<Diademas....Libertarianism has become some vogue cliche favoured by people who live under the dilution that they are capable of thinking for themselves. A notion they disproof by opening their mouth.....>

One who purports to espouse libertarianism, but whose posts constantly contradict any such stance will likely have a bit to say about the above--only it will not be here.

<Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is not a fan of former President Donald Trump's reported decision to hire far-right activist and failed Republican candidate Laura Loomer to help him win back the White House in 2024.

Writing on Twitter, Greene accused Loomer of being "mentally unstable" and a "documented liar" whom should not be hired by the former president.

"She can not be trusted," Greene wrote. "She spent months lying about me and attacking me just because I supported Kevin McCarthy for Speaker and after I had refused to endorse her last election cycle. She loves the alleged FBI informant and weirdo Nick Fuentes. She tried to get hired on the Ye campaign after the infamous Mar-a-Lago dinner, but Kanye West refused to hire her so now she’s running to Trump. Never hire or do business with a liar. Liars are toxic and poisonous to everything they touch."

Greene added that she'll "make sure" Trump knows her feelings about Loomer.

Even within the world of far-right MAGA politics, Loomer is a controversial figure.

Among other things, she once infamously handcuffed herself to Twitter's offices in New York City to protest getting banned for posting hate speech, she has touted herself as a "proud Islamophobe," and has even expressed support for white nationalism despite her own Jewish heritage.

"I’m pro-white nationalism,” Loomer said in 2017. "So this country really was built as the white Judeo-Christian ethnostate, essentially. Over time, immigration and all these calls for diversity, it’s starting to destroy this country.">

In fairness, Greene possesses a 3200 level understanding of mental instability and pathological lying.

<Republicans who are facing tough races in 2024 are defending Donald Trump against his criminal charges, either by assailing what they say is a political prosecution or offering full-throated support for the former president. And Democrats are betting they'll pay for it.

The day Trump was arraigned in New York on felony charges, two GOP House members from New York — Reps. Mike Lawler and Marc Molinaro – attacked Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, with Molinaro accusing him of pursuing a "political vendetta."

Rep. Mike Garcia, of California, appeared to invoke a comparison to Joseph Stalin's reign of terror in Russia. Embattled Rep. George Santos, embroiled in his own series of scandals, showed up at a pro-Trump rally in Manhattan and tweeted "that's what real supporters do" using the hashtag "#Trump2024NowMorethanEver."

Trump's indictment in New York on charges of 34 felony counts of falsification of business records leaves vulnerable down-ballot Republicans in a predicament: Avoid the topic and risk losing pro-Trump voters in a potential GOP primary, or defend him now and risk losing swing voters later in a general election.

The GOP once again boxed in by Trump

While some vulnerable Republicans have remained quiet, others have weighed in with comments that Democrats expect will age poorly.

"It's the latest iteration of the Republican Party being owned by this guy and paying the electoral price for it," said Shripal Shah, a partner at Left Hook and a former spokesperson for both the House and Senate Democrats' campaign arms. "I think it helps Democrats across the board, in both House and Senate races. Just like in 2022 — when you have to embrace everything about Trumpism in order to survive a primary you're doing so at your own peril."

Republicans are still reluctant to criticize Trump, even after he lashed out against federal law enforcement. Only three of the 18 Republicans who represent districts that President Joe Biden won in 2020 — Molinaro, Rep. Young Kim of California and Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon — would go on the record with Punchbowl News to distance themselves from Trump's call to defund the FBI and Department of Justice.

The 2024 elections are still a long way off and it's unclear which issues will motivate voters the most. But Democrats are betting that MAGA-charged politics will be a loser.

"Voters overwhelmingly rejected Trump and MAGA extremism in 2020 and 2022, but having learned nothing, House Republicans are eagerly showing voters that they are still at the mercy of one disgraced ex-president, even as he calls to defund federal law enforcement," Tommy Garcia, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told Insider. "It's dangerous and will likely cost them."

Spokespeople for the National Republican Congressional Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee did not respond to a request for comment....>

<....Prosecuting Trump polls well

Most Americans — 60%— approve of Trump's indictment, according to a CNN poll, though about three-quarters said politics played some role in it. About 4 in 10 said they thought he acted illegally in making alleged hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential election, while 33%said he acted unethically but not illegally.

MAGA booster Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado called that poll "as fake as Biden's White House play set." Boebert, who only narrowly won her 2022 election in a Trump 2020 district, called on her Twitter followers to be vocal about "this assault on our nation."

Boebert is on House Democrats' list of 31 vulnerable Republicans and two competitive open seats that they are targeting to take back control of the House in 2024.

Senate Democrats face a tough election cycle with 20 Democrat-controlled seats and three independent seats up for election, but they're expecting to see Trump playing a role in messy primaries on the Republican side.

In Pennsylvania, former gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, a potential Senate candidate, called out the "weaponizing of our Justice system against the leading Republican candidate for president is unprecedented, disconcerting and dangerous." He also retweeted a supporter who criticized a potential opponent, David McCormick, for being "completely silent" on Trump's indictment and arrest and called him a "coward."

"Donald Trump's indictment is intensifying Senate Republicans' nasty primary dynamics across the map — exacerbating their intra-party fighting and pushing GOP Senate candidates further away from the voters who will decide the general election," Nora Keefe, a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesperson, told Insider.

Biden hasn't commented on Trump's charges, and Democrats in Congress are treading carefully.

Democrats shouldn't get ahead of the judicial process, said Rodell Mollineau, a cofounder and partner at Rokk Solutions in Washington, DC. They should say Trump deserves his day in court and "be the party of the rule of law," he said.

If it comes out that this was political overreach or a stretch, he said, "this is where I think it becomes more problematic for our side.">

<For as long as I can remember, Democrats have been on the defensive about enacting their agenda because it was assumed that it would engender a backlash among "the silent majority," as former president Richard Nixon called it, or what modern Republicans call "Real America." Reacting to the counter-culture of the 1960s and the massive social changes it engendered, the left wing of the Democratic Party was always admonished by the centrist and conservative wings not to go too far or too fast. The media even blithely asserted that "America is a conservative country" as if it were an act of God. This article of faith hobbled progress for a very long time and empowered the Reagan Revolution through the Tea Party and Donald Trump's MAGA movement.

Nobody ever seemed to consider that enabling the right wing to become more and more extreme over the course of many years might engender a backlash of its own. It appears as if that time may have finally come — and it's clear the Republican establishment doesn't know what to do about it. The question is whether the Democratic establishment does either.

We started out with former president and current GOP presidential frontrunner being indicted in New York over the payments of hush money to conceal information that might have damaged his chances in the 2016 election. It's a huge story but it's not unanticipated nor is it the last prosecution Donald Trump is likely to face in the coming months. The most interesting aspect of it remains the fact that the Republican establishment is circling the wagons around him once again while Republican voters seem determined to push him to the nomination. This is despite the fact that he will be under indictment on felony charges in at least one case and probably more, proving once again that no amount of norm-busting, corruption or criminal behavior is a deal breaker with his cult. Trump has trained them to believe that it's all an elaborate conspiracy against him.

But this week also showed that something else is afoot. Yes, Trump is a galvanizing force in Democratic politics going all the way back to the massive, global Women's March in 2017. His grotesque behavior motivated millions of people, especially women, to organize and it paid off in every election since then. Donald Trump has been dragging the GOP down for years but they just can't quit him. However, the party's rapid descent into extremism is bigger than Trump and the backlash is continuing to show itself in ways that are shattering the status quo.

Not just Trump's indictment: The MAGA movement is having its worst week ever

The swing state of Wisconsin has been a battleground for years with a polarized electorate that has had power swinging back and forth between the two parties with razor-thin margins. It was assumed that the high-stakes election this week for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court would be similarly tight. The future of the outrageous gerrymander that makes Republicans massively over-represented in the state legislature was at issue but, most importantly, abortion rights were front and center. Abortion has been illegal in the state since last June when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and an archaic law banning abortion that had been on the books since 1849 was no longer moot. The hard right legislature and the conservative state Supreme Court wasn't going to fix that.

The election turned on those two intersecting issues. Abortion rights and democracy were on the ballot with the first being denied as a result of the Republicans manipulating the map to un-democratically seize more power than the people voted for. The anti-abortion candidate (a Trumper, by the way) lost by 10 points, a miracle in that polarized electorate. With good organization by the state Democratic Party — which saw a huge uptick in 18-29-year-old voters, a big gender gap and even, surprisingly, inroads among white, non-college-educated voters — abortion rights and democracy advocacy carried the day....>

<....Meanwhile in Chicago, just as in Los Angeles earlier, the progressive mayoral candidate won despite widespread expectations that the centrist "law and order" candidate would prevail as a result of right-wing fear-mongering about crime. (The head of Chicago's Fraternal Order of Police, a Trumper, threatened that 1,000 police officers would walk off the job if Brandon Johnson, the eventual winner, was elected.) The stale "law and order" handwringing didn't work in 2022 and it didn't work this week — and it's yet another sign that the extremism of right-wing rhetoric and policies is turning off voters. Backlash.

The GOP is an authoritarian, extremist political party that is out of the mainstream of American life.

And then there was the grotesque display we witnessed in Nashville, Tennessee on Thursday when the Republicans expelled two Black lawmakers, Justin Pierson and Justin Jones, for staging a protest for gun safety legislation on the floor of the House. Here's an illustration of what took place: an odious, condescending comment delivered by a Republican House member who is clearly hard-pressed not to go full Bull Connor and address his colleague as "boy":

Republicans remove all doubt that they oppose democracy

After six people, including three little children, were shot down in a Nashville school, citizens protested the state's insanely loose gun laws that allowed the shooter to legally obtain firearms despite a history of mental illness. The anti-democratic Republicans (yes, Tennessee is ridiculously gerrymandered as well) essentially scoffed at their concerns, attacked their colleagues' First Amendment rights and then showed the entire country in living color that they are unreconstructed racists on top of it by instituting the political death penalty against two Black legislators for a minor rules violation.

In this instance, we are seeing the burning issue of gun violence converge with the issue of democracy and systemic racism and while it hasn't yet been fully demonstrated, the fact that the two ousted legislators are also quite young, as are most of the protesters, makes me think we are on the verge of seeing another backlash developing. Look at the age of the protesters:

The GOP is an authoritarian, extremist political party that is out of the mainstream of American life. As NY Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez tweeted after the events in Nashville on Thursday:

Republicans may think they won today in Tennessee, but their fascism is only further radicalizing and awakening an earthquake of young people, both in the South and across the nation. If you thought youth organizing was strong, just wait for what's coming,

Backlashes go both ways and this one is coming from the left. It's about time.>

<Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has pledged he isn't done with trying to control Walt Disney World.

During a book tour stop in Midland, Michigan, on Thursday, DeSantis acknowledged that Disney had "tried to pull a fast one on their way out the door" by quietly creating a loophole to retain power over its land. He pledged that the company, which had benefitted from a special carve-out for decades, would eventually pay its debts and taxes.

"All I can say is: That story's not over yet," DeSantis said. "Buckle up. There's going to be more coming down the pike."

The governor expanded on his remarks on Thursday evening, in a separate event at conservative Hillsdale College. DeSantis said the legislature would void Disney's actions and also consider taxes on hotels, new tolls, and developing properties. He said even more actions would come over the next month or two.

"We are going to win on every single issue involving Disney," he said.

The DeSantis-Disney feud first began in early 2022. Disney drew DeSantis' ire after its leaders said publicly that the company would work to repeal the Parental Rights in Education Act, the legislation LGBTQ rights groups and Democrats have derided as "Don't Say Gay," because it limits classroom instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation.

DeSantis worked with the legislature twice to punish the company by targeting a provision long on the books that gives Disney special self-governing privileges in Florida — privileges that many other businesses, including rival theme parks such as Sea World and Universal Studios, don't have.

First DeSantis signed a bill into law in April 2022 to dissolve the Reedy Creek district that oversees Disney. But when it was revealed the measure could have resulted in residents taking on a sizeable amount of debt through higher taxes, the legislature sent DeSantis a new bill in February 2023, during a special session, that would allow the governor to appoint a board to control the district.

Disney, however, had written in a loophole that allows it to keep the majority of its power, virtually in perpetuity, and that renders the board mostly toothless.

The DeSantis administration appeared to have been caught by surprise over the maneuver, and quickly began demanding information about what happened.

Last week, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody requested texts, emails, and other public records from the former board members of the Reedy Creek Improvement District. DeSantis this week asked the state inspector general to look into Disney's power play, including by assessing whether the mega-corporation's executives, staff, or agents were involved.

"One powerful corporation should not be outside the contours of the law," DeSantis said in Michigan. "They need to be held accountable, and we are going to make sure that happens."

The governor's appointees to the board, who were intended to oversee Disney, are consulting with four different law firms over the matter, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Disney has said its move was "discussed and approved in open, noticed public forums."

DeSantis' promotional book tour is widely viewed as a soft campaign to lay the groundwork for an official 2024 presidential run, one that would pit him against former President Donald Trump, who tops national polls by a wide margin.

On his book tour stops, DeSantis frequently boasts about taking on Disney over the Parental Rights bill, which he said was necessary to protect children. Should he fail to come out on top in the battle, opponents such as Trump could use the saga to undercut DeSantis' image of himself as an effective leader.

On Thursday morning, DeSantis portrayed confidence over the feud.

"It may have been the case that Disney ran the state of Florida in the 60 years prior to me being governor," DeSantis said, "but they do not run it as long as this sheriff is in town.">

Good luck, messenger of evil! Suck scum!!!!

<On Thursday, ProPublica published a blockbuster report describing how Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas received years of lavish vacations—including travel by private jet and megayacht—paid for by a wealthy Republican megadonor. The details of the piece are astonishing, from the unreported flights valued at tens of thousands of dollars to the vacations valued at more than half a million. Equally astonishing is that a sitting justice believed that these trips need not be disclosed under decades-old ethics laws requiring justices to report all gifts worth more than a “minimal” value set by statute. Indeed, ProPublica’s revelations raise questions about the timing of news that broke last week about long-overdue reforms issued by the Judicial Conference, the federal courts’ rule-making body, which finally closed some of the most glaring loopholes in its rules governing when judges must disclose their receipt of free trips, meals, and other gifts under that federal law.

The updated rules—which apply, in theory, to Supreme Court justices as well as lower court judges—narrow the judicial branch’s reading of the so-called “personal hospitality” exemption to the federal financial disclosure law. As a result, the judiciary’s travel and gift disclosure standards are now closer to matching those of congressmembers and senior executive branch officials. The Judicial Conference can refer “willful” violations of these reporting requirements, which are subject to civil and criminal penalties, to the attorney general for prosecution.

This small but meaningful rule change—coming after years of congressional oversight, which I helped lead as a staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee for Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse—is commendable. But no one should pretend it will do nearly enough to slow down the Federalist Society network’s billion-dollar juggernaut of influence and ingratiation that surrounds, and indeed produced, today’s unrestrained Supreme Court.

Amid mounting evidence of Supreme Court justices’ entanglements with special interests and plummeting public trust in the court, this update to the judicial branch’s ethics rules was the first indication that the courts—in seeming anticipation of Thursday’s news—might be trying to stop the free fall. But the outlandish judicial conduct that helped spur the reform—in addition to these latest revelations about Thomas—only make clear that more scrutiny is needed into questions of influence and corruption surrounding our least transparent branch.

Much of it involved Justice Antonin Scalia, the previous undisputed heavyweight champion of the “personal hospitality” exemption. Scalia took advantage of the judiciary’s lax rules to enjoy at least 85 undisclosed hunting and fishing trips during his tenure on the court, often with prominent Republican donors, politicians, and those with business before the court.

How do we know? After Scalia died—at an $800-per-night Texas hunting lodge among still-unknown companions—an enterprising pair of lawyers noticed that his acquaintances had taken to local news outlets to share stories of their hunting escapades with the late justice. Digging deeper, they unearthed evidence of a justice who regularly sat in the lap of luxury, on the dime of wealthy and influential hosts. The evidence also shows how Scalia devised a scheme—tacking private hunting trips onto public speeches—that generally allowed him to avoid detection....>

<....Retired federal Judge Charles Pickering, Scalia’s frequent hunting facilitator, explained: “After it got out that if you took him hunting or fishing that he would come speak, he started getting invitations all over the place.” For example: hearing that Scalia would “do anything if you take him hunting,” Texas lawyer and Republican mega-donor Mark Lanier chartered a plane to take Scalia boar hunting on a private ranch following a speech he gave at Lanier’s alma mater, Texas Tech. As was typical, Scalia’s financial disclosure revealed only that he had received “transportation, food, [and] lodging” for “Lectures,” with Texas Tech as the sole reimbursing party.

The most concerning stories, of course, involve Scalia’s private fraternization with and receipt of free travel from those with cases or ongoing interests before the court.

There was Scalia’s refusal to recuse from a 2004 case involving Vice President Dick Cheney, despite their longstanding friendship forged through annual trips to a private duck-hunting lodge, accessed by private plane and hosted by an oil industry executive and prolific Republican donor. On another occasion, Scalia successfully solicited a pheasant-hunting trip from University of Kansas Law School dean and state solicitor Stephen McAllister, in exchange for his giving a speech at the school. In the weeks before and after the trip—during which Scalia traveled to a hunting camp on a state-owned plane with Kansas’ governor and other Republican politicians—McAllister twice appeared in the Supreme Court on behalf of the state. Scalia sided with Kansas in both cases.

While on these excursions with political allies, Scalia apparently felt little compunction about discussing the court’s notoriously private deliberations. Alan Gottlieb, a prominent gun rights advocate whose group is a repeat player before the court, recounted how Scalia all but told him the outcome of the watershed 2008 Second Amendment case District of Columbia v. Heller while at a 2007 NRA-funded trip to Nuremberg, Germany. Discussing whether the court would agree to hear the case—in which Gottlieb’s group was involved—Scalia reportedly said: “You know, Alan, it takes four votes on the Supreme Court to hear a case, and it takes five to win it. If I don’t think we have the five to win it, there won’t be four to hear it.” Gottlieb continued: “And that just made me feel like I knew at that point in time that if the Supreme Court took the Heller case, that we were going to win it.”

Scalia’s and Thomas’ misadventures reflect an attitude of impunity, arrogance, and unabashed partisanship that has only grown as the Federalist Society—which Scalia helped form—has cemented its grip on judicial power. As investigative reporting continues to uncover the sprawling web of influence driving the court’s composition and agenda, Federalist Society judges like Thomas have become not only more aggressive in their unprincipled judicial activism, but also more defiant in their resistance to ethics reform. Look, for example, at their recent campaign to beat back a proposed rule prohibiting judges’ membership in partisan organizations, their refusals to recuse themselves in the face of clear conflicts of interest, and their yet more free international trips and leaks to allied interests. So, although it is laudable that the courts have acknowledged and remedied the Scalia-sized loopholes in their gift disclosure rules, Americans should demand a much more serious reckoning before they contemplate restoring faith in our third branch.>

<House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is facing backlash from GOP lawmakers after the New York Times published a report suggesting the Republican was blaming his own leadership for the lack of a budget.

According to the Times report this week, McCarthy reportedly said he doubted House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-TX) could deliver a budget proposal, and he called Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) an “ineffective” leader. McCarthy denied the accusation that his leadership team is not unified though.

An Axios report later revealed some blowback to McCarthy’s alleged comments and suggested the speaker may be on “rocky ground” in his leadership position.

“The members I’ve spoken with are just stunned by his rebuking of his budget chair, and certainly of our leadership,” one unidentified House Republican told the outlet. “I can’t imagine [he will last an entire term].”

Arrington gave his own statement, echoing McCarthy’s promises that the party is focused and unified in putting together a budget.

“Our nation is staring down the barrel of a debt crisis and my budget committee colleagues and I are focused on one thing: passing a budget that will stop this reckless spending and restore fiscal sanity in Washington before it’s too late,” he said.

Another Republican lawmaker accused the House speaker of treating Scalise and Arrington as “scapegoats.” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) was a tad more blunt in his statement.

“The agreements made by Speaker McCarthy, among other things, is to begin the ten year balanced budget NOW and with his initiatives & directives, it’s HIS responsibility to get the 218 votes to ensure our nation’s financial security JUST AS HE DID IN SECURING THE 218 votes for speaker,” the Republican said.

The Times previously reported McCarthy had been “trash talking” his GOP colleagues and compared the reported infighting to “Mean Girls drama” playing out on Capitol Hill.>

<Appearing on MSNBC on Saturday afternoon, Omarosa Manigault Newman claimed repeatedly that former National Enquirer CEO David Pecker maintained a safe where he stored stories and pictures that could be damaging to Donald Trump's reputation.

Speaking with host Alex Witt, Manigault Newman, whose relationship with the former president dates back to his reality show "The Apprentice," was asked about Trump's indictment in a Manhattan court on 34 felony charges related to alleged hush money paid to an adult film star and a Playboy model.

That, in turn, led to questions about Pecker's involvement with Trump, which led him to have to testify before the Manhattan grand jury.

According to Manigault Newman, who also briefly worked in the Trump White House, Pecker used to employ a west coast staffer named Dylan whose sole job was to track down Trump stories and kill them.

"What's interesting, a little after I left 'The Apprentice,' I went to go work for AMI for David Pecker and 'Okay Magazine,'" she recalled. "David was also launching a new project called 'Reality Weekly Magazine,' so, I was the West Coast editor."

"During that time, he had a deputy named Dylan, and Dylan's full-time job, apparently, was to catch and suppress the stories about Donald Trump," she continued. "And there was this infamous vault that they had at the Enquirer allegedly, that kept all of this information about Donald. So fast forward to the indictment, I'm reading a lot of the rumors that I heard, when I worked at the magazine were confirmed in the indictment."

"Hang on.," host Witt interrupted. "Dylan was assigned to, essentially, 'catch and kill' — it's a phrase we've all become familiar with now, exclusively Donald Trump stories? Or others as well?"

"Exclusively Donald Trump," her guest replied. "And allegedly, we go to the headquarters of AMI, which of course, I visited very often while I working as a West Coast editor. There is, supposedly, this infamous vault of information, tapes, pictures and secrets that David kept safe for Donald Trump and they were overseen by his chief, Dylan."

Host Witt was quick to add, "Look, I'm not going to refute what you're saying, but obviously, this is nothing that NBC News has been able to verify.">

<The North Dakota Senate greenlit a bill on Thursday that will increase the amount of money they can expense for their meals when traveling within the state.

The vote came just days after the same group of lawmakers voted against legislation that would have expanded a free school lunch program for some of the state's neediest students, according to Inforum, a local news outlet.

That bill would have devoted $6 million from the state budget for the next two years to families whose income falls beneath double the federal poverty level, expanding an already existing federally-funded free lunch program.

A total of 13 Republicans voted both for their own increased meal reimbursements and against more free lunches for kids. For some lawmakers, the two votes pointed to a larger problem.

"I think it shows (the Senate's) priorities are a little out of whack when they have no problem increasing the meal reimbursement rate for ourselves but not for those families that may be struggling to make ends meet, "Assistant House Minority Leader Zac Ista, a Democrat, told Inforum.

Some senators argued the increased meal reimbursements — which jumped from $35 a day to $45 a day — were necessary due to inflation and didn't see any problem with voting for the meal reimbursements and against expanded free lunch for students.

North Dakota Senate Assistant Majority Leader Jerry Klein, one of the 13 senators who voted in favor of reimbursements and against school lunches, told Inforum that he didn't think there was any "correlation whatsoever" between the two bills.

Senate Minority Leader Kathy Hogan, on the other side, called the vote "self-serving."

"How can we vote for ourselves when we can't vote for children?" she told the Inforum.>

< Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro was questioned on Wednesday over diamond jewelry gifts he accepted while in power.

Authorities are seeking to determine if any irregularities were carried out when bringing the jewelry into Brazil.

It is not clear whether Bolsonaro answered the investigator's questions or exercised his right to remain silent in what was reportedly an hours-long probe. The former president has denied any wrongdoing related to the gifts.

He is also under investigation for involvement in the attack on state institutions in the capital, Brasilia, in January, which was carried out by his supporters in protest against the election results. >

<A Republican lawmaker went on an angry rant Sunday morning just after CNN "State of the Union" host Dana Bash fact-checked him on the multiple uses for the drug mifepristone which a Donald Trump-appointed judge is trying to take off the market.

Asked to address the highly controversial ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued late Friday, Rep. Henry Gonzales (R-TX) stated the FDA should prepare to follow his directive with no complaints.

"The House Republicans have the power of the purse, and if the administration wants to not heed this ruling, not live up to this ruling, then we're going to have a problem," the Republican threatened. "And it may be a come to a point where House Republicans on the appropriation side have to defund FDA programs that don't make sense."

Things went sideways in the interview when the CNN host pointed out the drug is, "...also frequently prescribed for women experiencing a miscarriage and by some estimates, as many as one million women miscarry every single year. So are they just on their own?"

"If this ruling is uphold, upheld, no," he insisted. "I think it's important that we take care of women and it's important that we have real discussions on women's health care and get off the abortion."

"Get off the abortion conversation!" he exclaimed before ranting, "Women have a whole lot more other issues than just abortion. Let's have those real conversations and let's talk about, you know, let's talk about the other things that are happening in this world!">

<France’s President Emmanuel Macron has demanded that Europe reduces its reliance on the United States and avoids getting dragged into a confrontation between the US and China over Taiwan.

The statement, made during Macron’s three-day state visit to China, could risk riling Washington and highlights the divisions in the European Union over how to approach China.

France’s concept of strategic autonomy

Macron emphasized his pet theory of “strategic autonomy” for Europe, presumably led by France, to become a “third superpower.” Speaking with POLITICO and two French journalists on his plane back from China, he said “the great risk” Europe faces is that it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy.”

He also highlighted his concern about “growing tensions in the region” that could lead to “a terrible accident.” Macron’s comments came just hours after China launched large military exercises around Taiwan, which China claims as its territory.

Beijing has repeatedly threatened to invade in recent years and has a policy of isolating the democratic island by forcing other countries to recognize it as part of “one China.”

Europe’s dependency on the US for weapons and energy, and the “extraterritoriality of the US dollar” were two factors Macron singled out as reducing Europe’s autonomy. He suggested Europe should focus on boosting European defense industries and reducing its reliance on the dollar.

Macron’s concept of strategic autonomy for Europe has been his long-held goal, and he sees France as the balancing power between the Cold War blocs. He has argued that Europe must reduce its dependency on the US to become an independent geostrategic player.

The French leader emphasized that Europe needs to have a European strategy in areas such as Ukraine, relations with China, and sanctions. Macron warned against getting into a bloc versus bloc logic and said that Europe “should not be caught up in a disordering of the world and crises that aren’t ours.”

Risks of getting dragged into a confrontation

Macron’s comments highlighted the risks of getting dragged into a confrontation between China and the US over Taiwan. He argued that it is not in Europe’s interest to accelerate a crisis over Taiwan, saying, “The worst thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the US agenda and a Chinese overreaction.”

Macron’s approach to Taiwan was more conciliatory than the US or even the European Union. While discussing Taiwan with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Friday, Macron warned against “an acceleration of tensions breaking out between the duopoly” of China and the US.

He cautioned that if the confrontation escalates too quickly, Europeans “won’t have the time or the resources to finance our strategic autonomy and will become vassals.”

Macron’s statement has highlighted the divisions within the European Union over how to approach China, particularly in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.

While Europe’s emergence as an independent geostrategic player has been Macron’s goal, there is still contentious debate in Europe over the right approach with China and overbalancing security and trade issues.>

<Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' attempt to brush aside concerns that he has been influenced for decades by a billionaire who has lavished gifts and expensive getaways on himself and his wife didn't pass the smell test of the Washington Post's fact checker.

In his column, the Post's Glenn Kessler suggested the rare statement from Thomas to his critics not only doesn't fully address the issues being scrutinized but instead creates more questions that need investigating.

Breaking the jurist's statement down, Kessler, focused on Thomas asserting that he was advised years ago he was given the okay to not report the gifts from conservative billionaire Harlan Crow.

According to Thomas, "Early in my tenure at the court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the court, was not reportable.”

As Kessler wrote, "This statement is vague, not disclosing when he sought this guidance (such as whether it was before or after he became friends with Crow) and who outside the Supreme Court but 'in the judiciary' might have offered this guidance."

As for Thomas's dismissive claim, "As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them,” Kessler pointed out the elephant in the room that was included in ProPublica's report that set off the firestorm.

About those "family trips," the Post report states, "The ProPublica article documented some of these trips, including a nine-day journey in Indonesia on a private plane and superyacht that would have cost Thomas more than $500,000 if he had funded it himself. As a Supreme Court justice Thomas earns $285,000 a year. Notably, Thomas’s statement does not address his use of Crow’s private plane for other reasons."

Kessler went on to note that Thomas made a "debatable' claim when he wrote, "I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines.”

"In 2004, the Los Angeles Times disclosed that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had accepted from Crow private plane trips and expensive gifts, such as a Bible that once belonged to abolitionist Frederick Douglass and a bust of Abraham Lincoln," he wrote before adding, "Thomas refused to comment in 2004, but the Times report appears to have had an impact: Thomas stopped disclosing that he had accepted free plane trips from Crow. So it’s unclear how Thomas can say in recent years he relied on the same guidance he had received 'early in my tenure,'" which began on the Supreme Court 32 years ago.>

Time for this scum and his worthless wife to get the axe--pronto!!!!

<United States Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) and conservative commentator Dave Rubin called for arming teachers while simultaneously trash-talking educators during a discussion about gun violence on the March 30th edition of his Rubin Report podcast.

"Uh, I want to arm teachers. I want to have secure schools. Um, there was, um, a, an idea I proposed in the last Congress to take some of the unspent COVID money, money and secure our schools. Um, protect our children," Boebert said. "We protect Congress with, with fences and miles of razor wire and tens of thousands of armed National Guard because walls work and armed security works. Uh, we, we secure our airports, we secure our banks. Why not our most precious asset, our children?"

Studies have found that armed security tends to increase violence during school shootings. Plus, firearms are typically forbidden inside the venues that Boebert mentioned.

"Let me ask you about the arming teachers thing – cuz I'm not – there's part of me that's not inherently against it, but then when you see how many teachers are actually left-wing activists; how many teachers are actually teaching this woke craziness; how many teachers are clearly not good at their job or, or actually quite negligent in their responsibilities? What do you do about that?" Rubin asked. "Because it's not as if you're just gonna hand guns, be able to train them, and they're gonna be ideologically lined up with you in a way that's gonna make any sort of sense."

Boebert agreed.

"Correct. Well, I don't think, um, most of those woke teachers are, are going to be volunteering to be armed," she predicted. "Um, I, you know, there's, there's certainly circumstances, um, that are, are always beyond my imagination."

Reactions to Boebert's remarks were a mix of ridicule and sarcasm.

SCRobinson: "At least it sounds like she's giving the teachers a choice? If 'woke teachers' can opt out, it's not a mandatory program. You'll need to offer incentives to schools that arm teachers, with a bonus based on how many teachers complete firearms training courses."

Rantor80: "Uh…grew up in Alaska as the son of farmers, oil workers, and TEACHERS…and as a teacher I guess you'd consider *woke*, I wouldn't trust MOST teachers with guns in schools and almost ALL of us don't want them there in the first place! Not like today's @GOP cares to ask."

Semi-Bionic Woman: "Bimboebert doesn't trust teachers enough to choose books for their students, but trusts them to carry firearms."

Mila Tequila: "I wonder what she would do if a bunch of armed 'woke people' showed up to her office to chat."

fishingfever: "So only Republican teachers will be armed, gosh, how can anything go wrong?"

Norbeck Traci: "Teachers have to pay for school supplies- who going to pay for their weapons and ammo and their time to go to the range for practice?"

Sui Generous: "They can't even afford crayons, but now…bullets? Can't wait for THAT bake sale."

i like wes anderson movies: "Teachers = bad. Courts = bad. Beer = bad. Trans = bad. Books = bad. Disney = bad. I am starting to think they don’t like America."

Sandi: "It's abundantly clear that the GOP wants to pick and choose who they think should be allowed to have guns and rights."

MJ: "This is very troubling. Degrading people based on ideology and willingness to carry guns is crazy. That a progressive teacher is considered an enemy or unfit. The hatred. I'm always taken aback by how seriously she takes herself."

Pro Phacts: "Yes, that's why police officers, who unlike teachers are well trained in defensive and offensive tactics using arms, never ever get shot or killed by a bad guy with a gun."

Brian O'Loughlin: "She could start every sentence that comes out of her mouth with, 'I Don't Think'."

Mitch: "Teachers' job is supposed to be TEACHING."

jasonvan: "Yeah, because teachers are great sharpshooters of a moving target."

Phoenix: "So… @laurenboebert aim is to arm 'unwoke' teachers with weapons in the classrooms? Right-wing, white nationalist, against teaching CRT or any critical thinking curriculum to their students. THOSE teachers?"

Bruce Leonard: "I don't think she thinks at all."

Johnny Wright: "Miss 'I've had a GED for three years' has some super informed thoughts. Jeez."

Cynthia Thuotte: "How is she still in Congress?">

<Republicans in Montana are trying to change the rules for next year’s Senate primary to make it easier to defeat Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and win back the Senate majority.

A bill moving through the statehouse in Helena would change the structure of the election from the party primary system currently in place to a jungle primary in which the top two vote-getters advance to the general election regardless of party. The move would essentially box out Libertarian candidates.

The thinking among Republicans is that this would, theoretically, push those would-be third-party voters toward the GOP candidate and give the party a leg up against Tester, the three-term Senate Democrat who they are pining to take down this year.

Perhaps most galling to Democrats is the provision that the law would sunset in 2025 and not be applicable to congressional races — meaning that it would only affect Tester’s race. The bill passed the state Senate on Tuesday and is expected to pass the state House, which is controlled by a GOP supermajority, in the coming weeks.

The mood among Montana Democrats has shifted over the past weeks from anger to resignation, as they deride the proposed law as a desperate attempt to defeat a Democrat who the GOP hasn’t been able to take out at the polls.

“I would say there was anxiety when it first happened, but it’s now dissipated,” one Montana-based Democratic operative told The Hill. “No one’s running around with their hair on fire now.”

Montana Republicans told The Daily Montanan last week that the measure was intended to make sure the state’s Senator had received the support of at least half its voters. And state Rep. Greg Hertz, the bill’s sponsor, said the sunset date is to allow the legislature to evaluate whether to extend the law and apply it to other contests.

“We want to make sure that the winning U.S. senator has more than 50% of the supporting people in Montana,” Hertz said.

Multiple Montana Democrats told The Hill that they believe the legislative effort is the brainchild of Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC).

They say there was zero chatter surrounding this push throughout most of the legislative session, which lasts 90 working days and runs from January until May, until shortly before the bill hit the floor last week.

“This has all the feels of the D.C. apparatus coming in and saying, ‘Pass this legislation,’” said Jayson O’Neill, a Montana-based Democratic operative who served as an aide to former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D). “Surely [the Montana legislature] didn’t come up with this on their own.”

“It seems like a Hail Mary throw. … Throw it deep and see if they can get a catch,” O’Neill continued. “They’re so desperate to find that magic pathway to electoral success that they’re willing to throw anything against the wall and see if it sticks.”

The first Montana-based Democratic operative added that the only whispers going around in recent memory related to changing the primary structure were by liberal groups.

“Obviously Daines was calling people and trying to make this happen,” the operative said. “I’ve never seen something move so quickly in the state legislature. … Everyone got on board very quickly. The only way that happens is D.C. coordination.”...>

<....Tester is among the most vulnerable Senate Democrats up for reelection in 2024, running in a red state that former President Trump carried in 2016 and 2020.

And Daines has made it known that one of his top priorities as NRSC chairman is to unseat Tester as the two continue their simmering political rivalry. After Tester announced his plans to seek a fourth term, the Montana Republican issued a scathing statement, saying that Tester is making the same mistake as former Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D), who ran against Daines in 2020 and lost by 10 percentage points.

“Both should have ended their political careers on their terms. Instead, they each will have their careers ended by Montana voters,” he said.

An NRSC spokesperson declined to comment on the Montana legislature’s efforts.

Tester won his 2018 contest by clearing the 50 percent threshold. In 2006 and 2012, however, he failed to clear that threshold and won by margins of less than one percentage point and less than four points.

The libertarian candidate won 2.5 percent and 6.5 percent support, respectively, in those races.

Still, the impact of excluding Libertarian and other third-party candidates from the November ballot is unclear. A significant portion of those who vote for Libertarian candidates do it because they either believe in the libertarian cause or are doing so as a form of a protest vote and it remains to be seen whether they would vote for a Republican or simply stay home.

“Generally, these people don’t like either party,” the Montana-based Democratic operative said.

It also remains to be seen who Tester squares off against next year. Reps. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) and Matt Zinke (R-Mont.) have garnered the lion’s share of attention as possible opponents, however both have political weaknesses.

Rosendale, a House Freedom Caucus member who is originally from Maryland, lost to Tester in 2018 and a number of Republicans are not anxious to see a repeat this go-around. And Zinke faces ethics issues stemming from his time as Interior secretary under former President Trump.

One possibility that could be on deck for Republicans is Tim Sheehy, a Montana-based businessman who Daines has reportedly recruited and has lauded publicly. Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and Iraq War veteran, is also attractive to Republicans because he would be able to self-finance a potential statewide bid.

“It seems like all directions are pointing at Sheehy,” said one GOP operative, noting that Sheehy and Zinke are close friends.

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen (R) is also expected to consider a Senate bid.>

<It was a bumper week for diplomacy in Beijing. Chinese President Xi Jinping accompanied his French counterpart, President Emmanuel Macron, on a three-day visit to the Chinese capital and the southern metropolis of Guangzhou. Escaping, if briefly, from the fiery protests taking place in his own country, Macron was received by adoring, excited crowds of students at Guangzhou’s Sun Yat-sen University. In between grand receptions and formal tea ceremonies, the two leaders saw a slate of French companies and Chinese state-run firms clinch some major business deals.

Macron gave Xi the optics he sought: A clear reminder to the United States — who Xi obliquely referred to as a domineering “third party” — of the gap between its hawkish stance on China and the more perhaps equivocating posture of many in Europe. It was less clear what Xi gave Macron politically: The French president urged Xi to bring Russia “to reason” over its invasion of Ukraine, but that was met by boilerplate rhetoric and little indication of the needle of the conflict being moved in any significant direction.

In what was framed as a joint call with France, Xi urged for peace talks to resume soon and called “for the protection of civilians,” while also reiterating that “nuclear weapons must not be used, and nuclear war must not be fought” over Ukraine. That latter point marked perhaps the biggest distance between Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has periodically rattled the nuclear saber as the war he unleashed in Ukraine lurches on. Despite European entreaties, Xi made no definitive commitment to speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Macron was joined in China by Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission. The two leaders sent somewhat divergent messages; von der Leyen bemoaned China’s “unfair practices,” particularly in trade, and arrived in the country after delivering a tough speech on the authoritarian challenge posed by Beijing. Macron, on the other hand, warned against the West plunging itself into an “inescapable spiral” of tensions with China.

Chinese commentators suggested that’s because the tables of history have turned and Macron recognizes the sheer weight and importance of China’s economy, not least at a moment when he’s trying to carve out a vision of a more robust, capable and independent Europe. “Although there are still concerns in France about our country’s increasing [global] role, China’s support is essential if France wants to exercise its soft power in global governance,” Shanghai-based scholars Zhang Ji and Xue Sheng wrote in a recent essay.

Macron and Europe hedge their bets on China

In the middle of Macron’s visit, another major summit took place in Beijing. The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and Iran — the Middle East’s feuding antagonists — conducted the highest-level meeting between their two countries in seven years in the Chinese capital. In Washington, a bemused clutch of regional experts looked on as China played the role of a stabilizing outside power in the Middle East.

The thaw between Riyadh and Tehran was long in the works and not exclusively because of Chinese efforts. “Analysts say the warming ties are due to a convergence of interests,” wrote my colleagues Kareem Fahim and Sarah Dadouch. “Iran, under Western sanctions and trying to suffocate a domestic protest movement, has looked to ease its global and regional isolation; Saudi Arabia, faced with security threats from Iran that threaten its plan to diversify the kingdom’s economy away from oil, is seeking to tamp down regional tensions — a strategy that has included pursuing partnerships with major world powers beyond the United States.”

But it does invariably show a waning of American influence, especially over the Saudis. “Many experts still assume that whoever is in the White House will guide Saudi policy on Iran, but that simply isn’t true today,” said Anna Jacobs, a senior Gulf analyst at the International Crisis Group, to the New York Times. “Saudi Arabia and Gulf Arab states are focusing on their economic, political and security interests and protecting themselves from regional threats.”

Enter Xi’s China, an economic juggernaut now flexing new geopolitical muscles. “China has in recent years declared that it needs to be a participant in the creation of the world order,” former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger told Post columnist David Ignatius last month. “It has now made a significant move in that direction.”....>

<....China’s Xi promises to build ‘great wall of steel’ in rivalry with West

The contours of this imagined Chinese world order are still difficult to sketch. We know about its vast economic ambitions, including the Belt and Road Initiative that has seen China finance and invest in major infrastructure projects around the world. But in recent weeks, Xi has touted a number of other new initiatives over “security” and “civilization” — still vague policy positions essentially challenging the architecture of the U.S.-led order, as well as the concept of universal values.

“It appears to be a counterargument to [President] Biden’s autocracy versus democracy narrative,” Moritz Rudolf, a research scholar at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, told the Financial Times. “It’s an ideological battle that’s more attractive to developing countries than people in Washington might believe.”

China’s foray into Middle East great power politics, in particular, show a new capacity and willingness to act. “In the past we would declare some principles, make our position known but not get involved operationally. That is going to change,” said Wu Xinbo, dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said in the same Financial Times story.

For some analysts, Macron’s visit is a reminder of the tough questions facing Europe. While the war in Ukraine and antipathy toward Russia have galvanized the transatlantic alliance, the question of China is thornier, with Chinese investment and trade vital to Europe’s future prospects. What that means for the grim scenarios that obsess Washington policymakers — including a possible future Chinese invasion of Taiwan — is an open question, and one that may elicit unwelcome answers on both sides of the pond.

“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” Macron told reporters traveling with him, before gesturing to current tensions over Taiwan. “The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction.”

“What happens in Europe now — not just in terms of the outcome of this war [in Ukraine], but how Europeans define their relations with China in the future — will shape transatlantic relations,” wrote Andrew Michta, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “And Europe’s choices when it comes to its China policy will greatly influence the outcome of U.S. competition with China in other theaters too.”

A global order defined — or heavily sculpted — by Beijing’s one-party regime would not be an attractive prospect to most countries. China is, in the Economist’s gloomy analysis, a would-be “superpower that seeks influence without winning affection, power without trust and a global vision without universal human rights.”

But its greater clout on the world stage need not always ring alarm bells. “Not everything between the U.S. and China has to be a zero-sum game,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who leads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Middle East panel, told Politico in the context of Beijing’s Middle East diplomacy. “I don’t know why we would perceive there to be a downside to de-escalation between Saudi Arabia and Iran.”>

If China become the preeminent power, would <fredthejackal> be free to ply his wares of hatred as he does now?

No more of his professed libertarianism!!