1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.g3 g6 4.Bg2 Bg7 5.e4 Nge7 6.Nge2 0-0 7.0-0 f5 8.d3 d6 9.f4 Be6 10.Rb1 a5 11.b3 Qd7 12.Be3 Nd4 13.Qd2 Nec6 14.fxe5 dxe5 15.Bh6 Rad8 16.Bxg7 Kxg7 17.Nc1 fxe4 18.Nxe4 Rxf1+ 19.Kxf1 Rf8+ 20.Ke1 Bh3 21.Rb2 Qf5 22.Qf2 Qh5 23.Qe3 Bxg2 24.Rxg2 Nf3+ 25.Kd1 Nxh2+ 26.Kc2 Nf1 27.Qe1 Nb4+ 28.Kc3 Nh2 29.Rf2 Ng4 30.Rxf8 Kxf8 31.a3 Nc6 32.Qf1+ Qf5 33.Qxf5+ gxf5 34.Nc5 Nd8 36.b4 axb4+ 36.axb4 b6 37.Na6 Ne6 38.Ne2 c5 39.bxc5 bxc5 40.Nb8 Ke7 41.Nc6+ Kd6 42.Na5 h5 43.Kd2 f4 44.Nb3 f3 45.Nc3 Ng5 46.Ne4+ Nxe4+ 47.dxe4 f2 48.Ke2 Ne3 49.Nd2 f1=Q+ 50.Nxf1 Nxc4 51.Kd3 Nb6 52.Ne3 Nd7 53.Nf5+ Kc6 54.Ne3 Kb5 55.g4 h4 56.g5 Nf8 57.Ng4 Ng6 58.Kc3 h3 59.Kb3 c4+ 60.Kc3 Kc5 61.Nh2 Nf4 62.Ng4 Kd6 63.Kxc4 Ke6 64.Kc5 Ng6 65.Kc6 Ne7+ 66.Kc5 Ng6 67.Kc4 Nh4 68.Nh2 Ng2 69.Kd3 Nf4+ 70.Ke3 Ng6 1/2-1/2>

<Of the many weird, cringeworthy, or confusing ads to run in the Super Bowl on Sunday, one stood out as especially eyeroll-inducing: a footwashing ad from the "He Gets Us" campaign. The commercial flashed a series of images of people washing another person's feet, with most offering an attention-grabbing role reversal of oppressor and oppressed: A cop washing a young Black man's feet, a white woman serving a migrant, and, for the one that made me guffaw the loudest, an anti-abortion protester kneeling before a presumed patient of a family planning clinic. "Jesus didn't teach hate," reads the tagline as an INXS cover plays. "He washed feet."

The funders of the ad were obscure to the audience, leaving open the question: Are the people behind this simply naive? Are they the last remaining liberal Christians, trying to convince Donald Trump-obsessed evangelicals to stop the tidal wave of hate? Or is this ad a bait-and-switch, trying to lure unchurched people in with a phony message of love and acceptance, only to push them into joining up with the MAGA movement?

There's no point in phony suspense here: It's option number three. Jesus may have been against lying, but his wealthiest self-appointed champions in American society do not hesitate to use deceit to build up their army of MAGA Christianity.

As many journalists have carefully detailed, the "He Gets Us" campaign is funded in large part by the Green family, who owns Hobby Lobby. Their life mission, besides getting rich by selling cheap tchotchkes, is to push their brand of far-right Christianity on the country. The Green-funded group that ran the "He Gets Us" ads last year has funneled money into anti-LGBTQ hate groups and organizations opposing women's rights. The family has funded initiatives to put religious propaganda into public school classrooms, demanded the right to fire people for being gay, passed off forgeries as the "Dead Sea Scrolls," stole antiquities from Iraq, and, of course, refused to comply with COVID-19 pandemic restrictions for fear of losing profits. They also successfully sued to block their employees from using their own health insurance to cover contraception.

Despite their opposition to birth control, however, Hobby Lobby isn't too keen on women who have babies, either. When a Hobby Lobby employee fell pregnant in 2010, she alleges she was fired for asking for time off to have the baby. Losing your job is the Christian "compassion" the people behind the Super Bowl ads have on offer.

The Greens have been upfront about their donations to the "He Gets Us" campaign, but other donors remain anonymous. That's only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the layers of deceit the campaign is using in order to lure unsuspecting people with the appealing but false promise of love and acceptance offered in the ads. The group behind the ads, for instance, is the newly formed Come Near. The far-right Servant Foundation ran it last year. This shift in management not-so-coincidentally allows the campaign to further conceal its funding and leadership because its tax documents aren't yet publicly available.

The sleaziness gets even worse if one goes to the "He Gets Us" website. On the FAQ sheet, they claim "Jesus loves gay people and Jesus loves trans people." That could lead queer people to falsely believe that they will find affirmation from this group. In reality, as the anti-LGBTQ donation record suggests, this is that game right-wing Christians play where they say "loving" queer people means telling them they are sinners who need to give up their "lifestyle."....>

<....The site also offers a chance to be "connected with someone near you who can help you learn more about Jesus and his life or get plugged into a group where you can bring your questions about life and faith." But when I clicked the link, it did not draw up a searchable list of churches or Bible study groups a person could research on their own before reaching out. Instead, the user is asked to fill out a form and told someone will reach out to them. That is a giant red flag. There's no way for a user to know who this information is going to. Instead, they're going to be contacted by a person whose affiliations and agenda are hidden and who is likely to use high-pressure sales techniques to manipulate a person who was lonely enough to click these links in the first place.

This has all the hallmarks of what psychology experts call "spiritual abuse," which is where a person's longing for faith or higher meaning is used as a weapon to control them. I've been interviewing experts on this topic for an upcoming investigative report, and repeatedly, they emphasize that high-control religions often use bait-and-switch techniques to bamboozle vulnerable people. First the person is subjected to "love bombing," where they are repeatedly told they are safe and cared for now that they've joined this community. Once they've become emotionally dependent on the church or group, however, they are bullied and degraded. If they're queer, they're told they're going to hell unless they try (and invariably fail) to change who they fundamentally are. If they're female, they're told that their duty is to give up on their ambitions and even self-esteem, in order to be a "helpmeet" for a man.

There can be little doubt that is exactly the switcheroo that is going on here, which is why there are so many layers of obfuscation around who is behind the "He Gets Us" campaign. For someone who sees the ads and isn't aware of the malicious politics of the people behind it, the packaging is quite appealing. It's easy to see how queer people, young women, or progressives could think this is the faith community for them, only to find out long after they've been recruited that, no, it's actually just the same right-wing Christianity they've been avoiding. The tactic is to get them in so deep that, by the time they figure that out, they're too afraid of losing community to leave.

Evangelicals claim to believe in the "truth and the light," and yet here they are, using duplicitous techniques borrowed from the world of con artists. But this is sadly not surprising, in an era where white evangelicals have convinced themselves they're at war with the larger culture. The framework of "holy war" creates permission to violate all sorts of moral codes. Over 60% of white evangelicals back Trump's Big Lie about the 2020 election, and nearly one-third say they believe political violence is justified to get their way. (Odds are that the real number is much higher, but there's a reluctance to admit as much to a pollster.) White evangelicals feel entitled to use lies and violence in order to gain political power. So of course they are fine with using deception to trick more people into becoming warriors for MAGA Christ.>

<Although former President Donald Trump has strengthened his grip over the Republican Party, political analyst A.B. Stoddard has argued that some Republicans are actually speaking out in defiance despite the fact that it could lead to MAGA primary challengers.

Writing in the Bulwark, Stoddard offers qualified praise to GOP lawmakers whom she says are engaging in "career-ending straight talk" by refusing to buy into Trump-backed narratives about the bipartisan border reform compromise and sending military aid to help Ukraine fight off invading Russian forces.

She notes that Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) firmly defended his vote in favor of helping Ukraine and he even went so far to suggest that ignorance among the MAGA base was a significant factor in Republican opposition to the package.

“Our base cannot possibly know what’s at stake at the level that any well-briefed U.S. senator should know about what’s at stake if Putin wins," he said. “Some people around here — if they really are being driven just by the perceptions of their base, they should grow a spine and explain if they think it’s a tough vote.”

She similarly noted that Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), one of the most conservative members of the Senate, deserved credit for sticking to his guns and not backing off the bipartisan border deal he brokered in the face of angry MAGA opposition.

Stoddard also gave credit to Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) for continuing to tell the truth about the border deal, and to Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who corrected Trump's claims about immigration by noting the millions of people who came into the United States under his watch.

However, she cautioned that such dissents within the GOP at the moment were the exception and not the rule.

"To speak one’s mind, to refuse to tolerate lies, is to be compromised by the deep state," she argued. "Because in the Trump cult, there would never otherwise be any motivation to do the right thing or tell the truth.">

<Imagine the following hypothesis: for some reason, Carlsen withdraws and is replaced by a 2600-level GM, who promptly performs far above expectation, perhaps even winning the event.

<Senator Tommy Tuberville, a Republican from Alabama, asserted that the United States "forced NATO all the way to Eastern Europe" and claimed that he can "understand" why Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.

Additionally, Tuberville reiterated his demand for talks to put a halt to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. During 'The Jeff Poor Show,' a talk radio program in Mobile, Alabama, Tuberville said on Monday, February 12, "I feel sorry for Ukraine, but we forced this issue."

In support of the invasion, Tuberville referenced Putin's recent interview with former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, in which Putin demanded that the United States engage in negotiations with Russia rather than provide Ukraine with arms or help. Putin also complained that NATO was still "expanding eastward" despite vowing to stop.

"We kept forcing NATO all the way to Eastern Europe and Putin just got tired of it. He said, 'Listen, I do not want missiles on my border from the United States of America.' It would be like Russia coming to Mexico and putting missiles in Mexico. I understand what he is talking about," Tuberville said.

In order to put an end to the conflict in Ukraine, Tuberville said that "there should have been negotiations" and criticized the Biden administration and legislative leaders for having "no plan."

"This administration does not know how to negotiate. Antony Blinken, our secretary of state - my gosh, was that the best we've got? And there's hundreds of thousands of people killed over this," he added.

Tuberville's statement garnered criticism on the internet where several people took a jibe at him. A person wrote on X, "He a MAGA traitor. And he Lier like the Dictator he supports Donald Trump" while one added, "Tommy Tuberville is a liar and a traitor to the United States just like Trump."

A person also mentioned, "I guess Senator Know Nothing didn't listen to Putin's interview with Tucker Carlson. Putin plainly admitted that Ukraine was ‘historically part of Russia and they were invading Ukraine to get it back." That's it. Putin's own words."

Meanwhile, a user said, "Russia put missiles in CUBA. Back in 1962, there were nukes parked ninety miles from America's shores. Those of us here in Florida remember it like it was yesterday.">

WTG, Tommy Tubesteak--yer a frigging genius.

<Senate Republicans did not appreciate Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) attempt to pour cold water on their effort to pass $60 billion in funding for Ukraine and are now ratcheting up pressure on him to bring the bill to the House floor.

Johnson took the unusual step of panning the Senate bill Monday evening, moments before senators took three crucial procedural votes to advance the legislation.

Twenty minutes before the votes were to begin, Johnson released a statement declaring senators “should have gone back to the drawing border to include real border security provisions that would actually help end the ongoing catastrophe.”

It was a rare example of the top Republican leader in the House meddling with the top Republican leader in the Senate’s effort to pass a bill.

Some Republican senators thought it crossed a line.

“I don’t know why he has to comment on it at all. There’s this process where we pass things and send it over, and they pass things and send it over. And then you take it up,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (N.D.), one of 22 Senate Republicans who voted for the emergency defense spending package.

“I do think it’s a little bit bad form,” he added. “The Speaker hasn’t traditionally been that strident.”

Cramer, who served in the House from 2013-19, said he thought Johnson taking a shot at the bill right before a vote was “disrespectful” to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), given how hard he has worked to build support for it.

“It’s quite disrespectful to Mitch; it’s quite disrespectful to Republicans in the Senate. This is not a partisan issue for us. It is for them, because everything is for them,” he said of his House GOP colleagues.

In the end, 22 Senate Republicans backed the bill in a 70-29 vote, with one senator not voting.

Cramer said he wants to cut the new Speaker some “slack,” recognizing he’s under tremendous pressure from former President Trump to go on political offense all the time.

“It’s a symptom of what he’s got to do to sort of keep in the game,” he said.

One Senate Republican aide noted the Senate bill picked up five more Republican votes after Johnson “tried to kill it,” suggesting the Speaker’s disparaging comments had galvanized some Republican votes.

Cramer was one of the five Republicans who voted for the bill for the first time on the question of final passage. The other Republicans who joined him in swinging from “no” to “yes” on the final vote were Sens. Mike Crapo (Idaho), James E. Risch (Idaho), John Boozman (Ark.) and John Hoeven (N.D.).

McConnell has been careful not to give the new Speaker advice on various issues.

He deferred to Johnson on the length of a short-term funding measure to avoid a government shutdown in January or early February and also went along with the Speaker’s plan to punt the fiscal 2024 appropriations bills past Christmas, even though McConnell’s allies say he would have preferred to wrap up the work in 2023.

He was also careful not to give Johnson or his predecessor, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), any advice on moving forward with impeachment proceedings against President Biden, even though members of his leadership team argued that impeaching the president with shaky evidence would be a political “loser.”

On Tuesday morning, he issued a statement that did not mention Johnson. But it did warn that history would judge Congress harshly if lawmakers gave Russia a decisive advantage by derailing new U.S. military support to Ukraine.

“History settles every account. And today, on the value of American leadership and strength, history will record that the Senate did not blink,” he said, emphasizing that senators who voted for the bill did their part to defend the nation’s interests.

Asked about his colleagues’ grumbling about Johnson bashing the Senate bill just before the final votes. Senate Republican John Thune (S.D.) said, “I try not to interfere in their court.”

“It was important for the Senate to start the process.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a member of McConnell’s leadership team, said Tuesday that House Republicans would face political repercussions this year if they fail to act on the Senate bill and let Russian President Vladimir Putin turn the tide of the war.

He reiterated McConnell’s admonishment that lawmakers will be judged by future historians if they allow the funding package to languish long enough to cost Ukraine the war, which could then embolden America’s adversaries in other parts of the world.

“Now the Speaker is going to have to decide where he wants to be in this chapter of history and whether or not just doing nothing is an option,” he said. “We’ll see what he does.”....>

<....Tillis warned that if Ukraine can’t fight off a new Russian offensive because the GOP-controlled House doesn’t pass more military aid, it would hurt Republicans heading into the election.

“If Putin wins, Republicans will lose. If there is a definitive change in the posture” on the battlefield, “between now and November, there’s no doubt” of that, he said.

Tillis said if “there’s a resounding defeat” of Ukrainian forces, or Russians “take a major city or they’re knocking on the doors of Kyiv,” it would have “huge political consequences.”

He said under such a scenario, any Republicans responsible for stopping the flow of new support for Ukraine “are going to have to answer for that to the people back home.”

Johnson, however, has argued for months that securing the U.S. southern border is a national security need that should take precedence.

He slapped at what he called “the Senate’s foreign aid bill” for being “silent on the most pressing issue facing our country.”

GOP senators acknowledge Johnson could face a motion to vacate the Speakership — a punishment that befell McCarthy — if he brings the Senate bill straight to the House floor.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) expressed disbelief about the growing influence of isolationists within the GOP.

“It would be quite a world if the Democrat Party becomes the party of national security,” he said.

House Democrats are discussing the option of gathering a majority of signatures in the chamber to force the Senate’s emergency defense spending bill to the floor of Johnson refuses to bring it up for a vote.>

<Former President Donald Trump has already spent more than $50 million in donor contributions on his own legal bills in 2023. Now, his four upcoming criminal trials are threatening to empty out his PAC accounts with still nine months to go before election day.

In a Wednesday article, Bloomberg reported on the ex-president's financial conundrum as the meat of the election season looms in the coming months. The super PAC he's been using to pay his lawyers — MAGA, Inc. — has less than $27 million left, with Trump still having to pay for legal representation for criminal trials in Manhattan, US District Courts in Florida and Washington, DC and in Fulton County, Georgia all while still running a nationwide presidential campaign.

This means that Trump is running out of options to raise the money needed to accomplish both tasks of having legal representation in multiple jurisdictions and running a competitive campaign. He can tap into his existing pool of small donors, or he can raid the Republican National Committee's coffers. However, pursuing either of those avenues will make it even harder for Republicans to catch up to Democrats in the money race in competitive House and Senate races.

"Our mission is straightforward – maximize the Republican Party’s resources to get President Trump elected," Trump senior advisor Chris LaCivita stated.

Trump has so far been able to pay his legal bills using a complex scheme involving transfers and refunds between both MAGA Inc. and Save America, which is another Trump-allied super PAC. MAGA Inc. has reportedly spent 71 cents of every dollar raised in 2023 to pay the former president's legal team.

According to Bloomberg, Save America has, to date, paid out nearly $10 million for Trump's legal expenses under an agreement in which 10% of online contributions will pay for the former president's attorneys. But his campaign and other pro-Trump groups have already spent roughly $14 million more than they've raised, with no sign of those costs slowing down. Trump's super PACs — which can raise unlimited sums of money — are likely to rely more heavily on high-dollar donors like Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus and oil baron Timothy Dunn, who is CEO of Crownquest Operating, LLC.

The former president may also not be able to rely on his own wealth to pay for his lawyers or fund an expensive campaign given the legal judgments he's already facing. A New York jury recently found him liable for defamation, ordering him to pay writer E. Jean Carroll $88.3 million. Judge Arthur Engoron is also expected to hand down his verdict as soon as this week in the civil fraud trial he's been overseeing since last fall. Trump may be ordered to pay as much as $370 million in damages for false financial statements the Trump Organization submitted to state authorities.>

<Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) openly endorsed the 2020 plot to block certification of the election in recent interviews — and it has left Gregory F. Jacob, the counsel to former Vice President Mike Pence, disgusted.

Stefanik, who has chaired the House Republican Conference ever since GOP lawmakers ousted former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) from that role over her criticism of former President Donald Trump, is now rumored to be a shortlister for Trump's 2024 vice presidential running mate. But Jacob, who knew her when he worked on the White House Domestic Policy Council, sees this as totally disqualifying for that role.

"When she first ran for Congress, in 2014, she was a thoughtful, principled conservative determined to champion the interests of her left-behind upstate New York district. I enthusiastically contributed to her campaign," wrote Jacob. "But now she says she would have done something no vice president has ever done or claimed the authority to do. She would have attempted to exercise a power the Constitution doesn’t grant to swing a presidential election to her preferred candidate. No one who espouses such lawless views should hold a position of authority."

Stefanik doesn't even realize the fire she is playing with, Jacob continued, because if she is on Trump's ticket as vice president, her theory would hold that Vice President Kamala Harris could block her own election from being certified. "Particularly if Ms. Stefanik is on the ticket, these Democrats would be delighted to throw her words back in her face as they exercise their raw political will — cloaked in the rhetoric of defending the Constitution from an 'insurrectionist' — to invalidate Trump electors," he wrote.

The GOP faces a crucial crossroads, concluded Jacob — and members like Stefanik are leading the whole party down a dangerous path.

"Because the Constitution’s checks and constraints on government power are crucial to protecting individual liberty," he wrote. "If Republicans ignore those limits in pursuing our political ends, citizens will rightly conclude there is no difference between the two parties. If we yield to the temptation of unconstrained power, Republicans will lose ourselves — and Americans will be at risk of losing our republic.">

<[Event "Framingham Open"] [Site "Framingham Mass"]
[Date "1987.09.19"]
[EventDate "1987"]
[Round "1"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Anderson, James D"]
[Black "Curdo, John"]
[ECO "C28"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "Framingham Open"] [Site "Framingham Mass"]
[Date "1987.09.19"]
[EventDate "1987"]
[Round "1"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Shaw, Alan"]
[Black "Pineau, Joseph"]
[ECO "A00"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]