I hope they counted the silverware in the White House: Former President Donald Trump agreed to return ancient artifacts after Israel’s antiquities authority launched a public campaign to get them back. The story of how the ceramic oil lamps, which are part of Israel’s national treasures collection, ended up at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort is complicated. It is a saga in which the artifacts made a near-visit to the White House, sat in a California closet for months and were then taken through an X-ray machine in Florida before being delivered to Trump. “These historic items were presented by a representative of the Israeli antiquities authority with the full support of the organization,” a Trump spokesman said Wednesday, adding that the items were on loan for permanent exhibition. “As the items were displayed as originally intended, the office will be expediting their return to the organization’s representative,” he said.
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“If you fuck around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do to you thing that have never been done before.” He spread that message to his cult on Truth Social today. What could go wrong?
FWIW Not bad. It’s too close for comfort but we have a long way to go. We just have to keep our heads down and plow ahead. I will never understand this: BIDEN Americans give President Biden a negative 38 – 54 percent job approval rating, compared to a negative 41 – 54 percent job approval rating in June. Registered voters give him a negative 40 – 53 percent job approval rating compared to a negative 42 – 54 percent job approval rating in June. Americans were asked about President Biden’s handling of… the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: 43 percent approve, while 48 percent disapprove; foreign policy: 39 percent approve, while 53 percent disapprove; the economy: 37 percent approve, while 58 percent disapprove. I guess a lot of people just hate the guy no matter what he does. But they’ll vote for him anyway? What? It’s kind of depressing because it shows that a whole lot of Democrats are completely clueless about what’s actually happening and are as deluded as the cultists. Hooray for tribalism, I guess…
Efforts to target minority voters as early as June 2020 “Jack Smith is going to accuse Donald Trump of voting fraud,” Marcy Wheeler wrote Wednesday. The Department of Justice investigation into Donald Trump’s election-related crimes churns slowly. But it does churn. Trump has been named as a target of the investigation into election interference in 2020. Not by Russians as in 2016, but by Americans. Lots of them (Washington Post): Trump disclosed on Tuesday he had been named as a target in special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of election interference. Hours later, the attorney general of Michigan announced she had issued forgery charges against 16 Trump supporters who had posed as the state’s presidential electors. A county prosecutor in Georgia is preparing to present a sweeping case to a grand jury, with indictments possible within weeks. And the attorney general of Arizona in recent months has ramped up a probe into attempts to undermine the 2020 results in that state.
Trauma, bleeding, trickery and abandonment Unintended consequences ain’t necessarily unforseen consequences. Just yesterday, a friend mentioned fallout from a GOP effort in North Carolina to change how school board members are elected. The change would in theory make it easier to elect Republicans either by making the elections partisan or (in my county) by redrawing school district lines. Try explaining the latter to kids who suddenly find themselves assigned to different schools. Partisan-inspired chaos ensues. Fallout from the Dobbs decision was not unforseen either. GOP-led states are rushing to ban abortion. Women’s lives are put at risk. In Texas, for example (The New Republic): Women who suffered medical complications after being denied abortions in Texas are now having to relive the trauma of their injuries and dead babies as they plead their case against the state. Welcome to the Republican Party’s America. On Wednesday, women who are part of a 15-person (both patients and doctors) lawsuit against the state of Texas, returned back to court to challenge the state’s extreme abortion ban.
MI fake electors face criminal charges Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel on Tuesday filed eight felony charges against each of the 16 fake Trump “electors” who participated in the 2020 scheme to overturn the presidential election results in the state. Prosecutors in Arizona and Georgia are also investigating possible crimes involving the GOP electors scheme, and civil lawsuits are underway in in Michigan and Wisconsin. Somebody had to be first with criminal charges. Nessel wins the prize. Axios reports, “Among those charged include Kathy Berden, the national committeewoman of the Republican Party of Michigan, and Meshawn Maddock, former co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party.” Washington Post: In Michigan, each Trump elector was charged with eight criminal counts, including forgery, conspiracy to commit forgery and election law forgery. Some of the counts carry sentences of up to 14 years in prison. In an online video announcing the charges, Nessel noted the 16 Republicans had submitted paperwork to the Senate, National Archives and elsewhere claiming to be the state’s official electors.
Reporters typically don’t write headlines, but… Is Trump fit to serve? Is Trump fit to serve? Okay, the question is posed up front in this Politico article: Donald Trump’s announcement on Tuesday that he expects to soon be a thrice-indicted candidate is forcing GOP candidates to fully contend with the fundamental question of the 2024 presidential primary. Is the former president fit to reoccupy the office? Who the hell with a handful of functioning brain cells thinks Trump’s fitness is an open question? The rest is pointless horse-race coverage about how good GOP contenders are at tiptoeing around referencing Trump’s legal problems on the campaign trail. How do they even mention them without ginning up the Trump base, as one consultant put it. “This is the kabuki dance they’re going to be doing for months — it ain’t going to be the first time and it ain’t going to be the last time,” said Mike Madrid, the Republican strategist and co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project.
A reckoning for the failed coup Former president Donald Trump’s Truth Social feed was active with ragging of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and re-posts of his fandom’s superhero memes on Monday which seemed to be just another day in the Trump 2024 presidential campaign. You would never have known that the night before he had been presented with a target letter from Special Counsel Jack Smith until Tuesday when he posted a rambling, incoherent official two page “statement” announcing it to the world. “Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter … stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and an Indictment” the statement began after which it immediately devolved into whining and crying over his alleged persecution at the hands of well… everyone. He lamented, “it is a very sad and dark period for our nation.” It is a sad and dark period for our nation that an accused criminal ex-president is the front runner for the Republican presidential nomination.
I confess that I hadn’t thought of it this way but I think it’s absolutely right: