Tracker

Netanyahu’s Right-Wing Blitz Is the ‘Most Corrupt’ Day in Israeli History JERUSALEM—Israel’s parliament, now with a majority of legislators promising to back incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is on a radical right-wing “legislative blitz” ahead of his anticipated installation on Thursday. The House has effectively been commandeered to enable Netanyahu’s sixth government by passing laws required to tie up coalition deals with his radical new partners. Without a series of laws fundamentally transforming Israel’s judicial landscape, Netanyahu has no way of forming a governing coalition, and Israel would be launched towards new elections. A law passed in the early hours of Tuesday permits the reinstatement of Aryeh Deri, a former interior minister, who resigned from the Knesset last year as part of a plea deal in which he admitted to defrauding the state of $152,365 in taxes, and agreed to leave public life. That was Deri’s second entanglement with the law: in 2000 he was convicted of accepting bribes and was sentenced to three years in jail, of which he served two. Netanyahu—don’t forget—is himself on trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust, and does not have the parliamentary votes to form a coalition government without Deri’s Shas party. Ergo, the law which allows Deri to become a minister in the Netanyau’s latest coalition. Baruch Kra, legal analyst for Israel's Channel 13 television, tweeted that “this morning, December 27, 2022, with the passage of the Deri Law, will be remembered as the most corrupt in the history of the Israeli parliament.” Another law passed under cover of night will benefit Bezalel Smotrich, a nationalist theocrat who hopes to impose “Torah law” on Israel, and a self-described “proud homophobe” slated to become Israel’s finance minister in the new coalition. The law will allow him to take a huge amount of control over the occupied West Bank, which was previously under the sole purview of Israel’s army. It even explicitly limits Netanyahu’s ability to direct policy over the occupied territory. https://www.thedailybeast.com/netanyahus-right-wing-blitz-is-the-most-corrupt-day-in-israeli-history?ref=home

The Iranian national team players have decided to donate their World Cup prize money to freeing prisoners. Yesterday, 20 prisoners were freed in Ardabil, and others will be freed in Bushehr, Lorestan, Kashan, and other cities across Iran. Great act of charity by the players.

Considering the turmoil that accompanied the first half of filming and the resultant canning of the original director and the return of Peter Jackson, the trilogy turned out rather well. The purists were greatly displeased, though. For fans of Middle-Earth, I suggest you read "The Children of Hurrin"- the prequel to the lord of the rings. Rather grim but worth a read.

Russian State TV Hails Lauren Boebert For Refusing To Stand For War Hero Volodymyr Zelensky Right-wing Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) won a significant new fan — Kremlin state TV — for refusing to stand and applaud Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when he spoke to Congress in Washington, D.C., last Wednesday. It hailed her as “brave” for failing to honor Zelensky, who has led his nation against a bloody, brutal invasion by Russia. The broadcast also gave shout outs to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) and far-right Fox News host Tucker Carlson for dissing the leader considered a hero by his country. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lauren-boebert-stand-ukrainina-president-zelensky-congress_n_63a9227be4b0ae9de1b18566

Europe has no real option to providing Ukraine with everything they need to fight the war. Putin is a monomanaical tyrant who will stop at nothing. He has gambled everything on grinding the Ukrainians into submission by destroying their infrastructure and making them so economically devastated that (in Putin's plans) Europe will see them as unworthy to join them. Simultaneously, Putin has gambled that the people of Europe will tire of the economic hardships and pressure their leaders to abandon Ukraine to its fate. So far, the US has expended about 5% of its military budget to stalemate Russia and effectively destroy half of its military. A small price to pay. European leaders have to remind their voters that Russia's ambitions will not stop at Ukrainian borders.

I knew it!!!!

Trump Calls Himself “Clairvoyant” in Unhinged Christmas Message The mind that brought you “very stable genius” has taken self-praise to a whole new plane of existence. Former President Donald Trump gave us the Christmas present we didn’t ask for in the form of a rambling post on Truth Social, in which he took swipes at the usual suspects—the “Radical Left,” “LameStream Media,” Department of Justice, and Federal Bureau of Investigation looking into his multiple alleged Espionage Act violations. Having taken to referring to himself in the third person, Trump posted in part that the media is pushing for President Joe Biden over “Brilliant, Clairvoyant, and USA LOVING Donald J. Trump,” apparently referring to the magical ability to see into the future or communicate with the nonliving. “LOVE TO ALL!” the post concluded. https://www.thedailybeast.com/former-president-donald-trump-calls-himself-clairvoyant-in-unhinged-truth-social-christmas-message?ref=home

Trump’s bigoted dinner guest Nick Fuentes favors burning women alive Nick Fuentes, the 24-year-old white Christian nationalist who dined last month with former President Donald Trump (R) and anti-Semitic rapper Ye at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, is using misogyny to build a large “incel” following of angry men advocating violence women, Mother Jones reports. “I’m a proud incel,” Fuentes declared in January on his nightly America First podcast. Incel means “involuntary celibate,” a group of men who blame overprivileged feminist women for disempowering them and denying them sex. Fuentes said he refrained from sex with women because, “I’m choosing instead to lead a historical right-wing movement.” Right Wing Watch noted that in June, Fuentes said on his podcast, “We need to go back to burning women alive more” when they’re convicted of crimes. He lamented that “everything went all out of control” when women stopped being burned as witches during the medieval period. He said women are now casting spells, molesting children in schools, and falsely accusing men of rape while also raping men. In January 2022, Fuentes launched Cozy.tv, a streaming platform that he said would be “anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-Black, [and] antisemitic.” A month after launching the platform, he said women aren’t “as rational as men” and should be beaten by their partners. He added a racist twist by saying that Black men understand this. https://www.alternet.org/nick-fuentes-2659009391/

Whoopi Goldberg Doubles Down on Holocaust Comments After being suspended from The View for two weeks in February for her comment that the Holocaust was “not about race,” Whoopi Goldberg is doubling down on her argument in a new interview with The Times of London, saying that the Holocaust “wasn't originally” about race. “Remember who they were killing first,” Goldberg said. “They were not killing racial; they were killing physical. They were killing people they considered to be mentally defective. And then they made this decision. It doesn’t change the fact that you could not tell a Jew on a street. You could find me. You couldn’t find them. That was the point I was making.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/whoopi-goldberg-doubling-down-on-holocaust-comments

!,4 Billion people plus barefoot doctors

Damn the LDL! Full speed ahead!

Quote was from Getty News

Clarified

Charles Completely Boots Andrew From Palace, Report Says -Getty News King Charles is pushing Prince Andrew out of Buckingham Palace—and won’t even let him use it for mailing letters. That’s according to The Sun, which says the disgraced royal can no longer keep an office at the palace, and the small number of staffers he has there might be let go. “The King has made it clear. He isn’t a working royal. He’s on his own,” a source told the newspaper. “Any presence at the Palace is officially over.” Andrew, whose friendship with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein plunged the royal family into scandal, does keep his home in the grounds of Windsor Castle—for now.

Revealed: Trump wanted 10,000 National Guard soldiers to protect him on walk to the Capitol on J6 At the end of November, House Select Committee chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) told reporters that they hadn't yet heard from a Secret Service agent that had corroborated the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, the aide to chief of staff Mark Meadows. The full report on the Jan. 6 attack on Congress and the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election detailed in Chapter 6 that Hutchinson's testimony was confirmed by other White House staffers. "On the evening of Dec. 27th," the report said, "President [Donald] Trump boosted the upcoming event on Twitter: 'See you in Washington, DC, on January 6th. Don’t miss it. Information to follow!' The Select Committee learned that this tweet came after the White House spoke with a former Trump staffer, Justin Caporale, who was asked to help produce the Ellipse rally. That same evening, the President had dinner with Donald Trump, Jr., and his girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle, who spoke with rally organizer Caroline Wren during the meal." According to those who testified, Wren sent Guilfoyle talking points describing her hopes for the event that “buses of people are coming in from all over the country to support you. It’s going to be huge, we are also adding in programming the night of January 5th.” Guilfoyle’s call with Wren was then followed by several calls with senior White House staff. A Dec. 29th text to Wren to Caporale explained that after Trump's Jan. 6 speech there “maybe [sic] a call to action to march to the [C]apitol and make noise.” It marks the first mention of Trump's plans to call on the rally-goers to march on the Capitol. "On Jan 2nd, rally organizer Katrina Pierson informed Wren that President Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, had said the President was going to 'call on everyone to march to the [C]apitol,'" the report cited. "Inside the White House, the President’s intent was well-known. Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Meadows, recalled in her testimony that she overheard discussions to this effect toward the end of December or early January. One such discussion included an exchange between Meadows and Rudolph Giuliani that occurred on January 2nd. Hutchinson understood that President Trump wanted to have a crowd at the Capitol in connection with what was happening inside—the certification of the electoral count." The goal, she explained was to delay the certification and then they'd be able to send the vote to state legislatures to overturn it. The questionable legal theory is now before the Supreme Court as a question about the future of elections. "During a call with members of the House Freedom Caucus," the report continued describing the tea party members, "the idea of telling people to go to the Capitol was discussed as a way to encourage Congress to delay the electoral college certification and send it back to the States. On January 4th, [Women for America First's] Kylie Kremer informed Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow and an ally of President Trump, that 'POTUS is going to have us march there [the Supreme Court]/the Capitol' but emphasized that the plan 'stays only between us.' The 'Stop the Steal' coalition was aware of the President’s intent. On January 5th, Ali Alexander sent a text to a journalist saying: 'Ellipse then US capitol [sic]. Trump is supposed to order us to the capitol [sic] at the end of his speech but we will see.'" Pierson then told the committee that Trump thought, "Well, I should walk with the people," but at the time she didn't take him "seriously." Advisers tried to talk him out of it, including White House Senior Advisor Max Miller, who "shot it down immediately," the report said, because there were concerns about Trump's safety. Pierson agreed, but Trump was firm. That's when he first floated the idea of 10,000 National Guardsmen deployed to protect him and his supporters from any supposed threats by leftwing counter-protesters. Trump has said over and over again that he told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi he wanted 10,000 National Guard soldiers. He has made it seem like he warned her that there would be violence, in fact, the truth is that Trump wanted them to protect him on a march to the Capitol. "Miller again rejected the President’s idea, saying that the National Guard was not necessary for the event," the report says. "Miller testified that there was no further conversation on the matter. After the meeting, Miller texted Pierson, 'Just glad we killed the national guard and a procession.' That is, President Trump considered having the National Guard oversee his procession to the U.S. Capitol." Only the president can order the National Guard in Washington, D.C. As former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper's deposition makes clear, there are only about 1,200 Guard soldiers in the Washington, D.C. guard, so it would require the president to call on multiple states to bring together such a number. The idea was floated in June. 2020 when protests broke out in cities over the murder of George Floyd. Esper told the committee that he made it very clear to Trump the difference between active-duty soldiers and guardsmen and what it would entail calling up just 5,000 to serve in Washington, D.C. during the Black Lives Matter protests. "Pierson’s agenda for the meeting reflected the President’s plan for protestors to go to the U.S. Capitol after the rally," the report explained. "But President Trump did not give up on the idea of personally joining his supporters on their march..." In Nov. 2022, writing for The Bulwark, Navy veteran and Brennan Center for Justice fellow Theodore Johnson argued that former President Donald Trump believed that just because he was the commander-in-chief, the military "swore an oath to him personally," and could be ordered to do whatever he wanted, regardless of whether it was legal or constitutional. At the end of the report, in Appendix 2 on page 742, there's a key comment that that an email was sent by then chief of staff Meadows explicitly saying on Jan.5 that the Washington, D.C. National Guard would be on hand to “protect pro Trump people.”

There is an unconfirmed report out of China(and it will never be confirmed) that in the past 24 hours, 37 million new diagnoses of COVID were found. Very ill patients are being brought to hospitals where they sit on the floor waiting for someone to die so a bed will be available. The Chinese government chose to use a much less effective domestically-produced vaccine rather than buy from outsiders.

This is really an upcoming movie!

28 House Republicans vote against bill to protect child sex abuse victims The bipartisan Respect for Child Survivors Act, a law that would aid victims of child sex abuse and their families, just passed the House in a 385-28 vote. All 28 votes against the bill came from Republicans. The bill would require the FBI to form multi-disciplinary teams to aid sex abuse victims and their families in order to prevent re-traumatization from investigation and any cases from being dropped. These teams would include “investigative personnel, mental health professionals, medical personnel, family advocacy workers, child advocacy workers, and prosecutors,” Newsweek reported. U.S. Senators John Cornyn (R-TX), Chris Coons (D-DE), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced the legislation. “I applaud Senator Cornyn’s leadership on this issue to correct an egregious wrong committed by certain FBI agents regarding their treatment of victims of sexual abuse,”said Sen. Graham.“Requiring the FBI to use appropriate, tried and true methods to interview child victims will help ensure the FBI’s failure in the Nassar case doesn’t happen again. This legislation will make it clear that we expect better.” However, not all Republicans expect better from the FBI, it seems. The bill was opposed by the following GOP Representatives: Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar (Ariz.); Dan Bishop and Virginia Foxx (NC); Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Mo Brooks and Barry Moore (Ala.); Louie Gohmert, Ronny Jackson, Troy Nehls, Chip Roy, and Michael Cloud (Texas); Andrew Clyde, Jody Hice, Austin Scott, and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.); James Comer and Thomas Massie (Ky.); Rick Crawford (Ark.); Byron Donalds and John Rutherford (Fla.); Bob Good (Va.), Clay Higgins (La.), Tom McClintock (Calif.), Ralph Norman (SC), Scott Perry (Pa.), Matt Rosendale (Mont.), and Jeff Van Drew (NJ). Despite this, the bill is supported by the Rape Abuse & Incest National Network, the National District Attorneys Association, Army of Survivors, the National Children’s Alliance, Keep Kids Safe, Together for Girls, Darkness to Light, the Monique Burr Foundation for Children, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), and the Brave Movement. https://www.alternet.org/28-house-republicans-abuse-victims/ “Hundreds of millions potentially at stake”: Experts say Jan. 6 report opens door to Trump lawsuit The Jan. 6 committee released its final 800-plus-page report on Thursday, calling former President Donald Trump the "central cause" of the attack on the Capitol. Legal experts noted that in addition to four criminal referrals, the committee's report may open up other legal liabilities for Trump, including potential liability in Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the former president's allies. New York University Law Professor Ryan Goodman pointed out that the report "opens doors wide for Dominion Voting Systems to sue former president Trump for defamation," and that there are "hundreds of millions of [dollars] potentially at stake." https://www.salon.com/2022/12/23/hundreds-of-millions-potentially-at-stake-experts-say-jan-6-report-opens-door-to/

Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz, who both represent the worst of the GOP, refused to stand in applause when Zelensky entered the House and played video games on their phones all the while he spoke, never looking up.