Contemptible Don

Donald Trump was held in contempt of court Tuesday and fined $9,000 for repeatedly violating a gag order that barred him from making public statements about witnesses, jurors and some others connected to his New York hush money case. If he does it again, the judge warned, he could be jailed.

Wash and repeat:

Judge Juan M. Merchan has commenced a contempt hearing on prosecutors’ allegations that Trump violated his gag order four more times.

These are in addition to the nine violations Trump was fined for earlier in the week.

The TOFF has the self-control of a toddler. For the first time in his life, he is being held to account for his actions and he doesn't cotton to it one bit. He wants his lawyer in his criminal trial to be nastier, which is about a self-defeating a proposition as it comes. Getting the jury to hate you and your lawyer is a good way to grease the skids for losing a case.

Springing These Down, Here

All found here.

In Red States, All Women of Child-Bearing Age are State Property

Demented Donnie is just fine with the idea of states monitoring pregnant women's health to ensure they don't have abortions and prosecuting them if they do.

So this is what will happen in the confederate/red states: When a girl has her first menses, she will be fitted with a health monitor, which she will have to wear under pain of incarceration until she has gone through menopause. The monitor will transmit her health status to the state and alert the Pregnancy Enforcement Police should she become pregnant. Once that happens, she will be barred from going to any state where abortion is legal. Should she do so, an arrest warrant will issue and she will be incarcerated upon her return. If she isn't then pregnant, she'llb e charged with murder.

No woman with half a brain should live in those states.

The White Privilege Protests

That seems to be the attitude percolating through much of these protests: That they can break the law, engage in shenanigans, incluidng occupying and trashing the interior of buildings, and nothing bad will happen to them. They'll get to go back to school, graduate, and go on to have fine careers with no indication of committing felonies or misdemeanors.

Because they (mostly) white kids who have known privilege all of their lives, the kind of privilege when the cops pull over their parents, the cops call them "sir" or "ma'am" with not even a prospect of a beat-down.

Maybe I'm wrong.

I don't think I am.

See, in those schools, in the graduations coming up, there are some kids who are the first ones in their families to graduate college or get a professional degree. To them and their families, graduting college (or medical or law school) is A Really Big Deal. The families are justifiably proud and they want to take in the event; an event which is being canceled because a bunch of white kids who couldn't have found Gaza on a map seven months ago are now pitching tantrum like a pack of lemmings who can't find the cliff edge.

And I don't think I'm wrong about that, either.

High Time That This Happened

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will move to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, The Associated Press has learned, a historic shift to generations of American drug policy that could have wide ripple effects across the country.

The DEA’s proposal, which still must be reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget, would recognize the medical uses of cannabis and acknowledge it has less potential for abuse than some of the nation’s most dangerous drugs. However, it would not legalize marijuana outright for recreational use.
...
Once OMB signs off, the DEA will take public comment on the plan to move marijuana from its current classification as a Schedule I drug, alongside heroin and LSD. It moves pot to Schedule III, alongside ketamine and some anabolic steroids, following a recommendation from the federal Health and Human Services Department. After the public comment period and a review by an administrative judge, the agency would eventually publish the final rule.

The pot dispensaries would then be able to access the banking system and use credit cards. The tax revenues would flow more easily. And using pot with a prescription would remove the legal stigma for using it now.

This would partially dismantle Nixon's War on Drugs. It does nothing to restore the civil liberties that the courts, especially the Supremes, have stripped away in furthering that "war".

Too bad it took this far into the Biden Administration to do this, but I'll take it for the good step that it is.

Skitching These Down, Here

^^^ Because of this.

Lock Them Up! Lock Them All Up!

Dozens of protesters took over a building at Columbia University in New York early Tuesday, barricading the entrances and unfurling a Palestinian flag out of a window in the latest escalation of demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war that have spread to college campuses nationwide.

Video footage showed protesters on Columbia’s Manhattan campus locking arms in front of Hamilton Hall early Tuesday and carrying furniture and metal barricades to the building, one of several that was occupied during a 1968 civil rights and anti-Vietnam War protest on the campus. Posts on an Instagram page for protest organizers shortly after midnight urged people to protect the encampment and join them at Hamilton Hall. A “Free Palestine” banner hung from a window.

If it was wrong to break into a public building on 1/6/21, an act for which a lot of people have gone to jail, it is even more wrong to break into a privately-owned building to throw political temper tantrums.

More than that, who the fuck do they think they are convincing of the righteousness of their cause? Public and legal protests are one thing, they can show large support for a cause. But riots (and this is now a riot) do nothing. Did the BLM riots in Portland a few years ago do anything but lose support for their cause? Did the Capitol invasion as part of the TOFF's Coup Attempt do anything other than put a lot of people in prison?

If it was OK to go after the Capitol Hill insurrectionists with the full force of the criminal justice system, then it's OK to go after these turdlets.

The Retrograde Supreme Court

One of the outcomes of the Civil War was the supremacy of the Federal government. The Union fought under a single government, more or less, while the Slavers were a loose confederation of states. And they lost.

But it seems to me that the Supreme Court has been doing its level best to bring back states' rights and reverse the outcome of the Civil War. Hell, if it wasn't for the Thirteenth Amendment, I have no doubt that this current iteration of the Supremes would bring back chattel slavery.

Now, with Demented Donnie's claim for immunity, the Court seems to be setting its sights on reversing the outcome of the Revolutionary War by turning the presidency into an elected kingship. I am pretty sure that, if the Founding Fathers were to come back, they'd go to the Supreme Whoreshouse Courthouse and administer a round of painful dopeslaps.

America's Enemies

Includes the majority ot the GOP's congresscritters and their presumptive nominee for the presidential election, Dementia Donnie.

"R" for political identification, no longer stands for "Republican". It stands for "Russia". For that is where their loyalty now lies.

And if you support those clowns, start studying.

Color Me Heavily Unsympathetic

Maryam Alwan figured the worst was over after New York City police in riot gear arrested her and other protesters on the Columbia University campus, loaded them onto buses and held them in custody for hours.

But the next evening, the college junior received an email from the university. Alwan and other students were being suspended after their arrests at the “ Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” a tactic colleges across the country have deployed to calm growing campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war.

The students' plight has become a central part of protests, with students and a growing number of faculty demanding their amnesty. At issue is whether universities and law enforcement will clear the charges and withhold other consequences, or whether the suspensions and legal records will follow students into their adult lives.

Welcome to the real world, kid, where committing a crime carries the risk of long-term consequences.

Besides that, I'll bet that some of the people who are saying "poor child" were cheering on as those who participated in the 1/6 Coup Attempt or the Tiki-Torch Racists' March were indicted and lost their jobs. So it may come down to whose ox is being arrested.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

A good old DC-9:

Farewell, Col. Tigh

Terry Carter, the original Col Tigh in Battlestar Galactica, has died. He was 95.

Guest Caturday

Grey Wolf's cat.

Scratch a Pro-Palestine Protestor, Find an Antisemite

Video of incendiary comments by one of the leaders of the student protest encampment at Columbia University surfaced online Thursday evening, forcing the school to again confront an issue at the core of the conflict rippling across campuses nationwide: the tension between pro-Palestinian activism and antisemitism.

The student, Khymani James, said in the January video that “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.”

Mr. James made the comments during and after a disciplinary hearing with Columbia administrators that he recorded and then posted on Instagram.

It's not as though that turdlet is being sandbagged. He recorded himself making those remarks and then posted them, himself, online.

Only when there is now significant blowback does he try to disavow what he said. But believe what he said to be what he believes.

Meir Kahane was a thug and a terrorist. But he had the right of it when he advocated that every Jew should have weapons and know how to use them. When Mr. James decides it is time to go out and start murdering people, he might come down with a serious case of bullet wounds.

Because It's Friday

Some drone footage:

Can't say I'm too crazy of the viewpoint. It looks too much like a model railroad set.

Reciprocal Blogroll

I'm going through that section and pruning out those who aren't reciprocal.

But if you've blogrolled me and you're not in any of my blogrolls, let me know, so I can fix that.

Caveat: If you're one of the Banhammer Boys, forget about it.

Also, if your blog is really old, please post something. Anything will do. Otherwise, it'll go, too.

The Campus Pro-Hamas Protests

I would feel a little more sympathetic to them if they condemned the atrocities Hamas perpetrated on October 7th. I would feel a little more sympathetic if they could spare a word for the civilian hostages that have been held since then, or for those who died in Hamas's custody.

But no, not a peep out of the kaffiyeh-klad klowns about any of that.

So color me unsympathetic. And if it takes a "whiff of grape" to break up the protests, I won't shed many tears. I well remember the Vietnam protests and they didn't win any friends. They were pretty masturbatory, in that they only made the protesters think that they were doing something.

Scratching These Down, Here

H/T

On the Protests

While I have no truck with the pro-Hamas protests, it is interesting to note that when the Tikki-Torch Nazis were marching, I don't recall any cops standing around in full riot gear.

Do you?

The Pro-Putin Vote in the Senate

Here they are:

Barrasso (R-WY) Blackburn (R-TN) Braun (R-IN) Budd (R-NC)
Cruz (R-TX) Hagerty (R-TN) Hawley (R-MO) Johnson (R-WI)
Lee (R-UT) Lummis (R-WY) Marshall (R-KS) Merkley (D-OR)
Rubio (R-FL) Sanders (I-VT) Schmitt (R-MO) Scott (R-FL)
Vance (R-OH) Welch (D-VT)

Three pro-Putin senators managed to courageously hide in the Senate Cloakroom and avoid voting: Paul (R-KY), Scott (R-SC), and Tuberville (R-AL). But you do know, Gentle Reader, that if they had been on the Senate floor, they would have voted with their fellow supporters of Russian fascism/imperialism.

Political Courage in the Age of MAGA

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell went agains the MAGA fascists in pushing aid to Ukraine to President Biden's desk.

Before The Dead Radio Fascist and Newtie the Terrorist changed things, bipartisanship was normal. It was fairly rate to have a supermajority in the Senate, so if anything was to be done, it took working across the aisle to do it. Legislators from both parties would, from time to time, get together socially. Their families were friends and neighbors with each other. But that ended whtn those two assholes elected to engage in a decades'-long demonization of those who disagreed with them.

A majority of Republicans in both bodies bought into Russian and MAGA propaganda about the Russo-Ukrainian War. Some of the loonier onew, such as Moscow Marjorie Traitor Greene, did little more than repeat and push Russian propaganda. The rest of those low-wattage boobs were content to throw away Republican hawkishness on Russia (and the USSR) and turn their backs on Putin's push to rebuild the Soviet Union. They were happy to repeat the pro-Nazi mistake of the America First jerkoffs in 1940 and 1941, bury their heads in the dirt and wait until the war came to our shores.

McConnell knew the danger early on and has been outspoken in the need to help Ukraine beat back the Ruscist Katsaps. Johnson, on the other hand, took some persuasion. Maybe it was the lesson of history. Maybe it was the fact that his son will be in the Naval Academy this summer and, if we get into a war with Russia, his kid may be one of those who gets shot at.

But either way, those two leaders stood up to the MAGA morons in their caucus and they deserve to be honored for it.

The Irony is Rich

The RNC’s Chief Election Integrity Counsel, Christina Bobb, has been indicted for her role in the Arizona fake elector scheme.

More of the story:

An Arizona grand jury has indicted former President Donald Trump ‘s chief of staff Mark Meadows, lawyer Rudy Giuliani and 16 others for their roles in an attempt to overturn Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

The indictment released Wednesday names 11 Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring that Trump won Arizona in 2020. They include the former state party chair, a 2022 U.S. Senate candidate and two sitting state lawmakers, who are charged with nine counts each of conspiracy, fraud and forgery.

The identities of seven other defendants, including Giuliani and Meadows, were not immediately released because they had not yet been served with the documents. They were readily identifiable based on descriptions of the defendants, however.

Those fools all bought the TOFF's lies about the election and, like most in the Party of the Confederacy, continue to believe those lies. He persuaded those lunatics to commit fraud and now, the slowly-grinding wheels of justice, have ensared them.

An old and still valid reminder: If you can't do the crime, don't do the crime.

Putin's Useful Idiots in the Senate

Update: The bill is now law. The taps are opening.

McConnell had some harsh words for those "poo-flinging chaos monkeys":

“The holiday from history is over,” McConnell said on the Senate floor before the vote. “Will the Senate indulge the fantasy of pulling up a drawbridge? Will we persist in the 21st century with an approach that failed in the 20th? Or will we dispense with the myths of isolationism and embrace reality?

“So much of the hesitation and shortsightedness that has delayed this moment is premised on sheer fiction. And I take no pleasure in rebutting misguided fantasies,” McConnell said in a rebuke of some members of his party. “I wish, sincerely, that recognizing the responsibilities of American leadership was the price of admission for serious conversations about the future of our national security.”

McConnell knows that his party was on the wrong side of history in 1940-41; he doesn't want to repeat that error. He blamed both Tuckyo Rose and the TOFF for the delay in authorizing aid to Ukraine.

JD Vance, on the other hand, offered the lame-ass excuse that Putin is not Hitler. that's true, if the deciding factor is industrial-based genocide. but as to everything else, such as invading neighboring countries, abolishing freedom of the press and jailing people for having the temerity to even mildly speak out in dissent, there isn't a sliver of difference between the two.

I'll post the roll-call roster when I find a form that's easy to copy. But, having said that, a majority of GOP senators chose to vote for tyranny and for Putin. Most of the expected suspects in the Caucus of Appeasers voted to appease Putin: Blackburn, Hawley, Cruz, Johnson, among others.

I am glad that enough Republican senators stood up to their pro-Putin wing. But it's sad that it was a minority of Republicans in both houses of Congress. Pro-Hitler then, Pro-Putin now.

Tripping These Down, Here

"Real Scumbags" and Klansmen in the House GOP Caucus

U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-San Antonio, ripped into his party’s right flank for voting against billions in foreign aid for U.S. allies last week, castigating his ultraconservative peers as “scumbags” and klansmen.

“These people used to walk around with white hoods at night. Now they're walking around with white hoods in the daytime,” Gonzales told CNN’s Dana Bash in an interview Sunday. “It didn't surprise me that some of these folks voted against aid to Israel.”

Gonazales, a rare flame-throwing centrist who is battling it out against YouTube gun enthusiast Brandon Herrera in the first serious primary challenge, singled out two sitting Republicans by name who have endorsed against him.

“It's my absolute honor to be in Congress, but I serve with some real scumbags like [Florida Congressman] Matt Gaetz. He paid minors to have sex with them at drunk parties,” Gonzales said, before calling out Rep. Bob Good for earlier this month endorsing Herrera, whom he called a “known neo-Nazi.”

Makes it easy for me when all I have to do is copy and paste the words of a Republican, without having to add more snark.

"Renewal by Anderson" Can Go Eat a Bag of Richards

I am just irritated by their fake news-interview commercials. I don't know who those cocksuckers think they're fooling.