Collapsing Media Integrity, Climate As Well As House

Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal has joined the campaign for Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) in its story about President Joe Biden “slipping … behind closed doors,” according to “45 interviews.” The report, however, cherry-picked only Republicans, omitting comments from Democrats. The prime “witness” was former House MAGA Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), eager to rejoin the GOP leadership, who had previously complimented Biden on being “mentally sharp in meetings” but consistently lies on DDT’s part. Republicans are running for reelections, usually on Fox network, by bashing Biden and avoiding DDT’s frequent mental problems—slurring, non-words, word-salad, sleeping during his trial, blacking out for over a half minute, etc.

In another fallen publication, the new Washington Post publisher and CEO, Will Lewis, pushed his newsroom chief Sally Buzbee, now fired, to not run stories from British court documents about his trying to cover up a widespread criminal practices at Murdoch British tabloids accused of committing crimes “on an industrial scale.” Some of them were hacking into the voicemails and emails of both celebrities and private citizens, one of them Prince Harry, but deleted millions of emails after authorities asked for them in its investigation. The Murdoch media company thus far paid about $1.5 billion in settlements and costs.

Lewis’ spokesperson denied the allegation about suppressing these stories, but witnesses supported the Buzbee story shortly before her firing. The same spokesman offered the report in NRP to drop the story about the coverup and Lewis’ behavior with Buzbee to get an interview with him. Lewis was business editor at Murdoch’s Sunday Times for three years before he moved to the conservative Daily Telegraph and has now hired the Telegraph’s deputy editor.

Israel used U.S. munitions to kill 33 people, including 12 women and children, in a UN school in the central Gaza Strip, according to five weapons experts. The munitions were used on thousands of displaced Palestinians civilians. As usual, Israel delivered the evidence-free excuse that Hamas members were present.

President Joe Biden said that DDT’s trial was fair and that he wouldn’t pardon his son, Hunter Biden, currently on trial for allegedly lying on a gun purchase application. The president praised his son’s “resilience in the face of adversity and the strength he brought to his [drug-use] recovery.” On Thursday, Hunter’s trial heard testimony from his ex-friend and former sister-in-law about her discovering the gun he purchased and throwing it away with the ensuing search for the weapon. Prosecutors expect to present two more witnesses before resting their case.

Another of DDT’s “team of felons” has been told to report to report to prison on July 1 by DDT-appointed federal judge, Carl Nichols. Nichols said the “original basis” for his stay didn’t exist after the appeals court upheld his conviction. The House January 6 investigative committee believed that he had valuable information about the insurrection and repeatedly told DDT, “It’s time to kill the Biden presidency in a crib.” In Bannon’s trial, he called no witnesses, and the accused didn’t take the stand. Yet the jury found him guilty after three hours, and he was sentenced to four months.  Nichols agreed that the continued stay had “no legal basis.”

If Bannon goes to jail on July 1, he would be there without doing his podcast until November 1, a few days before the general election, unless the Supreme Court releases him. In September, Bannon is also scheduled to stand trial in New York City for allegedly defrauding donors in the “We Build the Wall” operation with Judge Juan Merchan, the judge for DDT’s hush money/business fraud trial resulting in 34 felony convictions. Bannon pled not guilty. DDT pardoned Bannon for his federal criminal charges four years ago and called for the January 6 committee to be prosecuted instead of Bannon.  

After Nicols’ decision, his lawyer ran to the bench, shouting at him. The judge told the lawyer:

“One thing you have to learn as a lawyer is that when the judge has made his decision, you don’t stand up and start yelling. I’ve had enough.”

The planet just experienced 12 months of unprecedented heat, according to the European Union’s climate monitoring service, Copernicus. Each month since July 2023 has been at least 1.5 degrees warmer than before industrialization when people began burning large amounts of planet-heating fossil fuels with an average of 1.63 average for the year. In the past few weeks, people have died in India, Southeast Asia, and Mexico. Heavier rainfall and destructive storms from hotter air and oceans battered the U.S., Brazil, Kenya, and the United Arab Emirates along with other nations this year.

A study by 57 scientists found that human activities are responsible for 92 percent of the warming. UN Secretary General António Guterres compared the issue to the meteor which led to wiping out dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Global temperature records data come from ground sensors dating back nearly two centuries, more recent satellite observations, and historical records and geologic analyses going further back in time.

For decades, climate naysayers have complained that costs are too high to slow down climate change, but the expenses of these increases are exorbitant. Florida’s property insurance bills have increased by 125 percent, the highest rates in the country—if people can get insurance after several major companies dropped out of the state market. Gov. Ron DeSantis bragged about all the people buying homes in the state, and now they can’t afford to live there, especially senior citizens.

Home insurance rates are also the highest in the U.S. Floridians pay no state income tax, but they pay five times the amount for home insurance that New Yorkers pay for their income tax. The state controls the climate problem by making the term climate change illegal in government documents as well as “global warming” and “sustainability.” The law also deletes state law about cutting planet-warming pollution and bans offshore wind energy although Florida plans no wind farms.

A major problem of climate change in Florida is also rising sea levels. In DDT’s interview with Fox network after his conviction, he praised this rise for creating more beachfront property. That was after he claimed that the increase was one-eighth of an inch in 400 years. The reality is that the increase has been one-eighth of an inch every year since 1993—that’s over 2.5 inches in the two decades.

Rising sea levels are also causing serious problems with septic systems, groundwater rising through cracks in garage floors, and human waste flowing through the streets and into water sources. And the state alone with this problem throughout the South where sea levels have risen at least six inches since 2010. About one-third of homes in the Southeast rely on septic systems; Florida has about 2.6 million of them. Officials often don’t know where they are, and many can be compromised. Septic systems need to sit above enough dry soil filtering contaminants from wastewater, but the buffer is disappearing. Sea levels in Miami have risen six inches since 2010, and sea level rise and extreme rainfall are raising groundwater levels, reducing the soil buffer. Sea levels have risen over 18 inches in some parts of the North Carolina Outer Banks.

Financial costs of Texas drought are skyrocketing during the past decades. The state draws more crop insurance payouts than any other state, an annual average of $251 million in the 2000s to $516 million per year in the 2010s and $1.1 billion per year in the first four years of the 2020s—over double the inflation rate. The federal crop insurance program is highly tax subsidized, 62 percent of the cost, $12 billion, in 2022. Extreme weather also affects costs of the federal flood insurance program, now $20.5 billion in debt with $619 million in annual interest, and home insurance. A map of sea rise on the southern and eastern U.S. coasts.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) declared Republicans prioritize “revenge fantasies” over governing with their oaths of loyalty to DDT instead of the Constitution. The House is building on that with its burgeoning number of criminal charges. After declaring war on the entire Biden family, the GOP’s obsession continues with https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4706462-gop-fauci-crosshairs-criminality/     a desire for  felony charges against Dr. Anthony Fauci following GOP failure in their hearing. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) requested Fauci’s private emails and cellphone records related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, EcoHealth and the origins of the coronavirus. Republicans have not yet threatened a subpoena with a deadline of June 12 for a written response.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Judiciary Committee chair, asked special counsel Jack Smith’s Mar-a-Lago prosecutor, Jay Bratt, to appear before his panel about his meetings at the White House. One of Jordan’s objectives is finding coordination between the DOJ and Biden. Of the three meetings that Jordan cites, however, two were in 2021 before National Archives told the DOJ about difficulty in recovering records from DDT, and the third, in March 2023, was with a career White House staffer for both DDT and Biden about the moving of boxes. Prosecutors commonly interview government workers in their offices. Jordan also criticized Bratt for his handling of DDT’s case, including the Mar-a-Lago search and DDT’s lie about the FBI being authorized to “take me out.” From Jordan’s letter to Bratt:

“Your course of conduct continues to raise serious concerns about the abusive tactics of the Office of the Special Counsel and the Department’s commitment to impartial justice.” 

A Bit of the World, Attempted GOP Revenge

India chose conservative Norendra Modi as Prime Minister for the third time, but his party, which some people called fascist, didn’t have a landslide victory. In 640 million ballots, his margin of victory dropped from 500,000 in 2019 to 145,000. Modi leads in 290 seats, short of their 400 target while opposition parties are expected to take over 230. His setback came from growing economic differences with unemployment at 8.1 percent.

In Israel, the government, for the first time, targeted U.S. lawmakers with fake social media accounts to influence them to fund the country’s military, focusing on over a dozen Democrats and Blacks. Hundreds of fake accounts posing on Americans on X, Facebook, and Instagram posted pro-Israel comments, many of them with artificial intelligence.

In the U.S., Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) isn’t the only Republican to become more unhinged after his conviction on 34 felony charges. The far-right House members, running on a platform of helping the nation’s families, now campaigns for DDT’s November election. Their revenge approach is reminiscent of the GOP chant, “Lock them up,” created by animosity to Hillary Clinton, DDT’s 2016 opponent. The philosophy now applies to all Democrats.

House Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) new spin on DDT’s conviction claims that those prosecuting the convicted felon are “eroding the people’s faith in the system of justice itself.” To Johnson, the justice system can restore confidence in the institution by ignoring felonies and exonerating GOP politicians’ wrongdoing. Asked if people should accept November’s election results, Johnson said, “Well, I hope so,” before he concluded that part of the questioning with “Look, we’re the rule of law team.” It’s the new meme: on Fox, he said, “We are the rule of law party.” Instead, the GOP is the party of revenge fantasy. [Note: the banner states, “I am innocent.”

An icon of the “rule of law party,” Johnson followed DDT’s choice for his two new appointment for the House Intelligence Committee that has access to the country’s more important and highly sensitive secrets.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), now on the committee to investigate the January 6 insurrection, was one of the leaders in trying to overturn the government after the 2020 presidential election and pushed such conspiracy theories as votes being changed by “Italian satellites.” He is currently suing the DOJ for the FBI seizing his cellphone in an investigation regarding his insurrection involvement.

Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) was fired as White House doctor after he personally abused and permitted others to abuse drugs. His public announcements of DDT’s health reports showed several “inconsistencies,” and he failed to achieve secretary of Veterans Affairs for allegations of harassing women and creating a “toxic” work environment. These issues are just the tip of the iceberg regarding Johnson’s choices, such as Jackson’s lying about his military rank.

The day after Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) failed to prove his inquisition of DOJ AG Merrick Garland in a Judiciary Committee hearing, James Comer (R-KY), Oversight Committee chair, referred President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and brother, James Biden, to the DOJ for criminal prosecution, for allegedly lying “to hide Joe Biden’s involvement in his family’s schemes.” Another witness made the same claim as Hunter Biden but wasn’t charged. The referral letter was also signed by Jordan and Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-MO). Committees had no customary votes or hearings for the referral.

The day before the referral, a report revealed Comer used his office as then-Kentucky Secretary of Agriculture to import, as a favor for a campaign donor, hemp seed from China ultimately testing as marijuana with illegally high levels of THC. He had hoped to tout the deal as a win for Kentucky but quickly buried the information after the bust. Part of Comer’s persecution of the Bidens is the unfounded claims of China and business ventures. Comer claimed that “accountability … looks like criminal referrals.” He may be searching for another chapter in his anti-Joe Biden book. 

Comer also wants a felony charge against Dr. Anthony Fauci for recommending a six-feet separation during the pandemic and accuses Fauci of lying during the Monday hearing. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) false accusation of Fauci’s abuse of beagles during the hearing, complete with photo, comes from Tunisia’s sand flea experiment with beagles incorrectly listing the NIAID as a financial sponsor in 2021 and since corrected. About the GOP support of DDT during the hearing, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) pointed out that they are supporting a felon who couldn’t get a security clearance and would be banned for entering 37 countries. He concluded, “You might be in a cult.”   

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) has threatened former White House press secretary Jen Psaki with a subpoena after she didn’t respond to a request to testify in a debate about whether Biden looked at his watch during the transfer ceremony for U.S. soldiers killed in Kabul in 2021.

Another GOP strategy to protect DDT is a bill allowing current or former presidents to move any state case brought against them to federal court, giving them the right of pardons for themselves. Some senators don’t support the concept.

On Wednesday, a majority of GOP senators blocked the Right to Contraception Act. It passed by a slim majority but lacked the necessary 60 votes for survive the filibuster. The vote of 51-39 had unanimous Democratic support, along with Republicans Susan Collins (ME) and Lisa Murkowski (AK); 39 Republicans, including seven women, opposed it. Nine Republicans didn’t vote along with Democratic Robert Menendez (NJ) who is likely in court for a bribery charge. The bill gives people access to contraceptives and a doctor’s right to provide information and access to them. GOP women voting against federal right to contraction: Marsha Blackburn, Katie Britt, Shelley Capito, Joni Ernst, Deb Fischer, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Cynthia Lummis (?)

Sen. Josh Hawley (D-MO) said that “nobody is going to overturn Griswold,” the 1965 Supreme Court decision legalizing contraception, like conservatives said “nobody is going to overturn Roe v. Wade”until the current Supreme Court did that two years ago. Hawley’s wife is an attorney arguing to make the abortion medication mifepristone illegal. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, however, wants Griswold overturned, and Justice Clarence Thomas set his sites on dropping rights for contraception. He might get a majority of conservative support on the high court. Even DDT stated he is open to restrictions on contraception before he decided that wasn’t a good campaign argument and backed down. Then he said that he would issue a policy “very shortly.” That was two weeks ago, but he’s busy swearing revenge on his political opponents.   

Republicans, especially those who believe that personhood begins when the egg is released, follow the unscientific theory that contraception produces abortion, and some states are trying to block its access, especially IUDs, emergency contraception, and birth-control pills, classifying them as “abortifacients” which terminate pregnancies. Missouri, Louisiana, and Idaho have blocked contraceptive access for that reasons, and Republicans in at least 17 states have prevented laws assuring the right to birth control since 2022. (Demonstrators with a 20-foot-tall inflatable intrauterine device outside the Union Station in Washington, D.C. set up by the group Americans for Drew Angerer/AFP)

Eight in ten people in the U.S. support the Right to Contraception Act, and 60 percent worry about the Supreme Court overturning a constitutional right to contraception. Yet, GOP politicians lie about the proposed law providing “condoms to little kids.”

Witnesses in the Hunter Biden trial about his allegedly lying on an application to purchase a gun included ex-wife Kathleen Buhle and ex-girlfriend Zoe Kestan testifying about his drug use and the man who sold Hunter the firearm. The prosecution may rest their case on Thursday. Because it has a weak case with only the lying issue, the persecution may try to claim that he purchased the gun for drug deals.

Wednesday is Environment Day, first declared by the UN in 1972. The theme “Our Land, Our Future. We are #Generation Restoration.” focuses on restoring degraded lands, combatting desertification, and building drought resilience with 3,657 events.

Thursday is the 80^th anniversary of D-Day, the landing of 150,000 Allied troops at Normandy which turned World War II away from Germany’s victory. Several GOP macho congressional members plan to participate in the paratroopers’ parachute drop. President Joe Biden plans to speak at the event, highlighting the men who scaled those cliffs, democracy, and the dangers of isolationism.

And for the finish, a feel-good story. And after wandering Vermont State University’s Castleton campus for the past four years, Max the cat received an honorary doctorate in “litter-ature.” He greeted the 4,000 students, catching rides on students’ backpacks, sharing campus tours, and sometimes attending psychology lectures. Max lives near the campus, and students would take him home at night.

Republicans, Protests

It’s a Wednesday so Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) isn’t trapped in court as he incessantly complains. Instead of campaigning, however, he’s hosting a dinner at Mar-a-Lago, trying to sell his NFT trading cards and holding other private political meetings. In contrast, President Joe Biden is in Racine (WI) talking about a new Microsoft data center in Mount Pleasant at the same location where DDT had attended a groundbreaking in 2018 for Foxconn’s $10 billion factory making LCD panels.

Gov. Scott Walker gave the electronics manufacturer millions in subsidies and bulldozed homes and farms, but the facility never came to fruition although taxpayers gave Foxconn $683 million. The area lost 1,000 jobs. As Biden said about DDT:

“He promised a $10 billion investment by Foxconn. He came with your senator, Ron Johnson, with a golden shovel and didn’t build a damn thing. They dug a hole with those golden shovels and then they fell into it.”

Microsoft receives no government incentives for the $3.3 billion dollar datacenter and works with Gateway Technical College, annually training and certifying 200 students for jobs in data and information technology. In addition, Microsoft will work with nearby high schools to train students for future jobs.

DDT also appealed his limited gag order in the New York criminal business fraud. His defense team asked for either a ruling from an intermediate appeals court or immediate permission to appeal to the New York’s Court of Appeals which already rejected pausing the trial during the fight against the gag order. The lawyer’s appeal may be DDT’s latest attempt to stay out of jail. 

Another DDT Truth Social tirade after Stormy Daniels’ testimony, possibly violating the gag order, slammed not only judges but also “sleazebags” and “lowlifes” who “say absolutely anything that they want,” likely meaning witnesses. He posted that he has to “listen to lies and false statements” made against him but can’t respond and called Judge Juan Merchan “corrupt and highly conflicted.” Both the gag order and Merchan’s caution on Tuesday warned DDT about witness intimidation.

Despite two meetings with Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson and urging by Deposed Donald Trump (DDT), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) filed her motion to oust Johnson from the position. She lost overwhelmingly: the bipartisan vote to table the motion was 359 to 43 with seven Democrats voting “present.” Only 32 Democrats voted against blocking Greene’s motion along with 11 Republicans. Only Reps. Thom Massie (R-KY) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) had openly said they will support Greene.

Lawmakers widely booed and jeered Greene as she read the resolution for over ten minutes, reciting grievances such as allowing Democrats to pass the federal funding bill to keep the government open, reauthorization of the U.S. warrantless surveillance, and the inclusion of Ukrainian aid in a foreign national security package. After the vote, Republicans lined up on the House floor to shake Johnson’s hand and pat him on the back. Greene’s GOP colleagues had warned Johnson that kowtowing to her would put him in danger. Johnson has been Speaker for a little over six months, and Greene prepared her motion to vacate six weeks ago.

On Steve Bannon’s podcast, Greene said:

“We need to act like Republicans. We need to demand control and we need to stop the government from being used for politics.”

Republicans voting with Greene against tabling the motion were Warren Davidson (OH), Alex Mooney (WV), Barry Moore (AL), Victoria Spartz (IN), Chip Roy (TX, Paul Gosar (AZ) Eli Crane (AZ), Eric Burlison (MO), Thom Massie (KY), and Andy Biggs (AZ). Born in Ukraine, Spartz also voted against aid for her birth country.

Republicans, who don’t want to use the government for politics, plan to hold AG Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for allegedly impeding their Biden impeachment inquiry because he won’t give them an audio recording of special counsel Robert Hur’s interview of Biden—only the transcript. They want information about discussions of Ukraine documents which is not in the transcripts.

Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is also making news with his announcement that he had a parasitic worm that ate part of his brain before it died and both short- and long-term memory loss causing “cognitive” problems. The parasite can cause neurologic symptoms including headaches, convulsions, epileptic seizures, and even death. He was also diagnosed with mercury poisoning what can cause speech and hearing impairment, muscle weakness, lack of coordination, and other symptoms. The 70-year-old has boasted about being a healthier, younger alternative to Biden and DDT, and his spokeswoman stated he had resolved these issue over 10 years ago. 

Previously, Kennedy explained his strained, sometimes hoarse voice is caused by spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological disorder that causes involuntary spasms in the muscles of the voice box, and he became infected with hepatitis C from intravenous drug use in his youth. It was treated. In 2001, Kennedy was hospitalized for atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat caused by a common heart abnormality that can cause strokes, and said in 2012 he was hospitalized three more times for that condition.

Kennedy used Russian propaganda in his four-minute history about its invasion of Ukraine, according to conservative factchecker Glenn Kessler. The presidential candidate’s “history lesson” stated that Russia was “invaded three times through Ukraine,” the reason Vladimir Putin doesn’t want Ukraine to join NATO. The last time by Hitler would have been 80 years ago. Kessler said the Russian attack before that one was in 1812 by French Emperor Napoleon Bonapart, but he didn’t go through Ukraine.

The ”history” cited a non-existent conversation between Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and George H.W. Bush in which the U.S. promised that it “will not move NATO one inch toe the east.” Three former Soviet republics—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—are NATO countries. NATO was created in 1949. Among the false statements in his lecture, Kennedy got the number of countries in NATO correct.

Like DDT, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) finds candidate Kennedy a threat to his reelection if Kennedy is on the Texas ballot. Kennedy supporters prefer Democrat Colin Allred to Cruz by a significant margin. Needing almost 141,000 signature to run, the independent candidate has collected over 200,000, although they aren’t yet verified. The deadline is Monday.

Gay Kevin Spacey, allegedly committing multiple sexually attacking men, endorsed Kennedy for president because he opposes vaccines. The anti-LGBTQ+ candidate repeatedly stated that human-made chemicals in the environment, “endocrine disrupters,” may cause children to be gay or transgender, feminize boys, and masculinize girls. In contrast, Marjorie Taylor Greene believes Kennedy isn’t sufficiently transphobic to be present because he was uncertain about whether gender-affirming medical care, supported by the American Medical Association (AMA), should be available to trans minors.

Louisiana is appealing the three-judge panel’s blocking the state’s latest congressional maps that found the state shouldn’t draw district lines complying with the Voting Rights Act to create a second minority opportunity district. The panel had given June 3 as the deadline for passing an interim remedial map. If the state Legislature doesn’t pass a new map by then, the judges will impose one themselves.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, according to Isaac Newton’s third law of motion. The response to college campus protests against the Israel genocide in Gaza is an example of his premise. Students, mostly peaceful before law enforcement arrives, fight back when college administrations send in law enforcement who beat up the protesters. Some schools, however, talk to students and reach agreements. Usually, students request an end to the Israeli war, disclosures of institutional investments, and divestment from companies tied to Israel or otherwise profit from its military operation in Gaza. In some places, agreements lead to nonviolent dismantling of encampments before graduation. Brown and Northwestern were the first, followed by Rutgers, Johns Hopkins, University of Minnesota, and the University of California, Riverside. Northwestern agrees to peaceful demonstration but no tents through the end of classes on June 1. In return, students can be represented on investment comments, and the school will bring Palestinian students to campus. Although not completely satisfied, students at these schools celebrate the agreements as incremental steps. Other schools such as Wesleyan University look to these schools as models. The journey to the bargaining table at four schools is here.

Over 750 Jewish students at U.S. universities have signed an open letter urging institutions to take action in stopping Israel’s “genocidal assault on Gaza.” The letter states they are “deeply disturbed by the small number of individuals who have attempted to co-opt these encampments to spread violent, hateful, and antisemitic messages” but “wholeheartedly reject the claim that these encampments are antisemitic and that they are an inherent threat to Jewish student safety.” The students responded to Biden’s speech about antisemitism on campuses. Last week, Biden faced backlash for falsely characterizing the campus encampments as lawless and violent while ignoring police brutality and physical attacks against protesters, including a mob assault at the University of California, Los Angeles. More of the letter’s contents is here. It concludes  :

“We demand that academic and political leaders stop misrepresenting and demonizing protests and their organizers, protect the voices of student activists, and take immediate action to stop Israel’s genocidal acts before more Palestinians are killed.”

In 2022, the year that Russia invaded Ukraine, oil company BP’s profit of $27.7 billion, double the previous year.

Conservatives Churn On

Another Boeing whistleblower has reported safety concerns about the company’s manufacturing in taking shortcuts building the 787 and 777 jets. After he raised concerns with his bosses, he was “threatened with termination.” Other punishments, according to his lawyers, were being “excluded from important meetings, projects, and communication, denied reasonable requests for medical leave, assigned work outside of his expertise, and effectively declared persona non grata to his colleagues.” Boeing said they were confident the planes were safe because he was wrong. The 787 Dreamliner has dealt with quality complaints from its beginning in 2011, causing halted deliveries for two years from raised issues.  

The company has delivered only 83 planes in the first quarter of 2024, the fewest since 2021. It has been facing scrutiny since an unused exit door broke off shortly after takeoff in Portland (OR) last January, leading to dozens of 737 Max 9 planes being grounded, regulatory investigations, and slowing production of its planes.

Republicans are traumatized about Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling declaring validity for a 1864 complete ban on abortion with prison sentences for those violating the law. Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) said, “That will be straightened out” after he had supported states’ rights. He also said he wouldn’t sign a national ban but isn’t known for telling the truth. Some state GOP legislators are running away from the law after supporting it the day after Roe v. Wade was overturned. State Republicans also blocked a bill to repeal the 1864 law by immediately supporting a temporary adjournment before a vote. Yet far-right Republican Anthony Kern, also a fake elector in 2020, led a prayer group speaking in tongues on the Senate floor hours before the Supreme Court ruling.  

In 1864, doctors didn’t wash their hands to prevent infections in 1864, women couldn’t vote, and Arizona was on the side of the Confederacy. A timeline of changes in obstetric care during the past 160 years. Abandoning her previous support for the 1864 law, GOP candidate for U.S. Senate Kari Lake has asked Gov. Katie Hobbs, who Lake doesn’t recognize as the governor, to find a “common sense solution” because Lake “oppose[s] the ruling.”

Another outdated law, the 1873 Comstock Act, could block abortion in the U.S. and also remove access to contraception. Law professor at the University of California, Davis Mary Ziegler called the law about “sexual purity”:

“The fear was that if people knew about abortion and contraception, which was also outlawed originally, that they would have sex they shouldn’t have, just as if they, you know, looked at pornography.”

Both Supreme Court justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Alito cited the Comstock Act during oral arguments about access to abortion medication, mifepristone, and Erin Hawley, attorney for blocking the drug and wife of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), used the law to argue against the safest medication for abortion.

Wisconsin faced the same crisis when its 1849 anti-abortion could have gone into effect after Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022. Fortunately, a 1985 state law stated that a medical abortion is only illegal “after the fetus or unborn child reaches viability,” but women in Wisconsin were denied abortions for 15 months because of the 1849 law. In July 2023, a circuit court ruled that the 1849 state “abortion ban” does not apply to consensual abortions, only to infanticide.  

In more chaos for House Republicans, far-right House extremists are following DDT’s order to “KILL FISA,” as he posted on Truth Social. He added, “IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME…. THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN!!!” Nineteen Republicans followed his order in a vote of 193-228 to defeat a rule to move forward the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which accidentally scooped up information from U.S. citizens in the country. The law will expire on April 19 if not renewed. Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson (R-LA) hopes to vote on a bill to reauthorize Section 702 for five years while Congress would work on reforms protecting people in the U.S. from state surveillance. The original Section 702 was intended to permit warrant-less surveillance of foreigners overseas.

Bill Barr, former DDT attorney general, called DDT’s statement “crazy and reckless.” In addition, he pointed out DDT’s falsehood because the wiretap of DDT’s former campaign adviser Carter Page during the 2016 election had a warrant and therefore no connection to Section 702. Barr warned that the expiration will result in foreign attacks on the U.S., “blood on people’s hands,” and stated that DDT told him to renew the law while he was in the White House. Barr said he will vote for DDT in the general election.

Trying to remain as Speaker, Johnson (R-LA) is holding a joint press conference on Friday with DDT at Mar-a-Lago about “election integrity.” Johnson is also weaponizing the Bible, using the verse “Bless those who persecute you,” against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene(R-GA) and others trying to oust him. He added the biblical admonition to “return good for evil” in specifically addressing Greene. According to Johnson, Greene won’t “visit” with him. Greene wrote a five-page letter to her colleagues explaining why the House needs a new speaker and how Johnson is like former Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Resigning from the House at the end of 2023, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is commenting about Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who led the vote to depose him. McCarthy and his allies still resent Gaetz for his “motion to vacate,” and McCarthy told an audience at Georgetown University that he lost the position because “one person wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old.” Later he added, “Did he do it? I don’t know.” The DOJ dropped its probe into Gaetz’s alleged sex trafficking, which he denied, but the House Ethics Committee is investigating Gaetz. McCarthy’s choice for his congressional replacement can run for the district after state appeals court ruled Vince Fong can run for both the U.S. House and California Assembly in November.

GOP House members have complained about Russian propaganda spread on the chamber floor, but the Senate has its share too. On Newsmax, Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) condemned U.S. aid to Ukraine as “waste,” using the popular Kremlin falsehood that the funding goes to luxuries for Ukrainian leaders. Two years ago, he said that Russian President Vladimir Putin needed Ukraine for “more farmland” because “he can’t feed his people.” A member of the Armed Services Committee, Tuberville repeatedly blames the U.S. for Russia’s invasion.

GOP Senate candidates apparently don’t want to live in the state that they represent. Tuberville hasn’t proved that he lives in Alabama, and Eric Hovde, running for the U.S. Senate from Wisconsin, has a mansion and business in California. Former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) is a candidate for the U.S. Senate in that state, but a staffer for his Democratic rival, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), found evidence that Rogers is registered to vote in Cape Coral, Florida.

At this time, Rogers is living at his sister-in-law’s home while renovating a house in Michigan’s West Lake Township. For residency, the constitution requires only that he be a legal resident of the state where he is running at the time of the election. His flood insurance for the Florida home requires that replacement money can go only if the affected property is the insured’s principal residence. Insurance is less for a secondary residence. Running against another former House member, Peter Meijer, Rogers is endorsed by DDT.

Despite threats of contempt, DOJ refused to give Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and James Comer (R-KY) the tapes of Robert Hur’s interview with Biden in the probe into the president’s possession of classified documents. Hur recommended no charges but made unsubstantiated accusations about Biden’s mental ability. The DOJ already provided the two men transcripts of the interviews and will give them transcripts of Hur’s interview with Biden’s ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer, calling that an “extraordinary accommodation.” Comer ignored the independence of the DOJ by stating that “the Biden Administration does not get to determine what Congress needs and does not need for its oversight of the executive branch.”

Red states have found a way to block Joe Biden’s name on the ballot as a presidential candidate in November after they squalled like stuck pigs when DDT’s name was temporarily removed for being an insurrectionist. First, Ohio declared that Democratic confirmation of Biden’s candidacy would be too late because the deadline of August 7 to verify candidates falls after the DNC convention. Alabama was second with the same excuse of its August 15 deadline. The Democratic convention is August 19-22. In 2020, DDT had the same problem in Alabama with the lateness of the Republican National Convention, but the GOP legislature passed a law allowing ballot access for DDT.

The RNC is searching for election deniers and conspiracy theorists to monitor voting polls in November, especially in swing states. One of their beliefs is that they must stop the “8 million illegal aliens that have invaded America under Biden” to illegally vote for him. Leaders of these extremists are claiming huge evidence-free numbers of fraudulent ballots primarily from Democrats. After Ronna McDaniel was fired from the RNC, the new leadership is composed of election deniers.

House GOP Failures, News Bits from the Week

Over half the House Republicans went home or to some other location instead of the annual GOP retreat, this year in West Virginia, losing another few days of working on the appropriations bills necessary to stop the government shutdown on March 22. With such a poor turnout, the two-and-a-half-day schedule was condensed into 24 hours, and Republicans spent the first day at the hotel bar or golfing if they didn’t just leave. The second day’s agenda, policy and strategies for expanding the majority in this election, was dropped, and Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson (R-AL) begged House Republicans not to attack and campaign against their colleagues. Those guilty weren’t present: Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) was in Florida speaking on behalf of Rep. Tony Gonzalez’s (R-TX) opponent and said he couldn’t hear Johnson from San Antonio.

Blame for the disaster largely fell on Speaker Johnson, who complained about how little sleep he has gotten since he took the position and how he had to fight “internecine warfare” between Republicans. At the retreat, Johnson presented the idea splitting next year’s funding bills into four groups, each with a separate deadline and allow four shutdowns instead of two.

Republicans claim that the majority of people like their anti-abortion policy; they just need to change their message. With the advice of DDT’s former adviser Kellyanne Conway, Republicans are told be told to go on aggressive offense, talking more about anti-abortion. The official GOP platform states that “the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed”—basically a complete ban on abortion.

Pro-DDT, “America First” Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC), chair of the National Republican Congression Committee, presented this push for anti-abortion. Only 8 percent of people in the U.S. want a complete ban on abortion, and three-fourths of people believe the issue of abortion is important to them. Another issue that Republicans find difficult is the extremely popular in vitro fertilization (IVF); over half the GOP conference signed on to a bill defining “human being” beginning at “the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.”

A major House failure was the impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden that Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) promised would lead to criminal referrals. Republicans haven’t admitted their failure yet, but they believe they don’t have the votes. The impeachment focused on Hunter Biden, the president’s son, but none of the witnesses presented any evidence, including Hunter himself who won’t be available for the March 20 public hearing scheduled. Hunter’s closed-door deposition gave them nothing negative about the president. In 14 months, the committee collected over 100,000 pages of documents and over 40 interviews including Biden family members, business associates, administration personnel, DOJ officials, and Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers.

Comer’s “star witness” and supposed reliable informant Alexander Smirnov, was indicted for lying to the FBI about Hunter and Joe Biden’s non-existent claims about Ukraine. Smirnov had worked for a U.S. company connected to a UK company owned by DDT business associates in Dubai and paid $600,000 in 2020 when he started lying about the Bidens. DDT made $5 million on a licensing deal in 2017 after he said he would do no personal business deals as a president. Texas-based ETT Investment Holding Limited’s vague business model has this mission statement:

“ETT set up the chess board to bring in top notch executives from those sectors to help implement its vision of love and social impact to improve the quality of human existence through the application of ‘new age’ technologies.”

Asked about evidence to impeach Biden, Speaker Johnson pled lack of time to “do the deep dive in the evidence” because he was “so busy with all my other responsibilities.” The entire object of the impeachment, other than retaliation for impeachments against DDT, is to smear Biden in the election year, and but Republicans failed in this intent. Comer now says “my job was never to impeach” because the Democratic majority in the Senate made it a dead end. The House GOP has yet to send articles of its Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas impeachment to the Senate. The impeachment campaigns by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Comer, known for announcing “evidence,” face GOP ridicule with descriptions such as “clueless,” “disaster,” and “parade of embarrassments.”

The inability to impeach Biden caps a series of GOP failures regarding their investigations of investigations. Special counsel John Durham’s investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference was a gigantic flop. Undaunted, the GOP House majority supported Jordan’s weaponization” committee that has had no successes in its 13 months. Recently, Rep. Barry Loudermilk’s (R-GA) January 6 investigation committee of the House January 6 insurrection investigative committee couldn’t deliver the goods, and Jordan’s hearing with Robert Hur, trying to prove Joe Biden’s “senility,” was a bust.

Loudermilk, chair of the Administration’s subcommittee on oversight, had  taken about 20 people on a tour of the Capitol on January 5 when at least one person was seen photographing hallways, tunnels, etc. Members of the original committee, including vice-chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) and chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS), called his report’s results dishonest, and an aide described it as revisionist history. The report falsely claims that the original investigative committee was designed to promote a political narrative, a Democrat should have gotten Cheney’s vice-chair position, and the committee deleted records and hid evidence. Another accusation was that “star witness” Cassidy Hutchinson had changed her testimony, but that happened after she dropped the DDT-paid lawyer who told her to lie on the stand. Her testimony about DDT lunging at the steering wheel in the SUV after the speech at the ellipse was refuted by the driver, but no one knows who his lawyer is.  

A few bits:

DDT’s “trade adviser” Peter Navarro lost his appeal with the D.C. Circuit Court and goes to prison for four months on March 29 for refusing to comply with a subpoena for testimony to the House January 6 insurrection investigative committee.  

Furious with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) call for new elections in Israel to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, GOP senators said that his 45-minute speech was a major miscalculation. Schumer said the Israeli leader has “lost his way” in a coalition with “far-right extremists” and “too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows.” At the House GOP retreat, Speaker Johnson called a press conference to call Schumer’s comments “inappropriate” and “wrong.”

A woman claiming that Gaetz had sex with her when she was an underaged 17-year-old has subpoenaed him for a civil defamation and racketeering case brought by Gaetz’s longtime friend Chris Dorworth against the woman and others.

Louis DeJoy, DDT’s appointment for Postmaster General, has moved 59 mail processing facilities in 35 states hundreds of miles away from post offices, sometimes in other states with possible reassignments and layoffs. The change may make the two-day standard for local first-class mail impossible, a concern to mail service use for business, bill-paying, medication orders, newspapers, and other communication. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has led a letter of protest to DeJoy.

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), hoping to be DDT’s pick for vice president, has become another lawmaker who is taking credit for benefits from the spending that she voted against because it advanced of a “far-left radical agenda.” Her press release reported that she is “proud” to have “secured $1.8 million in funding” for public water service in the town of Massena.

After the House passed a GOP-sponsored bill to force the social platform TikTok to be sold by its Chinese parent company, DDT’s former Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnuchin announced he is building a coalition of investors to purchase it. If the Senate passes the bill, Mnuchin, like Elon Musk and DDT, would be charge of a social platform controlling what information is available to its users. Mnuchin has already said he is available to work in another DDT administration. At this time, the app is a primary news platform for U.S. people under the age of 30. During his time in the White House, DDT wanted TikTok sold to a U.S. company, and Mnuchin was in his Cabinet. Saudi Arabia gave Mnuchin $1 billion at the same time it gifted DDT’s son in law Jared Kushner $2 billion. The conservative company Oracle also wants to purchase TikTok.

Elon Musk canceled The Don Lemon Show on X after Lemon asked Musk, a self-identified “free speech absolutist,” an awkward question. Lemon plans to air his interview on YouTube. He had inquired about Musk’s responsibility for moderating hate speech on his social platform. Musk answered by saying he didn’t have to answer questions from reporters.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR), representing over 1 million realtors, has removed the standard six percent commission in home purchases after settling with groups of home sellers. NAR will also pay $418 million in damages. New rules block agents’ compensation from multiple listing services and the requirement that brokers subscribe to multiple listing services. Mandated are written agreements between buyers’ brokers and buyers. Commissions may fall 25 percent to 50 percent, opening up chances for other existing models of selling real estate without much market share such as flat-fee and discount brokerages. Shares of Zillow and Compass each fell by other 13 percent on Friday and homebuilder stocks rose.

In a short unsigned order, the Supreme Court is leaving a ban on a “PG-13” drag show at West Texas A&M University in place. No dissents were noted.

Republicans Keep Losing

After stalling for over five months, the House easily passed a minibus of six appropriations bills negotiated in secret between leaders of both congressional chambers and backed by President Joe Biden. In a 339-85 vote, GOP members caved on their guarantee that bills must be passed separately and only by Republicans. The 1,050-page bill can keep lights on until October 1, 2025, in 30 percent of the government—departments of Justice, Transportation, Energy, Agriculture, Commerce, Interior, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Drug Administration, and government research functions. 

The far-right House members railed against the bill, but Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson (R-LA) declared it a political “reality” with the divided Congress and the tiny two-vote GOP House majority. The media delighed in pointing out that Republicans are “defunding the police,” a slam used to attack Democrats, by cutting budgets for intelligence agencies. Democrats fully funded the WIC program providing food assistance for women, infants, and children plus rental assistance, a pay raise for firefighters, and additional air traffic controllers. Right-wing extremists failed to block funding for Planned Parenthood, slash resources for the Education Department, create rigid new immigration restrictions, and remove funding for the climate agenda. More reasonable Republicans, however, know that they can suffer a heavy penalty for a government shutdown.

Johnson seems to be safe from ousting like former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) despite the growing disdain for him among his caucus. A majority of the $12.6 billion in earmarks, covering 605 pages, also goes to Republicans. If all goes smoothly, the House must then attack the next six appropriations bills that are due by March 22, a much harder job because they fund the Defense, State and Homeland Security departments, among other agencies and programs. At least, they succeeded in splitting the bills into two parts; the government has been funded through one omnibus package since 2018. A big loss is lack of any funding for Ukraine.

On the day after Super Tuesday, three major political figures also caved in—presidential candidates Nikki Haley and Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) along with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

Haley: Jonathan Last described her “cowardly statement” in her “ceding the Republican nomination to a man who drove the American economy into a ditch, mismanaged a pandemic resulting in hundreds of thousands of excess American deaths, attempted a coup, was found guilty of sexual assault in a court of law, and is currently facing 91 felony charges.” No endorsement of DDT.

Biden responded:

“Donald Trump made it clear he doesn’t want Nikki Haley’s supporters. I want to be clear: There is a place for them in my campaign. I know there is a lot we won’t agree on. But on the fundamental issues of preserving American democracy, on standing up for the rule of law, on treating each other with decency and dignity and respect, on preserving NATO and standing up to America’s adversaries, I hope and believe we can find common ground.”

Phillips: Without earning any delegates, compared to Biden’s 1,497, he suspended his campaign and endorsed Biden hours after Haley made her exit announcement.

McConnell: In a pitiful statement, the Senate Minority Leader endorsed DDT, the man who he accused of insurrection immediately after January 6, 2021, because GOP voters support him for the presidential nominee. The two men have had a rocky relationship until it collapsed after DDT’s defeat in 2020 when he didn’t accept the will of the people. DDT called McConnell a “hack,” and McConnell condemned DDT’s “disgraceful dereliction of duty” after DDT’s second impeachment trial, calling him out for his “crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole … orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.” DDT, who appointed DDT’s wife Elaine Chao as the Transportation Secretary, made racist comments about her, but McConnell said no “moral red lines” existed in supporting DDT.

Desperate to be picked for DDT’s vice-president, Rep. Elise Stefanik (D-NY) declared that that people in the U.S. are better off than they were four years ago as the Covid pandemic started killing over a million people in the U.S. and the economy started to tank. DDT contributed to these deaths through first trying to avoid it and then promoting fake solutions while people became isolated and polarized for the remainder of DDT’s term. Her colleagues reminded Stefanik of rationing toilet paper, people dying in hospital hallways, body bags in Central Park, etc.

Biden is scheduled to give the State of the Union address about the condition of the U.S. to a joint congressional session on March 8, and the current GOP congressional tactic in campaigning for DDT is an attempt to block him. Freedom Caucus leader Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) are proposing resolutions to stop it, claiming that the reason is his tardiness in delivering the budget and problems on the U.S. southern border. Perry said that Biden would be there “at the invitation of Congress, and Republicans are in control of the House.” He, Ernst, and other far-right extremists want Speaker Johnson to disinvite him.

The naysayers ignore their rejection of Biden’s emergency security bill, negotiated by conservates, and the congressional inability to put together a budget for the past year. As the saying goes, “The president proposes; Congress disposes.” Biden “proposed” the budget for the current year last March, but Congress has been unable to pass it in almost a year. Republicans have a habit of threatening this denial to Democratic presidents as they did to Bill Clinton and Barack Clinton. The speaker is not required to invite the president, but a president has delivered the address for 99 times.

Speaker Johnson is unlikely to “disinvite” Biden: he is hosting parents of reporter Evan Gershkovich, imprisoned by Russians and accused of espionage two years ago. The purpose may be for political reasons against Biden, but the parents expressed gratitude to Biden “for his continued work on Evan’s behalf.”

Anyone watching the address can expect some Republicans to be rude. The lack of courtesy started when Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouted “You lie” at Barack Obama in 2009 and was reprimanded by the House. No longer, however, is such egregious behavior disciplined. If Republicans believed that Biden is too senile to give the speech, an idea that the media pushes, they would promote the address as proof. The reason behind trying to eliminate the speech might be fear; his retorts in former speeches have been humorous and sharp.  

The speech is a time when presidents deliver their policies, and Biden may announce his “strike force” on unfair, illegal prices that have caused higher prices through illegal corporate behavior. Congress may undermine his attempts to drop prices like they do to anything that might help people and Biden while increasing the DOJ antitrust division. Republicans want to provide only $233 million to the antitrust division and remove the portion of fees paid by companies for DOJ’s reviewing deals. In 2022, Congress raised the fees for the largest deals from $280,000 to $2.5 million, expecting the DOJ to receive a portion of them.

To help control prices, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued to block a merger between grocery store corporations Kroger and Albertsons, and the DOJ and Agriculture Department are addressing lack of competition in meatpacking. Skyrocketing corporation profits also come from “shrinkflation,” charging the same price for a smaller package of food. Biden has embraced the concept of “shrinkflation,” using a Super Bowl message targeting major snack food corporations.  

Biden also plans to highlight rising housing costs in his address, and another Biden task force would investigate healthcare prices, which includes taking patents for some medicines developed with taxpayer funds to sell them at a lower cost. The FTC is also trying to invalidate illegally granted patents raising prices on basic medicines like asthma inhalers. These attempts follow Biden’s caps on prices of insulin for Medicare patients and other drug prices through negotiation.  

n another attempt to save people money, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is finalizing a rule to cap credit card late fees at $8, dropping it from $32. The action would save cardholders $10 billion a year. Another plan to reduce “junk fees” is to heavily decrease charges for debit care overdraft fees.  

After dragging their feet, the Supreme Court justices have scheduled arguments for DDT’s claim of immunity from any criminal prosecution, including the January 6 insurrection, on April 25, the last day of their argument calendar. DDT had hoped to push the trial in Washington, D.C. for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election until after the election with the expectation that he couldn’t be prosecuted until 2029—if then. He may be disappointed if the trial is in late summer or early fall. DDT also has immunity issues in the Florida federal case about his mishandling classified documents and the RICO case in Georgia.

Insanity in Politics; or, Conservative Gone Crazy

A celebration for the Kansas City Chiefs win at the 2024 Super Bowl turned deadly when a mass shooting killed one and wounded at least 25 others, three of them critically and another five seriously injured. Three armed people are in custody, and nearby hospitals are seeing more walk-ins. Kansas and Missouri governors attending the parade were safely evacuated; the Chiefs players and their families are safe. (Left: The crowd for the Chiefs at Union Station.) 

Today’s shooting in Kansas City is at least the 48th mass shooting in the United States on the 45^th day of 2024. Days before this tragedy, Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) bragged to an NRA audience that he had passed no laws to protect people from gun violence.

Six years ago on Valentine’s Day, 17 people were killed at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland (FL), and another 17 were wounded. State Republicans are commemorating the disaster by trying to reverse gun safety laws passed at that time such as restricting the time for background checks to three days and lowering the age to buy rifles—including semi-automatic styles—to 18.

February 14 is also the day that the media discovered a story about a police officer in Oklaloosa County (FL), terrified by an acorn hitting his car, almost killed a Marquis Jackson, a prisoner handcuffed in the back seat last November. When the acorn hit the car, Deputy Jesse Hernandez rolled on the ground, shouted “shots fired” four times, and emptied his weapon into the car, shattering the rear window. He called out, “I’m hit,” and his partner started firing at the car. He hadn’t been hit. Although he had no prior law enforcement before the county hired him almost two years earlier, Hernandez attended West Point and was an Army Special Forces officer for 10 years. He never saw combat. Hernandez resigned during the investigation. Jackson was released, and the county has no record of the episode.

In another shooting, the one at Joel Osteen’s Texas megachurch last Sunday, a women opened fire between services and shot her seven-year-old son and a 57-year-old man. With her typical bigotry, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) managed to get some facts wrong. The woman is from El Salvador, giving Greene the opportunity to rail against immigrants, but she was not trans—she only used a male pseudonym sometimes. The AR-15 had “Palestine” written on it, not “free Palestine,” as Greene claimed. The woman was killed by two off-duty policer officers, making it look like a “good guy with a guy,” but they were hired security. TikTok anti-LGBTQ+ extremist Chaya Raichik from Brookly and chosen for the Oklahoma state education board, also called the woman a “trans terrorist.”

Although the woman suffered from mental illness, the lax Texas gun laws allowed her to legally buy guns because the state has no red flag law to remove weapons for people in crisis. The woman’s former mother-in-law called the shooting “predictable and preventable.”

Last year, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) complained about the GOP House accomplishing nothing, and Dana Milbank’s headline was “Worst. Congress. Ever.” Months later, they should have much more to say about the problems. The first impeachment of a sitting Cabinet member with no cause is the icing on the cake of debacles surrounding electing two different Speakers within ten months, former George Santos’ lying and fraud leading to an extremely rare expulsion, and the most censures against sitting House members since 1870.  

Recent events show increasing disintegration as Republicans continue to attack each other. The shrinking majority caused bitterness about the loss of Santos, especially after he was replaced by a Democrat earlier this week. Some of the more extreme members thought they should have kept him—just for his vote—despite his corrupt and illegal activities as he continues to violate campaign finance laws.

Santos was one of 18 GOP members who came from districts voting for Biden, raising the question of whether some of the remaining 17 will lose to Democrats in the fall. The newly-created New York District 22 is Democrat-leaning, and its one-term GOP member Brandon Williams, won by under one percent. His argument on CNN when he was caught lying about the southern border was “I’m a member of Congress.”

In a bizarre effort to terrify people in the U.S., House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-OH) referred to a “serious national security threat” in communication with President Joe Biden but didn’t identify what it was. Rumors ran rampant for almost a day. Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson said the public didn’t need to be alarmed although references were to Russia. He claimed, “Steady hands are at the wheel,” something no one observing his leadership style would believe.

The “threat” appears to be Russia’s experimentation with disabling satellites with a nuclear weapon, thereby damaging intelligence or communications. Russia has been working on this for at least three years. Turner wants Biden to declassify all information related to the “threat.” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, scheduled for a briefing on Thursday, wondered why Turner chose to publicize the matter.

Once again, Republicans want panic about an issue that they have no interest in repairing as they support Russia over Ukraine. Blocking the emergency funding bill also helps China and Iran. On his first day as Speaker, Johnson said, “We can’t allow Vladimir Putin to prevail in Ukraine.” Yet that’s exactly what he’s doing by keeping the Senate bill from a House vote in an attempt to keep his Speaker position and please his “orange Jesus,” as one of Johnson’s colleagues called DDT.

To create chaos and campaign for DDT, Johnson announced he will start working on a bill to fix the southern border after already rejecting the one negotiated in the Senate. Meanwhile, a $700 million budget shortfall may force U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release thousands of immigrants. Since May, Biden has deported or returned 500,000 migrants, more than DDT did for an entire year. ICE officials may cut detention levels from 38,000 to 22,000. ICE’s shortfall will worsen in the spring when border crossings increase.

In another failure, Johnson pulled a bill to change Section 702, a surveillance law intended for foreigners abroad but allowing warrantless taping of citizens in the U.S., because GOP hawks threatened to keep the bill from debate. Privacy advocates on the Judiciary Committee threatened opposition without amendments to create greater privacy. The withdrawal of the bill is the second time Johnson pull a Section 702 bill during his four-month time as Speaker. He made the surprise decision while the Rules Committee was meeting to ready the bill and amendments for a Thursday floor vote.

Johnson said he was working toward consensus, but a congressional aide said that “the one universal consensus … is that Johnson has no idea what he is doing.” The House leaves Friday until February 28, and the next deadline before a government shutdown is March 1. Instead of working on appropriations bills, Johnson has focused on personal issues such as the Mayorkas’ impeachment.

MAGA complains about Democrats’ taking their privacy, but the anti-abortion group Veritas Society is tracking cell phones through data broker Near Intelligence. Women who visit Planned Parenthood receive disinformation ads, 14.3 million in 2020 just in Wisconsin.

The fifth GOP chair of a major House committee has announced his decision to not run for reelection, another one after the impeachment of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Homeland Security Chair Mark Green (R-TN) cited that House dysfunction and a narrow GOP majority—“frustration of trying to get something done here”—was part of his decision. He called the House “broken.” Green had referred to DDT as the “orange Jesus,” according to former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY).

Jared Kushner, former White House adviser and DDT’s son-in-law, is back in the news—trying to whitewash his history. Speaking at a summit hosted by media company Axios in Miami, he dismissed any conflict of interest regarding Saudi Arabia’s giving him $2 billion for his private equity firm, asking his audience to “point to a single decision we made that wasn’t in the interest of America.” About the torture, murder, and dismemberment of U.S. journalist Jamal Khashoggi with the alleged involvement of Saudi’s crown prince, he called Mohammed bin Salman “a visionary leader.”

Claiming the U.S. has no racism, conservatives are trying to prove themselves wrong. Greene said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) represented Somalia; Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX), called the Black husband of Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) a “thug” and said that the Black woman received death threats because she was “so loud all the time.” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) repeatedly asked TikTok CEO Shou Chew, a Singaporean, about his country of origin, insinuating he is from China and a member of its Communist Party. And that’s in public. During the impeachment of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Homeland Security chair Mark Green (R-TN) called the Cuban man “a reptile with no balls.” That was all last week as they follow DDT’s bigotry.

In Kentucky, a state GOP legislator Jennifer Decker argued against college diversity initiatives by saying her white father was a “slave.” The backlash led her to admit she “probably overstated.” He was a tenant farmer.

A classic example of systemic racism, however, is in a Florida school where students could not attend a “read aloud” to a book “written by an African American” without written permission for parents or guardians. “Types of guest that may attend the activity or event” are “fireman/doctor/artist.” The requirement came from Ron DeSantis’ “Parental Rights” law that “safeguards our children.” Happy Black History Month!

Updates, GOP Opposition to Rights

South Carolina Democratic Primary: President Joe Biden took over 96 percent of the votes and all 55 delegates over Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) and Marianne Williamson. The GOP primary is on February 24. The other two decisions in February are Nevada’s GOP caucus on February 6 and Democratic primary on February 8 with both party primaries in Michigan on February 27.

In the week after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to stop its genocide, Israel killed almost 900 Palestinians as well as wounding another 1,490 and committing other violent acts in occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. Last Tuesday, Israeli soldiers dressed as medical staff invaded a West Bank hospital and executed three Palestinians. Thirty bound, tortured, and executed Palestinians, some of them missing organs, were found in a mass grave at a Gaza school after the ICJ directive. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tries to pass off the murders as “collateral damage.”

A George W. Bush-appointed federal judge in Oakland (CA) dismissed a case to stop the U.S. from helping Israel’s assault on Gaza because of it being “outside the court’s limited jurisdiction” but criticized the Biden administration’s support for the war. He found the ICJ genocide ruling “plausible” and suggested that the U.S. government reconsider its role in supporting the Israeli assault.  

While supporting bloodshed in Gaza, congressional Republicans lambasted executives from social media platforms Meta, X, TikTok, Discord, and Snap about their failure to protect children from scams, predators, and adult material. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) demanded an apology from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) used the hearing for racial profiling when he fired questions at TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew about his connections to “the Chinese Communist Party.” While Chew claimed he is from Singapore, not China, Cotton asked him where he was a citizen, if he had applied for Chinese citizenship, and whether he had a Singaporean passport. Chew told Cotton he was not a member of the Chinese Communist Party, but Cotton said that Singapore “has the highest degree of infiltration and influence by the Chinese Communist Party.” The grilling is highly reminiscent of Sen. Joe McCarthy’s (R-WI) inquisition in the 1950s.

In his opening statement to the hearing, ranking member Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told the tech leaders, “You have blood on your hands.” Graham’s dramatic statement omits the “blood” on GOP hands in their support for deaths from abortions, school shootings, LGBTQ+ youth persecution, etc. Even before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, about 287,000 women died during and following pregnancy and childbirth in 2020. Among LGBT people aged 13 to 24, 41 percent said they seriously considered suicide in the previous twelve months. Hundreds of thousands of students have experienced school shootings while Republicans, like Indiana state Rep. Jim Lucas, suggests that people should carry more guns.

Republicans run for election on “anti-woke” policies and try to suppress the democratic vote, but the vast majority of people in the U.S. disagree with much of GOP ideology:

• 73 percent – Religion should be kept separate from government policies—including 49 percent of white evangelicals.
• 71 percent – Schools should not ban books, and 74 percent trust librarians to make suitable collection decisions.
• 53 percent – Schools should teach about the U.S. racist past with only 26 percent disagree. Minorities (Blacks, 75 percent; Asian Americans, 64 percent; and Hispanics, 59 percent) want heightened public attention to racism.
• 62 percent – Abortion should remain safe and legal in all or most cases. 57 percent trust their Democratic representative “a lot” or “somewhat,” compared to just 26 percent trusting the GOP representation at least “somewhat.”
• 54 percent – Trusting their Democratic representative “a lot” or “somewhat” for affordable healthcare and prescription is compared to just 35 percent trusting their Republican representative at least “somewhat.”

GOP states working to destroy people rights:

Oklahoma: State Superintendent Ryan Walters appointed “Libs of TikTok” creator Chaya Raichik to the Oklahoma State Department of Education Library Media Advisory Committee because of her “anti-woke” philosophy. Known for spreading disinformation and hate speech, much of it toward the LGBTQ+ community, she is not a librarian, has no background in education, has no child attending an Oklahoma school, and doesn’t live in the state. She’s a real estate agent in Brooklyn. Raichik says she “denounced violence,” but her statements preceded bomb threats in the Tulsa Public Schools and death threats against a teacher.

Arizona: The state legislature proposes a bill giving themselves the sole responsibility to certify elections and appoint presidential electors who could negate the popular vote. In 2014, William Kern, the state senator behind the bill, was fired as code enforcement in El Mirage for lying to his supervisor about a lost tablet computer and is on Maricopa County’s “Brady List, a database of police employees with known credibility issues. Kern used campaign funds to attend the January 6, 2021, insurrection although he wasn’t accused of entering the Capitol.

[At its winter conference, the RNC passed a resolution to “vocally” support those who “lawfully” served as DDT’s electors in 2020 in states where President Biden won. If Biden won, DDT’s electors weren’t “lawfully” serving.]

Florida: Co-founder of conservative Moms for Liberty (M4L), Bridget Ziegler, likes threesomes with her husband and another woman, but her organization thinks that children should wear clothes in their books. One removed book, award-winning fantasy In the Night Kitchen, is considered “pornographic” because parents may not be able to talk about a penis with their children. Schools have started drawing clothes on naked bodies. (A bit of hope: Florida’s GOP legislators are turning away from Gov. Ron DeSantis’ book bans after a serious national backlash against the censorship. They recommend a way to block frivolous challenges to books, possibly allowing schools to charge $100 for people who object to over five books. Many challenges have come from M4L, working with the far-right violent group Proud Boys.)

The state motor vehicle agency will put jail transgender people if they try to change their gender on driver’s licenses and face five years in prison and a $5,000 fine for trying to make a false ID. The order rescinds an earlier one allowing the change. The letter equates “gender” with “sex.”

A DDT-appointed federal judge dismissed Disney’s lawsuit against DeSantis accusing him of retaliating against the company for political reasons. Judge Allen Winsor stated that Disney lacks legal standing and the company’s free speech claims failed. DeSantis attacked Disney with threats after the company disagreed with his “don’t say gay” law and removed their long-term governing autonomy over the property.

Former state GOP chair and wife of M4L founder Christian Ziegler wants to invoke a law protecting victims of crimes after he allegedly assaulted a woman with whom he and his wife were having a sexual threesome. The married couple is using that law to fight the release of Christian’s cell phone information obtained by the Saratoga Police Department. He is not facing rape charges but may be charged with video voyeurism by secretly recording his sexual encounter with the woman claiming to be assaulted. Police also found “THE LIST’ on Christian’s phone of multiple women for future threesomes.

Texas: AG Ken Paxton is demanding out-of-state health records to obtain treatment for transgender youth from Texas, permitted by the health privacy of HIPAA. He is following the action of Tennessee AG last July who used the loophole to discover any out-of-state abortion for Tennessee’s residents. Texas law restricting gender-affirming care of minors applies only to in-state providers and doesn’t ban families from seeking out-of-state care.

A school voucher supporter donated $6 million to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s campaign in December. Abbott failed to push through his voucher program, even in two special sessions, and now targets seven anti-voucher state House Republicans. Donor Jeff Yass, a billionaire from Pennsylvania, belongs to a firm early investing in TikTok, banned on Texas state phones and computers because of Abbott. Yass also belongs to a national anti-tax group boosting Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX). 

Arkansas: Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders appointed a man fired from the Benton (AK) police department for lying about a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl to the state parole board. The 34-year-old man was then elected as the board chair but resigned this week after the information became public. Sanders’ spokeswoman said that he “bravely served our nation in the Army and protected his community as a police officer.” Sanders has appointed an anti-LGTBQ+ Christian nationalist to oversee the state library and removed almost 79,000 children from Medicaid.

Ohio: In a murder case against former sheriff’s deputy Jason Meade, prosecutors said that 23-year-old Casey Goodson Jr. was holding keys and a bag of sandwiches when Meade shot him six times, five times in the back. Goodson also wore airpods in his ears and his gun, for which the Black man had a permit, was found in his kitchen with the safety on. Meade said that Goodson had threatened him with a gun.

Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) Xed that a migrant should be thrown out of a helicopter, the same tactic that Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet had used on an undocumented migrant. “Pinochet Air” was the term for so-called “death flights” used by Pinochet’s secret police when critics and dissidents disappeared by being thrown out of helicopters into the ocean and rivers. X posted that Collins’ comment violated the platform’s rules but “it may be in the public’s interest for the Post to remain accessible.” Collins responded, “Never surrender.”

Losing Conservatives:

Kansas AG Kris Kobach has lost again, this time to a lawsuit about the legality of the election law passed by the GOP legislation over Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto. The state Supreme Court’s most conservative member wrote the unanimous opinion that supported a lower court ruling against Kobach’s argument that voting rights weren’t protected by the constitution and permitting the legislature to pass any voting legislation it wishes. The debated law would have limited the number of advance ballots one person could deliver to an election office and require election volunteers to verify signatures on these ballots. Kobach’s restrictions came from election fraud concerns although Kansas has no evidence of this fraud.

Republicans think that their anti-abortion position won’t hurt them in the 2024 election, but women throughout the country are fighting for rights over their body. Nine states, some of them conservative, have already passed initiatives to allow abortion deadlines longer than their state laws, and nine more are working on more initiatives for 2024. In Florida, which has banned almost all abortions after the 15^th week of pregnancy, people are gathering petition signatures for a referendum changing the deadline for an abortion to the fetus’ viability, about the 24^th week. Over 150,000 registered GOP voters have signed the petition to extend the deadline, and Republicans are arguing small government, personal privacy, and “an overwhelming consensus of the governed” to pass the referendum.

The law requires verified signatures from almost 891,523 registered voters by the end of December. Over 1.3 million voters have already signed, and almost 690,000 have been validated. In a poll from the University of North Florida, 62 percent support the proposed constitutional amendment, and only 29 percent reject the measure. Florida ballot measures require a supermajority of 60 percent approval to be enacted. GOP presidential candidate Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) has condemned the six-week ban on abortion which another presidential candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis endorsed.  

Idaho’s strict anti-abortion laws have infringed on the rights to contraception, and women are organizing to oppose this restriction. Republicans lack an understanding of the difference between birth control and abortifacients such as the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone.

Another likely loser is DDT’s former chief-of-staff Mark Meadows the co-defendant in the Georgia RICO who returned to court to move his own case into federal court. A three-judge panel from the 11^th Circuit Court appeared doubtful that the case should be moved. The law allows federal officials to move legal cases related to official duties. In September, U.S. district judge Steve Jones ruled against Meadows’ move because “political activity” is outside the scope of his duties. Meadows appealed the case to the 11^th Circuit Court. 

The law allows federal officials to move legal cases related to official duties, but the panel questioned whether the law applies to former officers or just current ones because the case of a former officer “doesn’t involve the ongoing operations of the government.” Moving the case to federal court doesn’t make it a federal case that a president could pardon. One judge on the panel stated that Meadows’ testimony in the lower court provided no “outer limits” to his duties and asked how that reconciled with the Hatch Act, restricting federal employees from partisan political activity. If the panel rules against him, Meadows can appeal to the entire 11^th Circuit Court and then the Supreme Court.

 Senior officials of the Conservative Political Action Conference knew about earlier sexual misconduct accusations toward its chair Matt Schlapp but didn’t investigate or remove him, according to a lawsuit for sexual battery and defamation. Victims reported Schlapp’s unwanted advances at least twice to CPAC’s parent organization, the American Conservative Union, but no one took action. Additional charges were $3.7 million in punitive damages and costs plus the ACU as a defendant to Schlapp and his wife in the original $9.4 million suit. ACU has already paid $1 million in legal fees as of August. The trial is scheduled for June 2024.

Former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who resigned after he was ousted as Speaker, has returned to California with no job after he gave his resignation speech to an almost empty House. The last straw for conservative voters may have been his deal with Democrats to pass a 45-day stopgap funding bill to prevent a government shutdown. Ironically, his replacement did the same thing with no reprisal.

Upon his departure, McCarthy had hoped his former district director Vince Fong could be a shoo-in candidate to replace him, but California law has blocked that strategy. Fong already filed for reelection to the state Assembly and cannot withdraw because the deadline has passed. State law also prevents him from running for two offices at the same time. Fong said that he will fight the Secretary of State’s decision.

McCarthy’s replacement for Speaker, MAGA Mike Johnson (R-LA), is running out of favors after hardliner conservatives become increasingly unhappy with him. Some of the statements:

“When you try to please both [sides], you never please anybody…. My thought was always we could shore him up, but I’m not so sure.” – Andy Biggs (R-AZ)

“Yesterday.” – Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) when Johnson should take a hands-on approach to the funding fight

“He’s trying to satisfy all of our conference, which I don’t know that he can…. But you gotta remember this is the first time he’s been in this role, not even as an assistant majority leader, so it’s like drinking from Niagara Falls.” – Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID)

(If he agrees to compromises that the right flank takes issue with), “then the Freedom Caucus will absolutely be a problem.” – Rep. Bob Good, new head of the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus (R-VA)

Californians may be saving water if the state Water Resources passes a proposal to streamline “direct potable reuse” (DPR), discharging  purified wastewater into a public water system or just upstream from a treatment plant instead of using it once and then sending it to the ocean. Orange County has used this process for almost 50 years with the world’s biggest water purification system for DPR and reclaims 100 percent of its wastewater. The process would require at least six months before the proposal is accepted by the state’s Office of Administrative Law. Colorado and Texas are considering similar DPR regulations.

Texas has been threatening to secede from the U.S. for over 160 years since 1861, that time the argument over the state keeping slavery. During the 1990s, it became a popular issue for conservatives; secession as a topic has returned with the Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM). The group’s president delivered 139,456 signatures to the state GOP in favor of “Texit,” a March 2024 ballot referendum. State law requires five percent of the most recent primary election vote for governor. With 1,954,172 ballots in 2022, TNM needs only 97,709 verified signatures. TNM declares that a vote to secede is not treason or declaration of war against the U.S. Referenda in Texas need only 50 percent plus one to pass, and 13 of 14 referenda on the 2023 ballot were approved. 

TNM is promising no taxes, no speed zones, no toll roads, no liberals, no gun laws, no windmills, no poor people, and “complete control of our own immigration policy.” According to Calver Kamau-Imani, a preacher and member of the TNM advisory board, “We are going to be so rich!” One-third of the Texas budget comes from federal funds, and secession means that the almost 30 million Texans would each pay $9,000 to replace federal programs such as Social Security and Medicare. 

According to early polling and fundraising, President Joe Biden is getting a boost from the GOP anti-Biden impeachment crusade, just as the GOP helped Democrats by talking about impeaching Barack Obama before the 2014 midterms. At that time, the benefit to the Dems was so great that then-House Speaker John Boehner told reporters the impeachment idea was “a scam started by Democrats”—which it wasn’t. The reason was straightforward: the more voters to left of center who believed Republicans might try to impeach President Obama, the more motivated the Democratic voters were willing to donate and vote.

In Vatican City, at 0.17 square miles the smallest country in the world, Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, possibly the next pope, has been found guilty of three counts of embezzlement and sentenced to five years and six months. Becciu was acquitted of money laundering, abuse of office, and influencing a witness; his lawyers plan to appeal the decision. Eight of Becciu’s co-defendants—Vatican officials, Italian business executives, consultants and brokers—were found guilty of financial crimes or abuse of office. A ninth was acquitted of all charges. The court has ordered the guilty to pay over $200 million in restitution. 

Fined 8,000 euros ($8,700), Becciu is barred from holding any Vatican office. The investigation was created by a bad investment in a luxury London property when Becciu transferred 200 million euros in 2013 and 2014, discovered to be embezzlement. The property has since been sold for a $175 million loss. Becciu also illegally funneled 125,000 euros (about $136,400) in a Sardinian charity run by his brother and transfered 570,000 euros (about $622,000) to Cecilia Marogna, a Sardinian woman with a humanitarian organization in Slovenia who, Becciu said, was supposed to help free a kidnapped nun. He has claimed innocence to all the charges.

The jail has three cells, one of them occupied in 2021 by Monsignor Carlo Capella, incarcerated for five years for possessing and sharing child pornography. Each cell has a toilet, an immovable iron bed, and a table anchored to the wall. Although the windows have bars, the glass can be opened. Convicts can be transferred to Italy.

Do-Nothing GOP Picks Dictators for Support

[Update: Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) praised Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson (R-LA) for blurring faces on released January 6 footage to protect them from “insurrection hunters” and defended those who took his unauthorized tour the day before the attack. He criticized releasing the name for one of the tour members who was filmed making violent threats against Democratic lawmakers outside the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Loudermilk claims the tour didn’t enter the Capitol, but footage shows the tour member inside the Capitol taking the photographs of hallways, tunnels, stairs, security checkpoints, etc.]

The Texas Supreme Court blocked an abortion for 20-week pregnant Kate Cox, overriding the advice of the Cox’s doctor who said that carrying the dying fetus can make her infertile or kill her. The court ignored Cox’s medical needs by stating that a medically necessary procedure is insufficient to qualify for the state’s exception, yet stated that “the law leaves to physicians—not judges—both the discretion and the responsibility to exercise their reasonable medical judgment.” On November 27, Cox’s fetus was diagnosed with full trisomy 18, usually resulting in miscarriage, stillbirth, or death soon after birth. According to the court, Cox’s doctor must be 100 percent positive that the woman faces severe health problems and the fetus a fatal diagnosis.

Before the all-white all-Republican court made its decision, Cox left Texas to obtain an abortion in another state. She had previously been to the emergency room at least four times during this pregnancy with “severe cramping, diarrhea, and leaking unidentifiable fluid.” All but one of Texas’ neighboring states, New Mexico, have banned the procedure, and women are flooding that state as well as Colorado and Kansas while suffering delays in care. At least one woman who could not afford to leave the state for an abortion was forced to carry a nonviable pregnancy to term.

In three other states, supreme courts are considering abortion cases:

Arizona: Two conflicting laws, one outlawing abortions after 15 weeks and the 1864 law almost completely banning the procedure, must be reconciled. The state Court of Appeals stated that non-physicians must comply with the 1864 law and doctors can follow the 15-week deadline. The conservative state supreme court justices, all appointed by GOP governors, must settle an appeal.

New Mexico: Abortion is legal after the state repealed a 1969 ban in 2021, but local governments are trying to ban the procedure. Democratic Attorney General Raúl Torrez asked the state Supreme Court to nullify local ordinances that cite the 150-year-old Comstock Act prohibiting the mailing of anything used to induce abortion.

Wyoming: The state constitution gives people the right to make their own healthcare decisions, but the question is whether abortion is healthcare. Wyoming law has a near-total ban on abortion and abortion medication that is temporarily blocked.

A lower court in Idaho will hear arguments about whether four women denied abortions despite risk to their health can continue their lawsuit against the state. Idaho’s ban permits abortions only in cases of rape, incest, and medical emergencies.

Justice Clarence Thomas is furious because the Supreme Court refused a challenge to Washington’s state law protecting LGBTQ+ youths from conversion therapy. The 9^th Circuit Court upheld the law after a Christian marriage and family counselor complained that it censors his conversation with clients in violation of the First Amendment. The circuit court said that the law prohibits certain professional conduct, not speech. Thomas was joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh in dissent. Washington and other jurisdictions pass laws barring the “therapy” because of the traumatic effects on patients in counseling to change gender identity or sexual orientation. Most medical associations disagree that same-sex attraction or nonconforming gender expression and identity is physical or mental illness.

Thomas calls the appeal a First Amendment issue, but over 60 percent of youth receiving conversion therapy have attempted suicide, twice the percentage of those who aren’t forced into the “treatment.” In a 2013 survey, 84 percent of former patients experiencing ex-gay therapy said it inflicted lasting shame and emotional harm. Methods include talk therapy, medication, surgery, electro-shock “therapy,” and “physical and psychological violence,” according to the Independent Forensic Expert Group on Conversion Therapy. Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia ban conversion therapy. Although Thomas says he advocates free speech, he has never objected to state laws forcing doctors to lie to their patients about abortions.

While GOP House members play games with condemning Hunter Biden and an impeachment inquiry of his father, President Joe Biden, they have only three days to finish must-do business for 2023:

• Foreign aid and security bill with aid for the Indo-Pacific, Israel, and Ukraine along with southern border issues.
• Reauthorizing the annual defense authorization bill.
• Reauthorizing a national security surveillance measure.

Speaker Johnson is pushing impeachment after saying four years ago that it would cause “irreparable damage” to the country when former Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) was the subject. In 2019, Johnson said that with the election in 11 months “let the people decide.” With no evidence of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” Johnson called the allegations against Biden “the worst in the history of the country.” After their attacks on Democrats, extremist Republicans hope they will cave in and call on Biden to save them. 

Last week, the House focused on censuring Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) with a vote of 214-191 for pulling a fire alarm shortly before a vote on government funding. Pleading guilty to a misdemeanor, Bowman said he was trying to get a usually-unlocked door open in another building, causing the evacuation of staffers.

The three-month session of the 72nd Congress’ second year in 1931-1932 under President Herbert Hoover, the three-month session saw the passage of only 21 bills. Two days before the end of the 1923 session, the 118^th Congress barely missed making history, squeaking by with 22 bills into law, one of them for a coin and another two naming buildings. In the preceding two years, the 117^th Congress, with Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) leading the House, passed 362 laws.

Republicans unanimously selected Speaker Johnson but the bloom is disappearing from the rose. The far-right is upset after he made a deal with the Senate to pass the obligatory National Defense Authorization Act to drop conservative provisions against drag shows on military bases, leave and travel expenses for reproductive care including abortions, limits on transgender healthcare, and bans of LGBTQ+ books in military schools. The addition of Section 702 extension for surveillance also raised anger from the Freedom Caucus.  

Conservatives still have limited restrictions on diversity initiatives and bans on teaching critical race theory in military schools, funding for drag performances on military bases, and official displays of “unapproved” flags including pride banners. A requirement in the proposed law is a special inspector general’s office to monitor U.S. military assistance to Ukraine.

As Johnson well knows, his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was removed from Speaker for cutting deals with Democrats. Johnson can pass the NDAA with Democratic support, but a few disgruntled Republicans can set the stage for removing a Speaker although he wants to make the United States a Christian theocracy.

An argument among Republicans about the defense bill is omitting an amendment to extend compensation for people exposed to radiation from U.S. nuclear testing. It passed the Senate with a supermajority, but absence from the House bill caused it to be dropped from the final legislation. Co-sponsor Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) called its omission a ”betrayal,” and proponents blame GOP leadership, specifically Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) said he “still can’t understand why Republican leadership would stand in the way of providing support to the American people, who, as uranium mine workers, sacrificed so much for national security purposes.” The amendment would cover people exposed to nuclear testing and nuclear waste radiation from U.S. government activity. Existing coverage is set to expire next year.

Republicans are also stalling on the $106 billion bill for aid to Israel, Taiwan, Ukraine, and the southern U.S. border. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that U.S. adversaries such as Russia, Iran, and China would be “happy” in the White House supplemental aid bill to support Ukraine and Israel stalls in Congress. GOP senators blocked the measure because they wanted more draconian border restrictions. He noted that the majority of the supplemental aid request goes directly to U.S. manufacturers. “[Russian President Vladimir Putin] won’t stop in Ukraine,” Blinken warned, because “Putin will be able to move forward with impunity.”

Another hero of Republicans and a friend of Putin is Hungary’s dictator, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán; he is coming to Washington, D.C. this week to hold a closed-door meeting with conservatives to end U.S. military support for Ukraine.

Republicans seem to be obsessed with genitalia, but Donald Trump Jr. and girlfriend Kimberly Guilefoyle have gone overboard with photo ops of their gift celebrating the birth of Jesus: penis bones. From an unnamed animal, the “Baculum” is “an isolated bone, derived from connective tissue and located at the distal end of the penis, above the urethra.” Of the different mammals with this appurtenance such as primates, rodents, and bats, the largest one offered for $45 from OddArticulations, LLC comes from the raccoon, but it’s smaller than the ones the couple are waving. On social media, gifters tagged the photo with #DickboneEnterprises and #ProudToBeAnAmerican. In 2007, Jr. talked about the sizes of his and his father’s members on The Adam Carolla Show.