Last Call For Ridin' With Biden, Con't

There are still plenty of warning signs ahead in the housing, auto loan, and student loan sectors, but for now, not only is America's economy growing under Bidenomics, it's skyrocketing.

 

The U.S. economy grew by an annual rate of 4.9 percent in the third quarter, the strongest pace since 2021, as spending — by families, businesses and the government — accelerated, even in the face of fast-rising borrowing costs.

New government data released Thursday by the Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that gross domestic product expanded between July and September, capping five straight quarters of growth and eluding a long-feared recession.

The economy’s resilience is a product of a strong job market and extra pandemic savings, which have made it possible for people to keep spending despite inflation and rising interest rates. Robust government hiring — including 214,000 new jobs between July and September — also added to overall strength.

“It’s enough to knock me over with a feather,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG. “We’ve had the most aggressive credit tightening from the Federal Reserve since the 1980s and, guess what, the economy’s accelerating. We really underestimated how much consumers could keep spending."

That spending was broad-based in the third quarter, with U.S. households doubling down on both necessities, such as housing, utilities and prescription drugs, as well as luxuries including dining out, hotel stays and recreation. Businesses and the federal government also continued to spend, though GDP was dragged down by lower non-residential investments.

Overall, the latest spike in GDP is more than double the previous quarter’s annual growth rate of 2.1 percent.

What isn’t clear yet is whether higher borrowing costs could reverse some of these gains in the months to come. Economists say that acceleration in economic growth is likely to slow later this year, as pandemic-era savings dry up and millions of households resume student loan payments. Fears of a government shutdown, ongoing strikes by actors and autoworkers, and worsening wars in Ukraine and Gaza are also adding to the uncertainty.

“The U.S. consumer has so been hanging tough and powering the economy forward, but I expect much slower growth the rest of the year,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, who expects economic growth to slow to an annualized rate of 1 percent in the fourth quarter. “There are a lot of headwinds out there.”

In Cincinnati, Dominique Walker just made her first student loan payment in more than three years — which means she’s rethinking all sorts of other expenses, including manicures, massages and morning coffees. She’s packing her lunch a lot more and expects to spend less this holiday season than she has been.

“I’m having to rebalance things,” said Walker, 32, a data management specialist at a hospital. “That extra $305 a month, that has to come from somewhere.”

 

The bad news is that voters think the economy is the worst they've seen in decades.

 

The Fed has lifted borrowing costs 11 times since March 2022, with the goal of slowing the economy enough to stabilize prices. Mortgage rates, at 7.6 percent, are at a two-decade high, and the housing market has all but come to a standstill. But economists say that has freed up Americans to spend elsewhere. Expenditures at restaurants, movie theaters and sporting events have all risen in the past few months, helping support continued hiring in those industries.

Meanwhile, inflation has moderated — to 3.7 percent from last summer’s peak of 9.1 percent — though it remains far higher than the Fed would like.

The spate of growth is welcome news for the White House, which has invested heavily in infrastructure as part of its “Bidenomics” plan. But despite $302 billion in spending, it has struggled to convince voters that its economic policies are working for them. Biden’s ratings on economic matters are lower than ever, with just 32 percent of Americans saying they approve of the president’s handling of the economy in a recent CNBC poll. 

 

The disconnect is staggering. Giving the economy back to Trump would be catastrophic. But tens of millions of Americans want to do just that.

 

Ron's Gone Wrong, Con't

Ahh, but we can't have an Israel-Palestine conflict without Florida coming in and reminding everyone that the fascist authoritarians running the place like GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis want to make sure that Palestinians have no voice in the Sunshine State.

 

Florida’s university system chancellor, responding to a push by Gov. Ron DeSantis, directed state universities Tuesday to disband campus groups with ties to the national Students for Justice in Palestine organization, marking the first punishments handed down to colleges here amid the Israel-Hamas war.

In a memo to school leaders, the state ordered a “crack down” on campus events led by the pro-Palestinian organization that the DeSantis administration claims amount to “harmful support for terrorist groups” like Hamas, which attacked Israel in early October. Florida, under Republican presidential candidate DeSantis, has staunchly supported Israel during the ongoing war and was monitoring college protests that have since ignited.

“Based on the National SJP’s support of terrorism, in consultation with Governor DeSantis, the student chapters must be deactivated,” state university system Chancellor Ray Rodrigues wrote Tuesday.

There are at least two Students for Justice in Palestine chapters at Florida universities facing cancellation through ties to the national organization, according to Rodrigues, who did not specify where the groups were located in the memo. The University of Florida and University of South Florida, though, both appear to have active SJP chapters.

 

Free speech is not something Florida Republicans believe in, you see. If you thought they only wanted to get rid of SJP, well, they want Black Lives Matter gone too, starting with both Florida GOP senators, Rick Scott and Marco Rubio.

Some Republican lawmakers are calling on Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser to rename the two-block area in front of the White House that was dubbed “Black Lives Matter Plaza” three years ago amid a wave of racial justice protests.

Groups affiliated with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement have faces a backlash after messages sent out following the grisly Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel appeared to support terrorists and express anti-Israel sentiment.

“BLM chapters across the nation have circulated disturbing anti-Semitic rhetoric and images on social media, encouraging the spread of pro-Hamas propaganda,” the group of more than 20 House and Senate members, all Republicans, wrote in a statement accompanying their letter.

“Continuing to honor terrorist sympathizers with a plaza in our nation’s capital is a slap in the face to all Americans, especially Jewish and Israeli Americans.”

Among Republicans signing the letter: Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.), Thom Tillis (N.C.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Rick Scott (Fla.), Josh Hawley (Mo.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and Bill Cassidy (La.); and Reps. Elisa Stefanik (N.Y.), Jim Banks (Ind.) and Jeff Duncan (S.C.).

The mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment on the letter or plans for the plaza.

Immediately after Hamas’s deadly blitz on Israel, which included attacks on multiple kibbutzim and an outdoor music festival, some BLM chapters expressed sympathy with Palestine and appeared to justify the aggression against Israel.

A BLM Chicago chapter posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, an image of a paraglider with the message “I stand with Palestine.” BLM Phoenix shared statements declaring that “Palestinian freedom fighters are not terrorists!,” and “The Palestinian attack was a revolution and attempt to reclaim their freedom.”

BLM chapters are run independently and can be unaffiliated with the broader Black Lives Matter organization, which hasn’t commented on the latest Israeli-Hamas conflict.

 

Sure seems like cancel culture to me. Free Speech only for approved groups is not how it works, gang.

 

And Black Lives Still Matter.

Another Day In Gunmerica, Con't

Another day, another AR-15 rifle used in a mass shooting, another butcher's bill of the dead to account for, in what is being called the worst mass shooting massacre in Maine history.

At least 16 people were killed and dozens more injured in multiple shootings here Wednesday night, in what is likely the deadliest shooting in Maine’s history.

Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck refused to confirm the number of deaths in a news conference late Wednesday, but the Associated Press, citing unnamed law enforcement sources, reported 16 deaths. Earlier in the night, Androscoggin County Sheriff Eric Samson and a Lewiston city councilman had said that as many as 22 people died.

Maine State Police are searching for Robert Card, 40, in connection with the shootings at Sparetime Recreation and Schemengees Bar & Grille. By Thursday morning, more than 100 state and federal law enforcement officials were participating in the manhunt for Card.

Card, who lives in Bowdoin, is a trained firearms instructor who police believe is in the U.S. Army Reserve out of Saco. He recently reported mental health issues, including hearing voices, and made threats to shoot the National Guard base in Saco, according to state police, who said he spent two weeks at a mental health facility this summer.

They warned the public that Card should be considered armed and dangerous. In surveillance photos released by police, the man identified as Card can be seen lifting a rifle as he enters a building.

The car police believed he was driving, a white Subaru Outback, was found near the Lisbon boat dock on Frost Hill Avenue near Route 196. Police were knocking on doors of nearby homes while helicopters remained in the area Wednesday night.

The Lisbon Police Department wrote in an early morning Facebook post that police recommend Lisbon residents “continue to shelter in place with an emphasis on residents between Mill Street in Lisbon Center, along the Rt 196 corridor east to Main street in Lisbon Falls. Businesses located within this area especially will mostly be closed until safety concerns have been addressed.”

Shortly after 6 a.m. Thursday morning, state police said authorities were expanding shelter-in-place and school closing advisories to include the town of Bowdoin as well.

 

If the information about the suspect is correct, he's supposed to be "one of the good guys with a gun", a trained Army Reserve firearms instructor. Instead, police believe he is responsible for a multi-site rampage that happened so quickly and so brutally that officials are still as of this morning trying to fully determine the number of casualties. An entire county is locked down to prevent more.

 

This is one person terrorizing an entire community, with a weapon more than capable of causing mass death and destruction, using a weapon of war for its intended purpose of killing, sold as such, and showing that a person trained to use that weapon can kill many, injure hundreds, threaten thousands.

I hope to God they find this guy and put him in a box for the next thousand years, bt maybe even the state of Maine should be asking about what needs to be done to prevent the next shooting, and whether or not we have the will to do it.

Spoilers: we won't, and we don't.

Just another day here in Gunmerica.

Last Call For Meet The New Ringmaster Of The House GOP Circus

Getting 220 votes in today's House vote, Republicans have elected MAGA chud and former hate radio jock Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana as Speaker of the House.

 

House Republicans have elected Rep. Mike Johnson as the new speaker – a major moment that comes three weeks after Kevin McCarthy’s historic ouster.

There were 220 votes for Johnson and 209 votes for Democrat Hakeem Jeffries. There was unanimous GOP support behind Johnson. One Republican – Van Orden – was absent from the vote.

Johnson has been a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump and was a key congressional figure in the failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Johnson was first elected to the House in 2016 and serves as vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, as well as GOP deputy whip, an assistant leadership role.

An attorney with a focus on constitutional law, Johnson joined a group of House Republicans in voting to sustain the objection to electoral votes on January 6, 2021. During Trump’s first impeachment trial in January 2020, Johnson, along with a group of other GOP lawmakers, served a largely ceremonial role in Trump’s Senate impeachment team.

 

As I mentioned, he's one of the MAGA bunch who helped run Trump's Big Lie to try to steal the election in the House.

The Louisiana Republican was first elected to the House in 2016 and serves as vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, as well as GOP deputy whip, an assistant leadership role. An attorney with a focus on constitutional law, Johnson joined a group of House Republicans in voting to sustain the objection to electoral votes on January 6, 2021. During Trump’s first impeachment trial in January 2020, Johnson, along with a group of other GOP lawmakers, served a largely ceremonial role in Trump’s Senate impeachment team.

Johnson also sent an email from a personal email account in 2020 to every House Republican soliciting signatures for an amicus brief in the longshot Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate electoral college votes from multiple states.


After the election was called in favor of Joe Biden on November 7, 2020, Johnson posted on X, then known as Twitter, “I have just called President Trump to say this: ‘Stay strong and keep fighting, sir! The nation is depending upon your resolve. We must exhaust every available legal remedy to restore Americans’ trust in the fairness of our election system.’”

Although Trump said he won’t endorse anyone in the speaker’s race Wednesday, he eant support to Johnson in a post on Truth Social.

“In 2024, we will have an even bigger, & more important, WIN! My strong SUGGESTION is to go with the leading candidate, Mike Johnson, & GET IT DONE, FAST!” Trump posted.

Johnson serves on the Judiciary Committee and the Armed Services Committee. He is also a former chair of the Republican Study Committee.

 

So the GOP finally found an acceptable nutjob to run the place, an avowed MAGA chunderhead who hates all the approved check boxes: Black folk, LGBTQ+ folk, women, immigrants, climate change, and most important of all, liberals.

The prediction of "worse than McCarthy" was as easy as falling off a Louisiana bayou log. Democrats have not only the architect of the House Big Lie pla to run against, they have an avowed homophobic bigot who wants a national ban on LGBTQ+ even existing, as well as a national ban on abortion with no exceptions. Oh, and he led the effort by Trump in the House to overturn the 2020 election. They couldn't find a better example of the GOP in 2023 as a poster monster.

And remember, it was a unanimous vote for the GOP. Every single one of them wanted Johnson as Speaker. They are 100% the party of Donald Trump, period.

Time to go to work, Dems.

These Disunited States, Con't

A new PRRI poll finds a majority of Americans now believe that the country was better off before the Civil Rights era.

 

Fewer Americans believe that American culture and way of life has mostly changed for the better (44%) than changed for the worse (55%) since the 1950s. Republicans (73%) are more likely than independents (57%) and Democrats (34%) to believe it has mostly changed for the worse.

Nearly nine in ten Americans who most trust far-right news (89%), seven in ten Americans who most trust Fox news (71%), and nearly six in ten Americans who do not watch TV news (58%) believe American culture and way of life have mostly changed for the worse. Under half of Americans who most trust mainstream news (45%) believe the same.

Majorities of white Christians — including white evangelical Protestants (77%), white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (60%), and white Catholics (57%) — believe American culture and way of life has mostly changed for the worse. Hispanic Catholics, Black Protestants, and non-Christian religious Americans are more divided. By contrast, religiously unaffiliated Americans are less likely to say American culture and way of life has changed for the worse (43%) than for the better (57%).

While younger Americans are not optimistic, they remain less likely than older Americans to believe that American culture and way of life have mostly changed for the worse: 49% of Generation Z and millennials, 58% of Generation X, 60% of baby boomers, and 67% of the Silent Generation.

The majority of white (58%) and Hispanic Americans (54%), and nearly half of Black Americans (47%), agree that America’s culture and way of life have mostly changed for the worse.

Americans without a college education are more likely than college-educated Americans to believe that America has changed for the worse, including 61% with some college and 60% with a high school education or less, compared with 46% of college graduates and 43% of postgraduates.

Americans in urban areas are divided on this question (50% better vs. 49% worse), compared with majorities of those who live in suburban (55%) and rural (67%) areas who believe that America’s culture and way of life have changed for the worse.

 

It gets a lot more disturbing when Americans are asked about how to fix things.

Just under four in ten Americans (38%) agree with the statement, “Because things have gotten so far off track in this country, we need a leader who is willing to break some rules if that’s what it takes to set things right,” while 59% disagree.

About half of Republicans (48%) agree with the need for a leader who is willing to break some rules, compared with four in ten independents (38%) and three in ten Democrats (29%). Majorities of Americans who most trust Fox News (53%) or far-right outlets (52%) agree that we need a leader who breaks the rules, compared with smaller shares of those who do not trust TV news (40%), or who most trust mainstream news (32%). Republicans with favorable views of former President Donald Trump are notably more likely than those with unfavorable views of Trump to agree with the need for a leader who is willing to break some rules (54% vs. 32%).

A slim majority of Hispanic Catholics (51%) agree with this statement, along with nearly four in ten religiously unaffiliated Americans (38%), white evangelical Protestants (37%), white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (37%), non-Christians (37%), white Catholics (36%), and Black Protestants (35%). White Americans who attend religious services weekly or more (29%) are less likely than those who attend monthly or a few times a year (39%) or those who seldom or never attend services (37%) to agree with the need for a leader who is willing to break some rules.

Americans who believe that the country has changed for the worse since the 1950s are substantially more likely than those who say that it has changed for the better to agree with the need for a leader who is willing to break some rules (43% vs. 31%).

 

And more and more Americans are ready to turn to violence to try to solve the country's political problems, especially Republicans.

Disturbingly, support for political violence has increased over the last two years. Today, nearly a quarter of Americans (23%) agree that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country,” up from 15% in 2021. PRRI has asked this question in eight separate surveys since March 2021. This is the first time support for political violence has peaked above 20%.

One-third of Republicans (33%) today believe that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country, compared with 22% of independents and 13% of Democrats. Those percentages have increased since 2021, when 28% of Republicans and 7% of Democrats held this belief. Republicans who have favorable views of Trump (41%) are nearly three times as likely as Republicans who have unfavorable views of Trump (16%) to agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.

Americans who believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump are more than three times as likely as those who do not believe that the election was stolen from Trump — 46% to 13%, respectively — to agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.

Over three in ten white evangelical Protestants (31%), along with 25% of white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants, 24% of Black Protestants, 23% of non-Christians, 23% of religiously unaffiliated Americans, 21% of Hispanic Catholics, and 20% of white Catholics agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country. Among white Christians, there are no differences by church attendance on this question.

Americans who believe that the country has changed for the worse since the 1950s are more than twice as likely as those who say that it has changed for the better to agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country (30% vs. 14%).

 

Again, one-third of Republicans believe in resorting to political violence. That number jumps to nearly half among people who believe the 2020 presidential election was "stolen". These numbers are only going to go up the closer we get to the November 2024 election, or to any real legal consequences in Trump's trials. 

Be careful out there.

Jack Makes A Deal, Or, Mark Of Betrayal

Fulton County Georgia DA may not have flipped former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows yet in her RICO case, but Jack Smith sure as hell got him to testify before a grand jury in his January 6th federal case.

 

Former President Donald Trump's final chief of staff in the White House, Mark Meadows, has spoken with special counsel Jack Smith's team at least three times this year, including once before a federal grand jury, which came only after Smith granted Meadows immunity to testify under oath, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The sources said Meadows informed Smith's team that he repeatedly told Trump in the weeks after the 2020 presidential election that the allegations of significant voting fraud coming to them were baseless, a striking break from Trump's prolific rhetoric regarding the election.

According to the sources, Meadows also told the federal investigators Trump was being "dishonest" with the public when he first claimed to have won the election only hours after polls closed on Nov. 3, 2020, before final results were in.

"Obviously we didn't win," a source quoted Meadows as telling Smith's team in hindsight.

Trump has called Meadows, one of the former president's closest and highest-ranking aides in the White House, a "special friend" and "a great chief of staff -- as good as it gets."

The descriptions of what Meadows allegedly told investigators shed further light on the evidence Smith's team has amassed as it prosecutes Trump for allegedly trying to unlawfully retain power and "spread lies" about the 2020 election. The descriptions also expose how far Trump loyalists like Meadows have gone to support and defend Trump.

Sources told ABC News that Smith's investigators were keenly interested in questioning Meadows about election-related conversations he had with Trump during his final months in office, and whether Meadows actually believed some of the claims he included in a book he published after Trump left office -- a book that promised to "correct the record" on Trump.

ABC News has identified several assertions in the book that appear to be contradicted by what Meadows allegedly told investigators behind closed doors.

According to Meadows' book, the election was "stolen" and "rigged" with help from "allies in the liberal media," who ignored "actual evidence of fraud, right there in plain sight for anyone to access and analyze."

But, as described to ABC News, Meadows privately told Smith's investigators that -- to this day -- he has yet to see any evidence of fraud that would have kept now-president Joe Biden from the White House, and he told them he agrees with a government assessment at the time that the 2020 presidential election was the most secure election in U.S. history.

 

Mark Meadows doesn't just know where the bodies are, he helped Trump bury them. He's testified at least once to a grand jury.

But does that mean he's actually going to help Jack Smith bury Trump? Marcy Wheeler throws up a big caution flag.

But I caution against concluding too much about what the testimony means. Most importantly, there’s no hint that Meadows has flipped. Meadows has testified (which a past ABC scoop made clear). But giving immunized testimony is not flipping, and the two ABC stories raise far more questions about the story Meadows has told.

I say that for several reasons. First, ABC doesn’t describe the dates for any of his interviews. I’ll return to that, but it’s important that ABC doesn’t reveal whether Meadows’ testimony to Jack Smith precedes or postdates the Georgia indictment and subsequent failure to get the Georgia indictment removed to Federal courts. An earlier big ABC scoop describes April grand jury testimony, and it’s not clear that this would be a different time frame or grand jury appearance.

I offer cautions, as well, because virtually all of ABC’s reporting says that Meadows was asked not about what Trump did on a given day, but whether Meadows believed what Meadows had said publicly. Here’s an example.

Sources told ABC News that Smith’s investigators were keenly interested in questioning Meadows about election-related conversations he had with Trump during his final months in office, and whether Meadows actually believed some of the claims he included in a book he published after Trump left office — a book that promised to “correct the record” on Trump.

Again, click through to see how much of the rest is of the same sort.

As I noted in my post on that prior big ABC scoop, there are still loads of details — especially about January 6 — missing from the public timeline that Meadows surely knows.

There’s a lot that’s missing here — most notably Meadows’ coordination with Congress and any efforts to coordinate with Mike Flynn and Roger Stone’s efforts more closely tied to the insurrection and abandoned efforts to deploy the National Guard to protect Trump’s mob as it walked to congress. Unless those actions get added to charges quickly, Meadows will be able to argue, in Georgia, that his actions complied with federal law without having to address them. If and when they do get charged in DC, I’m sure Meadows’ attorneys hope, his criminal exposure in Georgia will be resolved.

Importantly, that earlier ABC scoop served to signal co-conspirators how Meadows changed his testimony after prosecutors obtained proof his claims about his ghost-writers — the same ghost-writers whose book remains at the center of ABC’s scoop! — were proven wrong by further evidence.

That story suggested Meadows was only going to be as truthful as evidence presented to him required him to be.

And this story is of the same type. It describes how, as he did in the stolen documents case, Meadows said he didn’t believe what he wrote when it was legally necessary.

Meadows is trying to save his ass, yes. But it doesn't mean he's singing like a canary quite yet. 

Still, four major players in Trump's inner circle have now possibly turned on him in the last week.

 

Sleep well, Donnie. Prison bunks are far less comfortable.

 

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

Our next contestant on "Who Wants To Be Humiliated?" is apparently going to be Minnesota Republican Rep. Tom Emmer.

 

Republicans on Tuesday picked Rep. Tom Emmer as their nominee for House speaker. The nominee now goes to the full House for a vote.

It’s three weeks since Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy. The House speaker will need to accomplish the seemingly impossible job of uniting the GOP majority. Emmer of Minnesota jumped ahead as the top vote-getter on early round ballots and was battling Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana on a fifth ballot.

Others are dropping out including Florida newcomer Byron Donalds, who’s aligned with Donald Trump, and Kevin Hern of Oklahoma. The nominee will also need to win a majority in a House floor vote.

Also withdrawing from the race were Reps. Austin Scott of Georgia, Jack Bergman of Michigan, Pete Sessions of Texas, Gary Palmer of Alabama and Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania.

The House has been in turmoil, without a speaker since the start of the month after a contingent of hard-line Republicans ousted McCarthy, creating what’s now a governing crisis that’s preventing the normal operations of Congress.

The federal government risks a shutdown in a matter of weeks if Congress fails to pass funding legislation by a Nov. 17 deadline to keep services and offices running. More immediately, President Joe Biden has asked Congress to provide $105 billion in aid — to help Israel and Ukraine amid their wars and to shore up the U.S. border with Mexico. Federal aviation and farming programs face expiration without action.

Some Democrats have eyed Emmer, the third-ranking House GOP leader who had voted to certify the 2020 election results as a potential partner in governing the House.

But Trump allies and other hard-liners have been critical of Emmer over his support of a same-sex marriage initiative and perceived criticisms of the former president.

Trump downplayed, even derided, Emmer, with whom he has had a rocky relationship, while presenting himself Monday as a kingmaker who talks to “a lot of congressmen” seeking his stamp of approval.

 

Indeed, Team Trump has already warned that they will not support Emmer as Speaker. 

Several key Trump allies and former administration officials, however, have harshly criticised Mr Emmer, characterising him as "disloyal".

Mr Emmer drew the ire of many of Mr Trump's supporters for voting to certify the rightful results of the 2020 election, in President Joe Biden's favour. He is one of only two of the Republican Speaker candidates, along with Georgia's Austin Scott, to do so.

Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon referred to Mr Emmer as a "Trump hater" on his podcast on Friday and urged the former president's supporters in the House to "stop" him.

On the same podcast, a former Trump advisor, Boris Epshteyn, questioned whether "someone so out of step with where the Republican electorate is" can "even be in the conversation" about a new Speaker.

Additionally, US media outlets - including the Washington Post - reported that Mr Trump privately directed his allies to criticise Mr Emmer ahead of the vote.

Citing two anonymous sources familiar with the situation, the Post also reported that Mr Trump's backers circulated a 200-page "opposition research" book about Mr Emmer that critiques many of his policy positions.

The BBC has been unable to independently verify the report.

 

That means Emmer will need Democratic support to be Speaker, and that's not going to happen unless Emmer is willing to make some deals, and he'll get mauled by the Clown Caucus if he does. The plan to recruit The Odious Patrick McHenry may be on again if and when Emmer fails to get to 217.

Ohio Republican Rep. Dave Joyce said if Rep. Tom Emmer can’t get to 217 votes, he’s willing to bring up his resolution to empower interim Speaker Patrick McHenry — but said he doesn’t know when the breaking point for the rest of the conference will be.

“I appreciate the fact that Tom is trying to get to 217 before we go out and create a spectacle on the floor, but if we go over there and we’re not getting the requisite votes that we need, we have to open the place up,” he said.

He said his new resolution “would do just that,” so they can continue to have conversations until they get the numbers.

House Republicans debated the idea last week but put the plan is on ice amid fierce pushback from some corners of the party.

“I don’t know when this conference will feel enough pain to understand that this practice is an exercise in futility, and we need to open the place back up,” he said.

Joyce said Emmer does not want to leave the room until he has 217 votes, “he wants to go, if you’ve got a complaint, let’s hear ‘em right here, let’s get this over with today, he’s not gonna make a public spectacle, unfortunately, that’s been made over there before.”

 

So we're right back to square one: the GOP candidate doesn't have the votes, and Emmer dropped out later in the afternoon as a result.

Dude didn't even last the day. Trump bragged that he "killed" Emmer.

Just hours after Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) won the Republican Conference’s nomination to be Speaker on Tuesday, former President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to deride the congressman as “totally out-of-touch with Republican Voters” and a “Globalist RINO.”

He then got on the phone with members to express his aversion for Emmer and his bid for Speaker.

By Tuesday afternoon Trump called one person close to him with the message, “He’s done. It’s over. I killed him.”

Just minutes later, Emmer officially dropped out of the race.

 

The Clown Show Caucus rolls on.

Fani Makes A Deal, Or, Ellis If I Know

Another of Trump's Georgia co-conspirators turns state's evidence for Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis's RICO case, this time it's former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis. 

 

Jenna Ellis, a former Trump 2020 election attorney, struck a plea deal with Georgia prosecutors on Monday in their sweeping election racketeering case, making her the fourth of the original co-defendants charged by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to now be cooperating with investigators as they prepare for a trial against the former president and his other associates.

Under terms of the plea deal, which were signed Monday and made public Tuesday, Ellis agreed to a single felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings.

In brief remarks to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, Ellis expressed remorse for her actions in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.

"What I did not do, but should have done, your honor, was make sure that the facts the other lawyers alleged to be true were in fact true," she said. "...I should have done my due diligence."

Ellis had been facing two felony counts over at least two memos to Trump and his lawyers advising that then-Vice President Mike Pence should disregard electoral votes from Georgia and other “contested” states during the lead-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, certification ceremony at the U.S. Capitol.

She's the fourth person charged by Willis to switch course after initially pleading not guilty. Pro-Trump lawyers Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell reached separate plea agreements late last week with Willis to cooperate with her investigation in exchange for their admissions of guilt and less stringent sentences. Those deals nixed a trial that was just getting started last Friday with jury selection in Fulton County.

 

Like The Big Chese Bro and The Kraken Lady, Ellis is getting probation and a fine in return for testifying against the other co-conspirators at a later date. DA Willis is putting on a master class here in busting organized crime and racketeering by flipping the smaller fish to catch the white whale. Or, you know, the orange whale in this case.

A Bleak Test Case For College

A new NY Times analysis finds that rich kids score far higher on SATs/ACTs than poor kids, which is news something akin to "the sun is a burny hot fusion sphere" because it was true when I was in college 30 years ago, but it's even more true now and to an even more astonishing degree.

 

New data shows, for the first time at this level of detail, how much students’ standardized test scores rise with their parents’ incomes — and how disparities start years before students sit for tests.

One-third of the children of the very richest families scored a 1300 or higher, while less than 5 percent of middle-class students did, according to the data, from economists at Opportunity Insights, based at Harvard. Relatively few children in the poorest families scored that high; just one in five took the test at all.

The researchers matched all students’ SAT and ACT scores for 2011, 2013 and 2015 with their parents’ federal income tax records for the prior six years. Their analysis, which also included admissions and attendance records, found that children from very rich families are overrepresented at elite colleges for many reasons, including that admissions offices give them preference. But the test score data highlights a more fundamental reason: When it comes to the types of achievement colleges assess, the children of the rich are simply better prepared.

The disparity highlights the inequality at the heart of American education: Starting very early, children from rich and poor families receive vastly different educations, in and out of school, driven by differences in the amount of money and time their parents are able to invest. And in the last five decades, as the country has become more unequal by income, the gap in children’s academic achievement, as measured by test scores throughout schooling, has widened.

“Kids in disadvantaged neighborhoods end up behind the starting line even when they get to kindergarten,” said Sean Reardon, the professor of poverty and inequality in education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education.

“On average,” he added, “our schools aren’t very good at undoing that damage.”

In the wake of the Supreme Court decision ending race-based affirmative action, there has been revived political momentum to address the ways in which many colleges favor the children of rich and white families, such as legacy admissions, preferences for private school students, athletic recruitment in certain sports and standardized tests.

Yet these things reflect the difference in children’s opportunities long before they apply for college, Professor Reardon said. To address the deeper inequality in education, he said, “it’s 18 years too late.”

The children of the top 0.1 percent, whose parents earned an average of $11.3 million a year in today’s dollars, got far better scores than even the children of the families just below them, the new data shows. For the 12,000 students in this group, opportunities that drive achievement were amplified — exclusive private schools, summers traveling the world and college prep services that cost more than college itself — said John N. Friedman, an economist at Brown, who analyzed the new data with Raj Chetty and David J. Deming of Harvard.

But the larger inequality is between the children of the merely rich and those below them. As class differences have grown more extreme, and a college degree has become more crucial to achieving a middle-class lifestyle or better, it has bred competition among parents anxious about their children’s futures.

“People are kind of jockeying to get into the school district that they think is going to be most beneficial for their kid,” said Ann Owens, a professor of sociology at the University of Southern California, who studies inequality in education. “A lot of this is driven by rising income inequality. When people have more money to spend on stuff, they’re spending it on moving to an affluent neighborhood, or buying their kids test prep and tutors and all these things they think will help them.”

 

And why wouldn't parents help their kids with college test prep? Mine did. The more money you have available, the more assistance you can buy. It's an investment that pays off in the millions over the course of a career.

 

And remember, these numbers are from ten years ago, 2011, 2013, and 2015. It's even worse now in the post-pandemic, assistive-AI, post-affirmative action era of 2023 which we're only now starting to experience.

 

The book on this era of college admissions is being written now, and if you thought disparity was bad before, well...

Last Call For That Poll-Asked Look, Con't

Polling from this summer indicated that RFK Jr.'s spoiler third-party run was drawing more Trump voters than Biden voters, but this time a poll from Harvard/Harris finds RFK Jr. is throwing the race to Trump.

 

Former President Trump is leading President Biden and Democrat-turned-independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a three-way race, a new poll found.

The Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey, shared with The Hill, showed Trump receiving 39 percent support, Biden receiving 33 percent support and Kennedy receiving 19 percent support in a three-way race. A separate 9 percent of voters said they did not know or were unsure.

When those who were unsure were asked who they would vote for if they had to choose, Trump received 42 percent support, Biden received 36 percent and Kennedy received 22 percent.

In a two-way race, Trump holds a 5 percentage point lead over Biden, with the former president receiving 46 percent and Biden receiving 41 percent. Fourteen percent of respondents said they were unsure or didn’t know.

The survey noted that Biden gained 1 percentage point since a similar survey was conducted in September, while Trump gained 2 percentage points.

Biden still leads Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in separate head-to-head match-ups.

Between Biden and DeSantis, Biden received 44 percent support while DeSantis received 40 percent. Between Biden and Haley, the president sat at 42 percent while Haley received 38 percent support.

The survey also indicated that Trump received the highest percentage of support when GOP voters were asked who they would vote for if the 2024 Republican primary were held today. Trump received 60 percent while DeSantis received 11 percent; all others received less than 10 percent, according to the poll.

“Trump’s polling continues to defy gravity both in the primary and the general election. Kennedy right now doesn’t change the result — an election held today would elect Donald Trump,” Mark Penn, the co-director of the Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll, said. “There is a lot of time and events to go, but Trump has a significant edge at the starting line.”

 

Again, a poll 12 months out from an election is about as predictive as a bucket of warm spit, but it continues to show that Trump facing 90+ counts in four separate criminal trials doesn't matter to half the country and that they'll vote for him anyway.  The polls have consistently shown him with a 40-50 point lead in the primaries despite the dozens of felony charges, to the point where I believe being indicted has actually helped him, not that Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley would have a chance in hell even without the criminal charges.

 

Trump continues to have a 46-point lead in the GOP primaries in the latest USA Today/Suffolk U poll, too.

Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley has surged nationally in a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll, challenging a faltering Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the top alternative to Donald Trump for the GOP presidential nomination.

Haley's support has risen to 11% of registered voters who plan to vote in GOP primaries or caucuses, up from 4% in the USA TODAY/Suffolk poll taken in June and just one percentage point below DeSantis. His 12% standing was a steep fall from his 23% support four months ago.

Trump continues to dominate the field, backed by 58%, up 10 points.

 

However, the USA Today/Suffolk U poll shows again that RFK Jr. would turn a tie into a one-point Biden lead.

One in four voters, 26%, said they would seriously consider supporting a bipartisan ticket of a Republican and a Democrat that a centrist group called No Labels may field. Another 23% said they might consider it, depending on who the nominees were. Biden voters were more likely than Trump voters − 28% compared with 18% − to say they would take a serious look.

The poll of 1,000 registered voters, taken by landline and cell phone Tuesday through Friday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Not since billionaire businessman H. Ross Perot drew 19% of the vote in 1992, enabling Bill Clinton to defeat President George H.W. Bush with just 43% of the popular vote, has the prospect of independent bids threatened to upend the standard two-party calculations of campaigns.

Without Kennedy in the mix, Trump would edge Biden by 41% to 39%, a lead within the survey's margin of error, with West at 7%. Without West in the mix, Biden would edge Trump by an even narrower margin, 38% to 37%, with Kennedy at 14%.

With neither Kennedy nor West on the ballot, Biden and Trump would tie at 41%-41%.

 

Polls aren't accurate this far out, but they are consistent, and there's more than enough polling data to show that the real problem is that Trump is anywhere close to winning, and that a good 40%+ of Americans are still willing to vote for the guy given the last seven years.

 

Trump's the symptom, sure. The root cause remains the people who still support him.

Oil's Well That Ends Badly, Con't

Yet another massive oil giant consolidation buyout as Chevron buys Hess for $53 billion as record oil industry profits fuel tens of billions in stock buybacks and ludicrous executive bonuses, all while Americans continue to get robbed at the pump.

Chevron announced Monday that it has agreed to buy rival Hess in yet another oil industry consolidation deal.

Cash-rich oil giants are taking advantage of high prices and surging profits to snap up assets and boost returns for shareholders even as pressure builds for them to invest more in renewable energy.

The deal, worth $53 billion plus debt, would give Chevron even greater access to US shale production in Texas’ Permian Basin, a part of the industry where Chevron (CVX) has been a leader for years. Hess (HES) also has large oil assets in Guyana, which Chevron said would help grow its production over the next decade.

“This combination positions Chevron to strengthen our long-term performance and further enhance our advantaged portfolio by adding world-class assets,” said Chevron Chairman and CEO Mike Wirth.

Wirth said Chevron and Hess will be able to merge seamlessly, sharing “similar values and cultures,” including a commitment to “lowering carbon,” although environmental advocates have been very critical of oil companies’ slow acceptance of renewable energy alternatives.

Chevron said buying Hess would increase the company’s free cash flow, giving the company more cash on hand in the long term to do more share repurchases. Chevron said that it would increase buybacks of its stock by $2.5 billion to $20 billion a year.

Critics have slammed oil companies for spending tens of billions of dollars on stock buybacks rather than easing the pain for consumers at the pump or investing more heavily in the energy transition. Already cash rich, oil companies have scored record profits after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pinched oil supplies and sent prices higher.

ExxonMobil (XOM) last year made a record $1,874 of profit for every second during the course of 2022.

Those profits have made oil companies deal-happy. Two weeks ago, Exxon announced it would buy shale company Pioneer for $60 billion, a deal that would more than double Exxon’s Permian Basin operations if it is completed.

It’s not clear whether ExxonMobil or Chevron will face antitrust hurdles to completing their deals. The Biden administration has been far more active in challenging corporate power on antitrust grounds than recent administrations.

Shares of Chevron slipped 3% in premarket trading following the deal announcement, while Hess’ shares were slightly higher. Since the start of 2022, just ahead of the big run-up in oil prices following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Hess shares are up 120%, while Chevron shares are up 42%.

 

Again, the industry is raking in record profits at our expense and any efforts to do anything about it get opposed by two-thirds of Congress and two-thirds of SCOTUS, all while the planet roasts. Something's got to give soon, whether it's the oil industry or the people at the pump.

Oil's been hovering around $80 all year, with gas prices around $3.50 a gallon. A brand-new Middle East war sparked by Israel and Hamas will only drive oil back up above $100 a barrel or higher, and the industry titans will only get more money as a result.

Our unsustainable energy situation is getting even more unsustainable. A crack-up is coming and when it does, all bets are off.

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.