<Kari Lake, the far-right MAGA Republican and conspiracy theorist who Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs narrowly defeated in 2022, has yet to formally announce a U.S. Senate run. But she appears to be moving in that direction. And if Lake does decide to run and wins her party's nomination, Arizona could be looking at a three-way Senate race in 2024 and Lake up against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona) and incumbent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema — that is, if Gallego is the Democratic nominee and ex-Democratic Sinema seeks reelection as an independent.

According to Politico's Holly Otterbein, Lake is reaching out to the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and is "planning to meet with at least a half-dozen U.S. senators and officials from the Senate GOP's campaign arm this week in Washington, D.C."

The Philadelphia-based Otterbein, in an article published on May 10, reports, "The Thursday, (May 11) visit, confirmed by a spokesperson for Lake, is the latest in a series of recent signs that the conservative firebrand is inching closer toward a Senate bid. It also will mark the second time this year that she has sat down with staff from the National Republican Senatorial Committee."

Although Lake is popular among MAGA Republicans, many traditional conservatives — including former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) and GOP activist Meghan McCain — regard her as an extremist. Cheney and McCain were both happy to see Lake lose Arizona's 2022 gubernatorial election to Hobbs.

Otterbein observes, "Lake would likely galvanize Trump supporters to the point that many Republicans think she would be all but impossible to defeat in a primary. But GOP strategists are concerned that Lake would turn off swing voters in the general election, particularly after she contested her loss in the gubernatorial contest in 2022."

Four months after Hobbs was sworn in as governor, Lake has yet to concede and claims, without evidence, that the election was stolen from her. Lake has also falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump in Arizona — a conspiracy theory that has been repeatedly debunked.

In an op-ed published by the conservative Washington Examiner on May 10, journalist Tom Joyce argues that nominating Lake is the last thing Republicans should do if they're serious about retaking the U.S. Senate in 2024.

Joyce writes, "Running someone who lies about elections and vaccines and bashes a war hero (the late Sen. John McCain) in a swing state is just bad politics, whether or not you agree with Lake.… Arizona GOP voters gave Lake a shot last year — they should not let her fool them again.">

<House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) was pressed on whether he intends to investigate Donald Trump’s family amid his accusations against President Joe Biden’s family.

Comer held a press conference on Wednesday to lay out his accusations that Biden and his son Hunter received millions of dollars from foreign entities. While the investigation gravitates around the Biden family’s business dealings and the argument that Hunter profiteered off of his family name, the probe has yet to implicate the president in any illegalities, nor has it proven a detriment to U.S. policies of national interests.

As Comer took questions, a reporter brought up his declared interest in addressing influence peddling, and she noted that Trump and his family “have benefitted while he was in office, since leaving office, from a number of countries.”

“Are you investigating those businesses as well?” The reporter asked.

The question made obvious referral to how China granted trademarks approvals to Ivanka Trump’s companies back in 2018, plus the billions that Jared Kushner received from the Saudis for his post-White House investment firm. Comer glossed past this, however, as he spoke about how influence peddling has been a longstanding concern with past presidents.

“Republicans and Democrats have both complained about president’s families receiving money. But the way that the Bidens have set this up, there is no business,” Comer said. “Former President Trump’s son-in-law had some business deals, right? As Byron [Donalds] said, we know what his businesses were. I’m not saying whether I agree with what he did or not, but I actually know what his businesses are. What are the Biden businesses? What business?”

Comer continued to claim the Biden family’s business deals were set up back when Biden was vice-president, even though he still has yet to show that payments were made directly toward him at any point.>

<On Wednesday morning, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee released a statement claiming that United States President Joe Biden and his family created more than 20 companies and received more than $10 million from foreign nationals while Joe Biden served as vice president. But one former prosecutor seems to be wondering why exactly the House Oversight Committee isn’t interested in investigating former United States President Donald Trump.

Former federal prosecutor Ron Filipkowski took to Twitter to criticize the House Oversight Committee for apparently ignoring several business dealings with the Saudi Royal family and LIV Golf that he seems to find a little bit suspicious.

“So, House Oversight isn’t interested in the $2B the Saudi’s [sic] handed over to Kushner, their massive investment in a new Trump resort in Oman, or their payments to Trump to host their golf tournaments?” Filipkowski asked in a tweet on Wednesday morning.

Trump is currently in the midst of a federal investigation regarding his alleged mishandling of classified documents. As part of that investigation, federal prosecutors are looking into Trump’s relationship with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour.

While the specifics of the federal investigation are not known, a prominent lawyer has speculated that the Department of Justice suspects LIV Golf is involved in Trump potentially exchanging documents for foreign money.>

<It was a golden age of chess journalism with all those writings about 'an ultimate clash' between 'iron logic', represented by Botvinnik, and 'diabolical tactical trickery', as shown by Tal. It appealed well to the generally well-educated masses of chess fans in the Soviet Union, who needed a little poetic flavour - describing a chess game as an intellectual duel - to keep fuelling their interest in sparsely played World Championship Matches between Soviet grandmasters. Their sympathies were more or less evenly spread between the two players. Even some 15 years later, the Botvinnik-Tal controversy didn't seem to be dying out. Indeed, it represented a mystery: the first match saw Botvinnik losing by 4 points, and the next year he came back, winning by an even larger margin. Serious books had been written on the subject, with in-depth analysis of the players' respective styles done by the best chess journalists the Soviet Union ever produced.

I considered myself a good enough chess-player to form my own opinion on the subject. Surely I wasn't going to take any crap from sportswriters, and one day I sat down to look at the games myself. Luckily, the books also contained the game scores from both matches. I thought of something along the lines of tracking the widely announced differences between the players' styles. I expected to see wild attacks and numerous sacrifices from Tal in one game, and deep strategic plans relentlessly implemented by Botvinnik in another. Before I could do any deep analysis I was disappointed. The difference in style didn't show as much as I expected!

Tal, the tactician, was well aware of the positional principles listed in the books. Botvinnik, the strategist, went for tactical solutions very often. The two bashed at each other any way they could, with Tal winning the most in the first match, and Botvinnik getting the better of it in the return match. I couldn't see where the difference between them lay, except for Tal being the aggressor early and more often. Go figure. I began to suspect that I, along with thousands of others, had been led to believe in something that didn't exist.

<The Authoritarian Checklist: 2020 status update:

Taking sides with a foreign power against domestic opposition. This one’s been obvious from the start. Favoring Russia over G-7 and NATO, even in the face of interference with U.S. elections. Siding with North Korea over the U.S. foreign policy establishment. And attempting to draw Ukraine into U.S. presidential politics. Verdict: yes.

Detention of journalists. This hasn’t happened systematically as a national policy. But the events of the last week suggest that it’s increased as a general phenomenon. Policemen around the nation have gone to efforts to assault and abuse reporters. They have been encouraged by repeated assertions by Trump that the press is the enemy. Detentions have occurred, but not ordered directly. In fact, the situation has deteriorated to the point that allied nations are investigating US treatment of journalists. Verdict: yes.

Loss of press access to the White House. Access has been reduced substantially. Over time, more assertive reporters such as Jorge Ramos, Jim Acosta, Kaitlan Collins have been tossed out. When press briefings do occur, they include a veritable river of lies unlike any press events in memory. This vitiates the point of press events. Verdict: yes.

Made-up charges against those who disagree with the government. The writing was on the wall with the “Lock her up!” slogan of the 2016 campaign. The link here goes to an early example of a false charge, the claim of widespread voter fraud. This has become a pattern. A recent example is Trump’s leveling of random, false charges of murder against MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. Verdict: yes.

Use of governmental power to target individual citizens for retribution. It began with prosecuting leakers rather than the leaked offense. Immigrants and their children, who are citizens, have been targeted after they spoke out. Government officials have been targeted for doing their jobs (Peter Strzok), speaking their minds on matters of national importance (John Brennan, Alexander Vindman, Maria Yovanovitch), and even coronavirus researcher (Peter Daszak). Verdict: yes.

Use of a terrorist or international incident to take away civil liberties. This one happened in the last week. I was wrong that it would involve terrorism. Instead, the trigger is domestic protests of the continuing wave of police killings of innocent black people. The use of military force against protesters in the District of Columbia, including the tear-gassing of peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park, is a clear First-Amendment violation of freedom of speech, assembly, and petition. Verdict: yes.

Persecution of an ethnic or religious minority, either by the Administration or its supporters. This has been a continuing theme of the Administration, thanks to the influence of Stephen Miller and other White House staff. Muslims and Hispanics have been particular targets. Hate crimes in 2019 reached a 16 year high. Verdict: yes.

Removal of civil service employees for insufficient loyalty or membership in a suspect group (e.g. LGBT, Muslim, and other groups). This started early, with the firing of FBI director James Comey…though really, that is more in the category of obstruction of justice. There were the firings of many members of the intelligence community. Most recently, many Inspectors General have been dismissed, an action that curbs oversight of government agencies at a time when they are handling trillions of dollars in new aid. Verdict: yes.

Use of the Presidency to incite popular violence against individuals or organizations. Again, this has leapt to the forefront in the last week. For years Trump has referred to the press as corrupt and lying. His most vocal supporters echo these sentiments. In 2018, five people were killed in a newsroom in Annapolis. There were verbal attacks, often on women officeholders, especially African-Americans. ABC news has found 54 instances where Trump served as the inspiration for violent acts. Now, Trump has encouraged police action against peaceful protesters. Verdict: yes.

<CNN anchor Jake Tapper marveled at correspondent Sara Murray’s game attempt at a fact-check of ex-President Donald Trump’s town hall, exclaiming there were “more lies than I can count!”

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins moderated a CNN town hall with Trump at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire Wednesday night, which quickly devolved into a chaotic spectacle that had Collins rushing to correct Trump as best she could, and fighting through a blizzard of Trump patter and abuse.

Tapper anchored the postgame coverage, and immediately remarked on the fact that from the very first minute, Trump began spewing lies about the 2020 election.

About 15 minutes after the event was over, Tapper introduced Murray’s fact-checking segment by telling her ” I’m not going to ask you to fact check everything he said that was false, because we only have a couple more hours”:

JAKE TAPPER: I’m not going to ask you to fact check everything he said that was false, because we only have a couple more hours. But what, what strikes you?

SARA MURRAY: Well, you know, look, I think one of the things off of the top was that we heard former President Trump again say the election was rigged and talk about ballot stuffing. And look, the reality is the election was not rigged. Biden won by more than 7 million votes. And that ballot stuffing claim that was also bogus. Here is Trump’s false claim on this tonight.

(TRUMP CLIPS)

SARA MURRAY: No, there is just no basis for this claim. It is a lie. We have heard it Trump claim before that there was ballot stuffing by election workers in Georgia. It has been debunked, including by Republican election officials in Georgia. There is no sign any illegality like this occurred on a large scale. And multiple former Trump officials, including Trump’s own former attorney general Bill Barr, have said there was not sufficient fraud to change the outcome of the 2020 election Jake.

JAKE TAPPER: Yeah, and that True The vote group is a group of unserious right wing activists. It is not some sort of objective election board. It’s amazing to hear them cited as some sort of source. Trump also claimed he offered to send troops to the Capitol on January 6, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned him down. I don’t think that’s true, Sara.

SARA MURRAY: No, not the case. I mean, Trump has tried to blame former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the violence on January 6. He’s falsely claimed he ordered the National Guard to the Capitol. So here is Trump’s attempt to rewrite history tonight.

TRUMP (VIDEO CLIP)

SARA MURRAY: Here is the reality. The House speaker is not in charge of Capitol security. That’s the Capitol Police Board, which oversees the Capitol Police than at the time of the riot would have approved requests for National Guard assistance. And here’s former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller telling the January six committee that he was never given an order by Trump to have 10,000 troops ready to go to the Capitol on January 6th.

(CLIP)

SARA MURRAY: So, Jake, as you can see, these claims by Trump about January 6, also false.

JAKE TAPPER: Sara Murray, thanks so much for that. I’m sure you’re going to have more fact checks for us because there were more lies than I could count, said by the former president this evening.>

<Two former White House aides said that they witnessed former President Donald Trump's inappropriate behavior towards women employees at the White House and reported it to senior officials.

The two women appeared on CNN on Tuesday in two separate segments, detailing their accounts of Trump's alleged improper behavior.

Former White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin told Jake Tapper she saw "countless cases" of Trump's "impropriety" in the White House and reported it to the former president's chiefs of staff, including Mark Meadows.

She added that former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham had also witnessed Trump "behaving inappropriately with women," as Tapper described it.

Grisham, who published books containing examples of Trump's alleged White House harassment, confirmed Farah's claims in an interview with anchor Eric Burnett later that evening.

The former White House aide recounted the specific lewd remarks Trump allegedly made about one particular staffer, whom Grisham said she felt she had to protect from his advances.

"He one time had one of my other deputies bring her back so that they could look at her ass, is what he said to him," she told Burnett. "I sat down and talked to her at one point, asked her if she was uncomfortable. I tried everything I could to ensure she was never alone with him."

Grisham said that Trump would also comment on people's physical appearances and speculate about cosmetic surgeries they could have undergone. "But with this one staffer, it was really bad, to the point that I was extremely uncomfortable," she added.

She said that she feared what could happen to the unnamed staffer, taking measures to ensure that the woman didn't go on trips with Trump and staying with her when she was left alone with him.

Grisham, who some have criticized for not taking stronger actions and writing a book about the allegations afterward, echoed Farah's earlier statement, saying that she informed White House chiefs of staff of Trump's behavior to no avail.

"I think, at the end of the day, what could they do other than go in there and say, 'This isn't good, Sir'?" she said. "Donald Trump will do what Donald Trump wants to do."

The former staffers' comments came hours after the historic verdict in E. Jean Carroll's battery and defamation case against Trump, where the jury found him liable for sexual battery for the mid-1990s attack and defamation for comments he made about the allegations decades later.

The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.>

<“Does the state want us to invest more, employ more and pay more taxes or not?” Disney CEO Bob Iger rhetorically asked today of the on-going attacks on the Mouse House by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

“There’s .. a false narrative that we’ve been fighting to protect tax breaks as part of this,’ the politically savvy executive added of the on-going war of words in the media and the courts with the would-be 2024 White House candidate. “But in fact, we’re the largest taxpayer in Central Florida paying over $1.1 billion in state and local taxes last year alone.”

“This is about one thing and one thing only, and that’s retaliating against us for taking a position about pending legislation,” Iger also noted of Disney’s initially fumbling response to Florida’s discriminating ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law. “And we believe that in us taking that position, we’re merely exercising our right to free speech,” the CEO went on to say echoing language he has used before in the battle with DeSantis.

As Disney embarked on its Florida project in the 1960s, the state passed legislation to create the Reedy Creek Improvement District. That had allowed the company to self-govern on development decisions and to incur bonded indebtedness to finance roads and other types of infrastructure. Earlier this year, DeSantis’ championed state action to strip Disney of its control over Reedy Creek and give oversight of the special district to his own appointees. Seemingly out playing the bully boy governor, Disney has tried to retain some of its autonomy over development, but DeSantis and his board appointees are challenging that too.

Last week, the GOP dominated state House of Representatives passed a land use bill aimed to essentially invalidate Disney’s agreement with the Reedy Creek Improvement District in February, when the special district was still under the company’s control. The bill will have a final Senate vote before going to DeSantis for his signature.

With Iger’s remarks today in mind, the latest chapter of the Disney-DeSantis feud likely will be settled in the courts, at least to some degree.

The company last month sued the governor, claiming that he’s been on a campaign of retribution after Disney publicly opposed a parental rights bill, often dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law. Disney wants a federal judge to restore its autonomy and authority over its sprawling Florida resort property and nearby land.

In an amended complaint filed earlier this week, Disney also warned that DeSantis and his allies “have made clear they do not care and will not stop,” citing the governor’s pledges to pursue hotel taxes and even toll roads on highways leading into the theme park resorts. The governor’s appointees on the special district that oversees Walt Disney World, meanwhile, are pursuing a state legal claim against the company. They also moved to void a development agreement that Disney entered into with the special district when it was still under the company’s control.

All of which means, as the 2024 campaign heats up, don’t be surprised if the legal battle moves to the Supreme Court where the conservative majority may have to show how pro-business they really are.

On where things are right now, Iger sought a larger perspective on the realities of Disney, Florida and any special status the Disney World owner may or may not have.

“This is not about special privileges or a level playing field or Disney in any way using its leverage around the state of Florida,” the exec said. “But since there’s been a lot said about special districts and the arrangement that we had, I want to set the record straight on that too.”

“There are about 2000 special districts in Florida, and most were established to foster investment in development,” Iger noted. “It basically made it easier for us, and others by the way, to do business in Florida. And we built a business that employs, as we’ve said before, over 75,000 people and attracts tens of millions of people to the state.”

“So, while it’s easy to say that the Reedy Creek Special District that was established for us over 50 years ago benefited us, it’s misleading to not also consider how much Disney benefited the state of Florida.”>

<The puppet board appointed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in his ongoing war with Disney has now made, perhaps, their pettiest move yet: threatening to impose code enforcement fines on Disney subject to foreclosure, meaning they could theoretically be used to seize Disney’s property.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, DeSantis’ board has “created a code enforcement system that could issue fines to Walt Disney World, which is known for meticulous care of its grounds,” which would include imposing fines for code violations of up to $500 per day, all determined by a group of newly-appointed code enforcement officers, who would answer to the new administrator the board had selected (along with a substantial pay increase). The new program “would also authorize foreclosures on any liens.”

This increasingly bizarre mess started just over a year ago, with a milquetoast press release issued by the then-CEO Bob Chapek — regarding the Parental Rights in Education bill (dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by many of its critics) after it passed. Many other companies criticized the legislation in far harsher terms before it passed, and Disney didn’t actually do anything about the bill after that press release, but it was enough to trigger DeSantis’ ire.

Well, more accurately, the Disney corporation presented an irresistible target for DeSantis’ presidential ambitions, helping him secure some of that sweet, sweet Fox News airtime as he sought to portray himself as a warrior knight of the culture wars. As DeSantis admitted in his book, he directed the GOP-controlled Florida legislature to rush through a bill targeting Disney: an ill-conceived, unconstitutional effort to repeal outright the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID), the special taxing district for Disney’s property that stretches across Orange and Osceola County.

DeSantis’ Cinderella Castle coup attempt was derailed by RCID’s outstanding municipal bond debt of over $1 billion that would become the debt of the county taxpayers if RCID was dissolved — a politically unpalatable development — so during the 2023 legislative session, his minions in the legislature rushed forward another bill that kept the main structure of RCID intact and took control of the board away from Disney and granted that appointment power to the governor.

But before DeSantis’ new puppet board could seize the reins, Disney and the existing RCID board entered into a new development agreement (a common legal instrument in Florida real estate development), essentially freezing the existing system in place, prohibiting the incoming board from using the Disney name or characters, and otherwise sharply limiting their power — all done at a publicly-announced, open-to-the-public RCID meeting that was recorded in the county public records.

Disney has filed suit in federal court, arguing that the plain language in an incredibly long list of comments by DeSantis and his allies proves their retaliatory intent, and therefore a violation of the First Amendment, in addition to other claims based on contract law. First Amendment jurisprudence has long held that the government cannot take otherwise legal action (and the RCID repeal and board takeover violate other provisions of Florida law) against a taxpayer as retaliation against the exercise of that taxpayer’s free speech rights.

DeSantis is a Harvard Law-educated attorney but still seemed to be openly inviting the First Amendment challenge to his actions, continuing to issue public threats against Disney. Last month, he openly speculated about having a competing park or even a prison built next to Walt Disney World, called for additional taxes to be imposed on Disney, and supported the passage of a bill that enacted new regulations and inspections on Disney’s monorail transportation system (and not Universal’s Hogwarts Express or any other element of any other theme park in the state).

Disney responded with an amended complaint, including these new threats and retaliatory bills passed in the waning days of the 2023 session.

Now, here’s where I’ll admit I made an error regarding DeSantis’ threat to build a prison next to Disney. I had originally misinterpreted those comments in a far less diabolical way than the governor intended, believing he was talking about using state-owned lands adjacent to the Disney parcel or encouraging other privately-owned parcels to be developed that way. I say “encouraging” because a large portion of the land next to Disney is owned by various entities connected to the state’s sugar industry, and as dumb as it is for my governor to battle with Mickey Mouse, taking on Big Sugar too is definitely gettin’ too big for his britches, as my grandma used to say....>

<....When you look at DeSantis’ full quote about “what should we do with this land,” it seems far more likely that what he was actually suggesting was much worse: threatening to seize Disney’s property through eminent domain, a nuclear-level escalation in this already messy fight.

The company’s intention from the first visits by Walt Disney himself in the 1960s was to purchase more land than they would ever use and preserve massive sections of it as green space. Disney’s motivations were driven by profits and wanting to have complete control over the guest experience at their parks, but the practical truth is that this decision has also been a great benefit to the people of Florida.

The Mouse’s parcel significantly overlaps with the Florida Wildlife Corridor, a critically important habitat for many endangered and threatened species, and because Disney maintains a level of environmental quality control in excess of any state or federal regulation, it also results in cleaner water for all the downstream parts of the state. Florida isn’t just surrounded by massive bodies of water on three sides; interconnected systems of lakes, rivers, and swamps above ground and the aquifer below ground mean that anything that affects water quality in one area can affect many other areas. We spend millions of taxpayer dollars every year trying to clean up agricultural pollution in Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades, fighting algae blooms, trying to replace dying-off plants that are crucial to manatee diets, and so on.

As I’ve pointed out repeatedly over the past year-plus that this charade has dragged on, RCID is not a tax break for Disney, but an extra tax in addition to the taxes it pays to both counties, a roughly $160 million annual budget which the company willingly pays in order to maintain a higher level of services, infrastructure, etc. than the counties could provide, then or now.

That’s how they pay for that high level of environmental quality. Avoiding toxic fertilizers and pesticides while maintaining lush landscaping in a subtropical environment teeming with potential pests does not come cheaply, and neither do the water treatment and flood mitigation endeavors that Disney undertakes, with that multimillion-dollar RCID budget.

The Sentinel report noted Disney “has prided itself on the maintenance of its parks and properties, which includes regular safety inspections,” but that isn’t even the tip of the iceberg on how Disney has managed its property under RCID for over fifty years. Locals here in Orlando joke all the time we would love for Mickey to take over I-4, a seemingly never-ending construction nightmare in comparison to Disney’s immaculately-maintained, pothole-free roadways. And as I wrote last December about the building codes:

The “EPCOT Codes,” Disney’s proprietary building codes, are extremely detailed and state-of-the-art, offering the highest level of hurricane protection and other safety measures. Three contractors who have done work at Disney whom I’ve interviewed for research on RCID (independently; they don’t know each other) called the EPCOT Codes “a pain in the a**,” but all acknowledged these demanding standards achieved a top level of safety, aesthetics, and improved guest experiences.

The suggestion from the governor and his puppet board that a new code enforcement regime is needed at Disney is beyond laughable, but the added threat of fines enforceable by foreclosure ratchets this all up to a despicably insane level. What possible code “violation” will DeSantis’ minions find as a pretext for seizing property in his quest for vengeance against a mouse who dared squeak one press release of criticism?

My prediction that Disney would file one amended complaint proved accurate, and I don’t feel like it’s much of a stretch to predict not just a second amended complaint listing these latest aggressions will soon pop up on the court docket, but also a motion by the clever Disney lawyers to seek temporary injunctive relief, barring DeSantis’ puppet board from continuing to take harmful actions against their property and business.

In the meantime, the governor is widely expected to launch his presidential campaign in the coming weeks, with a messaging strategy claiming that he can be Trump without the chaos and drama, but if attempting to overthrow the core infrastructure of one of your state’s largest employers and then seize their land isn’t chaos and drama, I’m not sure what is.>

<A Lauren Boebert constituent is calling out the far-right congresswoman from Colorado over a measure she introduced that would lionize the weapon of choice by most mass shooters as America's "National Gun."

In a letter to the editor published Wednesday in the Denver Post, Andy Wiessner of Snowmass described the advancement of H.R. 1095, which Boebert co-sponsored with embattled Rep. George Santos (R-N.), among others, as a “cruel joke.”

The letter includes the entire text of the bill, which reads: “An AR–15 style rifle chambered in a .223 Remington round or a 5.56x45mm NATO round is hereby declared to be the National Gun of the United States.”

“Is this a cruel joke?” an incredulous Wiessner writes.

“The AR-15 assault rifle Boebert wants to make our ‘National Gun’ is a weapon of war. Its bullets are designed to tear human flesh to pieces by ‘yawing,’ tumbling or fragmenting in the body, thereby causing maximum internal bleeding and tissue damage. I am a Vietnam War vet, and the M-16s we carried there were an offshoot of the AR-15. The Army always told us it was the best rifle in the world because of how efficiently it killed ‘the enemy.’”

Wiessner notes that the AR-15 has been used in mass shootings throughout the country.

“As we see almost nightly on TV, it has shredded the bodies of innumerable men, women, schoolchildren, and even babies. These innocent victims are not ‘the enemy,’ Congresswoman Boebert, and our peace-loving nation does not need a ‘National Gun.’”>

<When former President Donald J. Trump was inveighing against E. Jean Carroll on CNN Wednesday night, at least one person was not watching: Ms. Carroll.

She was asleep and did not learn of his comments calling her claim of a decades-old sexual assault “fake” and a “made-up story” until Thursday morning, when her lawyer sent her a transcript, she said.

“It’s just stupid, it’s just disgusting, vile, foul, it wounds people,” Ms. Carroll said in an interview with The New York Times on Thursday, adding that she had been “insulted by better people.”

Mr. Trump’s comments came just one day after a Manhattan jury awarded Ms. Carroll $5 million in damages and found him liable for sexually abusing her in the mid-1990s in a department store dressing room and also for defaming her on his Truth Social platform.

Mr. Trump, in response to questions from the CNN moderator about the Manhattan jury’s verdict Tuesday, called Ms. Carroll a “wack job” and said her civil trial was “a rigged deal.” The audience had been drawn primarily from Republican groups, and his comments drew applause and laughter.

Ms. Carroll said she was infuriated when her longtime stylist told her on Thursday morning that the stylist’s 15-year-old son was talking about what Mr. Trump had said on television Wednesday.

“I am upset on the behalf of young men in America,” Ms. Carroll said. “They cannot listen to this balderdash and this old-timey view of women, which is a cave man view.”

Ms. Carroll, 79, is now weighing whether to file a new defamation lawsuit against Mr. Trump, said her lawyer, Roberta A. Kaplan. In addition to the case that ended Tuesday, Ms. Carroll has an earlier defamation suit against Mr. Trump, 76, that is still pending. Mr. Trump has argued in that case that he cannot be sued because he made those comments in his official capacity as president.

Ms. Carroll made it clear in the interview that despite Mr. Trump’s mockery, she saw the jury’s verdict this week as validating her account that he sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s, something he has denied repeatedly and loudly.

“I’m thrilled that we won,” she said. “That’s it. He did it. He knows he did it.”

Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, filed a notice of appeal for Mr. Trump on Thursday.

In the wide-ranging interview, Ms. Carroll, accompanied by her lawyers, addressed why she believes the jury found Mr. Trump liable for sexually abusing her but not for raping her, as she had long claimed; how she felt being aggressively cross-examined by Mr. Tacopina; why she did not scream when Mr. Trump assaulted her; and the rituals she and her lawyers performed each day of the two-week trial.

She made it clear that she respected the jurors — six men and three women — who were kept anonymous by the judge and who, she said, remained an enigma to her.

“It was like ‘Saturday Night Mystery Theater’ every time they walked in,” Ms. Carroll said. “I studied their faces and they were absolutely deadpan — like nine statues.” She added: “Never cracked a smile, never lifted an eyebrow, never batted a left eyelash.”

It was those jurors who parsed the evidence and testimony by Ms. Carroll and 10 other witnesses called on her behalf before rendering a verdict in less than three hours.

Ms. Carroll, in the interview, blamed herself for their decision to find Mr. Trump liable for sexually abusing her but not for rape.

“I didn’t make myself clear when I was testifying,” Ms. Carroll said.

Under New York law, according to Ms. Carroll’s lawyer, Ms. Kaplan, penetration by the penis must occur for there to be a rape. Ms. Carroll had testified that after Mr. Trump led her into the Bergdorf’s lingerie department and into a dressing room, he shoved her against a wall and inserted his fingers and then his penis into her vagina.

“I couldn’t see anything that was happening,” Ms. Carroll had told the jury. “But I could certainly feel it. I could certainly feel that pain in the finger jamming up.”

In the interview Thursday, Ms. Carroll noted that she had twice been married, and she said, “I know what a penis feels like, and he did insert his penis.”

Mr. Trump has not only denied any assault, he has claimed he was never even at Bergdorf’s, did not know Ms. Carroll and has said he would not have raped her in any case, because she was not his “type.”

By its verdict, the jury indicated it believed Ms. Carroll. Michael Ferrara, another of Ms. Carroll’s lawyers, noted in the interview that the jurors’ handling of the case showed that the process was not rigged.

“If they were out to just get Donald Trump, why not check the rape box?” Mr. Ferrara said. “They didn’t do that because they actually considered the evidence.”....>

<....Ms. Carroll delivered visceral testimony, telling the jury of the attack in every grim particular — and that it had ended her romantic life.

Then, she was cross-examined by Mr. Tacopina for almost two days. She described in the interview how her lawyers prepared her to be questioned by Mr. Tacopina, who is known for his charm but also for his aggressiveness: “They told me he would pull out all stops.”

“By the time I was sitting down, I was braced up. If you notice, I always wore a tight-fitting jacket just to keep myself together, you know, as sort of a little bit of armor against Joe Tacopina.”

Mr. Tacopina pressed her repeatedly about why she had not screamed during the assault. She told him that she was in too much of a panic and had been fighting. After more back and forth, she declared, “I’m telling you, he raped me, whether I screamed or not.”

In the interview, Ms. Carroll recalled the exchange. “This is not the 16th century,” she said. “I was almost embarrassed for him. Just embarrassed. How dare he?”

“To malign a woman for not screaming is preposterous,” she added.

Mr. Tacopina did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

During the trial, Ms. Carroll said, she tried to stay off social media. At night, she said, she was in bed by 7, and each morning, her stylist visited and prayed with her, even though Ms. Carroll said she is not a religious person.

“That became the ritual,” Ms. Carroll said.

Ms. Carroll said that after the verdict, she returned to Ms. Kaplan’s office. Wine was flowing.

“There was such joy,” Ms. Carroll said. “We almost floated to the top of the ceiling.”

Ms. Kaplan, her lawyer, said Thursday that a decision would be made soon on whether Ms. Carroll will file another defamation suit in light of Mr. Trump’s comments on CNN.

“Everything’s on the table, obviously, and we have to give serious consideration to it,” Ms. Kaplan said.

As for Ms. Carroll, she said she feels ready to move forward in her personal life — perhaps even dating again.

“I wasn’t having romance, and I was aware something was desperately wrong,” Ms. Carroll said.

She had testified at the trial that she long had blamed herself for flirting with Mr. Trump after their chance encounter at Bergdorf’s and allowing him to lead her to the lingerie section and into the dressing room, where he attacked her.

With her lawsuit over and Mr. Trump held accountable, Ms. Carroll said she was open again to exploring that part of her life.

“Let’s see if I can do it," she said.

She paused briefly.

“Yes, I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it, so watch out.”>

<Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said on Thursday that if supporters of Donald Trump have called for violence, she hasn’t seen it.

During a meeting of the Homeland Security Committee, Greene questioned Cynthia Miller-Idriss, an expert on political extremism at American University.

During a discussion about disinformation, Greene posited the sort of question that philosophers have debated for millennia.

“Who is the author of truth?” she asked all four witnesses present, including Miller-Idriss. “Who’s in charge of truth?”

“There’s no truth with a capital ‘T,'” Miller-Idriss said when it was her turn. “I think we all need to be equipped with the tools to evaluate evidence and make decisions.”

Moments later, Greene asked Miller-Idriss why she only focuses on right-wing extremism.

“You’ve written several books on right-wing extremism,” Greene said. “I couldn’t find any of your work studying left extremism or Antifa or BLM.”

Miller-Idriss responded by saying far-right extremism is “the most lethal threat” in the United States.

“Dr, Miller, just real quick,” Greene responded. “I’m out of time, but would you consider Trump supporters extremist?”

“We are worried about violent extremism,” she replied.

“Trump supporters, specifically,” Greene pressed.

“If they’re calling for violence, it doesn’t matter to me who they support.”

“Haven’t seen any,” Greene shot back. “By the way, there’s a great rally in Iowa this weekend if you wanna study people and what they believe.”

Greene, a vocal Trump supporter, was booted from her committees in the last Congress after it was revealed that before being elected to Congress, she “Liked” a Facebook post calling for Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to be shot in the head.

Greene has also repeatedly downplayed the violent storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob Trump supporters attacked police officers and tried to overturn the election. Elsewhere, she suggested Pelosi be executed for treason.

Quite infamously, some of them chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!” referring to the vice president Trump claimed could reject his election loss to Joe Biden.>

<United States Senator John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) insulted the population of Mexico while grilling Drug Enforcement Agency Administrator Anne Milgram during a Wednesday Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on fentanyl.

Kennedy, like many on the right, has advocated for deploying the American Armed Forces to neutralize the cartels — a point that he viciously emphasized to Milgram.

"If [Mexican] President Andrés Manuel López Obrador invited the American military and or law enforcement personnel to come into Mexico and work with his, we could stop the cartels, couldn't we?" Kennedy asked.

"I believe, Senator, that we can stop the cartels," Milgram replied.

"Okay. Have you made that suggestion to President [Joe] Biden?" Kennedy wondered.

"If I could, I believe that we can stop the cartels by..." Milgram attempted to respond.

"Have you made that suggestion to President Biden?" Kennedy growled.

"Senator, I have been very vocal in the whole of government setting on the importance of fentanyl and all of us using every single effort and authority that we..." Milgram said before Kennedy again cut her off.

"Why hasn't President Biden done it? I mean, this is the way the American people whose sons and daughters are dying. Look at it. Our economy is $23 trillion. Mexico's economy is 1.3 trillion. Ours is eighteen times bigger. We buy $400 billion every year from Mexico," Kennedy griped.

"Without the people of America, Mexico, figuratively speaking, would be eating cat food out of a can and living in a tent behind an Outback," the senator seethed. "So why don't you and the president embarrassing no one, get on the phone and call President López Obrador and make him a deal he can't refuse to allow our military and our law enforcement officials to go into Mexico and work with his to stop the cartels. Why don't you do that?"

Milgram replied that "What I am doing every single day is working with the incredible men and women of DEA who are risking their lives.">

<Ten years ago, John Humphrys made a documentary about the welfare state for BBC2. When he was growing up in Cardiff, he said, hardly anyone was on benefits. Now, vast numbers are. Why? What had gone wrong? A good question – but, as he found out, a suicidally dangerous one for any BBC journalist to ask. He was hauled in front of a BBC star chamber, accused of supporting Tory policy, then found guilty of breaching guidelines on impartiality and accuracy. I spoke to him about it afterwards: his lesson, he said, was never to do something like that again.

He had run up against a new trend of our time: political correction. If you engage in frank discussions about certain topics – climate change, jihadi finance, immigration, transgenderism – then you can expect the equivalent of a lawsuit. A breed of investigators or self-appointed fact-checkers will swoop, posing as judges of the truth – even if they often get it wrong. What was intended as a test of objectivity, a remedy to “fake news”, has ended up becoming a new form of bias.

I was thinking about this when reading a new book about politics and lies by Rob Burley, a long-serving BBC editor. At one point he claims to have been stopped from scrutinising the Vote Leave claim about the UK sending £350 million a week to the European Union. He saw this as unfair, but was it really? The referendum had just ended and the notorious claim had already been torn to pieces by Andrew Neil and others. So why choose to go over it all again? Would this, in itself, not be a form of bias?

The BBC’s own team of truth-deciders, modestly called “Reality Check”, are rather selective in the realities they check. When David Attenborough’s excellent Wild Isles documentary claimed that “60 per cent of our flying insects have vanished”, it was a starting claim – but one the fact-checkers let slide. It can be tracked down to an amateur study asking motorists to count splats on their number plates. Had Attenborough said that more people die each year from cold than from heat, he’d face outcry and a full Nigel Lawson-style inquisition. The former chancellor faced a three-month investigation by a press regulator for making precisely this claim....>

<<....Some facts are seen to be too exciting to check. When the French economist Thomas Piketty claimed that inequality was certain to rise because of his formula r>g (ie: that the return on assets exceeded the rate of economic growth), it was hailed worldwide as a breakthrough. Time to tax the rich! But when the IMF produced a study showing Piketty’s claim to be nonsense, this seemed to generate no interest at all.

During lockdowns, the heretic hunters worked overtime. An outfit called Full Fact decreed that the novelist Lionel Shriver was “wrong” to claim that the Covid vaccine did not stop transmission. She is no epidemiologist, but she was right about the vaccines. The latest estimates suggest that 86 per cent of the country has had the virus, against around 20 per cent when she wrote her article. Jabs prevented serious illness, but not the spread. Where was the fact-checkers’ challenge of those who wrongly claimed otherwise? At the time, vaccine passports were very nearly introduced – on what now seems to be a false premise.

This is the problem. The rise of fact-checking is powerful and helpful in many ways, but is most needed in areas where there is a fashionable and unchallenged consensus. Whenever all parties agree (as they did on lockdown, and still do on net zero and international aid), the biggest policy errors are most likely to creep in. So it’s more important than ever that the major claims are held up to scrutiny. When fact-checkers instead target those who go against the grain, it serves to enforce groupthink.

The Swedes have a word for it: the “opinion corridor”. If you step outside it, you can expect investigation, harassment or to be flattened. The digital era has put rocket boosters on all this as offending articles are more easily shared by activists. There are now professional campaigners who spend all day referring opponents to fact-checkers, regulators or university authorities. And not just for facts. It can be for hate speech or an offence against hazily defined “community standards”. In this way, the political correction phenomenon can multiply, ending up embedded into algorithms.

Facebook has overtaken newspapers to become the number one source of written news. It uses several fact-checking agencies – but most of the work is done by algorithms. One article published by two leading academics scrutinising the case for face masks has been labelled “false information” by Facebook. Why? It won’t say. Only this week, it rejected a column by my colleague Douglas Murray on the grounds that his article somehow violated “community standards on hate speech”. How so? It never explains. Silicon Valley is beholden to no one.

The most controversial questions defy black-or-white answers. The vaccines were good for stopping the spread of earlier variants, but not later ones. Channel Four fact-checkers ask if university tuition fees are “progressive” which is, of course, a matter of opinion. Much of this seems to stem from a technocratic view of the world: that it’s possible to burrow away, find facts and come up with an objective answer. But such questions are almost always a matter for debate: hence, politics.

The Online Safety Bill, now going through the Lords, will make all this far worse by threatening huge fines for Silicon Valley firms that publish anything deemed to be “harmful” and visible to children. What does this mean? It’s unclear: so the censorship bots will work overdrive just to be safe. Sir Keir Starmer may tighten things further as prime minister, forcing newspapers to accept state regulation. Those who refuse would be forced to pay the fee of anyone who sues, win or lose.

<A top campaign aide for Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis is reportedly at the center of a political scandal involving so-called “ghost candidates,” a scheme Republicans have been using to “siphon” votes from unsuspecting citizens to assist other candidates – in this case to help GOP candidates.

Florida pollster Ryan Tyson, who “is expected to be a top advisor in Ron DeSantis’ presidential bid,” Insider reports, “was at the heart of a 2020 political-corruption scandal in Florida. He funneled money from big-business groups to committees backing straw-man candidates to split the vote.”

DeSantis has not announced but is expected to launch a 2024 presidential bid soon.

Insider describes Tyson as “deeply enmeshed” in the “major Florida political-corruption scandal that has resulted in criminal charges for five people, two of whom have been convicted.”

Tyson allegedly “funneled $600,000 to a dark-money group, Grow United, that supported three ghost candidates running for Florida’s Senate, according to court records. The candidates had no political experience and did not campaign. One candidate was paid $44,000 to run.”

According to Insider, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, a Democrat, has said it is not illegal to run ghost candidates.

“In September 2020, Tyson accepted $630,000 from a nonprofit with ties to the Florida Chamber of Commerce,” Insider adds. “Later that month, he transferred $600,000 to Grow United, which was run by consultants for the utility company Florida Power & Light, the Orlando Sentinel and the Miami Herald reported.”

Insider reports that “Investigators notified Tyson in late 2021 he was a target of their inquiry, but no charges against him have been filed.”

Tyson, via text to Insider, responded saying: “I am not under investigation by any state or federal official.”

“To suggest otherwise is false and, at this point, done with the express purpose of harming me and my reputation.”

Integrity Florida, which describes itself as a “nonpartisan, nonprofit research institute and government watchdog whose mission is to promote integrity in government and expose public corruption,” blasted the ghost candidate scheme in an 18-page report released in December.

“In the Senate races for Districts 9, 37 and 39, No Party Affiliated candidates were essentially bribed to enter the races in a scheme to siphon votes away from Democratic candidates in favor of their Republican opponents,” Integrity Florida’s report states. “Leaked documents from an Alabama-based political consulting firm with ties to Florida’s largest utility Florida Power and Light show how ‘dark money’ political committees worked behind the scenes to promote the ghost candidates, even though the candidates themselves did no campaigning.”

In one of the three races, “incumbent Democratic Senator José Javier Rodríguez lost to his Republican challenger by just over 30 votes. A ghost candidate with the same last name who did no campaigning yet was the beneficiary of a dark money advertising campaign, received over 6,000 votes. Clearly, the ghost candidate in the race received a significant number of votes, indicating that the candidate successfully siphoned votes away from the Democratic incumbent.”

Integrity Florida’s director, Ben Wilcox, told Insider, “The whole scheme just seems like it should be illegal.”

“We shouldn’t be able to meddle in a political race to that extent, to where you’re purposely deceiving voters. If it isn’t illegal, it should be.”>

Don't watch Jen Psaki's skewed analysis on CNN, see Whiteshark's youtube link instead!!>

First paragraph was a post on the game and no problem; but then, content had to be sullied by the seemingly inevitable gratuitous political aside, from someone who has lately proclaimed that he 'never posts politics on game pages'.

<Donald Trump's base may have loved his controversial performance at CNN's recent New Hampshire town hall, but those who raise money for Republican campaigns are "scared to death," according to former GOP Rep. Joe Walsh.

Speaking to CNN's Jake Tapper and a Democratic strategist, Walsh, who earlier in March sounded the alarm about the "radicalized" GOP base, said he was a fan of the town hall with Trump despite the barrage of criticisms the network has received in the wake of the event. He said CNN performed a "public service" by putting Trump on display.

Walsh added that the base of Trump's supporters saw his behavior at the event, which included insulting the woman he had just been found liable for sexually assaulting, as something that's worth praise. But those who Republicans go to for monetary support are reportedly singing a different tune.

"Look at the town hall. Grassroots loved Trump's performance the other night," the former Republican congressman said. "Republican fundraisers? Scared to death."

Tapper noted that there were "so many things" that Trump did that caused Democrats and fellow Republicans to wonder if the clips and moments will be used against Trump in a hypothetical general election against President Joe Biden.

Walsh specifically pointed to the moment in which Trump was unable to say whether he wanted Russia or Ukraine to "win" their massive, ongoing war.

"Who do you want to win, Ukraine or Russia, he couldn't answer that," said Walsh. "But the base agrees with him on that.">

<....the Suns are expected to "aggressively" shop Ayton this offseason. The former No. 1 overall pick would reportedly be "excited" about a fresh start with a different franchise after what's been a strenuous relationship with the Suns the last two seasons. Phoenix reluctantly matched Ayton's max offer sheet he received from the Indiana Pacers last offseason, and his relationship with Suns head coach Monty Williams has been rocky. Despite back-to-back disappointing postseason appearances from Ayton, the big man is still a productive center and he's just 24 years old. He averaged 18 points and 10 rebounds this season, so he should trigger interest from several teams around the league looking to add some rim protection in the frontcourt.

In regards to CP3, he's got a $30 million team option that becomes fully guaranteed on June 28. MacMahon reports that Phoenix will canvas the league to see what type of deal they can get for the veteran point guard before deciding what to do with his contract. But Paul's age (38), and his injury history, which includes missing the last four games of the Denver series due to a strained groin, could drive his value down....>

(C)anvas, is it? Would that be like painting a 'canvass', or perhaps the states of Texass or Kansass?

<The last remaining election misconduct claim by Kari Lake, the 2022 Republican candidate for Arizona governor, is playing out in court as state officials and the Democratic governor asked a judge to throw out the case Friday.

Lake was among the most vocal of last year's Republican candidates promoting former President Donald Trump’s election lies, which she made the centerpiece of her campaign. While most other election deniers around the country conceded after losing their races in November, Lake did not.

Courts have dismissed most of the former TV anchor’s lawsuit. On Friday, a judge heard arguments on whether or not Lake’s final claim should move ahead to a trial next week.

Attorneys representing Arizona election officials and Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs say Lake’s allegation that the election was rigged is based on unsubstantiated speculation.

Lake’s lawyers say there was a flood of mail-in ballots in Maricopa County, home to more than 60% of the state’s voters, at a time when there were too few workers to verify ballot signatures. Her attorneys say the county ultimately accepted thousands of ballots that had been rejected earlier by workers for having mismatched signatures.

The Arizona Supreme Court revived her claim challenging the application of signature-verification procedures, reversing a lower court decision that found she waited too long to raise that claim.

The state Supreme Court sent the claim back to the lower court to decide if there is another reason to dismiss it, or if Lake can show that enough votes were affected to change the outcome of the election, which she lost by over 17,000 votes.

Lake alleged at least 164,000 illegal votes were counted, according to filings by her attorneys. Three signature verification workers have said they experienced rejection rates due to mismatched signatures on 15% to 40% of the ballots they encountered.

“The math doesn’t add up,” said Kurt Olsen, one of Lake’s attorneys.

Opposing attorneys said the workers’ speculation doesn’t amount to a violation of the law or misconduct by election workers, and raised questions about whether the three workers truly knew the ultimate outcome of the ballots they had flagged.

Abha Khanna, one of the attorneys representing Hobbs, said Lake’s allegations are “wholly untethered to reality.”

Earlier in her lawsuit, Lake had focused on problems with ballot printers at some polling places in Maricopa County. The defective printers produced ballots that were too light to be read by the on-site tabulators at polling places. Lines backed up in some areas amid the confusion. Lake alleged ballot printer problems were the result of intentional misconduct.

County officials say everyone had a chance to vote and all ballots were counted because those affected by the printers were taken to more sophisticated counters at election headquarters.

In mid-February, the Arizona Court of Appeals rejected Lake’s assertions, concluding she presented no evidence that voters whose ballots were unreadable by tabulators at polling places were not able to vote.

The state Supreme Court declined on March 22 to hear nearly all of Lake’s appeal, saying there was no evidence to support her claim that over 35,000 ballots were added to vote totals. Earlier this month, the court sanctioned Lake’s lawyers $2,000 for making false statements when saying more than 35,000 ballots had been improperly added to the total ballot count.>

<Sen. Josh Hawley's new book, "Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs," did nothing to impress one book reviewer who dismissed his arguments about the state of manhood in America with a dismissive, "Whatever."

In a review for the Guardian, Lloyd Green noted that the controversial Missouri Republican -- most famous for his clenched-fist tribute to the Jan 6 insurrectionists \-- went out of his way to cherry-pick the philosophers he needed to make his point and the end result shows that he can best be described as "a neo-Confederate at war with modernity."

As the reviewer notes, Hawley selectively picked his targets and studiously avoided mentioning the toxicity of Donald Trump whose re-election he supports, with Green writing, "Hawley is a plutocrat-populist as well as a hectoring moralist," before adding, "For all his smut-bashing, the latest developments affecting Trump have left him profoundly unmoved."

"He has nothing to say about Trump: the man who said, and has defended saying, 'When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the p*ssy. You can do anything,'" Green elaborated. "Hawley blames 'Epicurean liberals' for the failures of American men. 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity' is liberalism’s credo, he claims. Maybe yes, maybe no. Whatever."

"Hawley is also selective – surprise – about his philosophers. He is critical of Rousseau and Marx but delivers a bouquet to Burke. For what it’s worth, Burke cared about British plunder of India. These days, Hawley is at best agnostic about Ukraine." Green continued. "He ignores Bentham and Mill, the intellectual fathers of 19th-century English liberalism and utilitarianism. It is as if – surprise! – Hawley wishes time and progress would stop."

Green went on to note that, after Jan 6, Hawley's book was dropped by his publisher he found a new home, with the reviewer adding, "Hawley got himself published anyway, by Regnery, a conservative imprint. He’s doing fine. He seems to believe, however, that he possesses a God-given right to be heard.">