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Created
Thu, 13/06/2024 - 02:00
Knee-jerk hysteria does not denote a confident party President Joe Biden’s son Hunter was found guilty in federal court of failing to properly fill out a form to buy a gun which he had in his possession for 11 days and never fired. Fair enough. What he did was against the law and a jury of his peers found him guilty. The case was solid. Biden was a drug addict back in 2018 at the time of his crime and he should have admitted it on that form. But people in the midst of an addiction crisis make bad decisions and often get on the wrong side of the law. Hunter Biden’s response to the verdict was to say that he was more grateful for the support of his family, friends and community than he was disappointed in the verdict. And he added “recovery is a gift from God and I am blessed to receive that gift one day at a time.” Joe Biden reiterated that he loves his son and always will and that he is proud of his recovery. He also said that he respects the outcome of the case and the judicial system. Both Bidens were restrained and solemn in the face of a serious legal outcome which, until recently, was simply expected from a president and his family.
Created
Thu, 13/06/2024 - 05:00
Get a load of this ridiculous nonsense: The GOP team’s practice was supposed to start at 6 a.m. But when NOTUS showed up around 5:52, the majority of the team was already on the field, their arms warm and their hamstrings loose. Most were wearing jerseys and gray baseball pants. The Democrats showed up in combinations of sweatpants, shorts, T-shirts and soccer jerseys. They looked like “The Bad News Bears” at the beginning of the movie. The Republicans look like the rich kids in “The Sandlot” — but with the gear and the game. They look like a real baseball team. The Democrats do not. As both teams prepare for the annual Congressional Baseball Game — a contest that oscillates between bipartisan goofiness and partisan combat, depending on the Congress — the two teams this year seem to be, if not on different planets, then at least in different leagues. Republicans are using the game to literally tee off on Democrats. Months of crack-of-dawn practices and buckets full of bruised baseballs can attest to their frustration — a frustration borne out of uncomfortable political realities. The party is divided.
Created
Thu, 13/06/2024 - 08:00
The Supremes Have It, Why Not Trump? If you wonder why Alito and Thomas are basically telling the whole country “I do what I want” and daring anyone to try and do anything about it, here’s why: Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, plans to block an effort by Senate Democrats to unanimously pass a Supreme Court ethics bill Wednesday on the Senate floor. “I will object,” Graham, R-S.C., told NBC News. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said earlier Tuesday that he would make a unanimous consent request to pass Supreme Court ethics legislation that the panel advanced last July. Graham’s objection means the bill won’t be able to move forward, because any senator can block a request. It isn’t clear whether the measure will come up for a vote under the normal process, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he’s considering it. Even before Graham made his comments, Democrats doubted the legislation would advance.
Created
Thu, 13/06/2024 - 00:32
The return of Sinclair’s Mighty Wurlitzer Public Notice and Judd Legum’s Popular Information assembled another stew of cookie-cutter commentaries from right-wing Sinclair Broadcasting’s local talking heads. Sinclair repackaged talking points from the Wall Street Journal’s widely panned June 4 article, “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Sipping,” questioning Joe Biden’s mental fitness. The sourcing is questionable. Conveniently, repetition obliterates questions: Nevertheless, the Wall Street Journal piece was repackaged by Sinclair Broadcast Group and beamed into the homes of millions of Americans. Sinclair, which is controlled by right-wing media mogul David Smith, owns or operates 185 local television stations across 86 markets.  Sinclair repackaged the Wall Street Journal story through its centralized news team, known as The National Desk. The segment was then pushed to dozens of local news stations owned by Sinclair. Local anchors introduced the piece by reading from a nearly identical script.
Created
Thu, 13/06/2024 - 03:30
Democrats overperform again Politico reported this morning:  If last night’s election returns were going to provide any surprises, they weren’t supposed to come out of Ohio’s 6th Congressional District. In a special election race that got basically zero national attention, Republican state Sen. MICHAEL RULLI was thought certain to rout Democrat MICHAEL KRIPCHAK, a former Air Force officer and once-aspiring actor who quit a Youngstown-area restaurant job to run for Congress. DONALD TRUMP, after all, had won the blue-collar, mostly rural district previously represented by GOP Rep. BILL JOHNSON by 29 points in 2022. Furthermore, Rulli raised nearly 30 times more than Kripchak’s shoestring budget.
Created
Thu, 13/06/2024 - 06:30
Igor Bobic asked Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley about the Hunter Biden verdict: “In our constitutional system, you gotta rely upon what the judges and juries decide. I’m sorry for the Biden family but people decide what justice is and you got to conclude that justice was done.” As for whether that applies to the Trump verdict he said “it’s an entirely different thing. The Justice Department was doing everything they could to cover up his tax problems and his gun problems.” What? Ok. Sen. John Thune: “Hunter Biden’s not running for any political office. Donald Trump’s running for president. There are all kinds of different dynamics in two totally different cases,” he said. “The clear thing in the (Trump) New York case, I mean, there’s no argument. … This is politically motivated. The prosecutor ran, he got up there, got the job on the predicate of trying to prosecute the former president.” Sen.
Created
Wed, 12/06/2024 - 00:30
It’s never a good bet Well, this is eye-catching from Jeet Heer: “In other words, a significant portion of America’s economic elite are either autocrats, cowards, or so single-mindedly rapacious that they are indifferent to the survival of democracy.” Heer begins: While Donald Trump’s felony conviction for falsifying business documents is hurting him with independent voters, it has only increased his popularity with a demographic cohort that is much smaller in number—but still has an outsize role to play in election outcomes: the super-rich. Axios reports that a Morning Consult poll shows that 49 percent of independent voters think Trump should drop out of the presidential race because he is a felon. This strong negative result is already in evidence in polls showing that Trump’s persistent lead over rival Joe Biden has shrunk and the presidential race is now dead even.
Created
Wed, 12/06/2024 - 09:30
As Democrats continue with their perennial handwringing over the election and media bigfoots write the 3,785th article about why, despite polls showing a tied election. Joe Biden should drop out it’s interesting to note that the recently convicted felon heading up the other party’s ticket is being deliriously embraced by voters and officials alike. Not even one Republicans has suggested he step down. Not one newspaper or right wing columnist. Nada. The Huffington Post’s S.V. Date takes a look at the GOP’s total unwillingness to even consider dumping Trump: Eight years after a credible effort to dump Donald Trump as their presidential nominee because of his vulgarity, Republicans today appear stuck with the newly convicted felon for November, with no realistic means of taking the nomination away from him at their convention next month, even if they wanted to. “There will be no move to, no mechanism for and no interest in removing Trump at the convention,” said Richard Porter, a Republican National Committee member from Illinois.
Created
Wed, 12/06/2024 - 03:30
This isn’t a surprise. I expect that Hunter will see the inside of a jail cell for his crimes of filling out one form wrong and paying his taxes late long before Trump will. After all, Trump just tried to stage a coup and stole nuclear secrets so the punishment must fit the crime. For the first time ever in history, the right is applauding someone being found guilty on federal gun charges of failing to properly fill out a form. Normally they have a hard time applauding the conviction of mass murderers if they used a precious AR-15 to do it. Nonetheless, they are absolutely convinced that it’s all for Biden’s benefit because it makes him look good: They are also a little bit bewildered that the leader of the Biden Crime Family allowed this to happen. They assumed that he would get off: That fine fellow is on the short list for Attorney General in a new Trump administration. I heard something this morning that I’ve missed before. Apparently, one of the reasons the plea agreement fell apart last year was because they wanted the judge to supervise his parole and she refused.