Thursday, June 30, 2022

Today's Cartoons

 

(click on images to enlarge)


(Kevin Kallaugher, Counterpoint)

(Drew Sheneman, The Star-Ledger, Newark, NJ)

(Lalo Alcaraz, LA Weekly)

(John Branch, branchtoon.com)

(Jack Ohman, Sacramento Bee)

(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

(Chris Britt, gocomics.com)

(Marty Two Bulls, m2bulls.com)

(Clay Jones, claytoonz.com)

(Nick Anderson, Reform Austin News, TX)

(Brendan Loper, The New Yorker)


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Tweets Of The Day

 

The deep perversity of the forced birth crowd on display -- 



The Malignant Loser's despicable judicial legacy (now the environment)--


 

 

 


A small ray of hope --  



Internecine media war in Trumpworld, "NewSmacks" edition --

 


Ukraine kicks Russia's ass off of Snake Island --  

 


Fetterman ad demolishes mega millionaire snake oil salesman Oz --


 

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Radical SCOTUS: EPA Can't Curb Greenhouse Gases



The radical Republican Supreme Court strikes again:

The US Supreme Court restricted the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to curb greenhouse gases from power plants, siding with coal-mining companies and Republican-led states in a blow to President Joe Biden’s climate-change agenda.

The 6-3 ruling interpreting the US Clean Air Act is likely to keep the administration from imposing the type of wide-ranging emissions-cutting plan the EPA tried to put in place when Barack Obama was president. It limits the agency’s available tools amid increasing evidence that climate change is causing rising sea levels and more extreme weather patterns.

The majority said that, while the EPA can regulate power plant emissions, the agency can’t try to shift power generation away from fossil-fuel plants to cleaner sources, as Obama’s Clean Power Plan sought to do. Writing for the court, Chief Justice John Roberts said Congress needs to speak more explicitly to give an agency that much power.  [snip]

The court’s three Democratic-appointed justices -- Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan -- dissented.

The ruling casts fresh doubt on Biden’s pledge to reduce US emissions in half by the end of decade and his goal of a carbon-free electric grid by 2035. Hitting those targets will be impossible without regulations to stifle greenhouse gases from oil wells, automobiles and power plants, as well as tax incentives designed to spur clean energy, according to several analyses. 

This ruling is a broad attack on the EPA's ability to issue regulations that have a meaningful impact on climate change, and a victory for the coal companies and polluters.  It's effect will be to make our air more unhealthy and the day of reckoning with climate change closer.  

So, to summarize two recent Republican SCOTUS decisions, clean air and saving the planet, "Bad."  Being forced to bear a rapist's baby, "Good."

(Image:  The reactionary six)


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America's Fifth Column: MTG Edition

 

Rooting for our adversary which is trying to topple a neighboring fledgling democracy is par for the course for far-right loon Rep. Marjorie "Traitor" Greene. Exhibit A:


Pulling out of NATO to please Russian war criminal Putin is what her cult leader, the Malignant Loser, tried to accomplish, likely for personal financial benefits from Russia. Traitor Greene's running for re-election in Georgia, so this may be a shout out for Russian support. Regardless of the reason, Traitor Greene's call to abandon NATO at its most unified and powerful point says everything about her low regard for democracies, both here and abroad.

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QOTD -- What Matters

 

"Sadly, it may well be that not enough Americans are paying attention to what is being revealed in these hearings. Those within the Republican base remain firmly in the thrall of Mr. Trump and the baseless conspiracy theories he sells them, while GOP elected officials are fearful of doing anything to turn his ire on them. Voters might want to send a message about their dissatisfaction with the status quo. But inflation will pass, wages will rise, and supply chains will adapt. The consequences of re-empowering an unhinged personality, after he has faced no serious consequences for literally trying to overthrow the democratic order, would last forever." -- Washington Post editorial board, in observing "Jan. 6 testimony shows that Donald Trump is unhinged. Voters must listen." (our emphasis)  This goes further than the Malignant Loser, though.  The party "in the thrall" of him (whether his sway may or may not be weakening) long ago adopted an anti-democratic, antediluvian, theocratic philosophy -- what we call Christofascism. The consequences of re-empowering that party in 2022 or beyond would be catastrophic and last forever.

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Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Headline Of The Day

 

From New York City's right-wing rag owned by plutocrat Rupert Murdoch:



Looks like, for now, the tide is turning against the Malignant Loser.

BONUS:  Et tu, Fox "News"?

BONUS II:  Et tu, too, Washington Examiner?


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Giuliani Spawn Loses Race For Nomination




Amid all the primary news yesterday, it's again worth reveling in the news that Andrew Giuliani -- the unfortunate chip-off-the-old cow chip, seditionist Rudy "Toot Toot" Giuliani who wanted to win the Republican nomination for Governor of New York -- lost his primary bid yesterday. The horse-toothed former Trump staffer had hoped to step out of his infamous, deranged  father's diminishing shadow and not rely on nepotism for a job. Sadly for junior, right-wing Trumpist Rep. Lee Zeldin knocked him off bigly with a 20-point margin.

Giuliani had a rogues gallery of right-wing local supporters, including felon and daddy's sidekick Bernie Kerik, and pseudo lawman and failed Mayoral candidate Guardian "Angel" Curtis Silwa, but was unable to win support from the Republican establishment in New York State. We suspect they've been watching his daddy's corrupt, felonious and seditious activities over the past few years and decided they didn't need a younger generation of the same thing. In addition to his vicious, but bungling, campaign style, Giuliani has some personal flaws that probably turned most voters off. Check out this tweet from last year from a fellow Duke alumni for a hint:


Finally, our wishes for a speedy recovery for daddy Rudy, who was brutally assaulted and nearly killed last week by a grocery worker who patted him on the shoulder. Milk it for all it's worth, Mr. Slip and Fall! 

BONUS: Rudy steps on his schwanz, attacking Cassidy Hutchinson while acknowledging he asked for a pardon from Trump. Keen mind! 

(photo: The wind must have shifted. Jeenah Moon / New York Times)

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Tweets Of The Day

 

The mad child and the tragedy of it all --


 

Playing catch up (not ketchup) --

 


No joke! (More here) --

 

 

Better luck next time! -- 


 

 

 

Sounds plausible --

 

 

Applying pesticide to Russian pests --

 

 

 

 

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Today's Cartoons

 

(click on images to enlarge)


(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

(Jack Ohman, Sacramento Bee)


(Pia Guerra, @PiaGuerra) 

(Michael deAdder, Washington Post)

(Bill Bramhall, New York Daily News)

(Randall Enos, caglecartoons.com)

(Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune)

(Adam Zyglis, The Buffalo News)

(Dave Granlund, politicalcartoons.com)

(Drew Sheneman, The Star-Ledger, Newark, NJ)

(Tim Campbell, Washington Post Writers Group)

 


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Mid-Week Song

 

San Francisco-based indie pop band Papercuts released a new album in April, "Past Life Regression," described by their label as "a journey into the dreamier reaches of psychedelic folk-pop." There are certainly echoes of an earlier phase in rock music in a track from that album, "Palm Sunday," which is our song offering today. Enjoy.

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Turkey Ends Block On Finland, Sweden NATO Bid




In an unexpected move yesterday, Turkey, Sweden and Finland signed an agreement that would ensure the Nordic countries' application to join NATO would be accepted. All 30 NATO members must agree to an application to join the alliance. The agreement is a blow to Russian thug and war criminal Vladimir Putin, whose aim was to freeze NATO membership, especially after its brutal war of territorial expansion against Ukraine began in February.

At the NATO meeting in Madrid, Turkish President Erdogan announced that Turkey would lift its objections to Sweden's and Finland's joining the alliance after they agreed to crack down on groups that Turkey deems terrorist and to lift an arms embargo against Turkey:

"It means Helsinki and Stockholm can proceed with their application to join the nuclear-armed alliance, cementing what is set to be the biggest shift in European security in decades, as the two, long-neutral Nordic countries seek NATO protection.

'Our foreign ministers signed a trilateral memorandum which confirms that Turkey will ... support the invitation of Finland and Sweden to become members of NATO,' Finnish President Niinisto said in a statement. [snip]

Turkey's main demands, which came as a surprise to NATO allies in late May, were for the Nordic countries to stop supporting Kurdish militant groups present on their territory, and to lift their bans on some sales of arms to Turkey.

[NATO Secretary-General Jens] Stoltenberg said the terms of the deal involved Sweden intensifying work on Turkish extradition requests of suspected militants and amending Swedish and Finnish law to toughen their approach to them.

Stoltenberg said Sweden and Finland would lift their restrictions on selling weapons to Turkey."

The two nations' formal acceptance by the 30 member nations could take up to a year as each country's legislative bodies votes to ratify the agreement. 

(photo: Erdogan, center, flanked by NATO's Stoltenberg, left, and Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, and Sweden's Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, right. Violeta Santos-Moura/Reuters)

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Scout's Honor



This doesn't fit the mold of our typical posts, but reading this story about what a 15-year-old Boy Scout and his fellow scouts did following the train crash in Missouri on Monday moved us.  Here are some excerpts:

Eli Skrypczak played on his phone Monday afternoon while aboard an Amtrak train hurtling through the heartland of Missouri. As he slipped in and out of sleep, the 15-year-old Boy Scout and hundreds of other passengers were unaware of the dump truck ahead that was about to change their lives forever.

Eli and 14 other Boy Scouts had spent 10 days exploring the backcountry of New Mexico, mostly by backpacking through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and were on their way home to Appleton, Wis., said Dan Skrypczak, Eli’s father and the scoutmaster of Appleton Troop 73.  [snip]

At 12:43 p.m., “a giant jolt” awakened Eli, who was in his seat. There was twisting metal and loud creaking. He smelled diesel. Then, his train car overturned onto its side, causing Eli to fall onto fellow Scouts who had been sitting across the aisle on the side of the train that had become the new floor.  [snip]

The Amtrak train had hit the dump truck near Mendon, derailing two locomotives and nearly every train car, The Post reported. Heading from Los Angeles to Chicago along Amtrak’s Southwest Chief line, the train was carrying 275 passengers and 12 crew members, according to Amtrak.  [snip]

The collision caused some of the Scouts from Wisconsin to lose their phones, AirPods and even their shoes, Skrypczak said. Eli and the others collected their wits, made sure they were all accounted for and started helping people.

“The adrenaline kicked in, and something took over and I knew what to do,” Eli told WITI. “It was unreal. It still doesn’t seem real to me.”  

First, the Scouts secured passengers who seemed like they might have spinal cord injuries, his father told The Post. Then, they started popping out the train car’s emergency windows. When some got stuck, the Scouts took off their shirts for protection and broke the glass. They evacuated everyone they could.

They were “getting people out of windows and carrying them down,” Eli told the Milwaukee-based TV station. “I had to carry a couple kids in my arms, two at a time.”

After that, Eli ran to the front of the train to see if anyone was injured, his father told The Post. He learned the train had hit a vehicle when he saw wheels or an axle near the tracks. Then, in a ditch, he spotted a man who turned out to be the driver of the dump truck the train had just hit, whom authorities have not identified.

He was hurt — badly. He was bleeding and, although he was breathing, the man was gurgling. Eli gave him some water and tried to stop the bleeding. He told the driver that help was on the way. He held his hand. Soon, a local farmer joined Eli as they tended to the dying man.

“They were trying to comfort him,” Skrypczak said.

Eli and the farmer kept up their efforts until emergency crews arrived, something that probably took minutes but “seemed like a lifetime,” Skrypczak said. After initially joining the rescue efforts, the first responders told Eli and the farmer it was time to “call it” and “attend to the living.”

“And that’s what Eli and the boys did,” Skrypczak said.

Eli jumped into the fray. Since the crash, Skrypczak said, he’s been getting messages from others at the scene who remembered Eli as the kid pinballing between firetrucks and the crash site to resupply paramedics. Based on what others have told him, Skrypczak estimated his son made 100 trips.  [snip]

But Eli was just one of the Scouts helping, he added. Some performed first aid on their own scoutmasters who had been seriously injured. Others hauled passengers on backboards from the crash site to ambulances. When paramedics stopped them from doing that for the more seriously injured patients, the Scouts stripped out parts of the train car that might block rescue workers from getting people out of the wreckage.

It's hard to imagine how fraught and traumatic the situation was for the passengers on that train.  That the youngest among them had the presence, courage and selflessness to do what they did is an honor that should be associated with them for the rest of their lives.  

(Photo:  Eli and his father Dan/ Dan Skrypczak, via the Washington Post)


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Tuesday, June 28, 2022

On Insurrectionists: Trump "Doesn't Think They're Doing Anything Wrong"



ICYMI, Scott Lemieux summarized today's explosive testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson, Chief of Weasels Staff Mark Meadows' assistant, so we didn't have to:
  • Ms. Hutchinson testified that Mr. Trump demanded that his supporters be able to move around freely even though he knew they were armed, objecting to the presence of magnetometers to detect weapons. She testified that she was “in the vicinity of a conversation where I overheard the president say something to the effect of, ‘You know, I don’t f-ing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f-ing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the f-ing mags away.’”
  • As rioters stormed the Capitol, chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” Mr. Trump endorsed the violence. Ms. Hutchinson testified that Mr. Meadows said of Mr. Trump, “He doesn’t want to do anything,” and “He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”
  • Ms. Hutchinson testified that Mr. Meadows was worried as early as Jan. 2 that Mr. Trump’s rally could get out of control, telling her “Things might get, real, real bad on Jan. 6.” Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal attorney, had told her it would be a great day, when the president would go to the Capitol and be with members of Congress.
  • Anthony M. Ornato, the former White House chief of operations, warned Mr. Meadows on Jan. 6 that the crowd seemed ready for violence, and had knives, guns, bear spray, body armor, spears and flagpoles. She said Mr. Meadows did not look up from his phone, but asked Mr. Ornato whether he had informed Mr. Trump, which Mr. Ornato said he had. “He almost had a lack of reaction,” Ms. Hutchinson testified of Mr. Meadows’ reaction to the mob attacking the Capitol.
  • Ms. Hutchinson testified that there had been discussions about Mr. Trump giving a speech at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and even going into the House chamber as Congress met to make its official count of electoral votes. But Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, had serious legal concerns about Trump marching to the Capitol on Jan. 6, Ms. Hutchinson testified, saying that he had told her: “We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable.”
  • Ms. Hutchinson said she was outraged that Mr. Trump continued to tweet against Mr. Pence as the violence raged at the Capitol, denigrating him even as the crowd was braying for his execution. “As an American, I was disgusted. It was unpatriotic. It was un-American. We were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie,” she said.
  • Inside the White House, Mr. Trump became enraged when he learned that William P. Barr, the former attorney general, had publicly shot down his false allegations of a stolen election. He beat the table and threw dishes, splattering ketchup on the wall, Ms. Hutchinson said, adding that it was not the first time she had seen the president smash crockery in a rage.
  • Ms. Hutchinson said both Mr. Meadows and Mr. Giuliani expressed interest in receiving presidential pardons after the violence of Jan. 6.

It all paints a vivid picture of a completely unhinged, corrupt, violent, treasonous Malignant Loser with vignettes heretofore not known, and of the Malignant Loser and his enablers -- chiefly Mark Meadows -- actively engaged in the coup attempt up to and including wanting to participate in the violent attack on the Capitol.

One other detail revealed by Ms. Hutchinson, as revealed to her by Ornato, was the Malignant Loser's physical attack on his Secret Service head of detail, Bobby Engel:

According to Hutchinson, when Trump got in The Beast—the bullet-proof limousine that carries the president—following his infamous address whipping up his supporters, he demanded the officers take him to the seat of Congress. “I’m the effing president, take me up to the Capitol now,” Trump reportedly told his security detail.

When his lead security detail, Bobby Engel, told him they couldn’t because it was not secure, the “president had a very strong, very angry response,” Hutchinson testified that former Deputy Chief of Staff Tony Ornato told her. After Engel still refused, Trump tried to grab the steering wheel, Hutchinson said. After a Secret Service agent told him, “Sir you need to take your hand off the steering wheel,” he allegedly lunged at him and grabbed the agent’s throat.

The hearing ended with another stunner, with Vice Chair Cheney indicating some witnesses had been subject to tampering:

The GOP vice-chair of the January 6 committee ended a damning hearing on Tuesday by presenting evidence that figures close to former President Donald Trump may have engaged in tampering with some witnesses who have testified in the probe.

Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming offered the two examples of apparent witness tampering at the end of a surprise hearing held by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

Cheney shared two messages that she said witnesses had received ahead of their depositions. The witnesses, who Cheney didn't name, subsequently shared the messages with the committee.

It's completely believable that "figures close to" the Malignant Loser would engage in this type of criminal tampering.  After all, he's always run a Mafia- like criminal enterprise, whether in the private sector or in the White House.

The committee continues to show up with the receipts, and then some.

(Photo:  Cassidy Hutchinson today/ Jacquelyn Martin, AP)


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Tweets Of The Day

 

Sweden, Finland joining NATO --

 

 

Keep working as though we're the ones behind -- 



The rotten fruit from the rotten tree --  



Another look at a rationale for expanding the Supreme Court to 13 --



Let's ask the Supreme Court Six about this 👇 -- 

 


Even his allies think "Toot Toot" is lying about the grocery store "assault"-- 



Believe Clarence Thomas: the far-right is just getting started on taking back freedoms --  

 


She just sucks overall -- 


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Today's Cartoons

 

(click on images to enlarge)

(Jen Sorensen, gocomics.com)

(Ed Hall, Artizans.com)

(Marshall Ramsey, Mississippi Today)

(Walt Handelsman, The Times-Picayune, New Orleans)

(Nick Anderson, Reform Austin News, TX)

(Ann Telnaes, Washington Post)

(Robert Ariail, Spartanburg Herald-Journal, SC)

(Clay Jones, claytoonz.com)

(Chris Britt, gocomics.com)

(Jeremy Nguyen, @jeremywins)


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Meadows Aide To Testify Before Jan. 6 Committee

 

We'll find out this afternoon what Cassidy Hutchinson, the former aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, has to reveal about the January 6 seditious insurrection from within the walls of the Malignant Loser's White House. Starting at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, the House Select Committee will convene in a hastily scheduled meeting to hear new testimony and perhaps more witnesses and important clips from the film done by British documentarian Alex Holder.

Hutchinson could provide direct insight into what the Malignant Loser was planning leading up to and on the day of the insurrection, including the scheme to replace legitimate slates of electors with false Trump ones:

"Hutchinson, a special assistant and aide to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has already provided a trove of information to the committee and its investigators and sat for multiple interviews behind closed doors.

In brief excerpts of testimony revealed in court filings, Hutchinson told the committee she was in the room for White House meetings where challenges to the election were debated and discussed, including with Republican lawmakers. [snip]

Hutchinson previously told the committee that Meadows had been advised of intelligence reports showing the potential for violence on Jan. 6 and that several Republican lawmakers who had been involved in efforts to reject the electoral tally or submit “fake electors” had sought pardons to avoid potential criminal prosecution."  (our emphasis)

It would be especially rewarding if the Committee were able to produce another "surprise" witness to corroborate Hutchinson's testimony, or to have the Holder film reveal more about the planning of the conspiracy from a insider's perspective. We'll have to wait and see.

 

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Reproductive Rights Assistance

 


 

Here are some links to posts regarding what women's options are in the post- Roe environment:

Ovarit offers tips to women seeking abortions in states passing restrictive laws (h/t Infidel 753).

Jezebel advises us to donate locally to support abortion access.

The National Network of Abortion Funds also provides links to local organizations.

Guttmacher Institute offers an overview of abortion laws in the states, as well as a legislation tracker.

Some of the information provided by the resources above may be duplicative, but better to have more information than too little.  This is very far from an exhaustive list, of course.  Your preferred search engines can also provide more targeted information, help and resources (as long as you can verify the source!).


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Monday, June 27, 2022

Tweets Of The Day

 

War criminal Putin targets shopping mall --

 

 

The radical Republican dog that caught the car --


 

They're coming for it all --

 


The next step backward by the radical Republican Supreme Court? --

 


The Christofacist "dominionists" behind the Mississippi abortion ban --

 

 

Just one poll;  let's work to make this a reality in November --

 

 

 

"Welcome to Wetherspoons!" --

 

 

 

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QOTD -- No More "Healing"

 

"Ultimately, the problem with Dobbs is neither its naivete nor its ridiculous moments. It is fundamentally insincere. Perhaps this is not surprising from a panel of justices who dissembled over the abortion issue during their confirmation hearings. Yet nowhere in the hand-wringing over a divided America is there the slightest mention of the court’s own role in stoking division. Dissenters on the court have been egging on the antiabortion movement from Day One of Roe v. Wade. From 1973 onward, for nearly half a century, there has always been a vocal minority ready to say, in effect: This matter is not really decided. Keep trying.  [snip]

"If only there were more conservatives on the court and fewer radicals of the right. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. took a forlorn stab at genuine conservatism by pleading with the majority to honor the judicial principle of deciding controversies on the narrowest available grounds. Nothing doing. Having given every mook in the United States the right to a hidden handgun on Thursday, on Friday the radicals took a sweeping scythe to abortion rights.

America has had about as much of this healing as we can stand." -- David Von Drehle, in the Washington Post, on the radical Republican Supreme Court pouring gasoline on our culture war fires.  

On the overturning of Roe, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops -- an ultra- reactionary collection of desiccated pedophile protectors -- had the insincere, morally bankrupt gall to welcome the occasion saying, "It is a time for healing wounds and repairing social divisions; it is a time for reasoned reflection and civil dialogue, and for coming together to build a society and economy that supports marriages and families, and where every woman has the support and resources she needs to bring her child into this world in love.”

Yeah, no.  You threw the gasoline on the fire.  It wasn't over for you in 1973, and it's not over for us today.


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New January 6 Commitee Hearing Tomorrow


New bombshells incoming?

The committee investigating the Capitol Hill insurrection on January 6, 2021, has added a previously unexpected public hearing for Tuesday afternoon, the committee announced Monday.

The panel has not revealed the hearing's topic.
 
The announcement came as a surprise to many as the committee had said it was not going to resume its hearings until mid-July. Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the committee's chairman, told reporters last week that the panel needed more time to go through the new documentary footage it received from documentarian Alex Holder, who possesses never-before-seen footage of Trump and his family, new information from the National Archives, and new tips coming in through the panel's tip line since the hearings started in order to move forward with its hearings.
 
The committee did not reveal the witness list or topic but said it would "present recently obtained evidence and receive witness testimony."
 
Tuesday's hearing starts at 1 p.m. ET. It will be the panel's sixth hearing this month.

As always, must- see tv.


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Deranged Drunk Rudy Tapped On Back, Alleges Assault

 

Scotch-swilling Trumpist clown Rudy "Toot Toot" Giuliani, who's up to his dyed hair in the January 6 seditious conspiracy, was approached Sunday afternoon by a grocery store worker at a store in Long Island. The corrupt Trump co-conspirator claims he was assaulted. You be the judge:



The disgraced snowflake Giuliani was obviously more offended by being called a "scumbag" in public than by the pat on his back, but leveling bogus charges is what the degenerate clown does for a living. So, after seeing the "assault," who do you believe, lying rumpot Rudy or your lying eyes?

 

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Today's Tomorrow Cartoon: Heh Heh Heh

 (click to enlarge)



A Supreme Court that would fit better in the antebellum 1800s (or the Confederacy for that matter) opened the door last week to misogynist, reactionary and dangerous anti-reproductive choice laws imposed at the state level. Be assured that they're just getting started on wiping away laws and precedent that offend their twisted Christofascist beliefs, to hell with the Constitution.

Please consider supporting Tom's work by going here.


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The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

The Russian military will soon exhaust its combat capabilities and be forced to bring its offensive in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region to a grinding halt, according to Western intelligence predictions and military experts.

“There will come a time when the tiny advances Russia is making become unsustainable in light of the costs and they will need a significant pause to regenerate capability,” said a senior Western official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.  [snip]

But the “creeping” advances are dependent almost entirely on the expenditure of vast quantities of ammunition, notably artillery shells, which are being fired at a rate almost no military in the world would be able to sustain for long, said the senior Western official.

Russia, meanwhile, is continuing to suffer heavy losses of equipment and men, calling into question how much longer it can remain on the attack, the official said.  [snip]

Russian commentators are also noting the challenges, emphasizing a chronic shortage of manpower. “Russia does not have enough physical strength in the zone of the special military operation in Ukraine … taking into account the almost one thousand kilometer (or more) line of confrontation,” wrote Russian military blogger Yuri Kotyenok on his Telegram account. He estimated that Russia would need 500,000 troops to attain its goals, which would only be possible with a large-scale mobilization, a potentially risky and unpopular move that President Vladimir Putin has so far refrained from undertaking.

The bad:

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood, it repudiated the very idea that America’s highest court exists to protect people’s fundamental liberties from legislative majorities that would infringe on them. [snip]

The right to an abortion was based on the principle of a living Constitution that evolves to expand liberty and equality. That same master principle of modern constitutional law provided the grounding for Brown v. Board of Education, ending segregation. It was the basis for Obergefell v. Hodges, finding a right to same-sex marriage. It is the same principle that undergirds dozens of other decisions establishing rights we today consider fundamental, from sexual freedom to stop and seizure, that were not considered similarly basic in 1791 when the Bill of Rights was ratified or in 1868 when the 14th Amendment was.

In place of the living Constitution that protects liberty and equality from the tyranny of the majority, the court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization announced a Constitution that only protects rights that already existed in the distant past. The majority considered it irrelevant that the people who ratified the original constitutional provisions did not include women, whose rights are at issue in Dobbs and whose equality is derogated by the decision. According to the majority, the dead hand of the past rules our constitutional future.

The ugly:

On Friday, amidst the chaos of the news of the Supreme Court's ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, QAnon's 'Q' left the first new series of messages since 2020.

The first message — "Shall we play a game once more?" — was left using 'Q's credentials on what Daily Beast refers to as an "anarchic internet community" called 8kun, and was later followed up with "Are you ready to serve your country again?" and then a third reading "Remember your oath."

When a member of the board replied to one of the messages saying "Throw us a bone Q, we've all been waiting for what seemed like an eternity. What's going on?" Q replied "It had to be done this way."  [snip]

The basis of QAnon's belief system is that the Democratic world is run by Satan-worshipping pedophiles and that an event called "The Storm," will one day take place where their enemies will be executed via orders from a military tribunal. According to The Guardian, support of QAnon has increased since Trump left the White House.

The grifters/ Russian cutouts are back, ready to vacuum out the pockets of gullible submorons and create as much chaos and violence as possible.   "Throw us a bone, Q" one said.  Well, there's enough solid bone in that mark's head that they shouldn't need any supplements.


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