Glenn Kirschner – Judge Chutkan to decide whether to impose gag order on Trump to protect witnesses/promote fair trial
The Lincoln Project – Strong in a Crisis
Farron Balanced – Jimmy Kimmel Torches Trump In First Monologue Since Writers Strike
John Fugelsang on Christianity (old but good)
Litter Of Kittens Found Living In Someone’s Wall
Beau – Let’s talk about the BBC report and Ukraine….
Yesterday, a little-known conversation from many years ago (which was recently quoted by Steve Schmidt) popped up in my mind to haunt me. I can’t say it any better then Steve did, so I’ll quote him: “There is an extraordinary account of a late night meeting that took place between FDR and Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King in the White House from Nigel Hamilton’s “FDR at War“ trilogy. The two leaders talked late into the night. King returned to his room and wrote down the details of the conversation. FDR outlined to King his vision for what would come after victory in World War II. He said something chilling from the perspective of 2023. He said that nothing lasts forever, and that included his vision for the future. He told King that he hoped it would endure for as long as everyone who was alive on the day the war was won was still alive. The youngest of those people are 77 years old today.” Well, I am 78, and I’m still here. So is Mitch, whio is a bit older. The rest of us who think here are younger (as was TC). I wish all of us long lives free of world war. Also yesterday, Steve Scalise defeated Jim Jordan to be the nominee for speaker. We shall see whether Republicans can come together on this or any nominee. Oh, and The New Yorker had an article on dizziness/vertigo in their daily newsletter. I haven’t had any symptoms for months, but I “printed” it anyway (to my C drive for now – I’ll copy to a portable hard drive eventually.)
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The Daily Beast – ‘Violence-Ready’ Militia Group Says Jan. 6’ers are Idiots
Quote – A male-only movement in the U.S. dressed up as a sports club catering to white men is taking over the right-wing social scene—and promising some dangerous results…. The clubs advertise as sporting groups designated for white-only men, but their real objective, Ritzmann tells The New Abnormal, “is to essentially train a white supremacist militia.”… [Ritzmann] says “Day X” could look similar to the events at the Capitol on Jan. 6, but adds of the rioters, “they have [been] discussed as being a bunch of idiots who don’t know how to storm a building properly. And they discuss this in a, let’s say, indirect way, because they don’t want law enforcement to focus on them.”
Click through for details. The podcast the article references is also on the page,. and I listened to the whole thing so you wouldn’t have to. The part which expands on the artile starts at approximately 18:40 and ends at 36:35. I also encourage anyone who has not seen Rachel Maddow’s podcast “Ultra” to look it up (and everyone who has seen it to refresh their memory.) It was not easy then to bring America together to oppose fascism, and it won’t be easy now. When I said we needed Joe Biden to be another FDR this was not what I had in mind. But apparently, it comes with the territory.
Jeff Tiedrich – holy shit, Donald Trump gave classified Israeli intel to Putin — probably more than once
Quote – let’s take a closer look at a thing I mentioned at the end of yesterday’s post. Donald Trump fucking loves to collude with Russia. Trump desperately wants to be Vladimir’s bestie. he does everything he can to stay in Putin’s good graces. why? is it because Donny dreams of opening a Trump Tower in Moscow? is it something more insidious, like kompromat? in the end, it doesn’t matter. what matters is that Donald Trump is a Russian asset.
Click through for article. Yes, Jeff has a pottymouth, but he tends to be accurate in both facts and interpretation.
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – Jack Smith pushes back on Trump’s attempt to move his documents trial until AFTER the 2024 election
Thom Hartmann – A War Against America is Already Underway
Ring of Fire – Trump Tries To Pin The Blame On Banks For Him Committing Fraud
Puppet Regime – World High: Biden won’t let Zelensky rush
When Your Baby Falls In Love With Your Eight Rescue Cats
Beau – Let’s talk about Ukraine, Russia, and the Black Sea Fleet….
Glenn Kirschner – Jim Jordan wants to be House speaker? A better fit for Jordan would be indicted Trump co-defendant.
The Lincoln Project – Broke
MSNBC – ‘This is nuts’: Former Rep reacts to ‘McCarthy’s spectacular fall’
Puppet Regime – Kim Jon Un: Swiftie
Stray Puppy Gets Rescued And Can’t Stop Jumping For Joy
Beau – Let’s talk about some paintings in Russia…. [Note fm JD – this is NOT about art]
Yesterday, arguments about whether DiFi should resign came to an end with her passing. Governor Newsom has said he will make an interim appointment. Even Chuck Grassley said nice things about her. Since I was born and grew up in California, in the San Francisco Bay Area, this feels like the end of an era to me. I have known of her, and of her achievements, for so long – it’s true that at my age when someone who has been a fixture of one’s life for so long, one doesn’t grieve just that person, but also one’s own lost youth. Also, The White House made available online a partial transcript of Joe Biden’s speech at the John McCain Library in Tempe, AZ. There’s also an opportunity at this link to sign up for pratial transcripts whenever anyone in the administration says something significant. Wow. The first plea deal in the Fulton COunty case was sealed. And last (and kind of least compared to the preceding) my Dark Brandon mug came. So I immediately made a cup of coffee. And it works as advertised (what with being carried in a postal vehicle in the sun all day and then stuffed into a hot mailbox, the eyes were actually red when I opened it. The directions advised putting it in the freezer for a few minutes – which worked like a charm.)
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The Daily Beast – Why Are Republicans Playing Politics With Ukraine?
Quote – Over the course of more than 30 interviews with members of Congress, The Daily Beast set out to trace exactly how and why providing aid to Ukraine became such a controversial endeavor among Republicans. To Democrats, the $24 billion package in front of Congress right now is the best money Washington could spend on national defense…. The issue, many Republicans in Congress agree, shouldn’t be partisan. But these Republicans are also keenly aware of the reality—that it is…. The story of how that happened is a case study in the workings of a congressional GOP loyal to Donald Trump, one in which the former president and a small handful of right-wing figures wield immense power to set the agenda of the party base, which in turn commands immense power to shape the actions of lawmakers eager to use uncompromising tactics to achieve their goals.
Click through for full article. One thing that leaps out – if the poll cited is accurate, and 55% of Americans nationally do not support aiding Ukreaine, we need to ne doing a better job of messaging. 62% Democratic support isn’t enough.
Colorado Public Radio – What the impending government shutdown means for Coloradans
Quote – Perhaps the biggest impacts will be felt by the state’s approximately 38,000 federal employees and 12,000 active duty military service members, who will not get a paycheck during a government shutdown. Their first missed payday will be October 13, if the shutdown drags on that long…. Gov. Jared Polis is ordering the Colorado Department of Natural Resources to develop a plan to use state money to keep the parks and other federal land in the state open, although any plan will need a federal sign off…. The governors of Arizona and Utah have also said they’ll use state funds to keep some of their parks open…. States that opened their parks in 2013 were never reimbursed…. When it comes to airport travel, a shutdown could fuel passenger exasperation and worsen staffing challenges at Denver International Airport….
Click through. As promised, here’s the shutdown article. Not every state is going to step in on National Parks (or anything else), and it’s not certain that Colorado is this time. But – like everything else – red states are going to suffer the most. And there’s more. CPR really looked at everything they could. It’s very thorough.
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – Jim Jordan, who criminally defied a congressional subpoena, is now chairman of judiciary committee?
The Lincoln Project – Trump’s Instincts
MSNBC – Simply couldn’t be part of it’: Fmr. prosecutor breaks silence on quitting Trump-Russia probe
Farron Balanced – 2 Librarians Fired After Republicans Mistake Autism Symbol For Pride Display
Mystery dog kept showing up at nursing home. So naturally they did this.
Beau – Let’s talk about McCarthy math….
Yesterday, I received a Substack newsletter from Mary L. Trump about the Meet The Press interview with TFG. She watched it so you and I don’t have to. (Beau did the same thing, taking notes, but, since TFG can lie faster than Beau can write, his notes are incomplete.) And Mary’s article really also just hits low points. (There were appaently no high points.) Here’s the link if anyone wants it. Also, Andy Borowitz’s headline was “Zelensky Offers to Broker Peace Deal Between Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans.” Yahoo cut off the subject line after “between,” so I wasn’t expecting that – I was expecting something more like “red states and blue states.” So I did laugh out loud.
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The New Yorker – Inside the War Between Trump and His Generals
Quote – Both Esper and Milley found new purpose in waiting out the President. They resisted him throughout the summer, as Trump repeatedly demanded that active-duty troops quash ongoing protests, threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, and tried to stop the military from renaming bases honoring Confederate generals. “They both expected, literally on a daily basis, to be fired,” Gates recalled. Milley “would call me and essentially say, ‘I may not last until tomorrow night.’ And he was comfortable with that. He felt like he knew he was going to support the Constitution, and there were no two ways about it.” Milley put away the resignation letter in his desk and drew up a plan, a guide for how to get through the next few months. He settled on four goals: First, make sure Trump did not start an unnecessary war overseas. Second, make sure the military was not used in the streets against the American people for the purpose of keeping Trump in power. Third, maintain the military’s integrity. And, fourth, maintain his own integrity. In the months to come, Milley would refer back to the plan more times than he could count.
Click through for complete story. This article is a bit over a year old, but Milley is in the news again because the Atlantic has just published a profile. I can’t get into the Atlantic, but Steve Schmidt referenced this New Yorker article – which broke the existence of a never-submitted letter of resignation – as back-story, and I can get in to the New Yorker. The Atlantic profile also influenced Beau amd MSN and probably others to discuss it, so you could find more in a lot of places. My take is that the military is commonly considered to lean to the right – but “right” does not necessarily mean “authoritarian.” I (and I think Pat would agree, but she’s off now and through the weekend having fun) would trust the Generals in a crisis – with the caveat that they can function better when their promotions are confirmed, and only 3 of over 300 have gotten past Tuberville and those 3 were already months late. (Lawrence O’Donnell had some words on that. His Aunt Mary was a senior officer’s wife, and they had 7 kids.)
PolitiZoom – Zelenskyy: Russia Has Weaponized Food (In Addition To Energy)
Quote – So there’s that, but let’s get to the substance of what President Zelenskyy dove in to because it’s an impressive laundry list. BBC News has a nice piece that if you scroll down starts with the pre-speech stuff but it does a nice job of emphasizing those main points. Zelenskyy starts out throwing a hard punch, noting that Ukraine gave up the third largest stockpile of nuclear weapons once upon a time. (If you didn’t know this was a carefully negotiated treaty and Russia signed on – with a promise not to try and take over Ukraine I might add) He flat out said it was Russia, who is acting as a terrorist State that should have had to give up its nukes!
Click through for article. My first reaction was that with TFG “promising” that if reelected he’ll weaponize – fill in the blank – DOJ is probably at the top of the list-he’s sure to pick up this too. He won’t have to read PolitiZoom. He’ll get all the info he needs from Putin.
Food For Thought
Yesterday, I ran across an article in the Colorado Public Radio newsletter about a fish in the Denver Zoo who was successfully treated for enteritis. I would put a story like this in the Video Thread, but there is no video. So I mention it here so that those who cherish the animal rescue videos will see it. We all should have access to health care that well thought out. Also, I did manage to get my trash and recycling carts out. Doing so raised my pulse from Tranquillo to Allegretto, but that was not as bad as taking the stuff to the carts the day before, which pushed me all the way up to Allegro.
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CNN – ‘Let’s give it a try,’ recalls Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine in his military helicopter
Quote – The pilot, named by Ukrainian officials as Maxim Kuzminov, explained in the interview how he planned his defection and why he felt compelled to do so. “I contacted representatives of Ukrainian intelligence, explained my situation, to which they offered this option: ‘Come on, we guarantee your safety, guarantee new documents, guarantee monetary compensation, a reward,’” the pilot said, in a recording released Monday. The head of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence, Kyrolo Budanov, revealed in August how Ukrainian officials had been able to help the pilot to defect.
Click through for story. As W. S. Gilbert pointed out in “Iolanthe, “Every boy and every gal/who’s born into this world alive/Is either a little Liberal/or else a little Conservative.” And that does not appear to be genetic – look at all the families divided over this breach. So, attractive as the idea is, getting all of one to live in one part of the world and all the other in another part, that would not last a generation. Somehow, we need to find ways to live together. But there will likely still be times when defection becomes inevitable
KGET.com – What was inside the illegal medical lab found in California? Photos show blood vials, disease samples
Quote – According to court documents, officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tested what they could and determined that at least 20 potentially infectious viral, bacterial, and parasitic agents were present, including E. coli, malaria, and the virus that causes COVID-19. For the first half of 2023, the process of cleaning the Reedley location was stuck in court. Electrical issues were highlighted, including adding outlets for running refrigerators and freezers. There were also unmarked, highly-flammable chemicals being stored there. Officials were worried about the risk of a possible explosion, which prompted Reedley Fire Chief Jerry Isaak to send a letter to Zieba.
Click through for details, such as they are. This would be Devin Nunes’s former district. I can certainly understand not wanting something like this in one’s backyard.
Food For Thought
