The real politicization began It was a dry run for January 6th. And he incited it.
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Freakin’ Anthony Burgess horrorshow Read that Washington Post headline again. Is there anything you’ve read lately that encapsulates the ultraviolence the MAGA cult is committing against the United States of America (land of the free, and all) than “Red states threaten librarians with prison”? Who knew “A Clockwork Orange” (1962) was to be so prescient? Anthony Burgess published Clockwork during the Cold War, in the year the U.S. and the Soviets came closest to nuking each other. Laced with Nadsat, the Russian-based teen slang Burgess invented and put into the mouth of his thuggish protagonist, the book itself was designed as a subtle form of conditioning. Burgess wrote in 1980, “The novel was to be an exercise in linguistic programming, with the exoticisms gradually clarified by context: I would resist to the limit any publisher’s demand that a glossary be provided.
Republicans deserve everything that’s coming to them Democrats have plenty of experience with snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The Israeli war on Hamas in Gaza is not helping President Biden. There are panicked missives in my in-box this morning about how him signing the TikTok bill if it passes will further erode his support among younger voters. Plus, as Dan Pfeiffer acknowledges, the Donald Trump campaign is much better run than it was in 2016 and 2020. That said, Pfeiffer believes Biden has advantages the increasingly addled Trump wishes he had. For starters, incumbent advantage and non-stop offense: While Trump-the Degenerate degenerates like nobody’s never seen, Biden is flush with cash, “boasts 300 paid staffers across nine states and 100 offices in parts of the country.” (His first staffer moves into our offices by the end of the month.) And Trump? Nothing to see here in N.C. Yes, the country’s mood is a wild card. But if all politics is local (is that still true?), then the sideshow candidates Republicans are fielding in North Carolina may persuade voters to vote and vote D even if they are put off by national politics.
What a turnaround in just a couple of days. I’m following this very closely and I think I’ve finally lost the thread. Josh Marshall feels the same way: I don’t pretend to even understand the moving parts of how this is supposed to work. But almost out of the blue Speaker Mike Johnson has decided to go all-in on an aide package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. As this started to come into view over the last two or three days I had a number of TPM Readers write in to say, why is this happening? What’s the catch? Or why is walking the plank like this. What is he sacrificing his Speakership for? And I don’t have a really good answer. Let’s start by noting the one thing that is at least a catalyst if not the trigger: the thwarted Iranian missile attacks on Israel. That clearly changed the game for many House Republicans. Passing some Israel aid became a necessity for a number of Republicans. I assume that Johnson concluded that without assistance from at least some Democrats that too wouldn’t be possible and that he had no choice but to move ahead with Ukraine aid too.
She’s not funny Philip Bump on Marge’s latest stunt: After Republicans won the House majority in 2022, Greene emerged as an unlikely ally of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). With the change in leadership, she went from pariah to establishment loyalist, someone who might at times serve as a bridge between the Republican conference’s fringe right and its leadership. She was now someone to be taken seriously. So when a British journalist approached Greene at an event last month and brought up the subject of conspiracy theories, Greene bristled. “Tell us about Jewish space lasers,” Emily Maitlis asked. “Why don’t you go talk about Jewish space lasers,” Greene angrily replied. She then suggested Maitlis do something else that can be left to your imagination. [“Go fuck youself”] Yet, less than a month later, Greene offered an amendment Wednesday to legislation centered on foreign aid. “By the funds made available by this Act,” the proposed amendment reads, “such sums as necessary shall be used for the development of space laser technology on the southwest border.” Ha ha!
Trump’s Juror intimidation tactics are already bearing fruit Did the Trump team signal to Watters to target that juror? Did they even need to? The DA brought this up as yet another example of Trump defying the gag order. We’ll see if he will suffer any consequences for that.
They make mistakes The NY Times reports: Israel was mere moments away from an airstrike on April 1 that killed several senior Iranian commanders at Iran’s embassy complex in Syria when it told the United States what was about to happen. Israel’s closest ally had just been caught off guard. Aides quickly alerted Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser; Jon Finer, the deputy national security adviser; Brett McGurk, Mr. Biden’s Middle East coordinator; and others, who saw that the strike could have serious consequences, a U.S. official said. Publicly, U.S. officials voiced support for Israel, but privately, they expressed anger that it would take such aggressive action against Iran without consulting Washington. The Israelis had badly miscalculated, thinking that Iran would not react strongly, according to multiple American officials who were involved in high-level discussions after the attack, a view shared by a senior Israeli official. On Saturday, Iran launched a retaliatory barrage of more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel, an unexpectedly large-scale response, if one that did minimal damage.
Wisconsin Rep.Mike Gallagher was once considered a major rising star in the GOP. Dar I say he might even have been a Great Whitebread Hope along the lines of a similar looking former Wisconsin superstar, Paul Ryan. But he decided to quit early and tomorrow is his last day. Why? With just days until he leaves his seat in Congress, Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., could be shedding some light on the reasoning behind his early resignation Gallagher announced in February he would not seek re-election after he was just one of a small handful of House Republicans to oppose the impeachment of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. Then, in March, he said he would be resigning his seat, effective April 19. In one of his last acts in Congress, Gallagher — who represents Wisconsin’s 8th District — chaired a Tuesday hearing of the House Select Committee on China concerning the country’s possible connection to fentanyl overdose deaths in the U.S. After the hearing, Gallagher spoke with reporters about the hearing and the end of his time in Congress.
The legal team representing high-powered insurers Lloyd’s and Arch says that since the Nord Stream explosions were “more likely than not to have been inflicted by… a government,” they have no responsibility to pay for damages to the pipelines. To succeed with that defense, the companies will presumably be compelled to prove, in court, who carried out those attacks. British insurers are arguing that they have no obligation to honor their coverage of the Nord Stream pipelines, which were blown […]
The post UK insurers refuse to pay Nord Stream because blasts were ‘government’ backed first appeared on The Grayzone.
The post UK insurers refuse to pay Nord Stream because blasts were ‘government’ backed appeared first on The Grayzone.
Here’s the rundown from Ian Millhiser: The Supreme Court spent about an hour and a half on Tuesday morning arguing over whether to make it much harder for the Justice Department to prosecute hundreds of people who joined the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. It appears, after Tuesday’s arguments, that a majority of the justices will side with the insurrectionists — though it is far from clear how those justices will justify such an outcome. The case, known as Fischer v. United States, involved a federal law which provides that anyone who “obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so” commits a very serious federal felony and can be imprisoned for up to 20 years — although, as Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar pointed out during Tuesday’s argument, actual sentences against January 6 defendants convicted under this statute have been much shorter, normally ranging from a little less than one year to slightly over two years. According to the Justice Department, more than 1,265 people have been arrested for playing some role in the attack on the Capitol.