Wonder why? Magadonian sounds more like a plump dinosaur than a macho Star Wars character, if that’s what Trump was going for. Pretty chunky. Probably has a “very, very large brain.” And very, very large on the other end.
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It’s not going to work Well, it WAS a good place for them to live. It’s downright deadly for trans people right now. But the attacks on Pride show exactly what these people are up to. The share of people worldwide who say their area is a good place for gay or lesbian people to live doubled from 25% to 50% over 10 years, Axios’ Alice Feng writes from a Gallup poll. Zoom in: The countries with the highest percentage were Norway (92%), Sweden (91%) and the Netherlands (90%). The U.S. ranks 15th with 80%. Countries with the largest increases since 2012 were Nepal (+63 percentage points), India (+42) and Bangladesh (+35). There is no putting this genie back in the bottle.
Biden signed the debt ceiling bill today. Huzzah. Since there shouldn’t even be a debt ceiling it’s always a little bizarre to celebrate. But there was no default and Biden managed to let them extract as small a pound of flesh as we probably could have hope for. He spoke from the Oval Office last night and patted himself on the back for his success in making bipartisan deals. It is rather surprising that he managed to get a few GOP senators on board for the infrastructure bill, CHIP act and gun safety. And apparently, the MAGA caucus is saving its energy for the more important Hunter Biden laptop investigation and layed out of this one. None of this actually indicates that the right wing has sobered up and found sanity. It’s obvious that it hasn’t. Neither does it indicate that Biden has a magic touch for bipartisan legislation. All of this is Democratic Party driven and is largely successful because the left, understanding the threat of right wing power, is being a team player. But it is good for Biden’s presidential campaign.
It’s a big state. But they are a minority here, thankfully. But they can cause a lot of trouble in some of these small rural towns, just s they do in Texas: An ugly scene played out at the Temecula Valley School Board meeting as they voted 3-2 to reject an elementary school social studies book that contained information about pioneering California gay rights figure Harvey Milk. The board’s president made a baseless accusation that Milk was a pedophile before voting to ban the book. “My question is, why even mention a pedophile?” said Board President Dr. Joseph Komrosky. Temecula’s emotionally charged meeting resembles many others from here in Southern California and across the country as communities demand school boards to limit discussions of race and sexual orientation. The battle over books has been an ongoing conflict in Republican-controlled states. California Gov. Gavin Newsom interjected himself into the fray last summer in a series of commercials that aired in Florida. Now, he’s taking that message directly to educators in the state through a letter directed to superintendents and school administrators.
Yikes TPM’s Hunter Walker with a chilling tale that does not strike me as far fetched. There have been a number of attacks on power stations already: The first chapter of the black-and-white PDF magazine begins with an ominous warning. Over four dense pages, the anonymous writers paint a picture of “an anti-tech revolution, beginning with the annihilation of the U.S. energy grid.” “The horrific effects of a nationwide blackout cannot be understated. Hospitals would fail. … Financial collapse,” the magazine reads, continuing to detail traffic chaos, dwindling supplies of clean water and spreading disease before concluding that a successful attack targeting key points on the electrical grid would lead to “the collapse of the system … chaos, agony, and death” The magazine was obtained by TPM in a chat group on the encrypted app Telegram dedicated to “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski.
WTH went on down in Mar-a-Lago? I’ve been getting confused about all the latest ins and outs of the Mar-a-lago case with the boxes going in and out and who took what when. So I asked on twitter and people kindly pointed me to this speculation based upon various reports: THREAD: SPECULATION: This is what I think happened with the documents at Mar-a-Lago based on bits and pieces assembled from public reporting. THIS IS SPECULATION. 1/ May 11, 2022: The Office of Donald J. Trump is subpoenaed for all documents with classified markings. Trump asks his lawyer, Evan Corcoran, if there’s a way to defy the subpoena. Corcoran tells him there’s not and memorialized that conversation in detailed notes. 2/ Trump contacts his valet Walt nauta and tells him to move documents boxes from the storage area to his residence, and then Donald goes through the boxes and removes the classified documents he wants to keep. 3/ Trump then tells Corcoran to search the storage room.
I’m just watching SG-1 defeat the human and alien villains on PlutoTV today while playing games on my phone. I don’t want to think or write or move. Yet here I am. Writing. My thought last night was what I said on the Nicole Sandler show while talking about our mutual friend, the late great Joel Silberman. He taught progressive politicians to tell stories that illuminated their message. There is good news in the world. US job numbers are great. The Economy was not destroyed by GOP, THIS TIME. YET…. As Mrs. Spocko said, the relief that we feel when the GOP didn’t destroy the American and WORLD economy, doesn’t match the worry & anxiety that we have been feeling for weeks. Celebrating the win is important. But also infuriating when we shouldn’t have been here. I get Biden talking about “My friends across the aisle” since his plan worked. The MSM LOVES that bipartisan stuff. But I really want those assholes on the right who brought us here to be stopped. I’d like them to be punished, but that’s not Biden. So let’s look at how to punish them in their role in the insurrection.
Grab some popcorn and sit down for a very entertaining read from Hugo Lowell at The Guardian. The turmoil inside the legal team only exploded into public view when one of the top lawyers, Tim Parlatore, abruptly resigned two weeks ago from the representation citing irreconcilable differences with Trump’s senior adviser and in-house counsel Boris Epshteyn. But the departure of Parlatore was the culmination of months of simmering tensions that continue to threaten the effectiveness of the legal team at a crucial time – as federal prosecutors weigh criminal charges – in part because the interpersonal conflicts remain largely unresolved. It also comes as multiple Trump lawyers are embroiled in numerous criminal investigations targeting the former president: Epshteyn was recently interviewed by the special counsel, while Parlatore and Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran testified to the grand jury in the classified documents inquiry.
This piece by Tim Alberta about CNN’s Chris Licht is very illuminating. And it shows, once again, that these big shot media moguls are just fine with criticism from the right — they expect it. But they get enraged when it comes from the left. And they react very badly: The new boss told people inside CNN that Tapper’s 4 o’clock show, The Lead, was the model: tough, respectful, inquisitive reporting that challenged every conceivable view and facilitated open dialogue. Licht emphasized certain exceptions to this approach. He would not give airtime to bad actors who spread disinformation. His network would host people who like rain as well as people who don’t like rain. But, he said, CNN would not host people who deny that it’s raining when it is. This was no small caveat: More than half of Republicans in Congress had voted to throw out the electoral votes of Arizona and Pennsylvania based on lies. Meanwhile, plenty of Republicans who weren’t election deniers didn’t want to come on CNN anyway.
Nice of him to stipulate that we shouldn’t be “cruel to those who don’t fit the norm.” But I hate to tell him — being cruel to anyone who didn’t perfectly fit was the norm until recently when humans finally decided that allowing people to celebrate their communities and identities should be the new norm. That’s called modern civilization and these throwbacks can’t stand to see it. Any of you who are older than 40 or so (and probably a few who are younger as well) are very well aware of the the “norm” among kids and adults alike to discriminate, isolate, degrade, insult and batter LGBTQ people. Among some, it still is. These people who are threatening store clerks at Target over Pride merch are not so subtly signalling that they plan to bring back that “norm.” Don’t kid yourself, they aren’t just trying to “protect” trans kids. Going after Pride proves that. They want all LGBTQ people back in the closet with the door nailed shut. They always have. And there are a whole lot of Republicans who have gay relatives. Quite a few are gay themselves.