We begin with a peek inside Mike Johnson's GOP House Bible Study Group...

A cartoon by Jeff Danziger.

Daily Kos

Monday, October 30, 2023 at 11:50:16a MDT

 AND NOW, OUR MAIN FEATURE: Johnson says it's no use passing new gun laws because there are still cars

By Laura Clawson for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Friday, October 27, 2023 at 8:45:03a MDT 

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Just a few days ago, Mike Johnson was one of the lesser-known members of Congress. Now he’s been catapulted to speaker and into the fierce competition for most loathable House Republican. He worked hard to make the case for himself on that one in an interview with Sean Hannity that aired Thursday night—and managed to distinguish himself on guns by bringing an exceptional level of smarminess and condescension to the same old discredited Republican talking points.

Speaking about the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, Johnson insisted, “At the end of the day, the problem is the human heart. It’s not guns. It’s not the weapons. At the end of the day, we have to protect the right of the citizens to protect themselves, and that’s the Second Amendment, and that’s why our party stands so strongly for that.” He added that “this is not the time to be talking about legislation; we’re in that crisis right now,” although he most certainly thinks there is a crisis in Israel and it’s time to be talking about funding for Israel, and that there is a crisis on the border and it’s time to be talking about anti-immigrant legislation.

 As is always observed when Republicans claim that mental illness—or, in this case, “the human heart”—is the real cause of mass shootings, we know it’s the guns. Other countries have mental illness (and human hearts) and they don’t have mass shootings like we do. It’s a claim that’s so false it’s insulting, and yet Republicans continue to lead with it.

Unfortunately, Johnson wasn’t done:

Asked by Hannity if there was any gun legislation he would consider, Johnson layered on the fake self-deprecation, saying with an oily smile, “Well, been on the job for 48 hours, we’ll see.” Then, without having quite said “no, there’s not,” he pivoted to an excuse for that position:

You know, in Europe and in other places, they use vehicles to mow down crowds at parades. They’ve done that here in the United States. It’s not the weapon that’s the underlying problem. I believe we have to address the root problems of these things and mental health obviously, as in this case, is a big issue, and we’ve got to seriously address that as a society and as a government, and there’s lots of measures pending on that as well.

If Republicans wanted to fully fund a national mental health system available to everyone at low or no cost, that would be great! It wouldn’t end mass shootings, but it would be a wonderful thing.

About that “they use vehicles to mow down crowds” thing, though. It is true that vehicles plowing into crowds and killing people is a thing that happens with disturbing regularity. In the United States, sometimes they’re targeting protesters for things like Black Lives Matter, in which case prominent Republicans want to pardon them. But wherever it happens and whoever the victims are, there’s a clear difference. Let’s check out some headlines and then you can head to the comments and tell me if you see it. Here are cars:

• Man drives car into crowd in Austria, kills 3 including 4-year old, injures 34, officials say

• At Least 8 Killed After Driver Plows Car Into Group of Migrants in Texas

• China: Five dead after man drives into crowd in Guangzhou

• Car Plows Through Crowd in Santa Monica, Killing 9

• Man drives into Berlin crowd, killing teacher, injuring 14 students

Here are guns:

• At least 18 killed in shootings in Lewiston, Maine; Manhunt underway for suspect

• Families begin to bury the 21 people killed in the Texas school shooting

• Remembering the 26 Sandy Hook shooting victims, 10 years later

• Mass shooting in Buffalo supermarket leaves at least 10 dead

• Memorials held for the 58 victims of the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting

The mass shooting entries could go on much longer. Those cars-mowing-people-down entries are the most serious cases my searches turned up, and they go back to 2003.

It’s safe to say that people are always going to kill other people. It is possible to force them to do it in less efficient ways. Our laws can say, “You can have cars or knives because they have uses other than killing people and are not actually the most effective way to kill large numbers of people at once, but you cannot have the guns that have no real uses other than killing people and can kill a large number of people within minutes.”

Rebutting Republican talking points on guns is like banging your head against a wall, though. It’s easy to do but doesn’t accomplish much. Still, it’s worth noting Johnson’s style: The hackneyed talking points delivered so smoothly, the condescension oozing from every pore as he says just ridiculously false, stupid things. He truly is Jim Jordan in a less shouty package.Friday, October 27, 2023 at 8:45:03a MDT

Biden administration calls BS on new House speaker's weak gun statement—twice

By Walter Einenkel for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Friday, October 27, 2023 at 1:05:39p MDT

 

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The mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, once again reminded Americans that as long as guns of war are readily available to everyday Americans, we are not living in a safe country. That did not stop new Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson from saying this to Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday night: “At the end of the day, the problem is the human heart. It’s not guns. It’s not the weapons.”

The White House has responded twice. Spokesman Andrew Bates released a statement responding to Johnson’s pseudo-intellectual pap, calling his scapegoating of “the human heart” an “offensive accusation.” Bates also questioned Johnson’s history of weak-sauce moralizing on the issue, saying gun violence in our country is “not the result of an imagined deficiency in the hearts of the American people; nor is it because women have the right to make their own health care decisions, as the Speaker once claimed,” referring to statements Johnson made in 2016 about school shootings. Bates added, “Gun crime is uniquely high in the United States because congressional Republicans have spent decades choosing the gun industry’s lobbyists over the lives of innocent Americans.”

In a video you can watch below the fold, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called on Johnson to practice what he preached.

RELATED STORY: Johnson says it's no use passing new gun laws because there are still cars

[Johnson] said he's ready to get to work, and to find common ground. Now is the time. Now is the time to find common ground. Let's work together to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Let's work together to enact universal background checks, require safe storage of guns, and keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous individuals who have no business being armed with a weapon of war.

The president will continue to do everything in his power to protect the American people, to protect our communities, to protect our children. And we urge congressional Republicans to come to the table, to come to the table if there truly is common ground at this time.

Those are policies. Those are ideas for legislation that have a chance of helping to mitigate the gun violence plaguing our country. Over the past seven months, the Republican Party has offered up policy prescriptions for gun violence that include “We’re not gonna fix it,” and “the problem is the human heart.” The Republican Party’s complete impotence has reached its nadir.

That young man on the right is Kyle Rittenhouse, for those with short memories.  Bet you didn't know he had a bad heart.
 

RELATED STORY: 'We're not gonna fix it': Tennessee Republican says nothing can be done to stop gun violence

Senate committee investigates Clarence Thomas for hidden $267,230 RV loan gift

Loan repayment is for suckers.

By Joan McCarter for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday, October 26, 2023 at 7:50:02a MDT

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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas loves to hang out in his fancy motor home, spending his vacations in RV camps and Walmart parking lots. That’s the story he likes to tell, anyway. What he doesn’t talk about is how he got that RV, much less how fancy and expensive it is.

Now Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, who chairs the Finance Committee, is shedding some light on that. His committee has been looking into Thomas’ finances, and it has discovered that Thomas never paid back most of the $267,230 loan he took from his longtime friend Anthony Welters to buy the luxury Prevost Marathon Le Mirage XL motor home.

“Today the committee has the answer to one of the pressing questions raised by reporting about his arrangement with Justice Thomas - was the loan ever repaid? Now we know that Justice Thomas had up to $267,230 in debt forgiven and never reported it on his ethics forms,” Wyden said.

Thomas bought the used motor home in December 1999, with the loan from Welters. The New York Times reports that in today’s dollars, the loan—and the vehicle—would be worth $493,700. The loan terms were generous: It required no money down, annual interest-only payments (on a 7.5% interest rate), and the principal due at the end of five years. According to the records the committee obtained from Welters, Thomas appears to have made just one of those interest payments in December 2000, with a check for $20,042.23.

At the end of that five-year period, in 2004, Welters extended the agreement for an additional 10 years with the same interest-only payment agreement. As the Times notes, Thomas should have had the money to pay the whole loan off—he received $500,000 the previous year, part of the $1.5 million advance he was getting for his autobiography.

The next document the committee obtained is a “handwritten note from Mr. Welters to Justice Thomas, dated November 22, 2008, stating that Welters would no longer seek further payments on the loan.” Also, the note states that Thomas “had paid interest only on the loan, indicating that the principal of $267,230 had not been repaid.”

It goes without saying that Thomas did not disclose this apparent gift of $267,230 in his 2008 financial disclosure form for the court. Thomas hasn’t provided his IRS returns to the committee for review, so it’s not clear if he claimed it on his taxes. Wyden called on Thomas to “inform the committee exactly how much loan was forgiven and whether he properly reported the loan forgiveness on his tax return and paid all taxes owed.”

“This was, in short, a sweetheart deal,” Michael Hamersley, a tax lawyer, told the Times. “No bank behaving in a commercially reasonable, arms-length manner would have given that loan in the first place,” Hamersley continued. “And a bank doesn’t just say, ‘Oh gee, you’ve paid a lot in interest — we’re good, no need to pay back what you actually owe.’”

Asked for comment, Welters told the Times, “As anyone who has borrowed from or lent to family or friends knows, it’s simply not the same as a bank.” But as the Times points out, that’s not what the IRS thinks. The forgiven principal balance of the loan, as well as any of the unpaid interest, would be considered income.

The Finance Committee will continue its investigation, Wyden promised, and he said he had “directed the committee to share our findings with the Judiciary Committee to evaluate the ethics implications of this disclosure.”  

Justice Thomas’ lawyer, Elliot Burke, refutes the story saying: “The loan was never forgiven. Any suggestion to the contrary is false. The Thomases made all payments to Mr. Welters on a regular basis until the terms of the agreement were satisfied in full.”

Sen. Wyden stands by the committee’s work, and challenges Thomas to prove the loan was paid: “If Justice Thomas disputes that conclusion he has an obligation to provide proof to the committee. Carefully worded statements from high-priced lawyers are not a substitute for facts,” Wyden said.

Thomas with friend Mark Paoletta in his Prevost Le Mirage XL Marathon. The loan, from a wealthy friend, was for this luxury motor coach which has become a key part of Justice Thomas’s public persona. (photo: Courtesy of Mark Paoletta)

RELATED STORIES:

That creepy painting shows us Clarence Thomas has been bought by the worst people

Clarence Thomas had a child in private school. Harlan Crow paid the tuition

Clarence Thomas’ 38 vacations: Other billionaires treated Supreme Court justice to luxury travel

 

BY RULE OF CLAW: "I never thought I'd grow up and get a bullet in my leg," she said

By Rule of Claw

Community

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Thursday, October 26, 2023 at 10:42:33a MDT

 

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Note:  while most of the work I put out there is suitable for most age groups, this one contains some graphic descriptions of forensics and a few ear muff worthy words.  Please keep this in mind if talking about this with children.

And yes, I know I am supposed to be on a break.  I get it.  And I was.  For four hours.  Then nearly two dozen people were brutally murdered by yet another maniac with access to a weapon of war in Maine.

For those of you that scrolled through, the descriptions have concluded.  What stands out in recent years is the sheer amount of children giving haunting interviews about their experiences.  It is fair to say that such an experience brings an end to their childhood, and catapults them, in disorientating fashion, into adulthood.  Thus the next section could be fairly titled, 

The "We Could Make A Documentary From Child Victim Interviews Alone" Stage of American Gun Violence.

From an account by a 10 year-old  in Lewiston.

Little Zoey clearly sees herself as an adult now.

Mother Meghan Hutchinson said, "When I turned around, I saw the shooter. ... I don't know if that was just a warning shot or if he shot somebody with that [bullet]."

Her daughter, Zoey Levesque, 10, was grazed by a bullet.

"It's just like, shocking," she said.  "I never thought I'd grow up and get a bullet in my leg," she said. "Like, why do people do this? I was more worried about, like, am I going to live and going to make it out of here? Like, what's going to happen? Are the cops going to come?"

I don’t know what to do for that child.  I don’t have the training or even, the perspective to begin to advise on how to put the pieces of that little girl’s psyche back together.  Any ideas?  

I have some ideas as to how to drive the point home about the toll of this situation.  What we could do is establish a memorial for victims of gun violence, and children could get their own section.  I say that because the number one cause of childhood mortality is not poverty, it is gun violence.  It is not leukemia, it is gun violence.  

Firearms accounted for nearly 19% of childhood deaths (ages 1-18) in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wonder database. Nearly 3,600 children died in gun-related incidents that year. That’s about five children lost for every 100,000 children in the United States. In no other comparable country are firearms within the top four causes of mortality among children, according to a KFF analysis.

More children in our nation are dying at a clip yearly, than the number of lives lost on 9-11.  Put another way, this is the mortality equivalent of 1.2 9-11’s in children alone, each year, because the guns were deemed by the right wing to be more valuable.

And the ones that are surviving are put through such emotionally scarring experiences that their lives will forever be altered.  We used to care about children right?

But back to the memorial.  What could this wall say?  How about, 

“The Children Who Have Died So You Can Have Your Freedom to Play Toy Soldier Memorial.”

That might work.

But nothing has so far.  

Oh sure the Republicans will send thoughts.

But I am all out of “Fucks to Give” for their thoughts.

I looked online, too.

Couldn’t find them anywhere.  Apparently the whole world is all out of Fucks.  

Must be a supply chain issue.

-ROC

If you like my work you can support me at The Claw News Patreon.

Top: Once upon a time.

Bottom: The new reality.

If you or someone you know has been traumatized by gun violence, BradyUnited.org has a list of resources that may be able to help.

Cartoon: Hearing voices

 

• The latest mass shooter was hearing voices... Please share #laloalcaraz cartoons.

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  Thursday, October 26, 2023 at 2:31:54p MDT
  
  

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Mike Johnson, in his own words, explains his terrifying policy ideas

  

"If you believed Johnson’s well-parted, Howdy-Doody haircut and glasses and smug demeanor mean he is above the petty squabbling seen by the likes of Reps. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, you would be wrong."

By Walter Einenkel for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Wednesday, October 25, 2023 at 2:00:22p MDT 

 

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Rep. Mike Johnson has been elected speaker of the House. The Republican Party’s speakerless fiasco dragged on for weeks, displacing former Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy, hampering the U.S. government, and ending with what amounts to a reiteration that the Republican Party is completely beholden to Trump and his MAGA wing.

Johnson has packaged himself as a seemingly thoughtful person. However, Johnson’s thoughts concern the same failed small-government policy ideas that have harmed Americans since Ronald Reagan was president. 

When Johnson and fellow Republicans held a theatrical production of a press conference on Tuesday night, they made it clear they had no time to answer questions about policies or what actual work they, as the House majority, might be interested in.

But what exactly does Johnson stand for? Well, he’s been pretty open about his beliefs, and there’s a lot of video and audio tape of him telling us exactly what he thinks and feels.

RELATED STORY: Republicans call press conference, then boo reporters for asking questions

First up: Cuts! Cuts to “entitlements.” Sadly, conservatives have been relatively successful in getting people across the media to discuss social safety net programs, which are paid for by American citizens in order to serve American citizens, as “entitlements.” Here’s Johnson on this topic:

We have to get back to [entitlement reform] as a No. 1 priority. The CBO [Congressional Budget Office] says that entitlement spending, which they define as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, interest on the debt—those four obligations, we’ve eclipsed GDP in, what, a dozen years or something? I mean, this is not— this can no longer be kicked down the road. You can't wait eight years to address this. It has to happen yesterday. So we have to have our hand at the wheel and do this. We are completely derelict in our duty. We're rearranging furniture on the Titanic if we don't get this problem under control.

Here’s some more concrete information about Johnson’s policies and beliefs:

About a week after the 2020 election, we have Johnson saying the “election fraud” allegations have “a lot of merit,” and that he could give “example after example” of proof that the election was “rigged.”

As for reproductive rights, Johnson is against a person’s right to choose what to do with their body. He spoke about it during a committee hearing, lamenting the loss of “able-bodied workers” … to abortion, it seems.

If you believed Johnson’s well-parted, Howdy-Doody haircut and glasses and smug demeanor mean he is above the petty squabbling seen by the likes of Reps. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, you would be wrong. He told Tucker Carlson how he thinks then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi broke the law by ripping up a copy of Donald Trump’s State of the Union address.

Rep. Elise Stefanik nominated Johnson on the House floor, saying that fellow Republicans would “humbly look in our hearts.” It seems they did and decided that an anti-abortion, pro-insurgency, anti-Social Security, anti-Medicare, and anti-Medicaid extremist was the perfect fit to lead them into the future.

Shame on House Republicans for picking an insurrectionist to be two heartbeats away from the presidency. We must make sure they never hold power again.

When will we rise up and throw the Republican Trump Cult out of power.  These are bad people, and they are threatening the very things that matter most to us.

Biden takes a walk on the beach, and the RNC pounces all over this huge story

By Hunter for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Monday, October 23, 2023 at 11:21:37a MDT

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The Republican National Committee's "research" team has been doing crack work of late, if you consider crack work to be "watching hours and hours of television and calling it research." Their latest blockbuster is that after a whirlwind trip to the Middle East to express support for and coordinate with Israeli leaders, President Joe Biden briefly walked on a Delaware beach.

What the RNC may not know is that sitting presidents have rarely participated in elite hostage-rescue operations themselves. Nobody wants to see a second-term Ronald Reagan or a first-term Donald Trump pulling the pin on a live grenade and attempting to huck it through a narrow window with 12 special forces soldiers' lives depending on the thing not bouncing back. Presidents are almost always stateside for these sorts of negotiations or military operations. Stopping for a brief break after making an emergency trip into an overseas war zone is not unusual.

More to the point, numerous commenters on the RNC's attempted gotcha post pointed out that Fox News paired their own airing of this footage with an explanation of just how many calls and decisions Biden had been making that very same morning. Via Acyn, Fox News reporter Alexandria Hoff:

The president has been anything but off the grid while here in Delaware, and of that call with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu], President Biden expressed how welcome he is that the first two convoys of aid were able to make it into Gaza. They also said that the president, the leaders, quote, affirmed their will now be continued flow of this critical assistance into Gaza. The president expressed appreciation for Israel's support in helping to accommodate the release of two American hostages.

So the president also spoke with his national security team this morning, Pope Francis as well, plus the leaders of Germany, France, Italy, the U.K., and Canada too. So the President's line in Delaware was very busy today. Even on that breezy beach walk we were talking about, the President was on his cellphone during a portion of that.

So there you go, sports. It looks like your research team didn't quite do enough research to know what Biden had been doing just before stepping outside his Delaware home office to take a quick walking break—or watched the video long enough to see Biden on another call even while he was on his walk.

It should probably be noted here that the indicted orange blowhard whom Republicans want to replace Biden with—the coup-attempting former President Donald Trump—spent 285 days at his own golf resorts during his presidency—averaging more than one such trip every week—and that those constant outings are calculated to have cost the government at least $140 million.

Since the only sand Donald Trump poured out of his shoes in the last 20 years has been from his own sand traps, we're gonna give this one to Biden. Good job getting some walking time in after a morning working the phones, Joe.

FEC filings reveal Lauren Boebert's expenditures at Beetlejuice beau's Aspen bar

 

There's a hole in Lauren's brain where all the money goes.  Aren't you glad you aren't one of her donors?

• Marco Cummings marco.cummings@denvergazette.com 
• Denver Gazette 
• Oct 22, 2023 Updated 17 hrs ago

Several days before Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert and a male companion were kicked out of a Denver showing of “Beetlejuice,” the representative of Colorado's 3rd congressional district spent campaign funds at his bar, filings with the Federal Election Commission show.

According to Boebert’s official filings with the Federal Election Commission dated Oct. 14, Boebert spent $317.48 at Hooch Craft Cocktail Bar in Aspen on July 31 for “Event Catering”, more than 10 days prior to the “Beetlejuice” incident.  

The Aspen, Colo. based bar is owned by Quinn Gallagher, 46, who was later revealed to be Boebert’s escort on the night that both were booted from the theater.

On Sept. 10, Boebert and Gallagher were kicked out of the Buell Theatre during that night’s performance of the musical “Beetlejuice” after audience members complained the Garfield County Republican was talking loudly, singing and using her cellphone camera during the musical, a spokesman for the city-owned Buell Theatre said at the time.

Surveillance video from the venue obtained by Denver Gazette news partner 9News later revealed that Boebert was vaping in the venue and engaging in activities disruptive to the other theatre patrons.

In the week following the incident, Boebert later made a public apology.

"The past few days have been difficult and humbling, and I'm truly sorry for the unwanted attention my Sunday evening in Denver has brought to the community. While none of my actions or words as a private citizen that night were intended to be malicious or meant to cause harm, the reality is they did and I regret that," Boebert said.

Her time spent at the Aspen watering hole may have come to an end, however.

“We’ve peacefully parted at this time,” Boebert said of Gallagher in an interview with TMZ back in September after it was reported that Gallagher was a registered Democrat who had hosted drag shows at Hooch Craft Cocktail Bar. Boebert has been publicly critical of drag shows in the past via her social media platforms.

Boebert’s expenditure at Gallagher’s Aspen bar wasn’t the most the congresswoman spent on food and drink on the expense report, which covers the period between July 1 and Sept. 30 of this year. On Aug. 29, the representative spent $522.52 at the Washington D.C. restaurant Bullfeathers, where the most expensive menu item is a $23 New York strip.

She also spent $400.20 at 240 Union steakhouse in Lakewood on July 3 and a total of $182.58 for two separate trips to Elway’s in Cherry Creek billed as “meeting expenses.”

Other eyebrow raising expenditures from Boebert’s filings include over $400,000 dispersed to Rock Chalk Media of Grand Junction for various marketing related expenses. As confirmed in filings with the Colorado Secretary of State, that media firm is registered to Alex Chaffetz, brother of former U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah.

Everybody's nominee for Bimbo of the Century struts her stuff with the Donald.  Wonder what he's fixin' to do with that little thumb of his?
 

Rep. Pete Aguilar gives amazing speech on House floor denouncing Jim Jordan's speaker nomination

By Walter Einenkel for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday, October 17, 2023 at 12:55:13p MDT

 

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Rep. Pete Aguilar did the honor of nominating Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries to become the next speaker of the House. Nothing against Jeffries, but a prank canister of peanut brittle would be a better choice for our democracy than the Republican Party’s current nominee, Rep. Jim Jordan.

Aguilar spent more than seven minutes giving a rousing speech completely dismantling how anti-democracy, ineffective, and vile a choice Jordan is for the position. The speech earned numerous standing ovations—and with all 212 Democratic representatives present today, those ovations were thunderous.

Transcript:

I submit for election to the office of the speaker of the House of Representatives. The name of the honorable Hakeem Jeffries, the pride of Crown Heights, a representative from the state of New York.

Mr. speaker pro tem, this is not the history we wanted to make here in the House. It's something that none of us imagined when we were sworn into this office. We are here because the House has been thrown into chaos. We are here because this hallowed chamber has been led to a breaking point by two dangerous forces: extremism and partisanship. The American people placed their faith in us to tackle their most pressing issues: lowering costs, growing the middle class, and standing up to those set on delivering a national abortion ban.

The choice before us is simple. Come together on a bipartisan path forward, or take us over the cliff. Abandon the extremism that is preventing us from getting things done, or triple-down on division and dysfunction. A vote today to make the architect of a nationwide abortion ban, a vocal election denier, and an insurrection insider to the speaker of this House would be a terrible message to the country and our allies.

Mr. speaker, it would send an even more troubling message to our enemies that the very people who would seek to undermine democracy are rewarded with positions of immense power. We are talking about someone who has spent his entire career trying to hold our country back—putting our national security in danger, attempting government shutdown after government shutdown, wasting taxpayer dollars on baseless investigations with dead ends, authoring the very bill that would ban abortion nationwide without exceptions, and inciting violence on this chamber. Even leaders of his own party have called him a legislative terrorist. He once said, quote, ‘I didn't come to Congress to make more laws.’

His words speak for themselves. When New Yorkers recovering from Hurricane Sandy needed Congress to act, he said no. When wildfires ravage the West, destroying homes and businesses, and those residents needed disaster assistance, he said no. When the Mississippi River floods devastated the South and communities across state lines needed Congress to act, he said no. When our veterans were suffering from disease and dying as a result of their service to our country, and Congress passed a bipartisan solution, he said no. When our ally in Ukraine looked to Congress for additional support to help defeat Putin, he said no. And just before Hamas' brutal terrorist attack on Israel, he said no to fully funding military aid for our ally. This body is debating elevating a speaker nominee who has not passed a single bill in 16 years. These are not the actions of someone interested in governing or bettering the lives of everyday Americans. This is nothing less than the rejection of the oath that we swore to uphold as duly elected members of this body. But on this side of the aisle and throughout this chamber, I'm convinced, our oath still matters.

To fulfill our obligations to the American people, we have no choice today but to vote for a leader of both character and conviction. When the Congress first began, we proudly stood next to him as our leader and made a promise to every American: House Democrats would work to find common ground on the issues that matter most to the American people whenever possible, that we would stand up to extremism whenever necessary. Only Hakeem Jeffries can be trusted to keep his word. Only Hakeem Jeffries can lead us out of the chaos and towards a path of governance. It brings me immense pride to nominate our friend, the Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, as speaker.

I'm not done yet. He may just be the candidate with the most votes, but he is also the candidate with the most credibility. If the goal is to continue a 30-year march to hollow out our democratic institutions, weaken our democracy, and embolden extremists, there's a candidate for you. If the goal is to continue taking marching orders from a twice-impeached former president with more than 90 pending felony charges, then there is a candidate for you.

The world is watching. Mr. speaker pro tem, our allies in Ukraine and Israel are watching and waiting. So let's have this vote. But let's be clear. A vote for the gentleman from Ohio is a vote to turn your back on national security. It's a vote to turn your back on a bipartisan path to fund the government and avoid shutdowns, something we can only do if we reject his nomination.

House Democrats are in the minority, we realize that. If House Republicans wanted to elect a speaker without us, then they could have. There is still a path forward for both Democrats and Republicans to come together to elect a speaker who can unite us behind a common purpose. Keeping the government open on a bipartisan compromise that won more than 300 votes just four months ago in this chamber, taking up an up-or-down vote on help so Israel can defeat Hamas and Ukraine can defeat Putin, and reassuring the American people that their legislators have their backs. It's that simple, Mr. speaker, and we can do it today. Let's work together. Let's elect a speaker who will reach out a hand of bipartisanship and deliver for the American people. That is why, once again, Mr. speaker pro tem., I'm proud to nominate Hakeem Jeffries for speaker, and yield back.

Coach Jim Jordan of Ohio State sex scandal fame is, it appears, finally out as a candidate for House speaker.  But stay tuned.  Monday heralds a new week and you just never know what the Republican Party might do.

 

LET US NOT FORGET UKRAINE: Israeli Official Issues Warning to Putin on Russian State TV

   

Russian President Vladimir Putin. (photo: Getty Images) 

   

 

Matthew Impelli / Newsweek 

21 October 23

An Israeli politician issued a warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin amid the ongoing wars in Israel and Ukraine.

Amir Weitmann, the head of the libertarian caucus in Israel's Likud Party, appeared on Russia's state-run RT News network this week and spoke about fighting between Israel and Hamas militants, as well as Russia's war with Ukraine.

While speaking about recent claims relating to al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, Weitmann criticized Russia, saying that "we're gonna finish this war, we're going to win because we're stronger. After this, Russia will pay the price, believe me, Russia will pay the price."

"Russia is supporting the enemies of Israel. Russia is supporting Nazi people who want to commit genocide on us and Russia will pay the price," Weitmann said. "We're gonna win this war. Afterwards, we're not forgetting what you're doing, we're not forgetting, we will come, we will make sure Ukraine wins. We will make sure that you pay the price for what you have done, you as Russia."

Fighting began on October 7, when the Hamas militant group led the deadliest attack on Israel in its history. Israel subsequently launched heavy airstrikes on Gaza and warned that it's preparing for a ground invasion as a humanitarian crisis grows in the Palestinian territory. Nearly 2,800 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Associated Press, while more than 1,400 Israelis have been killed.

Israel and Hamas this week accused each other of the explosion at al-Ahli Hospital.

"Hamas has a committee that collects all evidence of the Israeli occupation's responsibility for the massacres in Gaza and the Baptist Hospital massacre, as well," Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum told Newsweek on Wednesday.

"There is a lot of evidence, eyewitnesses and videos from Hamas about the occupation committing the Baptist Hospital massacre and the wreckage of rockets. Hamas will publish all the evidence to the world that confirms this massacre was committed intentionally, and will present it to international jurisdictions."

In a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) accused Hamas of the bombing, saying: "A failed rocket launch by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization hit the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza City."

"Islamic Jihad struck a Hospital in Gaza—the IDF did not. Listen to the terrorists as they realize this themselves," the IDF said in an another post, sharing what it claimed was a phone conversation between two Hamas militants speaking about the attack.

U.S. President Joe Biden traveled to Tel Aviv on Wednesday and spoke about the hospital bombing, saying: "Based on what I've seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you. But there's a lot of people out there not sure, so we have to overcome a lot of things."

According to Reuters, the Russian Foreign Ministry called the incident an act of dehumanization and urged the U.S. and Israel to release satellite images to prove they are not involved.

Can Putin "drag" these wars out?

Roger Stone speech at 'Pastors for Trump' event goes viral for hilarious reason

 

By Walter Einenkel for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Friday, October 20, 2023 at 5:10:19p MDT

 

REPUBLISHED BY:

Blue Country Gazette Blog

Rim Country Gazette Blog 

Part of Trump’s 2024 campaign includes the “ReAwaken America Tour,” an evangelical revival-styled mobile circus. The events are often preceded by meetings for the group Pastors for Trump. And on Thursday, the tour stopped in Miami and featured speeches from Trump-pardoned criminals Roger Stone, who will monologue just about anywhere, and Michael Flynn, who co-leads the roadshow.

In a video clip shared by Ron Filipkowski on X (formerly Twitter), Stone is telling a story about disgraced former President Donald Trump calling him recently. According to Stone’s retelling of events, Trump asked Stone if he had a minute, and Stone replied, “Well, Mr. President, let me be honest with you, I’m walking out the door to church, could I call you this afternoon?”

Hold your laughs! He’s not done with the story!

Per Stone’s retelling, Trump then asked him, “Could we pray together?”

As you might imagine, this story would be only slightly less believable if it were animated and read by Sir Ian McKellen while he wore his costume from the “Lord of the Rings” movies.

If you believe Stone’s story, I suspect you’ll believe just about anything.

 

Oh lord!!!  Do MAGA evangelicals really fall for this crap?

GEORGE TEMPLETON: War in Israel - Eventually there is no choice but to fight it out.

 

 

By George Templeton

Gazette Blog Columnist

Believing Einstein

"A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space.  He experiences himself, his thoughts, and his feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.  This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.  Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. “ Albert Einstein

As Paul Tillich put it, man’s belonging yet separation makes it possible for him to ask questions and find answers.  This he called the moral imperative.    But questions challenge us.

The Cosmos Changed

It started with James Clerk Maxwell (1873), the “father” of electromagnetism.  Maxwell is often credited with establishing the speed of light waves, and hence the age of the universe.  Then came Einstein’s Special Relativity in 1905.

Special Relativity holds that (1) the laws of physics are the same in all inertial (constant velocity) frames of reference and (2) the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant.  It's not just an obscure theory.  It's in your smartphone, GPS, and the atomic bomb.  If you think deeply, you will find it in the mystery of many things we take for granted. 

Situational Relativity

It is not ethical but it is situational.  It isn’t just the way you look at things.  It’s the way our everyday world is, but we didn’t realize it.

You can start with situations and try to find a governing principle that explains them.  If you can’t explain it with words or pictures, you don’t understand it.  Or you can start with mathematics.  It is more comprehensive but then you have to find the situations which apply to it.  Nature reveals her secrets to us in the shape of equations.

Irrelevant Relativity

Students experience relativity every time they look out the car window and wonder whether they are moving or the car next to them in the adjacent lane is.  Newton’s laws hold for both inside a parked car and one moving at constant velocity.  Within the cars, it is impossible to distinguish between the one that is at rest and the moving one.

All motion is relative.  There is no rest frame.  Consequently, we do not care which “car” we refer a motion to.  However, motion looks and calculates differently depending on viewpoint.  How you look to me and how you see yourself is different.

You can see the beginning and the end of your ruler simultaneously because it is there with you.  Nothing is more “real” than a measured quantity.

Can you measure everything that exists in nature?  At what point, if any, do we count proxies in measurement?

The length of an object differs for observers in relative motion.  The moving ruler’s back is catching up with its front!  Thus apparent length is not absolute.  This is called the Lorentz Contraction.

If we could drive along with a light beam, the image of a clock behind us would never catch up.  Time would stop.  Like length, time is also not absolute.  Time slows down for the moving man.   Time, in the Lorentz Transformation is not a constant. 

For Newton, length, time, and mass seemed absolute, but they are not.   It is not possible to describe space or time separately.  We cannot acquire information instantly.  Nothing can move faster than light.  Consequently, there is no absolute simultaneity.

Gaussian Geometry

Gauss was a 19th-century mathematician who gave us a small, local geometry like the one we learned in high school but at the same time, it could become cosmic and curved.  Riemann, a student of Gauss, generalized the vector (size and direction) into a tensor (all directions simultaneously) quantifying distance on twisted surfaces like Klein’s bottle.  We can’t press a string along all curved surfaces, straighten it out, and then measure it.

This math relied on the infinitesimals denied by the 17^th-century Catholic Church.  Newton used them to create Calculus.  Einstein adapted them to create his gravitational field theory. 

Minkowski Space-Time

We think in 3 dimensions:  X, Y, and Z. We need 4:  X, Y, Z, and T to describe Einstein’s cosmos.  It is not x,y,z and then add time afterwards!  We are inside 4-dimensional space.  We cannot view it from the outside.  The interval between two “events” is a squared relationship (curved) and it includes the speed of light.

Minkowski, Einstein’s school professor, developed the “light-cone” coordinate system.  The future was inside a top cone and the past was in a cone below it.

Every event is “now” for someone.  For disconnected observers they are equally valid.  Consequently, the past is eternally present but hard to get to.  The initial conditions are different and there are disturbances along any journey.

Intelligence

The people in the Iowa Caucus explained that President Obama was too “professorial”.  They wanted a candidate who had no need or desire to contemplate any further.  But this was not the case for Einstein.  He was interested in physics and philosophy.  He knew that the truth was incomplete.  He thought deeply about things that science took for granted.  He could not accept orthodoxy concerning the unseen.   He wrestled with the connection of ideas among themselves, unifying the work of scientists in disparate fields.

Einstein’s Character

We cannot explain Einstein with IQ tests.  He never did well with rote learning, embraced nonconformity, and rebelled against authority.  Einstein failed to complete his Ph.D. degree and could not get a job teaching physics, so he accepted a position as a patent examiner.  He did his revolutionary work in theoretical physics, alone, with no laboratory, and in his spare time after work.

Aristotle’s Physics

Given only the gift of life, how would you see things?  Aristotle was the author of hundreds of scrolls treating nearly every subject.  Physics was philosophy in his day.  He lacked our viewpoint influenced by 2500 years of progress.  His “science” unified what I call our subjective and objective properties.  It was more human than ours is.

A Geocentric Earth

Is the earth immobile and fixed at the center of the universe?  It is argued that the Bible says so.  Is it the heavens that rotate around the earth, or your viewpoint that moves the stars in the sky?  Which is the simpler explanation?

Waves

A wave is a disturbance in a medium.  For electromagnetic waves, scientists thought that they traveled through the ether, but Michelson and Morley could not find it.

Electromagnetic radiation carries its own medium.  Electromagnetism is one of the fundamental forces of nature.  It is in the ionic bonding of materials, your TV, and kitchen appliances.  It is in nearly everything we take to be real.

Lorentz showed that the speed of light could not be different (the anisotropic synchrony convention) for light coming towards you and light moving away from you.  It was constant as Michelson-Morley had found.  It had to be different from Galileo’s physics where time was a constant flow.  Otherwise, Maxwell’s electromagnetic equations would be wrong.

Newton’s Gravity

They say that Newton discovered the law of gravity while sitting under an apple tree.  A falling apple hit him on the head.  People trivialize Newton so they will feel more intelligent.

Einstein found that matter makes space-time curved and curved space-time tells matter how to move.  He realized that there is no difference between gravity and acceleration.  We are still learning about gravity.

Newton’s gravity was instantaneous and everywhere.  He used God to fill in its gaps.  Einstein’s relativity corresponds with Newton.  He did not replace Newton or God.

My Fear

When a mass (inertia) moves it increases.   For a particle to travel at the speed of light, its mass must be infinite.  Nothing can travel faster than light.  All masses have energy and energy has mass.  From this comes Einstein’s famous equation (E=mc^2) and the atomic bomb.

Einstein never accepted the bomb that he laid the foundation for.  He would not have liked Trump’s contention that we are all sovereign nations, justified by narcissistic self-interest.

Humanity reveals its psychology with the recent war in Israel.  Eventually there is no choice but to fight it out.  Now we have Russia’s 100,000,000-ton nuclear torpedo, and the Satan MIRV.

More than 100 years ago, James Allen saw the solution. 

“Mind is the Master-power that moulds and makes,

And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes

The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills, Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills:-

He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:

Environment is but his looking-glass.”