My mother taught me that you should not speak ill of the dead on the occasion of their passing. So I won’t.
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New polling shows that, if given the chance, Floridians will vote for a constitutional amendment supporting abortion A majority of Florida voters say they would vote yes on a constitutional amendment ensuring abortion access until fetal viability around 24 weeks, according to a new poll. “If this amendment does make it on the ballot, initiatives like this one need a supermajority of 60% in order to pass, and it looks like the proposed abortion amendment is right at that threshold among these respondents,” said University of North Florida pollster Dr. Michael Binder. “Even among registered Republicans, 53% would vote to protect abortion rights in Florida, with just 39% voting no.” The University of North Florida polled Florida voters and found 62% support the amendment and 29% are opposed to it, with a 4.37% margin of error. In April, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a six-week abortion ban, which has not taken effect as a previous 15-week ban awaits the outcome of a legal challenge. A constitutional amendment would supersede either law.
It must be a big relief for his targets The minute the appeals court stayed the gag order in Trump’s NY fraud trail he went after the judge’s clerk again, naming her in his Truth Social feed. There is evidence submitted in this case and in the DC January 6th case that his attacks on her and others have led to hundreds of threats and grotesque insults from Donald trump fans, which apparently thrills him to no end since he won’t stop inciting it. The court reinstated the order today: Donald Trump is once again prohibited from attacking the law clerk at his ongoing bank fraud trial in New York, now that a four-judge appellate panel has reinstated a gag order that was briefly lifted this month. The two-page appeals court decision on Thursday wiped out Trump’s lone victory—albeit a minor one—during the trial that threatens to destroy the business tycoon’s real estate empire. While suffering through a trial against New York Attorney General Letitia James, Trump has relentlessly complained about the presiding judge’s right hand adviser, law clerk and attorney Allison Greenfield.
It’s getting close It looks like the new speaker’s “running room” is running out: Speaker Mike Johnson is edging closer to the same sort of clash with conservatives that helped bring down his predecessor Kevin McCarthy. The brewing storm, crystallized by Johnson’s comments during a Wednesday meeting with GOP senators, is threatening to end what is left of the Louisiana Republican’s honeymoon running the House. On his right flank, some members are already asking behind closed doors whether Johnson might meet the same fate as the deposed McCarthy — though other GOP lawmakers see that speculation as bluster. Johnson has antagonized conservatives most acutely by engaging in policy talks with fellow leaders, rather than pushing exclusively for base-pleasing wins that won’t survive in the Senate. That traditional approach won’t hurt Johnson with most of the House GOP — but as McCarthy’s ouster made clear, it only takes a handful of fed-up members to make a speaker’s life difficult. The new speaker showcased his willingness to stand up to conservatives, as well as its limits, during his visit to the Senate.
It looks like the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have decided to reprise their dignified behavior in the Kavanaugh hearings. Whenever something threatens the big bubble they’ve created around their precious Supreme Court majority they turn into shrieking harpies: Tempers exploded at a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting Thursday before Democrats voted to subpoena a major conservative donor and a prominent conservative activist linked to the Supreme Court’s ethics scandals. The Republican members of the committee stormed out of the hearing room in the Hart Building shortly before Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called a vote on authorizing the subpoenas. The motion passed with 11 Democratic votes. Not a single Republican was left in the room by the time the roll call ended. Durbin went ahead with the vote shortly before noon to prevent Republicans from delaying it until next week by invoking a rule to limit committee meetings to two hours.
Human society is energy blind. Like a fish in water, it takes for granted the existence of that without which it could not survive. As with so many of humanity’s problems, this conceptual failure can be traced back to an economist. However, the guilty party is not one of “the usual suspects”—Neoclassical economists—but the person … Continue reading "Putting Energy Back into Economics"
An extraordinary email uncovered under freedom of information laws raises serious questions about whether Bellingcat, the “open source” collective widely cited by mainstream journalists and loved by the CIA, collaborates directly with Western intelligence agencies. Editor’s note: On December 22, The Grayzone received an email from Bellingcat founder and editor-in-chief Eliot Higgins threatening legal action if this story was not removed from the internet. Attempts to respond to Higgins produced an out of office automated reply, noting he was now […]
The post FOI raises further questions about Bellingcat coordination with Western intelligence first appeared on The Grayzone.
The post FOI raises further questions about Bellingcat coordination with Western intelligence appeared first on The Grayzone.
Ten people say the RNC is short of cash Did they have tears in their eyes? Did they say “Sir”? The Washington Post declines to elaborate: The Republican Party’s finances are increasingly worrisome to party members, advisers to former president Donald Trump, and other operatives involved in the 2024 election effort, according to 10 people familiar with the matter. The Republican National Committee disclosed that it had $9.1 million in cash on hand as of Oct. 30, the lowest amount for the RNC in any Federal Election Commission report since February 2015. That compares with about $20 million at the same point in the 2016 election cycle and about $61 million four years ago, when Trump was in the White House. The Democratic National Committee reported having $17.7 million as of Oct. 30, almost twice as much as the Republican Party, with one year before the election. Kevin gets schooled Cash is not the only thing the RNC is short on. “Forget the Alamo!” is the RNC’s new cry of freedom. Kevin McCarthy was Speaker of the House. He holds a degree in marketing. Not his only B.S. Users of formerly Twitter were quick to point out where McCarthy went wrong.
Don’t lose sight of the big picture David Kurtz at Morning Memo lays out the 2024 stakes: The rule of law is on the ballot in 2024, and it trumps every other political and policy consideration. It is the umbrella under which every other issue is addressed: Want to restore abortion rights? Want to openly debate Israel and Palestine? Want to accelerate the energy revolution to head off the worst of climate change? Good luck. Because if Trump, as promised, harnesses the power of the federal government to attack his perceived political enemies, exact retribution for slights, overturn elections, eviscerate the right to vote, and continue the effort to lock in GOP minority rule, he will break the democratic mechanisms for adjudicating policy preferences, enacting new laws, and enforcing them. Trump is promising a fundamental break with the rule of law and from that will flow a fundamental breakdown in democratic processes and institutions. It is as simple as it is hard to stay at maximum threat level for years on end.
It seems like only yesterday that the entire Republican Party was calling for the smelling salts over the shocking decision by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that Senators not be required to wear suits and ties on the floor of the Senate. The keening and wailing from the members of both houses over the loss of decorum could be heard from coast to coast. How could the Republic survive such a blow to the dignity of the US Congress? Republicans were so outraged they sent a letter to the Majority Leader registering their “supreme disappointment and resolute disapproval” of the decision. The outcry was so overwhelming that the chamber ended up voting to restore the old dress code so the senate would once again be a place of honor and tradition. How quaint it all seems in light of what commonly happens these days in those sacred halls, mostly at the hands of the Republicans themselves. Just a week or so ago we had a US Senator from Oklahoma challenging a witness at a congressional hearing to a fist fight, right there on the senate floor. We have Supreme Court nominees blatantly lying under oath about their intentions and beliefs and suffering no repercussions.