Trump Cards, Con't

As Marcy Wheeler explains, Trump's defense against Judge Tanya Chutkan's gag order in his January 6th case argues that Trump is not only entitled to unrestricted "free speech" by rallying his legion of MAGA chuds to rage against Chutkin herself, but that the rights of his followers to echo and spread that rage are being violated as well.

A substantial portion of the 33-page motion speaks for the First Amendment rights of his mob to hear, respond to, and amplify Trump’s speech. To defend this principle, Trump cites, among other things, the Missouri v. Biden that SCOTUS just agreed to review over the objections of Sam Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch.

Under the First Amendment, violating the rights of a speaker inflicts an equal and reciprocal constitutional injury on the listener. “Freedom of speech presupposes a willing speaker. But where a speaker exists, . . . the protection afforded is to the communication, to its source and to its recipients both.” Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U.S. 748, 756 (1976) (emphasis added) (collecting many cases); see also, e.g., Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. F.C.C., 395 U.S. 367, 390 (1969) (“It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.”); Packingham v. North Carolina, 582 U.S. 98, 104 (2017) (recognizing the right to “speak and listen, and then … speak and listen once more,” as a “fundamental principle of the First Amendment”); Missouri v. Biden, — F.4th –, No. 23- 30445, 2023 WL 6425697, at *11 (5th Cir. Oct. 3, 2023) (holding that the “right to listen is ‘reciprocal’ to the … right to speak” and “constitutes an independent basis” for relief). Thus, injuring President Trump’s ability to speak injures the First Amendment rights of over 100 million Americans who listen to him, respond to him, and amplify his message.

The claim to have 100 million listeners is a bit like calling his NY penthouse 33,000 square feet, insofar as it relies on overlapping numbers, including the 87 million followers he has but does not tweet to on Xitter.

Trump necessarily dedicates a very long footnote to explaining how he has standing to appeal this gag on behalf of his mob.

3 President Trump unquestionably has third-party standing to defend the rights of his audiences in this context. The Supreme Court is “quite forgiving” of third-party standing requirements “[w]ithin the context of the First Amendment.” Kowalski v. Tesmer, 543 U.S. 125, 130 (2004). The First Amendment’s overbreadth doctrine, for example, relieves the third-party plaintiff of the burden to show the usual “close relationship” and “hindrance” required by the third-party standing doctrine, id.; instead, Article III injury is all that is required. See id.; United States v. Sineneng-Smith, 140 S. Ct. 1575, 1586 (2020) (Thomas, J., concurring) (“Litigants raising overbreadth challenges rarely satisfy either requirement [‘close relationship’ and ‘hindrance’], but the Court nevertheless allows third-party standing.”) (citing Dombroski v. Pfister, 380 U.S. 479, 487 (1965)); N.J. Bankers Ass’n v. Att’y Gen., 49 F.4th 849, 860 (3d Cir. 2022) (noting that “the requirement that an impediment exist to the third party asserting his . . . own rights” does not apply when the challenged government action “substantially abridges the First Amendment rights of other parties not before the court”). Further, as the Supreme Court held in Bantam Books Inc. v. Sullivan, it is particularly important to allow third-party standing to vindicate First Amendment interests because “freedoms of expression … are vulnerable to gravely damaging yet barely visible encroachments” and must be protected by “the most rigorous procedural safeguards.” 372 U.S. 58, 66 (1963); see also id. at 64 n.6 (upholding the third-party standing of book publishers to assert the rights of distributors because “[t]he distributor … is not likely to sustain sufficient economic injury to induce him to seek judicial vindication of his rights,” whereas the seller has a “greater . . . stake” in vindicating those rights). In addition, the doctrine of third-party standing applies “when enforcement of the challenged restriction against the litigant would result indirectly in the violation of third parties’ rights.” Kowalski, 543 U.S. at 130. Here, the interference and restriction of President Trump’s First Amendment rights “would result indirectly in the violation of third parties’ rights,” id.—i.e., the rights of his audiences to receive, respond to, and amplify his speech.

I think this footnote is suspect, legally and practically. I mean, the notion that Stephen Miller’s NGO for fascism couldn’t vindicate these rights is nonsense. But it is nevertheless telling.

Trump makes that argument even while complaining that Judge Chutkan had to rely on the potential actions of others — that very same mob riled up by the amplified false victimization of Trump — to justify the gag itself.

Unable to justify the Gag Order based on President Trump’s actions, the prosecution pivots to third parties, alleging that unnamed others, outside of President Trump’s control, acted improperly before this case began. Such concerns cannot justify the Gag Order. The Supreme Court has repeatedly explained that citizens of this country cannot be censored based on a fear of what others might do. Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969) (“[T]he constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy . . . except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”).

[snip]

In entering the Gag Order, the Court relied heavily on the anticipated reactions of unidentified, independent third parties to President Trump’s speech. The Court found that “when Defendant has publicly attacked individuals, including on matters related to this case, those individuals are consequently threatened and harassed.” Id. at 2. But the Court cited no evidence that President Trump’s statements—as distinct from the statements of millions of others—caused such alleged threats or harassment, let alone that the statements were directed to inciting imminent lawless action.

Remember, Trump has repeatedly denied that the indictment accuses him of mobilizing the mob against Congress. Even after DOJ disabused Trump of that fantasy, he is playing coy about the fact that the crime he is alleged to have committed significantly involves riling up a mob to use as a weapon.

Indeed, Trump admits this is the plan to get elected: to rile up the mob again, this time by using this prosecution as a trigger.

The prosecution filed the indictment in this matter on August 1, 2023. Doc. 1. As this case is pending, President Trump continues to campaign for President, and one of his core messages is that the prosecutions against him are part of an unconstitutional strategy to attack and silence the Biden Administration’s chief political rival. To advance this message, President Trump has made many public statements criticizing individuals he believes are wrongly prosecuting him, including President Biden, Attorney General Garland, and Special Prosecutor Jack Smith and his team. This viewpoint—that the prosecution is politically motivated—is one shared by countless Americans.

[snip]

President Trump’s speech in support of his re-election campaign—which is inextricably intertwined with this prosecution and his defense—lies “at the core of our electoral process of the First Amendment freedoms—an area . . . where protection of robust discussion is at its zenith.” Meyer v. Grant, 486 U.S. 414, 425 (1988) (citations and quotations omitted); see also Buckley v. Am. Const. Law Found., Inc., 525 U.S. 182, 186–87 (1999); McIntyre v. Ohio Elec. Comm’n, 514 U.S. 334, 347 (1995) (“[C]ore political speech” encompasses any “advocacy of a politically controversial viewpoint.” “No form of speech is entitled to greater constitutional protection than” core political speech.).

Some of this is just cynicism: by claiming all this is political speech, Trump does base his appeal on the most expansive First Amendment precedent. The legal arguments here, some of them, anyway, are not frivolous.

But he’s not wrong about his campaign strategy. The key to Trump’s political success since he was sworn in was to polarize the electorate based off false claims that any investigation of Trump’s crimes is an attack on him and his mob.

Wheeler is right, of course. The whole "You can't prosecute me because you're hurting the people who voted for me" nonsense is literally Trump claiming he's immune from legal repercussions because he has a giant mob at his beckon call and that the "injury" done to his supporters by even investigating Trump renders him invincible.

If that's somehow the accepted legal justification, then no politician in the country can be touched because it unfairly hurts their supporters, voters, and followers, and Trump's legal team goes on to say that this is the highest form of democracy.

It's mob rule over all other things, and whoever has the biggest mob wins. 

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

 Israel is still holding off on that Gaza ground offensive after intense pressure from the US and EU.

The US and several European governments are quietly pushing Israel to hold off on launching a ground invasion of Gaza following Hamas’s release of two hostages, fearing that the incursion will all but scuttle efforts to secure additional releases for the foreseeable future, a senior diplomatic official told The Times of Israel.

The Western governments currently pressuring Israel each have citizens among those unaccounted for and believe that the more time that passes, the harder it will be to secure the hostages’ release, the official said.

The senior diplomatic official said that the governments recognize that a ground invasion is very likely and are not telling Israel not to launch one at all, but rather hold off to try and see if additional diplomatic efforts can succeed.

Israel says its offensive is aimed at destroying Hamas’s infrastructure, and has vowed to eliminate the entire terror group that rules the Strip and carried out the deadly onslaught on October 7 in which 1,400 were killed in southern Israel, about 1,000 of them civilians.

Israel says it is targeting all areas where Hamas operates, while seeking to minimize civilian casualties.

Meanwhile, the White House walked back US President Joe Biden’s apparent comment that Israel should delay its expected offensive in Gaza until more hostages held by Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups are released.

While boarding Air Force One earlier, Biden was asked by a reporter whether Israel should push off a military operation in Gaza, to which he responded, “yes.”

“The president was far away. He didn’t hear the full question. The question sounded like ‘Would you like to see more hostages released?’ He wasn’t commenting on anything else,” White House spokesperson Ben LaBolt was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Hamas on Friday night released two hostages — US-Israeli dual citizens Judith Raanan and her teenage daughter Natalie — who were vacationing in Israel from the US when they were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nahal Oz during the terror group’s assault.

It was the first release out of at least 203 hostages held in Gaza since Hamas’s infiltration and massacre in Israeli southern communities that started the ongoing war.

 

How much time Hamas can buy with international hostages, we'll see. Israel of course is not sparing the bombing campaign, with another evacuation order of Gaza City and norther environs issued Sunday, including two dozen hospitals.

Demands by Israel for the evacuation of Gaza hospitals amount to “a death penalty for patients,” according to the Palestinian Red Crescent

 

The organization said the Israeli military issued three evacuation orders for the Al-Quds hospital on Friday. Spokesperson Nebal Farsakh told CNN Sunday: “We do not have the means to evacuate them safely. Most of the patients are with critical injuries.”

A total of 24 hospitals, including Al-Quds, are under the threat of “being bombed at any second due to Israeli evacuation orders,” Farsakh said.

CNN has not independently verified this number. The Israel Defense Forces says Hamas frequently uses civilian facilities as cover for its military operations. The IDF told CNN Friday: "Hamas intentionally embeds its assets in civilian areas and uses the residents of the Gaza Strip as human shields.”

The World Health Organization has condemned “Israel’s repeated orders for the evacuation of 22 hospitals treating more than 2,000 inpatients in Northern Gaza.”

Farsakh said her team is counting on the international community to take action ahead and “stand for humanity.

 

Aid trucks continue to trickle in from the Egypt side of the Gaza strip, but the UN says Gaza will run out of fuel and water later this week.

Meanwhile here in the US, we're seeing rabbis murdered.

Investigators are searching for a motive in the death of a Detroit synagogue leader found stabbed over the weekend, the city’s police chief said.

The body of Samantha Woll, president of the board of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue, was discovered with multiple stab wounds at her home on Saturday morning, the Detroit Police Department said in a statement. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Responding officers had followed “a trail of blood leading officers to the victim’s residence,” where it is believed the crime happened, the Detroit Police Department said in a statement.

Police have not identified a suspect in the case, and it’s still unclear what led up to the killing.

“Understandably, this crime leaves many unanswered questions,” Detroit Police Chief James E. White said in a statement on social media site X. “This matter is under investigation, and I am asking that everyone remain patient while investigators carefully examine every aspect of the available evidence.”

“It is important that no conclusions be drawn until all of the available facts are reviewed,” White added.

 

No suspects, no motive, but the Detroit PD, Michigan State Police, and the FBI are on it. The police continue to say it's not related to antisemitism, but a stabbed Rabbi is still a tragedy. Some 4,500 Gazans have been killed over the last two weeks. Those all are tragedies as well.

A ground offensive in Gaza will be a slaughterhouse akin to ethnic cleansing. The people loudly pushing for that are the people we should trust the least. And President Biden and the Pentagon are likewise sending another aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, while Israeli Defense Forces are now attacking the West Bank and Syria.

The odds of a catastrophic misstep that leads to a massive regional conflict are ludicrously high at this point, and things are only going to get worse.

Mr. Jones Goes To Poverty

A federal judge has ruled that white supremacist whackjob Alex Jones cannot use bankruptcy to get out of his billion-dollar plus judgment for defaming Sandy Hook families.

 

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones cannot use his personal bankruptcy to escape paying at least $1.1 billion in defamation damages stemming from his repeated lies about the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre, a U.S. bankruptcy judge ruled Thursday.

Bankruptcy can be used to wipe out debts and legal judgments, but not if they result from "willful or malicious injury" caused by the debtor, according to a decision by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston, Texas.

Courts in Connecticut and Texas have already ruled that Jones intentionally defamed relatives of school children killed in the mass shooting, and they have ordered Jones to pay $1.5 billion in damages.

Lopez ruled that more than $1.1 billion of those verdicts, awarded for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress, cannot be wiped away in bankruptcy. But he ruled that other parts of the verdicts, including $324 million in attorneys' fees that were awarded as punitive damages in the Connecticut case, could possibly be discharged.

It was not clear whether those punitive damages were attributable to "willful" and "malicious" lies, or whether they could instead be attributed to merely "reckless" conduct, Lopez wrote. Lopez said he will hold a trial to sort out the precise amount of the damages that could be discharged.

Attorneys for Jones and the Sandy Hook families did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

Jones is going to owe these families the better part of hundreds of millions, and he's going to have to pay up. The system works, at least in this one case. 

We'll see what the judge comes up with as a figure, but I'm hoping it's enough to break Jones completely, both his back account and the shriveled raisin he calls a soul.

Sunday Long Read: Sky Scrapers

Our Sunday Long Read this week comes to us from Outside Magazine's Brad Rassler, who spent some time on the barnstormer circuit and attender the annual High Sierra Fly-In as recreational bush pilots and hobbyists across America take to the wild blue yonder in the age of social media, influencers, and follower counts.

Throughout the lower 48, recreational bush pilots are using their nimble planes and social media influence to spread the word about bold frontiers in flight: touching down on remote federal lands, flocking to little-used runways in designated wilderness, and drag racing one another for pure sport. Their capstone event each season, the High Sierra Fly-In, never fails to deliver hair-raising thrills.

n early August of 2022, 69 days before the 12th annual High Sierra Fly-In—an event known as American aviation’s Burning Man—Trent Palmer hoisted himself into the cockpit of his red, white, and blue bush plane, the Freedom Fox, and fired up the engine for another cruise into the valleys north of Lake Tahoe. Palmer, wearing flip-flops, shorts, and a Trent Palmer limited-edition trucker hat (“Fly Low, Don’t Die,” $40), is not your typical bush pilot, hauling mountaineers and machinery. Thanks to a prodigious YouTube following, he’s one of the most prominent of a new breed of lower 48 adventurers who are landing their fat-tire planes on and in mountaintops, ridgetops, river canyons, mountain meadows, dry lake beds, and grass and dirt airstrips, mainly in the American West, and mostly on land managed by the federal government.

Here was Palmer, 34, his handsome face smooth of whiskers but strong of jaw, moving through his preflight checklist, which included ditching his flip-flops in favor of bare feet, both of which were hovering over the rudder pedals. He jiggled the center control stick, rising up from the floor between his legs, which he used to tame the Freedom Fox’s direction and pitch. He said “Clear” and pushed the starter button, and the propeller coughed and revved, eventually producing a throaty thrum. The plane’s wings and fuselage were the color of Old Glory; several dozen stars spanned the cockpit’s exterior. An observer would be forgiven for mistaking Palmer’s craft for an Air National Guard stunt plane.

Palmer tweaked the throttle and steered toward the runway. He spoke into his headset: “Stead traffic, Freedom Fox, taking runway two-six at alpha two. It’ll be a westbound departure.”

I sat to Palmer’s right, a motion-sickness bracelet on my left wrist, anti-nausea gum in my mouth, and a gallon-size ziplock at my feet. The copilot’s control stick started bobbing around between my legs in sync with Palmer’s. The Freedom Fox, an immaculately maintained, high-wing, single-engine tail-wheel plane with burly 29-inch bush tires, monster shocks, extended wings, and a 140-horsepower fuel-injected turbocharged engine, climbed from Reno-Stead Regional Airport at 1,500 feet a minute. The stamped alkaline flats of the Great Basin gave way to the dense pine forests of California’s Lost Sierra, a huge swath of mountainous backcountry about an hour north of Reno. On the horizon, the jagged crest of the Sierra Buttes came into view. Palmer, who was piping a Shakey Graves tune through the headsets, exuded competence, bonhomie, and (in the confines, I couldn’t help but notice) a pleasant, soapy smell.


He had agreed to take me along as he executed a series of “short takeoffs and landings”—STOL, for short—which epitomize bush flying, whether the assignment is depositing researchers onto a remote airstrip in Alaska’s Brooks Range, competing in STOL competitions, or landing “off-airport”—on ungroomed terrain, nowhere near a runway—as we were about to do next to California’s Stampede Reservoir.

Palmer seemed happy to be flying without cameras and a YouTube agenda. “How are you feeling?” he asked, this polite ambassador and evangelist of his winged pastime, this member of a band of nine bush-pilot buckaroos called the Flying Cowboys, social media influencers all, using their platforms to spread the bush-flying gospel to the uninitiated.

In one 2018 video, Palmer and two other young pilots fly to a northern Nevada mountaintop and set up base camp. One pilot paraglides off the summit. In a voiceover keyed to uplifting synths and soaring drone shots, Palmer says, “More often than not, we work away all the golden years of our lives, years we’ll never get back, all in an attempt to enjoy the remaining few.”

“I say it doesn’t have to be that way,” he continues. “What I’m saying is to stop waiting, stop dreaming, and start living. Life is too short to eat dessert last.”

“You know the drill,” he concludes. “Like this video if you do, subscribe if you haven’t, [and] come be my wingman.” Then he whispers “Peace,” flashes the V, and slaps his hand over the lens.

The result? Followers. Half a million of them. Palmer grosses about $150,000 a year from various income streams, including YouTube.

He gestured at the twitching control stick. “You might get punched in the nuts when I’m landing,” he said, “but don’t worry about it.”

 

Some 100 years later after pilots and aviators became household names, it feels like there's a whole Amelia Earhart /Howard Hughes vibe around these YouTube aces and TikTok flyers. Whether or not that's a good thing, well, the EPA is trying to crack down on the leaded fuel these planes guzzle, and new regulations may put the chocks on many of these fliers. 

And frankly, in the era of climate change, it's getting more and more difficult really to justify recreational flying anyway.

Maybe Snoopy had it right with his doghouse.

Last Call For Climate Of Destruction, Con't

As 2023 continues to set global records for hottest temperatures, we're seeing more and more effects of climate change in the real world. For the second year in a row, the Alaskan Snow Crab season has been canceled because the crabs have starved to death in the warmer Arctic waters.

 

Billions of snow crabs have disappeared from the ocean around Alaska in recent years, and scientists now say they know why: Warmer ocean temperatures likely caused them to starve to death.

The finding comes just days after the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced the snow crab harvest season was canceled for the second year in a row, citing the overwhelming number of crabs missing from the typically frigid, treacherous waters of the Bering Sea.

The study, published Thursday by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, found a significant link between recent marine heat waves in the eastern Bering Sea and the sudden disappearance of the snow crabs that began showing up in surveys in 2021.

“When I received the 2021 data from the survey for the first time, my mind was just blown,” said Cody Szuwalski, lead author of the study and fishery biologist at NOAA. “Everybody was just kind of hoping and praying that that was an error in the survey and that next year you would see more crabs.”

“And then in 2022, it was more of a resignation that this is going to be a long road,” Szuwalski told CNN.

That year was the first the US snow crab fishery was closed in Alaska. Catchers have attributed to the population decline to overfishing, but “overfished” is a technical definition that triggers conservation measures, experts told CNN — it doesn’t actually explain the collapse.

“The big take home for me from the paper, and just the whole experience in general, is that historically, fishery scientists had been very worried about overfishing — this has been our white whale, and in a lot of places we really solved that with management,” Szuwalski said. “But climate change is really throwing a wrench into our plans, our models and our management systems.”

For the study, scientists analyzed what could have triggered the disappearance of the snow crabs beginning in 2020 and boiled it down to two categories: the snow crabs either moved or died.

Szuwalski said they looked north of the Bering Sea, west toward Russian waters and even into deeper levels of the oceans, and “ultimately concluded that it was unlikely that the crabs moved, and that the mortality event is probably a big driver.”

 

Folks, the crabs aren't coming back anytime soon. The oceans are only going to get warmer and more acidic. More species are going to get wiped out.

 

They found that warmer temperatures and population density were significantly linked to higher mortality rates among mature crabs.

The reason behind the mortality event: hungrier crabs.

Snow crabs are cold-water species and found overwhelmingly in areas where water temperatures are below 2 degrees Celsius, though they can function in waters up to 12 degrees Celsius, according to the study. Warmer ocean water likely wreaked havoc on the crabs’ metabolism and increased their caloric needs.

The amount of energy crabs needed from food in 2018 — the first year of a two-year marine heat wave in the region — may have been as much as quadrupled compared to the previous year, researchers found. But with the heat disrupting much of the Bering Sea’s food web, snow crabs had a hard time foraging for food and weren’t able to keep up with the caloric demand.

 

It's not going to get better. We're too far gone for that now. The time to take action was 30 years ago with the Kyoto Protocols. 

From here on out it's triage.

The Housing Crisis Is Back

I've been warning of another 2008-style housing sector crash for a while now, and it looks like we're getting close to the current bubble bursting and taking the economy with it.

 

Sales of previously owned homes dropped 2% in September from August to a seasonally adjusted, annualized rate of 3.96 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors. Sales were 15.4% lower compared with September 2022.

This is the slowest sales pace since October 2010, during the Great Recession, when the market was in the midst of a foreclosure crisis. As a comparison, just two years ago, when mortgage rates hovered around 3%, home sales were running at a 6.6 million pace. The average rate on the 30-year fixed today is right around 8%, according to Mortgage News Daily.

“As has been the case throughout this year, limited inventory and low housing affordability continue to hamper home sales,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. “The Federal Reserve simply cannot keep raising interest rates in light of softening inflation and weakening job gains.”

There were 1.13 million homes for sale at the end of September, down more than 8% from a year ago. Inventory is now at a 3.4-month supply, which is slightly better than last year, but only because sales have dropped so much. Supply is based on the current sales pace.

Adding to higher mortgage rates, the median price of a home sold in September was $394,300, up 2.8% year over year. Roughly 26% of home sold above list price, due to the lack of supply which is resulting in bidding wars.

First-time buyers made up just 27% of sales. Historically, they make up about 40%.

While sales were lower across all price points, they fell the least on the higher end. That’s because there is more supply at the higher price points and because higher-end buyers can often use cash. Mortgage demand is now at the lowest level since 1995, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

All-cash sales made up 29% of all September transactions, up from 27% in August and up from 22% in September of last year.

“Although affordability is a headwind, the renewed upward energy that followed the Fed’s September projections might have prompted some shoppers to rush to the closing table, lest they face higher mortgage rates and even worse affordability in the months ahead. If so, this could mean a bigger lull in sales activity in the coming months,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist for Realtor.com, in a release.

 

This all should feel very, very familiar to ZVTS readers, except it's not bundled mortgage tranches that's going to kill us, it's hedge funds and venture capitalists with hundreds of billions buying up every house in your county to keep prices artificially high by creating scarcity. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of games being played on Wall Street, but this time the Too Big To Fail recipients will be gigantic hedge funds and Silly Valley vampires.

 

When those prices stop going up at the Big Casino, a lot of wealth is going to vanish again. Maybe trillions this time.  It won't be "We don't know who owns this mortgage" but "We know exactly who owns it and if they don't get bailed out, the economy will collapse."

When you have almost a third of housing transactions being made in all cash, that's unsustainable. Eventually nobody's going to be able to afford the rent and the property goes fallow, and these hedge fund mega-landlords aren't going to be able to sell at all.

 

And if the housing bubble exploding doesn't crash the economy, well, the banks are running for the hills because Jerome Powell is almost certainly going to raise interest rates again until the economy breaks, and the way things are going in the US House, the federal government will augur in halfway through next month.

And then?

KABOOM.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

At this point it really is a race to see which judge presiding over a Trump case will put him in the slammer for gag order violations first, and the judge in Trump's civil case is no longer playing around. Trump's going to have to come up with five grand.

Former President Donald Trump was fined $5,000 on Friday after his disparaging social media post about a key court staffer in his New York civil fraud trial lingered on his campaign website for weeks after the judge ordered it deleted.

Judge Arthur Engoron avoided holding Trump in contempt for now, but reserved the right to do so — and possibly even put the 2024 Republican front-runner in jail — if he again violates a limited gag order barring case participants from personal attacks on court staff.

Engoron said in a written ruling that he is “way beyond the ‘warning’ stage,” but that he was only fining Trump a nominal amount because this was a “first time violation” and Trump’s lawyers said the website’s retention of the post had been inadvertent.

“Make no mistake: future violations, whether intentional or unintentional, will subject the violator to far more severe sanctions, which may include steeper financial penalties, holding Donald Trump in contempt of court, and possibly imprisoning him,” Engoron wrote in a two-page order.

 

Again, Trump is daring a judge, any judge, to sanction him so he can scream that his trial is unfair, and influence his followers to take action, possibly precipitous and dangerous action. This is what he wants. He's going to fly through the air like a loutish orange Icarus until his wings melt, and when he crashes, he's going to try to blot out the sun.

 

But that has to be balanced against the real potential for violence. A Maryland judge was shot to death this week in his own driveway after awarding custody of the suspected gunman's children to the suspect's wife. We shoot judges in America, you see. Who would come gunning for Judge Engoron, or Judge Chutkin in Trump's January 6th case, if either one of them leveled real sanctions against Trump?

 

How many more warnings and chances will Trump end up getting in order to try to stave off a lethal response? 

Can America survive that? Can America survive putting Trump in jail at all?

Last Call For Fani Makes A Deal, Or, One Grilled Chese Please

Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis keeps on winning, and this time she's gotten a felony plea along with state's evidence.

Kenneth Chesebro, a former lawyer for Donald Trump’s campaign, pleaded guilty Friday to illegally conspiring to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia, a deal in which he will avoid jail time and agreed to provide evidence that implicates other co-defendants, including Trump himself.

Chesebro was the second former Trump lawyer to accept a plea deal in the sprawling conspiracy case in as many days. The plea came in just hours after jury selection began, ahead of an expected trial next month.

Chesebro pleaded guilty to a single felony count of conspiracy to file false documents and accepted a sentence of three to five years of probation, a $1,000 fine, $5,000 in restitution to the state of Georgia, an apology letter, 100 hours of community service and a promise to testify truthfully against any other co-defendants in the case, should they go to trial.

In his plea deal, Chesebro implicated several of those co-defendants as being part of the conspiracy to file false documents: Trump, four other lawyers including Rudy Giuliani, and one campaign operative. The charge relates to Chesebro’s role organizing slates of pro-Trump electors to meet in seven states where Biden had won.

Chesebro’s guilty plea follows that of Sidney Powell on Thursday and makes him the third co-defendant to admit guilt in the criminal racketeering case, which alleges Trump and 18 allies broke Georgia law when they sought to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state. In addition to Powell, bail bondsman Scott Hall pleaded guilty earlier this month in the conspiracy — with all agreeing to testify against others in the case.

The plea is the latest legal victory for Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D), whose office is prosecuting the Georgia case. In addition to flipping one of the key members of the alleged conspiracy, prosecutors now avoid a trial in which they would have had to showcase much of their evidence against Trump and others, which might have offered lawyers for other defendants a legal advantage heading into their trials.

The potential for incriminating testimony from three of Trump’s co-defendants could have a far-reaching impact on the former president’s legal fortunes, as well as some of the other high-profile defendants, notably Giuliani, who is alleged to have known about Powell’s and Chesebro’s efforts to help overturn Trump’s loss. 

 

And the right-wing keeps yelling that these pleas are meaningless and that Willis doesn't have any case because she hasn't gotten anyone to cop to a RICO felony yet.

Don't worry, kids. That's coming. The Finding Out Phase is definitely here for Trump and fiends.

The House GOP Circus Of The Damned, Con't

GOP Rep. Jim Jordan is now a three-time loser in his quixotic flailing to try to become House Speaker, and he's still up for more getting face-punched.

Rep. Jim Jordan again defended his choice to continue running for speaker after 25 Republicans voted against him on the third ballot.

“Even Speaker McCarthy took a dip and then came back,” he said, when asked if it is time to get a new nominee. “You guys said we were going to lose 15 to 30. We lost a couple and we had a few people miss it,” he added.

Jordan continued, “We’re gonna go talk to conference right now, listen to our colleagues.”

Asked about several of his supporters saying it wasn’t looking good for him, Jordan replied, “we’ll find out.”

 

Oh yes, Jimmy boy, we're definitely in the Find Out Phase, and today he found out just how much he's hated by his own co-workers.

House Republicans are once again scrambling with no clear path to elect a new speaker after voting to push Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan out of the race, the latest sign of the chaos and divisions that have engulfed the majority party and left the chamber in a state of paralysis.

In a dramatic turn of events, the House GOP conference voted by secret ballot on Friday to drop Jordan as their speaker designee after he failed to win the gavel for the third time in a floor vote earlier in the day.

The House remains effectively frozen as long as there is no elected speaker. The paralysis has created a perilous situation as Congress faces the threat of a government shutdown next month and conflict unfolds abroad. The battle for the speakership has now dragged on for more than two weeks with no end in sight.

Jordan’s exit from the race now sets the stage for more speaker hopefuls to emerge. Republicans are expected to hold a candidate forum Monday evening. But it appears increasingly uncertain whether any lawmaker can get the 217 votes needed to win the gavel while Republicans control such a narrow majority.

 

The also-rans are lining up to take a swing at the pinata:

With the GOP speakership now once again up for grabs, here’s a list of potential candidates and where they stand on getting in the race. They have until noon Sunday to file.

Confirmed candidates:

• Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, Republican Study Committee chair
• Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia, who challenged Jordan last time
• Rep. Jack Bergman of Michigan, a former general
• Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, Majority Whip
• Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, Freedom Caucus member

Considering running:

• Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, Homeland Security Chair and Freedom Caucus member
• Rep. Jodey Arrington of Texas, Budget chair
• Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana, vice conference chair

 

Things are now so bad at the Clown Show Big Top that Assistant Provisional Junior Ringmaster 3rd Class The Odious Patrick McHenry is now threatening to quit his post as punching bag.

 

In a closed-door meeting Thursday, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., told GOP colleagues he might resign as speaker pro tempore if Republicans push him to try to move legislation on the floor without an explicit vote to expand his powers, according to multiple lawmakers in the room.

“If you guys try to do that, you’ll figure out who the next person on Kevin’s list is,” McHenry told the room, three sources said, referring to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy's secret list of GOP lawmakers who would serve as temporary speaker in the event of a vacancy.

McHenry's comments underscore the quandary Republicans are in: They can't really do anything until they choose a new speaker, but they can't agree on someone who can get the votes to be that new speaker.

And McHenry is unwilling to set a precedent that would give future temporary speakers the full power of speakers who are elected on the House floor. It could mean that the House wouldn't need to elect speakers in the future.

It's an idea that McCarthy himself has been floating, and it was the subject of debate during Republicans' 3½-hour private meeting Thursday. During the discussion, some Republicans asked whether they could give McHenry more power "by acclamation" or whether they needed to take an internal vote in the room.

It's a different idea from the formal resolution proposed by Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, which would require a floor vote to empower McHenry to move legislation like spending bills and aid packages for Ukraine and Israel.

A GOP lawmaker described McHenry's remarks as an implicit threat of resignation. The lawmaker said McHenry had made the same suggestion to individual members before he spoke to the larger conference.

A second GOP lawmaker said that McHenry made the remarks “tongue in cheek” but that the message was clear: He questioned the constitutionality of such an option and said he did not want the greater authority unless Republicans agreed to grant it to him through a formal vote.

McHenry “will not act in a manner he interprets as unconstitutional” as speaker pro tem, a third member in the room said.

 

I mean, I wouldn't want the job either. Nobody likes a pitiable wretch with no power to actually do anything, and even worse, a clown with false power that will only come back to bite them in the ass.

 

McHenry wants actual power or he walks, and not even his own party wants to give it to him.

 

The Clown Show rolls on as the world burns, I guess.

The Out-Of-Tune Squad

I can understand not fully believing the Pentagon's assessment that a Hamas rocket fell short of Israel and crashed directly into a crowded hospital killing hundreds, unless the rockets Hamas are using have the power to level entire buildings (and if that's true, that's a much bigger problem.) But using that as an excuse to slag Biden from the Left like our old friends the Squad are doing is only making things worse.

 

Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, of Michigan, refused to apologize Wednesday for saying a day earlier that Israel is to blame for the hospital explosion that day in Gaza, despite evidence from the U.S. defense department that the blast was likely caused by an errant projectile from Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

A number officials in the US and around the world blasted Israel for what they believed was an attack on a civilian facility that left hundreds dead. But claims and evidence began to suggest that the Gaza hospital blast was likely caused by a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that fell short of its target, two U.S. officials told ABC News. Still, what has happened has not conclusively been determined.

Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, have been among Israel's strongest critics, with Tlaib accusing Israel of "oppressive & racist policies" in 2019. In February 2019, a tweet from Omar in response to a tweet from journalist Glenn Greenwald appeared to be using a common way of referring to $100 bills -- which feature Benjamin Franklin -- to suggest that many members of Congress support Israel because they get campaign donations from pro-Israel groups and individuals, evoking historical stereotypes linking Jews to money and influence. She later apologized for the tweet.

Their comments have at times been alleged by colleagues and others in congressional leadership to be antisemitic. But they have defended their views as legitimate, free speech in defense of the Palestinian cause.

Some of the criticism leveled against Tlaib and Omar over past comments has also been criticized as including Islamophobic or racist rhetoric.


Tlaib on Wednesday joined thousands of protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza during a solidarity rally hosted by the left-leaning group Jewish Voice for Peace at the National Mall. She was visibly emotional, at time, pausing her speech to openly weep and criticizing lawmakers who have not backed a proposed ceasefire resolution in Congress.

"As an American, not just as a member of the United States Congress, I am ashamed. I am ashamed that they're saying, 'not yet. Maybe next week.' ... How many more have to die?" Tlaib said.

She also addressed the backlash, applauding attendees for the "courage it's taken to speak up."

"The American Jewish community in my district, and all of you here. I just know how much courage it's taken to speak up. Many of you have been targeted. You're being gas lit. Some people are losing their jobs. Folks are getting events canceled. Literally, their First Amendment right wiped away for standing up and saying that children deserve to live. It is literally inhumane for my colleagues to allow that to continue and say nothing," Tlaib said.

 

She could have stopped there. She did not.

Tlaib also slammed President Joe Biden for his support for Israel since the Hamas terrorist attack.

"To my president, to our president ... I want him to know, as a Palestinian American and somebody in Muslim faith, I'm not going to forget this. And I think a lot of people are not going to forget this," Tlaib said.

President Biden, not all Americans are with you on this one and you need to understand that. We are literally watching people commit genocide and killing the vast majority just like this, and we still stand by and say nothing. We will remember this," she warned.

Omar is also facing criticism from Republicans over similar comments Tuesday that Israel is to blame for the hospital explosion that day in Gaza as Israel denies fault. As information about the hospital blast was initially being reported, Tlaib tweeted on Tuesday afternoon, "Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that. @POTUS this is what happens when you refuse to facilitate a ceasefire & help de-escalate. Your war and destruction only approach has opened my eyes and many Palestinian Americans and Muslims Americans like me. We will remember where you stood."

 

Hey, so, Biden's $100 million in direct humanitarian aid, and for now, talking Bibi out of ethnically cleansing the hell out of everything Gaza City and north means nothing to you then? 

As usual with Reps. Tlaib and Omar, it's Biden's fault. I expect that from the GOP. I was foolish not to expect that from the Squad, too.

Last Call For The House GOP Circus Of The Damned, Con't

Jim Jordan won't be Speaker of the House, but neither will The Odious Patrick McHenry.

House Republicans are abandoning a push to empower a temporary speaker, Rep. Patrick McHenry, after it faced fierce pushback within the party on Thursday.

As they left a nearly four-hour internal meeting about the idea, multiple Republicans said there was no virtually no path forward. The proposal, which may still come back for a vote at some point, would have allowed McHenry and the GOP to reopen the House after 16 days without a speaker.

Many Republicans view that task as critical, given pending deadlines on government spending and an imminent White House aid request for Israel and other nations in crises.

“It certainly does not have the support in conference and to bring it to the floor. It would have to survive with Democratic votes,” Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) said. “We’re currently sitting on a tinderbox. So to do that, it would set off the fuse that would certainly end in civil war within the GOP, and I don't believe that anybody wants to do that.”

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) summed it up succinctly: “The resolution is dead.”

It’s the latest setback for House Republicans who have foundered in near-total bedlam since eight Republicans joined with Democrats to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) 16 days ago. No member of their conference, including speaker designee Jim Jordan, currently has the votes to win over the speaker’s gavel.

The abrupt about-face on the McHenry resolution — after momentum behind it had grown steadily for days — leaves the GOP in yet another dead-end rut. Some Jordan allies suggested that he could force a third ballot on the floor, though multiple Republican lawmakers have warned that his opposition will only grow on another vote.

Talks are ongoing about a potential alternative approach that could accomplish the same goal as the resolution from Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio), but Republicans are warning against bringing anything to the floor unless it has a majority of the conference in support.

“The language that was being floated is dead. … mostly dead,” said Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), a Jordan ally. “This can’t be one of those deals where we have Republicans voting no and hoping yes. It just can’t be, so we better have some resolve in how we’re doing it.”

Joyce insisted he is not entirely pivoting away from his plan. He pointed to pockets of the GOP conference that remain adamant about being able to move legislation on the floor in the coming days and weeks.

“I didn’t hear it was dead. I think there are some of these folks in there who wish it was dead. But I think the overwhelming majority of the people in there agree that we can't continue down in this paralysis when the world is on fire,” Joyce said.

Conservatives, in particular, praised Jordan’s decision not to pursue the idea of empowering McHenry — an idea that had emerged from the GOP’s more centrist wing.

“I think that's a good thing. The House of Representatives needs a speaker, not a Speaker Lite. I don't support using temporary powers for Mr. McHenry,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said.

Jordan doesn't have the votes, but McHenry has far fewer. At this point there aren't any Republicans that can win the Speaker's gavel right now.

And so the House GOP Big Top is currently burning, with the clowns arguing about which standardized water bucket size they need to use to put out the fire.

I'd be laughing my ass off at these idiots if it wasn't increasingly clear that no business will get done and that the federal government will come to a screeching halt in under a month while the Middle East is about to explode into a regional, maybe even a global war.

We're headed for a crack-up, and that's exactly what the GOP chaos monkeys want.

Fani Makes A Deal, Or, Sidney's Kraken Up

Looks like Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis played Let's Make A Deal again, and I told you she would. Her contestant: Former Trump lawyer and oceanic cryptid enthusiast Sidney Powell, who just flipped on Trump in Fani Willis's Georgia election interference case.

 

Sidney Powell, a GOP lawyer who briefly represented Donald Trump, has flipped on the former president, striking a plea deal with Georgia prosecutors ahead of her trial on a slew of criminal charges.

According to court filings, Powell pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy to interfere with election duties.

She was one of over a dozen co-defendants — including Trump himself — in the Fulton County DA's office's RICO case, which accused Trump and his allies of violating the state's racketeering statute while working to overturn Georgia's 2020 presidential election results.

As part of the plea agreement, Powell — who pushed several conspiracy theories about the 2020 election results and vowed to release the "Kraken," purported evidence of widespread election fraud that never materialized — will have to testify at future trials and write a letter apologizing to Georgia citizens.

Powell's plea deal was announced at a court hearing on Thursday. As part of the agreement, she will also have to pay $2,700 in restitution to replace election equipment, as well as a $6,000 fine. She faces a maximum sentence of six years probation.

Powell was set to go to trial on Monday, along with co-defendant and former Trump campaign lawyer Kenneth Chesebro.

 

I don't use this language often, but Trump is fucked. 

 

We'll see if Kenny Cheseboro flips before his trial on Monday, but does Willis really need him at this point? The only bigger fish on this seafood buffet are Rudy, Mark Meadows, and the king marlin himself, Trump. At this point, unless Meadows or Rudy flips, the window for a deal has closed.

Expect another tirade as Trump gets closer and closer to prison.

Getting Drugged Out

With pharmacy chain Rite Aid filing for bankruptcy this week, and the other big pharmacy chains in CVS and Walgreens expected to close hundreds of locations, it's looking like the pharmacy may go the way of the video store by the end of the decade.

 

Drugstore chains for decades saturated US cities, suburbs and small towns with new stores.

Now, they are closing thousands of stores, leaving gaps in communities for medicines and essentials. Researchers find pharmacy closures lead to health risks such as older adults failing to take medication.

Rite Aid, the third largest standalone pharmacy chain, filed for bankruptcy Sunday and will reportedly close roughly 400 to 500 of its approximately 2,200 stores.

Rite Aid was undone by competition from larger rivals, its $3.3 billion debt load, and expensive legal battles for its alleged role in fueling the opioid crisis.

It comes amid walkouts by Walgreens pharmacists and technicians around the country and at CVS stores in Kansas City over low pay and understaffed stores.
Drug store struggles

Rite Aid’s bankruptcy reflects long-term struggles in the retail pharmacy industry.

The majority of drugstores’ sales comes from filling prescriptions. But their profits from that segment have declined in recent years because of lower reimbursement rates for prescription drugs.

The front end of drugstores, where they sell snacks and household staples, also face pressure.

CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid are eliminating some locations as they face rising competition for these items from Amazon, big-box stores with pharmacies like Walmart, and Dollar General in rural areas.

Although drugstores benefited during the pandemic from people getting Covid-19 vaccines, fewer consumers visited stores to shop and prescription volumes fell because people were getting fewer elective procedures.

“The pandemic was not a strong time for drugstores,” said David Silverman, a senior director at Fitch Ratings.

Theft has become a problem for drugstores in some locations, and some stores have resorted to locking up products to prevent theft. But this has made the customer experience worse.

“Theft appears to be hitting drug retailers more than other categories,” Silverman said.

Drugstores are trying to pivot into the more lucrative health care industry in recent years and become primary care providers. CVS acquired health insurer Aetna, and Walgreens took a majority stake in primary care network VillageMD.

But this strategy requires fewer brick-and-mortar retail stores.

 

Walmart and Target were always threats to drugstore chains, but Amazon is going to finish them off.  Cheap prescriptions that you don't have to pick up and the pharmacist doesn't run out of? Yeah, I can already see how this is going to go.

 

On the other hand, if the Supreme Court gets rid of by-mail abortion pills, I can certainly see brick-and-mortar pharmacy companies ganging up on Amazon.

 

On the gripping hand, if your local chain drugstore isn't careful, they may put themselves out of business too if Congress and/or SCOTUS decide pills by mail is too dangerous. I don't see that happening, but who knows with this Congress, and this SCOTUS?

 

 

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

President Biden is expected to address the nation in a primetime speech Thursday evening explaining the US response to the current Israel-Hamas war.

 

President Joe Biden will address to the nation Thursday to update Americans on the U.S. response to the Hamas attacks, the White House said.

The 8 p.m. ET Oval Office speech comes a day after Biden's high-stakes visit to Israel where he pressed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow aid from Egypt into Gaza for Palestinian civilians reeling from Israel airstrikes.

In a rare move, Biden spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One, telling them he had been on the phone with Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in "blunt negotiation" and that El-Sisi had agreed to open the closed Rafah crossing gate in southern Gaza to allow up to 20 trucks with aid through.

"I came to get something done -- I got it done," he said.

"They're going to patch the road -- they have to fill in the potholes for the trucks to get through," he said. "Expect that to take about eight hours tomorrow.So, there may be nothing rolling through … probably until Friday."

Asked about what he told Israeli officials, Biden said, "I was very blunt about the need to support getting humanitarian aid to Gaza, get it to Gaza and do it quickly."

He added, "I got no pushback, virtually none. ... Let me say it again, I got no pushback."

"Look, Israel has been badly victimized, but you know, the truth is that if they have an opportunity to relieve suffering of people who are, have nowhere to go, they're gonna be, it's what they should do," Biden said. "And if they don't, they'll be held accountable in ways that may be unfair."

 

Brutal honesty from the president as the White House also announced $100 million in additional humanitarian aid to Gaza and the West Bank.

Meanwhile stateside, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested demonstrating in the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday.

Hundreds of protesters demonstrated on Capitol Hill and occupied part of a House office building on Wednesday, urging lawmakers and the Biden administration to push for a cease-fire in Gaza, which has been under Israeli airstrikes since a deadly Hamas terror attack.

Dressed in black T-shirts emblazoned with the words "Jews say cease fire now" and "Not in our name," the activists sat clapping and singing on the floor in the rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building and held up large banners that read "Ceasefire" and "Let Gaza Live."

"We warned the protestors to stop demonstrating and when they did not comply we began arresting them," the U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Capitol Police said protests are not allowed inside the building. They told CBS News the protesters entered the building legally and properly through visitor security checkpoints, and were permitted to gather and congregate, but failed to follow police warnings after beginning the demonstrations.

Police gave an early estimate that about 300 demonstrators were arrested, but said the number could grow as they continue processing arrests.

The protest was organized by the group Jewish Voice for Peace, a Jewish anti-Zionist organization.

Before the sit-in, hundreds of people had gathered on the National Mall near the Capitol urging the Biden administration to call for a cease-fire.

 

Nationally, some 85% of Americans believe this conflict is going to become a larger regional war, and you can count me among them.

In the wake of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and Israel declaring war on Hamas, an overwhelming majority of voters (85 percent) are either very concerned (49 percent) or somewhat concerned (36 percent) that the war between Israel and Hamas will escalate into a wider war in the Middle East, while 13 percent are either not so concerned (8 percent) or not concerned at all (5 percent), according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University national poll of registered voters released today. The poll was conducted from October 12 through October 16.

Voters (76 - 17 percent) think supporting Israel is in the national interest of the United States.

Republicans (84 - 12 percent), Democrats (76 - 17 percent), and independents (74 - 19 percent) think supporting Israel is in the national interest of the United States.

Voters (64 - 28 percent) approve of the United States sending weapons and military equipment to Israel in response to the Hamas terrorist attack.

Republicans (79 - 19 percent), Democrats (59 - 29 percent), and independents (61 - 32 percent) approve of the United States sending weapons and military equipment to Israel.

There are wide gaps when looking at age. Voters 18 - 34 years old disapprove (51 - 39 percent) of the United States sending weapons and military equipment to Israel in response to the Hamas terrorist attack, while voters 35 - 49 years old (59 - 35 percent), voters 50 - 64 years old (77 - 17 percent), and voters 65 years of age and over (78 - 15 percent) approve.

When it comes to the relationship between the United States and Israel, slightly more than half of voters (52 percent) think the U.S. support of Israel is about right, while 20 percent think the U.S. is not supportive enough of Israel, and 20 percent think the U.S. is too supportive of Israel. This compares to a Quinnipiac University poll in May 2021 when 35 percent thought the U.S. support of Israel was about right, 25 percent thought the U.S. was not supportive enough, and 29 percent thought the U.S. was too supportive of Israel.

Voters were asked whether their sympathies lie more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians based on what they know about the situation in the Middle East. Roughly 6 in 10 voters (61 percent) say the Israelis, while 13 percent say the Palestinians. This is an all-time high of voters saying their sympathies lie more with the Israelis since the Quinnipiac University Poll first asked this question of registered voters in December 2001. The previous high for saying the Israelis was in April 2010 when 57 percent said the Israelis and 13 percent said the Palestinians. The low for saying the Israelis was in May 2021 when 41 percent said the Israelis and 30 percent said the Palestinians.

 

Slaughtering hundreds of civilians at a peace rally makes it pretty clear you're the problem and that you need to made to pay the piper.

 

Unfortunately, tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are going to be made to pay as well.

Spoilers Ahead, Con't

I'm still convinced RFK Jr. is running to put Trump in the White House by hurting President Biden, but apparently the people falling for such an obvious con are MAGA voters themselves in the latest NPR/PBS/Marist poll.

In a potential presidential re-match, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump remain competitive with Biden scoring just three points more among registered voters nationally. However, when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. factors into the equation, Biden opens up a 7-percentage point lead over Trump among the national electorate. Kennedy’s presence erodes Trump’s lead among independents and cuts into his support among Republicans. Trump’s loss among his base is double the loss Biden experiences among Democrats.

Biden (49%) and Trump (46%) are well-matched among registered voters nationally in a hypothetical 2024 contest. This is little changed from earlier this month when 2 percentage points separated Biden (49%) and Trump (47%).

Partisan allegiances are strong. Among independents, though, Trump (49%) is ahead of Biden (43%) by 6 percentage points.

In a three-way contest with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. running as an independent, Biden opens up a 7-point lead over Trump. 44% of registered voters support Biden. 37% back Trump, and 16% are for Kennedy.

Kennedy’s presence in the contest makes the race competitive among independents who break 34% for Trump, 33% for Biden, and 29% for Kennedy.

With Kennedy in the race, Biden’s support dips 5 percentage points among Democrats while Trump loses 10 points among Republicans.

“Although it’s always tricky to assess the impact of a third-party candidate, right now Kennedy alters the equation in Biden’s favor,” says Lee M. Miringoff, Director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. “What this does speak to, however, is that about one in six voters are looking for another option especially independents.”

 

This is wild to me, but let's remember that before RFK Jr. decided to run as an independent, Team Trump was happily telling people that he was a good guy in order to hurt Biden.

 

Apparently this backfired incredibly. We'll see for how long.