Israel takes another step down the road to becoming an official rogue state:
Israeli officials seized broadcasting equipment belonging to the Associated Press on Tuesday, arguing it was used to illegally provide a live feed to Al Jazeera, whose Jerusalem bureau was shuttered by officials earlier this month following the passage of a new foreign broadcast law.
Press advocates have warned that the law creates a dangerous precedent for censoring independent news outlets in the region amid the ongoing war with Hamas.
Israeli lawmakers passed the measure last month, empowering Israel’s communications minister to take action against any foreign media network that it says poses a national security risk.
Today’s seizure has already garnered sharp criticism, with Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid calling it “an act of madness.”
AP reported that it “complies with Israel’s military censorship rules, which prohibit broadcasts of details like troops movements that could endanger soldiers.” It said the live shot “has generally shown smoke rising over the territory.”
In a statement, an AP spokesperson said the wire service “decries in the strongest terms” the actions of the Israeli government.
“The shutdown was not based on the content of the feed but rather an abusive use by the Israeli government of the country’s new foreign broadcaster law,” communications executive Lauren Easton said.
There’s nothing else to say but reiterate that it is ” an act of madness.” And they do this on the day after the ICC recommends arrest warrants for Netanyahu? They clearly want to be a pariah state. It’s just mystifying.
Donald Trump: “We’ll be resting pretty quickly, resting meaning resting the case. I won’t be resting. I don’t rest. I’d like to rest sometimes, but I don’t get to rest.” pic.twitter.com/SAMDuscZp9
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) May 21, 2024
Haha. He’s constantly batting back memes these days. “I don’t use a teleprompter!” “I don’t sleep during the trial!”
Calling Giuliani’s lawyer Robert Costello to the stand would be legal malpractice if it weren’t for the fact that it was probably because Trump demanded it. The cross examination today was just brutal. Basically the prosecutors just read all of Costello’s emails to Cohen in which he was clearly trying to keep him from turning on Trump when he very briefly became the “back channel” between Rudy Giuliani (Trump) and Cohen. The whole thing sounbds like nothing short of an episode of the Sopranos.
He first met Cohen in person and told him how close he was with Giuliani, which Cohen denied on the stand. The prosecutor Susan Hoffinger made him look at the email he sent two days later: “I told you my relationship with Rudy which could be very very useful to you.”“Doesn’t that mean you mentioned that to him at the first meeting?” Hoffinger asked. “No,” Costello absurdly answered.
Hoffinger showed another email in which Costello wrote that Giuliani had a position with the White House that made it “all the more reason” for Cohen to hire him “which I mentioned at our meeting.” Costello again denied that it meant what it clearly meant and was reportedly annoyed at the question. (Didn’t he review any of these emails?)
Costello repeatedly denied being a ” backchannel” and has said that the emails spoke for themselves and he was right. They say that he’s a lying piece of work. One of them even showed that Costello wrote to Cohen to tell him that Giuliani “said thank you for opening this back channel of communication.” Hoffinger asked him if that email speaks for itself and he wouldn’t answer saying that he had an explanation as to what it really meant. She moved on.
Over and over again she showed the emails proving that they had pressured Cohen not to cooperate with the government. It really could not be more obvious. He was under investigation by the FBI and Costello reminded him “sleep well tonight, you have friends in high places.” Costello admitted that he was talking about Trump.
She then confronted him with an email to his law partner that said “our issue is to get Cohen on the right page.” Hoffinger asked him, “the email speaks for itself, correct?” He replied, “sometimes.”
According to reporting inside the courtroom he kept trying to interrupt and slag on Cohen and was repeatedly told by the prosecution to answer yes or no. After the strong admonishment by the judge yesterday he was forced to comply even though he was obviously upset.
The prosecutors finally questioned him about why he went to congress last week to testify that Cohen was a dirty, no good liar while he was on the stand in New York. She asked him if it was a tactic to intimidate a witness and he said that was ridiculous.
Was it? With every MAGA freakshow traipsing up to New York, dressed in a Trump costume, to sit behind Trump in the courtroom every day, is it really too much to believe that the House extremists called him to a hastily convened hearing to testify publicly about Michael Cohen while he was testifying? Their whole clown show is about fealty to Dear Leader and intimidation of anyone who crosses him.
The real question is why they thought it was a good idea to put Costello on the stand as well. They had to know about the emails. They had to realize that he’s right up there with Giuliani with the black drips pouring down his face. The only reasonable explanation is that Trump loved his blustering spittle last week in that hearing and thought it would be great to have it in the court room. He’s an idiot.
The defense then rested its case. No Trump testimony. After all, he is also a coward.
“If you’re not pissing ’em off, you’re not doing it right”
Joe Biden’s strongest performances pissed off Republicans big time. One was his September 1, 2022 speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. “On the Continued Battle for the Soul of the Nation” called out “MAGA Republicans” for their anti-American beliefs and behaviors. Did it turn the November 2022 red wave into a red ripple? Maybe. A second performance was Biden’s State of the Union speech on March 7. It was “Fiery Biden” (Washington Post). And “In-Your-Face Biden” (New York Times). Republicans were pissed. Viewers approved.
Biden came out swinging and knocked the Republicans so far back on their heels that they had to completely abandon the image of him they’ve been building since 2020 — that he’s so old and feeble that he can’t even feed himself — and instead whimper like a bunch of little old ladies that he offensively aggressive.
More than not looking feeble, Biden looked like a leader in command. Biden needs more of that. Yes, it is protocol to refrain from commenting on the Trump trial, but Biden’s “make my day” taunt about debating Trump is more snarky than dominating. Like it or not, many among the electorate measure their leaders by perception of strength. It’s a gut thing, not a head thing.
Donald Trump is all dominance, all the time. My research finds that his dominance game, much more than his policies or appeals to racism, is his most formidable political asset. He largely ignores the polls and tells you what he thinks, while low-dominance leaders tell you what they think you want to hear. His disdain for optics and polls isn’t a sign of real courage. Instead, they’re products of his narcissism combined with a lack of impulse control. But his congenital political gift is that the way these character defects manifest what looks like bravery, at least to a substantial minority. It’s what creates the perception that he’s his own man (however sociopathic) and acts on his own convictions (even if they’re nothing but ego-driven ambitions and resentments).
Trump’s dominance style is what separates him from every other politician and explains the ardor he elicits among those who thirst for strong leadership. And it’s what’s enabled him to retain his grip on his party, even as he’s proven to be a liability in elections. To many people, it makes him look indomitable—and other politicians like panderers by comparison.
The problem is that the Democrats don’t unmask Trump’s essential cowardice and overmatch his dominance game. Liberals often seem to think that people just need to evolve past their need for dominant leaders and get on with creating a world in which everyone gets along, and nobody seeks to dominate anybody else. But as the eminent psychologist Dan McAdams notes, our desire for commanding leaders is baked into our DNA. It isn’t all we seek in our leaders, but seek it we do, and that isn’t going to change anytime soon. McAdams argues that no American president has tapped into what he calls “the primal psychology of dominance” as effectively as Trump has. In fact, McAdams suggests that Trump has little but dominance going for him.
We like to think ourselves evolved, but deep down we are still animals that respond to subtle cues about who’s dominant in any social situation. In Trump’s case, he’s never subtle.
Biden needs to show he can be forceful without being an asshole. When he does, his poll numbers jump. He just doesn’t sustain it. When he backs off, so do his approval ratings. Aggressiveness doesn’t come as naturally to Scranton Joe as it does for, say, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, the Democrat from Dallas.
Fish says, “If Democrats can beat Trump on dominance, his area of greatest strength, we can crush the Trumpian menace before it crushes our democracy. This does not mean they have to emulate Trump. Our greatest liberal heroes have been high-dominance, but in distinctly liberal ways and to liberal ends, whether it be Frederick Douglass and JFK, or Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa and Eleanor Roosevelt.”
I’m not buying everything in Fish’s criticisms of Democrats, but “when they go low, we go high” does seem naive in the Trump era. Biden needs to be more forceful more often, and willing to upset Republicans. It works for him when he does it.
“If the master narrative doesn’t alienate about 30 percent of the electorate, it isn’t a good narrative,” Drew Westen wrote in “The Political Brain” (2007) about Democrats’ messaging. “About a third of the electorate won’t turn left under any circumstances, and if the Democrats’ story doesn’t make them angry, there’s something wrong with it. A substantial minority of Americans hold authoritarian, intolerant ideologies driven by fear, hate, and prejudice that are fundamentally incompatible with Democratic (and democratic) principles. They are the antagonists of the Democratic story, and if they aren’t antagonized by it the same way liberals are antagonized by listening to George W. Bush’s storytelling, the Democratic story isn’t getting its message across.”
That was 2007.
Westen chuckled when I told him a key lesson I took from his book came down to: If you’re not pissing ‘em off, you’re not doing it right.
Texas woman disavows her distrust of public schools
The subhead perfectly summarizes the ProPublica report from Texas:
Courtney Gore, a Granbury ISD school board member, has disavowed the far-right platform she campaigned on after finding no evidence that students were being indoctrinated by the district’s curriculum. Her defiance has brought her backlash.
The co-host of a local far-right talk show had guzzled gallons of Kool-Aid. She was positive that public schools were cesspools of anti-whatever indoctination that promoted a “twisted worldview.” Then she got herself elected to prove it and to shut it all down.
Weeks after winning a school board seat in her deeply red Texas county, Courtney Gore immersed herself in the district’s curriculum, spending her nights and weekends poring over hundreds of pages of lesson plans that she had fanned out on the coffee table in her living room and even across her bed. She was searching for evidence of the sweeping national movement she had warned on the campaign trail was indoctrinating schoolchildren.
[…]
But after taking office and examining hundreds of pages of curriculum, Gore was shocked by what she found — and didn’t find.
The pervasive indoctrination she had railed against simply did not exist. Children were not being sexualized, and she could find no examples of critical race theory, an advanced academic concept that examines systemic racism. She’d examined curriculum related to social-emotional learning, which has come under attack by Christian conservatives who say it encourages children to question gender roles and prioritizes feelings over biblical teachings. Instead, Gore found the materials taught children “how to be a good friend, a good human.”
Wow. That seems … horrible.
Gore revealed her apostacy in a series of Facebook posts. Naturally, she was targeted for backlash.
Hard-liners were indifferent and dismissive because “it didn’t fit the narrative that they were trying to push.” Gore told ProPublica they were “interested not in improving public education but rather in sowing distrust.”
“I’m over the political agenda, hypocrisy bs,” Gore wrote. “I took part in it myself. I refuse to participate in it any longer. It’s not serving our party. We have to do better.”
What’s striking about Gore’s Road to Fort Worth experience is the level of burning commitment people in her anti-public-schools movement have to their evidence-free faith. They demand schools remove offending books (they are convinced are there) from school libraries, for example. One activist even sneaked into “a high school library during a charity event and began inspecting books using the light of her cellphone, according to a district report.”
Then a speaker shouting threats about school libraries offering pornography was spotted (allegedly) wearing a handgun at a school board meeting. “We know what you do. We know where you live,” he said.
“That was the moment I saw how crazy it was, how unhinged it had become and how far some people were willing to go to prove their points,” Gore said.
Gore’s survey of her district’s curriculum made her realize she’d been part of a “statewide effort to weaken local support of public schools and lay the groundwork for a voucher system.”
Vouchers are a scheme sold as saving the children (especially those poor, poor ones of color) from “failing” public schools. What they save is rich parents’ budgets by getting taxpayers to sunsidize their kids’ private (often religious) school tuition. State Republicans here prefer to call vouchers “opportunity scholarships.”
Moe Green, Democratic candidate for North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction, insisted on calling these subsidies for wealthy families “taxpayer-funded private school vouchers” during an Asheville visit Saturday. That’s because opportunity scholarships sound to many people like funding coming from private philanthropy and not from their own pockets.
Again and again, the religious right gets played by people committed to diverting public funds to private, for-profit businesses because not exploiting government spending for private profit is a crime against capitalism.
Gore realized she’d been played. She eventually allied with the very woman her election had ousted from the school board two years earlier, Nancy Alana.
“She let everybody know that she had been misled and that she has seen for herself the good things that are happening in our school district,” Alana said. “That the school board can be trusted. That the administrators can be trusted. And she has spoken out on that. And that has made a big difference. And she is very well thought of in our community because of her willingness to step up and say, ‘I was wrong.’”
There’s no greater sign of weakness (apostacy!) on the far right than admitting you were wrong.
Hookay. We’ve finally gotten to the full-on ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Füh·rer portion of our program. The AP reports:
A video posted to Donald Trump’s account on his social media network Monday included references to a “unified Reich” among hypothetical news headlines if he wins the election in November.
The headline appears among messages flashing across the screen such as “Trump wins!!” and “Economy booms!” Other headlines appear to be references to World War I.
The word “Reich” is often largely associated with Nazi Germany’s Third Reich, though the references in the video Trump shared appear to be a reference to the formation of the modern pan-German nation, unifying smaller states into a single Reich, or empire, in 1871.
The 30-second video appeared on Trump’s account at a time when the presumptive Republican nominee for president, while seeking to portray President Joe Biden as soft on antisemitism, has himself repeatedly faced criticism for using language and rhetoric associated with Nazi Germany.
Trump previously used rhetoric echoing Adolf Hitler when he said immigrants entering the U.S. illegally are “poisoning the blood of our country,” and called his opponents “vermin.”
At least one of the headlines flashing in the video appears to be text that is copied verbatim from a Wikipedia entry on World War I: “German industrial strength and production had significantly increased after 1871, driven by the creation of a unified Reich.”
In one image, the headlines “Border Is Closed” and “15 Million Illegal Aliens Deported” appear above smaller text with the start and end dates of World War I.
I’m afraid this is going to be the result of yet another homage to 1930s fascism from Donald Trump and his Red-tie, Red-hat cult:
I wondered why there were no anti-Trump protesters appearing at these red-tie costumed clown shows. I guess they finally showed up today:
Trump’s surrogates are attempting to address the media outside Manhattan criminal court, but they are being drowned out by anti-Trump protesters: pic.twitter.com/oVHI08xOPe
I only recognized a couple of the people who showed up today so they’re really scarping the bottom of the D-list now. No Tim Scott yet. No DeSantis. No Marge. Ex-felon Bernie Kerik was there and the former head of the NY Hells Angels were there, though. And they were all dressed the same, came into the room late again, lined up right behind Trump and made a scene. Is it some sort of weird intimidation tactic to scare the jury???
Trump’s foreign policy henchmen are going around the world sabotaging America
I’m pretty sure that this “visit” with Netanyahu was to simply reassure him that if he can just hold out until January 20, 2025 Trump will take care of him:
Three former U.S. foreign policy officials in Donald Trump’s administration met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other public figures in Israel on Monday, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.
The delegation was comprised of Robert O’Brien, who served as Trump’s fourth and final national security adviser, as well as former Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates John Rakolta and former Ambassador to Switzerland Ed McMullen, said the person, who requested anonymity as the trip’s itinerary was not public.
In addition to Netanyahu, the delegation met Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid and several other Israeli officials, the person said.
Among the main goals of the trip was to obtain a better understanding of Israel’s complex domestic political situation, said the person familiar with the visit. Netanyahu’s coalition is beset by internal disagreements, with many Israelis blaming his government for failing to prevent the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
It was a rare case of Trump allies traveling abroad as part of an organized delegation to meet foreign officials. It took place amid strains between Israel and the Biden administration about Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza.
They probably told the opposition what they wanted to hear too. That’s how the Trumpers roll.
The last thing Trump, the Republicans, Netanyahu and Hamas want is for this war to end before the American election. For a variety of reasons, they all feel that it’s important to sabotage Joe Biden and keep the suffering going in Gaza. It’s sick.
Today in Dallas at the NRA convention, Trump’s teleprompter stops scrolling & he has absolutely no idea what to do except shake his head, pissed off, until it restarts.pic.twitter.com/qSbt72fgIx
‘My Speech in Dallas this weekend at the NRA’s ‘Endorsement of President Donald J. Trump,’ was attended by a Record Crowd of very enthusiastic Patriots,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“The Biden Campaign, however, put out a Fake Story that I ‘froze’ for 30 seconds, going into the ‘Musical Interlude’ section, when in actuality, the 30 to 60 second period of silence is standard in every one of my Speeches where we use the Music,” he went on, “Check out any of my Speeches!”
“The reason they came up with this Disinformation is that Biden freezes all the time, can’t put two sentences together, and can rarely find his way off the stage without help,” he claimed.
“Donald Trump doesn’t freeze! It is a MADE UP Biden Campaign story, put out in a dying Newspaper that I never heard of, and every Reporter knows it, including the large group that was there….” he added.
Here’s the thing. Nobody’s ever mentioned that his speeches always contain a weird 30 second pause right in the middle when the music comes on. I’ve never seen it and I’ve watched a bunch of them. This 30 second pause came abruptly in the middle of his speech and it made no sense.
The obvious explanation is that the teleprompter went out. He’s had that problem elsewhere recently and he made a big thing of it and got roasted on social media because he’s always claiming that Biden can’t speak without a teleprompter. So this time he just waited for it to come back but can’t admit it happened.
The man is a very disturbed individual. He’s actually making it easier for people to suggest that he’s losing his mind with nonsense like this.
By the way, Trump has always railed against other politicians using the teleprompter:
“Bad performance by Crooked Hillary Clinton! Reading poorly from the telepromter! She doesn’t even look presidential!” Trump tweeted the day of Clinton’s speech.
“She’s just reading it off a teleprompter. Believe me, they write that for her,” Trump said of Clinton in March.
Clinton “has the biggest teleprompters I’ve ever seen,” Trump said at a Massachusetts campaign rally in January.
“I don’t use teleprompters,” he said in that speech.
“I’ve always said, if you run for president, you shouldn’t be allowed to use teleprompters,” Trump said in October. “Because you don’t even know if the guy is smart.”
He has relentlessly mocked Biden for his use of a teleprompter insisting that he doesn’t need one.
And here he is railing against his teleprompter. It happens a lot:
The Washington Post reports today that consumer sentiment softened this month. That’s true enough. But they also say this:
That pessimism is altering consumers’ spending habits. McDonald’s, Home Depot, Under Armour and Starbucks all recently reported disappointing earnings, as people cut back on fast food, kitchen renovations, sneakers and afternoon lattes.
….Employers are adding fewer jobs, wage growth has decelerated, and Americans are holding off on big purchases like homes, cars and washing machines.
Come on, folks. Do we have to keep doing this? Nobody has to guess at consumer buying habits by looking at fast food, kitchen renovations, sneakers or afternoon lattes. Why? Because every month the government publishes a nice, tidy summary of all consumer spending. Here it is through March:
If the Washington Post thinks the government is rigging the statistics they should say so. But maybe they don’t know about government statistics. Maybe someone should tell them.
Kevin concludes:
And guess what? The government also publishes lots of other handy statistics! I’ll spare you the charts, but real wage growth has been up steadily; home sales are down from their 2021 boom year but have increased lately; auto sales are up and have been steady lately; and durable goods consumption is up. Inflation has been hovering around 3% for an entire year, which is not especially dire. Hell, even consumer sentiment, which sparked this article in the first place, has been steadily up except for the single month of May—so it’s a little early to be pretending there’s some kind of downward trend.
It’s hard not to feel like giving up sometimes. This is not arcane information. It’s all easily available in a matter of minutes from FRED or the agency websites. So why does the Post publish a jumble of misleading or outright incorrect economic statistics instead of just looking them up first? I will never figure this out.
I think they have decided that “vibes” are all that matters. It stems from the idea that if they send an expedition into the wilds of America and a bunch of right wing men in an Idaho diner complain about prices, that’s the story. It’s not actually new except for the fact that they used to at least pay some attention to the actual statistics.
It’s either that or they feel such a need to prove that they aren’t liberal that they are purposefully sabotaging Biden’s re-election. It wouldn’t be the first time.
