stuff in a totally healthy democratic country, right?

They are trying to terrify MAGA chuds into violence while we watch, while Trump's mug shot from his surrender to Fulton County Georgia officials happens today, and Trump absolutely planned it.

Meanwhile, Republicans in DC and Georgia are expected to mount a full-on assault on Fulton County DA Fani Willis.

The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee is expected to open a congressional investigation into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as soon as Thursday, a source tells CNN – the same day former President Donald Trump is slated to surrender at the county jail after being charged for participating in schemes to meddle with Georgia’s 2020 election results.

The committee is expected to ask Willis whether she was coordinating with the Justice Department, which has indicted Trump twice in two separate cases, or used federal dollars to complete her investigation that culminated in the fourth indictment of Trump, the source added. The anticipated questions from Republicans about whether Willis used federal funding in her state-level investigation mirrors the same line of inquiry that Republicans used to probe Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who indicted Trump in New York for falsifying business records to cover up an alleged hush money scheme.

Meanwhile, Georgia Republicans could launch their own state-level investigation into Willis’ probe, according to GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has spoken to top officials in the state about a potential probe. She has also been pushing for a congressional-led inquiry into Willis, who has previously dismissed GOP accusations accusing her of being partisan and consistently defended her investigation.

“I’m going to be talking to (House Judiciary Chair) Jim Jordan, (House Oversight Chair) Jamie Comer, and I’d like to also ask (Speaker) Kevin McCarthy his thoughts on looking at doing an investigation if there is a collaboration or conspiracy of any kind between the Department of Justice and Jack Smith’s special counsel’s office with the state DA’s,” Greene told CNN. “So, I think that could be a place of oversight.”

It all amounts to a familiar playbook for House Republicans, who have been quick to try to use their congressional majority – which includes the ability to launch investigations, issue subpoenas and restrict funding – to defend the former president and offer up some counter programming amid his mounting legal battles. But they’ve also run into some resistance in their extraordinary efforts to intervene in ongoing criminal matters, while there are questions about what jurisdiction they have over state-level investigations.

 

All I have to say at this point is that whatever protective measures Willis has, she needs to triple them.

Last Call For Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Don't bother calling the cops on our little white supremacist domestic terrorism problem, because in an increasing number of counties around the US, your local sheriff's department are the domestic terrorists.

 

Against the background hum of the convention center, Dar Leaf settled into a club chair to explain the sacred mission of America’s sheriffs, his bright blue eyes and warm smile belying the intensity of the cause.

“The sheriff is supposed to be protecting the public from evil,” the chief law enforcement officer for Barry County, Michigan, said during a break in the National Sheriffs’ Association 2023 conference in June. “When your government is evil or out of line, that’s what the sheriff is there for, protecting them from that.”

Leaf is on the advisory board of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, founded in 2011 by former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack. The group, known as CSPOA, teaches that elected sheriffs must “protect their citizens from the overreach of an out-of-control federal government” by refusing to enforce any law they deem unconstitutional or “unjust.”

“The safest way to actually achieve that is to have local law enforcement understand that they have no obligation to enforce such laws,” Mack said in an interview. “They’re not laws at all anyway. If they’re unjust laws, they are laws of tyranny.”

The sheriffs group has railed against gun control laws, COVID-19 mask mandates and public health restrictions, as well as alleged election fraud. It has also quietly spread its ideology across the country, seeking to become more mainstream in part by securing state approval for taxpayer-funded law enforcement training, the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism found.

Over the last five years, the group has hosted trainings, rallies, speeches and meetings in at least 30 states for law enforcement officers, political figures, private organizations and members of the public, according to the Howard Center’s seven-month probe, conducted in collaboration with the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting.

The group has held formal trainings on its “constitutional” curriculum for law enforcement officers in at least 13 of those states. In six states, the training was approved for officers’ continuing education credits. The group also has supporters who sit on three state boards in charge of law enforcement training standards.

Legal experts warn that such training — especially when it’s approved for state credit — can undermine the democratic processes enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and is part of what Mary McCord, a former federal prosecutor and executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University, called a “broader insurrectionist ideology” that has gripped the nation since the 2020 presidential election.

“They have no authority, not under their state constitutions or implementing statutes to decide what’s constitutional and what’s not constitutional. That’s what courts have the authority to do, not sheriffs,” McCord said.

“There’s another sort of evil lurking there,” McCord added, “because CSPOA is now essentially part of a broader movement in the United States to think it’s OK to use political violence if we disagree with some sort of government policy.”

At least one state, Texas, canceled credit for the sheriffs’ training after determining the course content – which it said included a reference to “this is a war” – was more political than educational. But other states, such as Tennessee, have approved the training, in part because it was hosted by a local law enforcement agency.

Unlike other law enforcement continuing education, such as firearms training, the sheriffs’ curriculum is largely a polemic on the alleged constitutional underpinnings of sheriffs’ absolute authority to both interpret and refuse to enforce certain laws. One brochure advertising the group’s seminars states: “The County Sheriff is the one who can say to the feds, ‘Beyond these bounds you shall not pass.’”

 

When the MAGA chuds say "Make America Great Again" what they mean is "take us back to a time where county and state law enforcement officials refused to enforce federal civil rights laws and engaged in violence against people who did try to enforce those laws".

 

We've got county sheriffs across the nation gladly saying they won't do that now, along with gun safety regulations and anything else they don't like. And nobody's doing a damn thing to remove these assholes from the offices they refuse to uphold.

 

These monsters are only growing in power and scope, and heading into 2024 I suspect we're going to see a lot more nefarious action of them the closer we get to Election Day.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

DC Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan is already getting death threats serious enough to prompt an arrest for being the presiding judge over his January 6th trial, months before the proceeding have even started.

A Texas woman was arrested and has been charged with threatening to kill the federal judge overseeing the criminal case against former President Donald Trump in Washington and a member of Congress.

Abigail Jo Shry of Alvin, Texas, called the federal courthouse in Washington and left the threatening message — using a racist term for U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan — on Aug. 5, court records show. Investigators traced her phone number and she later admitted to making the threatening call, according to a criminal complaint.

In the call, Shry told the judge, who is overseeing the election conspiracy case against Trump, “You are in our sights, we want to kill you,” the documents said. Prosecutors allege Shry also said, “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you,” and she threatened to kill U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat running for mayor of Houston, according to court documents.

A judge earlier this week ordered Shry jailed. Court records show Shry is represented by the Houston public defender’s office, which did not immediately return a message seeking comment on Wednesday.

Trump has publicly assailed Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, calling her “highly partisan” and “ VERY BIASED & UNFAIR!” because of her past comments in a separate case overseeing the sentencing of one of the defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Chutkan in a hearing Friday imposed a protective order in the case limiting what evidence handed over by prosecutors the former president and his legal team can publicly disclose. She warned Trump’s lawyers that his defense should be mounted in the courtroom and “not on the internet.”

 

How dare a Black woman preside over a federal criminal case against Donald Trump, right? Of course she's getting death threats, along with repeated Trump target Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, also Black. Hell, Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis has been getting death threats for years now. 

 

What they really hate is Black people - particularly Black women -- daring to have power over America's favorite white supremacist.  Don't think for a second that race isn't playing a heavy part in these threats against the prosecutors and judges involved in Donald Trump's dozens of indictments.

And don't think for a second that Trump will hesitate to turn up the heat until someone is hurt or killed.