Day after day Shake that man’s hand. I continue to be amazed that, Pulitzers or not, Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Mike Luckovich hasn’t been run out of his swing state. Georgia is not that purple. From Wednesday: From Thursday (O-U-C-H!): Damn. Has Luckovich got a security detail? Here’s another classic:
Uncategorized
Former president Donald Trump hugged and consoled a woman who breached the Capitol during the January 6th insurrection at a campaign stop in New Hampshire, the Washington Post first reported. In a clear attempt to appeal to the further-right members of his base, Trump embraced 54-year-old Micki Larson-Olson, a Trump über-fan who’d driven 30 hours to see him speak in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Thursday. “President Trump, will you please sign my Trump backpack that I carried up to Jan. 6?” she shouted, donning a red-white-and-blue ensemble with a matching wig. “I went to jail for 161 days for Jan. 6. I’m an Iraq War veteran.” Larson-Olson was found guilty last September of a misdemeanor for resisting police efforts to clear the Capitol complex after the breach. According to the Justice Department, U.S. Capitol Police approached the Texas woman, “who was dressed in a Captain America costume and holding two flags in the air,” and repeatedly asked her to leave.
If he testifies truthfully it could be helpful but it can’t erase his pushing of the Big Lie On Wednesday night the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that Donald Trump could not claim executive privilege to prevent his former Vice President Mike Pence from testifying before the Grand Jury that’s hearing evidence for Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the former president’s activities leading up to January 6th. Immediately on Thursday morning Pence testified for more than five hours. I guess they didn’t want to waste any more time. Pence and his team had negotiated with the Special Counsel for months to avoid having to do a voluntary interview and ended up filing a lawsuit to prevent testifying under subpoena. He claimed that as President of the Senate he could not be compelled to testify under the Speech and Debate clause of the constitution which protects members of congress and a judge partially bought the argument. Pence was told he must testify but he can avoid answering questions about his legislative role on Jan. 6.
NOT. READY. FOR. PRIME. TIME. Desantis melts down today outside the protective bubble of his carefully controlled, scripted FL events. At the Museum of Tolerance, of all places. The question that set DeSnowflake off was about this. Originally tweeted by Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) on April 27, 2023. I wrote about this before but I think it’s important. There is evidence that Ron DeSantis covered up torture at Guantanamo. He refuses to talk about it. And if you think the guy in that video up top is incapable of being complicit in torturing you aren’t paying attention. Here’s an excerpt from the Guardian today. If you are interested in this story, you should read the whole thing: “DeSantis and his group, the JAGs people were there. They were conducting the investigation,” Aziz said. “They were coming the same day the people died. They came to the cells.” What DeSantis saw and heard in the hours and days after the three deaths could be key to an enduring mystery that has hung over Guantánamo ever since: how did Ahmed, Utaybi and Zahrani die?
Fighting words: Tiffany Justice, co-founder of the right-wing book-purging organization Moms for Liberty, offered a righteous-sounding answer when asked this past weekend on “CBS Sunday Morning” what sort of book she wants to see remain in schools. “Books that don’t have pornography in them,” she piously declared. “Let’s just put the bar really, really low. Books that don’t have incest, pedophilia, rape.” That’s hard to square with what just happened in Martin County, Fla. The school district there recently decided to yank from its high school library circulation eight novels by Nora Roberts that are not “pornography” at all — largely prompted by objections from a single woman who also happens to be a Moms for Liberty activist. “All of it is shocking,” Roberts told us. “If you don’t want your teenager reading this book, that’s your right as a mom — and good luck with that.
There’s secret, top-secret, code-word-secret — and then there’s whatever President Trump’s health-care plan is. It’s apparently so deeply classified that the people overseeing the plan don’t even know they’re involved. The Republican Party has promised (and failed) to repeal and replace Obamacare for more than a decade — that is, the entirety of the law’s existence. Trump began teasing his own replacement plan during his first presidential bid, five years ago. Back then, he pledged to swap out the Affordable Care Act for “something terrific,” details TBD. Over subsequent months and years, Trump boasted about the benefits of his plan. It would be cheaper yet somehow also more generous than Obamacare. It would be “so easy,” even though “nobody knew health care could be so complicated.” It would “take care of everybody,” even as it took literal care away from many. Trump proclaimed the GOP will become “the party of healthcare,” but a conservative replacement to Obamacare would probably look something like…Obamacare.
Baby Spider Monkeys! Three boisterous baby Spider Monkeys have been thrilling visitors to Taronga Western Plains Zoo these school holidays. Born over the space of a few months to mums Rosa, Hiccups and Jai, the three young females are thriving as they learn to eat, play and climb on the Primate Islands. “It’s really exciting to have three new babies, and to see the whole troop pitching in, it’s a real family affair,” said Primate Keeper Sasha Brook. Hiccups has always been a really good aunty to the other babies we’ve had in the troop, but hasn’t had offspring herself for a really long time, so it’s really nice to see her having a baby of her own.” “The eldest of these babies in particular has been getting more and more adventurous, venturing away from mum, interacting with her keepers, experimenting with eating solid foods and even clambering over other monkeys. It’s really cute to see!” The Spider Monkeys are very active throughout the day but the best time to see them is during feeding time, which occurs between 12.30pm and 1pm daily.
The Semafor editor-in-chief discusses his new book “Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral.”
The post Ben Smith on the Bust of the Digital Media Age appeared first on The Intercept.
That’s Texas. Here’s Oklahoma: The molar pregnancy Jaci Statton had would never become a baby. It was cancerous, though. At the last hospital in Oklahoma she went to during her ordeal last month, Statton says staff told her and her husband that she could not get a surgical abortion until she became much sicker. “They were very sincere; they weren’t trying to be mean,” Statton, 25, says. “They said, ‘The best we can tell you to do is sit in the parking lot, and if anything else happens, we will be ready to help you. But we cannot touch you unless you are crashing in front of us or your blood pressure goes so high that you are fixing to have a heart attack.'” Jaci Statton’s pregnancy ordeal began in late February. She’s a stay-at-home mom living near Shawnee in central Oklahoma. She and her husband, Dustin Statton, have three kids – two seven year olds and an eight year old. Dustin is an oil field technician, and they have a fishing guide business – she says she and her family go fishing every day.
GOP wants to cut $30 billion from veterans spending “The Republican Party is always looking to ‘thank Veterans for their service’ but when it comes time to put your money where your mouth is this is what they do,” tweets Rep. Eric Ager, one of our local Democratic state House members. “So many veterans in NC like me rely on the VA for healthcare and this won’t help.” This is what the GOP wants to do to those veterans. Democrats Rep. Mark A. Takano (Calif.), Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.) and Rep. Chris Deluzio (Pa.) write at Military Times: Thirty million fewer healthcare visits. Fewer staff, increased claims backlog, longer wait times for benefits. Almost a $30 billion shortfall for veterans funding. That’s the uncertainty that awaits America’s veterans, should Congressional Republicans succeed in dramatically slashing federal spending as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy proposed on April 19. Last Congress, we honored our promise to toxic-exposed veterans by providing benefits and care to approximately three million veterans exposed to toxins, including burn pits.