Prior to WW II, many U.S. Nazi sympathizers secretly gathered, pushing antisemitic & far-right agendas, with aspirations of creating a Hitler-style dictatorship in the US. In her new book “Prequel,” MSNBC’s Rachel @maddow explores our nation’s ongoing struggle against fascism. pic.twitter.com/z1rBJKLa9P — CBS Sunday Morning 🌞 (@CBSSunday) October 7, 2023 Inspired by her research for the hit podcast Ultra, in PREQUEL: An American Fight Against Fascism, #1 New York Times bestselling author Rachel Maddow traces the fight to preserve American democracy back to World War II, when a handful of committed public servants and brave private citizens thwarted far-right plotters trying to steer our nation toward an alliance with the Nazis. I don’t think I would have ever thought I’d see the necessity for understanding this history in 2023 but here we are.
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This could be a syntax problem but that doesn’t make any sense either. Is he saying that “many reports are that American taxpayer dollars helped fund the attacks?” What does that mean? All the “reports” said that the money released recently to Iran was from a frozen account in South Korea that was sent to Qatar and hasn’t been released yet. In any case, this garbled nonsense is typical for the putative GOP nominee for president. I’m not going to be commenting too much on the Israel situation today because it’s very hard right now to get real information from social media and the mainstream media is also difficult to sort out. This was obviously a massive intelligence failure which is a condemnation of the current Israeli government as well as those supposed new Middle Eastern allies that Trump is so proud of creating. This is going to turn out to be more complicated than usual and that’s saying something.
50 years ago, Kissinger said that Nixon was too drunk to talk to the British Prime Minister when the Yom Kipper War broke out. During Yom Kippur War fifty years ago this week, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger tells aide Brent Scowcroft that President Nixon is “loaded” and thus cannot speak to British Prime Minister: pic.twitter.com/RgbWnD9Evl — Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) October 7, 2023 Right wingers are attacking Joe Biden all over the internet for waiting a couple of hours to issue a statement about the Israeli crisis, suggesting that he’s “in his basement” (which would be correct since that’s where the Situation Room is. ) Anyway, I think they need to shut their pieholes.
If you’re in earshot of Donald Trump, chances are you’ll hear him blurt out some classified information Our best satirist Alexandra Petri makes a good point here: The more that comes out about Donald Trump’s post-presidency conduct, the clearer it becomes that the real challenge was not prying confidential information out of Trump but avoiding receiving confidential information. I think I see the problem. Donald Trump has two modes of conversation. He is either ranting about all the things he intends to do when he becomes dictator of the country — so many rights to strip away! so much vengeance to extract against his enemies! so many guardrails to dismantle! — or he is volunteering classified information. Those are really it. If you don’t want one, you have to buckle in for the other. Which brings us to the news from special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation that Donald Trump apparently shared sensitive information about U.S. nuclear submarines with an Australian billionaire. You might be wondering: Is this a private party, or can anyone play? Yes!
I have some strong feelings about the social web (aka “the fediverse”) right now. I don’t aways communicate them well, because they feel so essential to me, which can be frustrating for my friends, colleagues and allies. I want to set out some steps for my reasoning. A lot of people don’t agree with me … Continue reading ActivityPub, the SocialCG, and the social web
I’m running out of W’s T’s and F’s Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel) last night responded to a Daily Mail article. (Yeah, I’m wondering about that too.) The post: BREAKING: While IRS was pursuing felony charges against addict Hunter Biden, they were pursuing a mere lien against addict Rudy Giuliani. I’m sorry, what? The IRS has placed a lien on Rudy Giuliani’s $4.5 million penthouse after accusing the fallen attorney of owing more than half a million dollars in unpaid taxes, DailyMail.com can reveal. The federal tax agency claims the 79-year-old former New York City mayor owes $549,435.26 in unpaid income taxes for 2021, according to a notice filed in court in Palm Beach County, Florida. The IRS placed a lien on Giuliani’s penthouse in Palm Beach, just three miles north of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. If Giuliani doesn’t pay up, the September 1 lien allows the IRS to seize some of the profits from Giuliani’s condo if it were to be sold. Surely Venezuelan software in the IRS machines is responsible. There are “rich and famous” photos of the apartment included. Who cares?
Set down your coffee cup before reading Daily Beast: The judge who doomed Donald Trump’s family business last week took an aggressive and preemptive step on Wednesday to ensure the former president can’t secretly shift assets to salvage his real estate empire. In an order that was posted on the fourth day of the former president’s bank fraud trial, Justice Arthur F. Engoron commanded that the Trumps identify any corporations they have—and come clean about any plans to move around money in an attempt to hide or keep their wealth. Seriously? And Engoron expects Trump to comply? Sure, it’s something the case demands. But this is Donald J. Trump and family we’re talking about. It’s a powerful maneuver meant to counter the sort of underhanded moves Trump has displayed so far during the three-year investigation. Trump, sons Don Jr.
And you need to hear it too Greg Gutfeld says “elections don’t work” and “society is in peril and chaos because our elections don’t matter” while urging for a new American civil war. In the following tweets, I will transcribe everything he says in this clip, because it goes into some very dark territory. pic.twitter.com/2FLCz5ptCP — Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) October 5, 2023 This is not a joke, even though Gutfeld presents himself as a comedian. It’s not funny. It’s terrifying. And it’s exactly what the Trump cult is being fed day in and day pout. It’s not just him. It’s the entire right wing media universe. Between Trump, Fox, the lesser cable newsers, the internet, Steve Bannon and his ilk etc., they’re managing to brainwash tens of millions of Americans.: “Only certain people get criminal mulligans and Jan. 6 protestors, they don’t get criminal mulligans and here’s why. They’re the oppressor. So the oppressed get criminal mulligans.
Democrats were the adults in the room when they agreed to vote for a CR without Ukraine funding. Saving McCarthy was a bridge too far. Greg Sargent on this irritating notion among much of the punditocracy that the Democrats are at fault for the mess in the House because they failed to step up and save Kevin McCarthy from the monster he helped create: Because Republicans are such firm believers in benevolence toward political foes, they are furious with Democrats for failing to save Kevin McCarthy. After Democrats voted en masse this week to remove the California Republican as House speaker, his fellow Republicans responded by revoking some of Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s Capitol office privileges. They are reportedly planning more acts of retaliation. But Democrats were right not to save McCarthy. With the forces unleashed by former president Donald Trump and the MAGA movement damaging the House GOP caucus, Democrats absolutely shouldn’t have stepped in, because so doing would help Republicans erase their own culpability for nourishing those forces for so long.
The dynamics in the House make it very difficult to see how they get the funding bill passed. The best hope may be that Trump wants to save the issue for himself. It’s been quite a week in the US House with MAGA superstar Matt Gaetz, R-Fl., leading a small band of incoherent revolutionaries to topple Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy just to show they could. Then all day Thursday the media was overwhelmingly excited at the rumor that Donald Trump was going to heroically run to the rescue of the House Republicans and save them from themselves by stepping in as the House Speaker. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene enthusiastically endorsed him and it was announced that he would be travelling to the Capitol for the first time since January 6th, 2021 within days. Sadly, late last night, Trump himself stuck a shiv in that trial balloon by announcing that he was endorsing Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio for the job which will likely assure his victory.