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babylonsister
babylonsister's Journal
babylonsister's Journal
July 23, 2023
Jim Caviezel Calls Donald Trump 'The New Moses' And We Can't Let This Pass Over
The "Sound of Freedom" star had biblical praise for the twice-indicted former president on "Fox & Friends."
Ron Dicker
Jul 20, 2023, 01:34 PM EDT
On “Fox & Friends” Thursday, actor Jim Caviezel claimed with a straight face that former President Donald Trump is “the new Moses.” (Watch the video below.)
snip//
snip//
The movie has gotten some positive reviews, though Rolling Stone called it a “vigilante fever dream” and a “QAnon-tinged thriller” for the “conspiracy addled boomer.”
CBC Radio’s Radheyan Simonpillai called it a “blandly competent thriller” about “a grave subject matter that has been tragically co-opted as a rallying cry for xenophobic, pro-Trump types.”
more...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jim-caviezel-donald-trump-new-moses_n_64b95009e4b09a3b48916bb0
Jim Caviezel Calls Donald Trump 'The New Moses' And We Can't Let This Pass Over
Jim Caviezel Calls Donald Trump 'The New Moses' And We Can't Let This Pass Over
The "Sound of Freedom" star had biblical praise for the twice-indicted former president on "Fox & Friends."
Ron Dicker
Jul 20, 2023, 01:34 PM EDT
On “Fox & Friends” Thursday, actor Jim Caviezel claimed with a straight face that former President Donald Trump is “the new Moses.” (Watch the video below.)
snip//
“This is the new Moses,” Caviezel said. “I mean, I’m still Jesus, but he’s the new Moses. Pharaoh, let my children go free.”
snip//
The movie has gotten some positive reviews, though Rolling Stone called it a “vigilante fever dream” and a “QAnon-tinged thriller” for the “conspiracy addled boomer.”
CBC Radio’s Radheyan Simonpillai called it a “blandly competent thriller” about “a grave subject matter that has been tragically co-opted as a rallying cry for xenophobic, pro-Trump types.”
more...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jim-caviezel-donald-trump-new-moses_n_64b95009e4b09a3b48916bb0
July 22, 2023
https://politicalwire.com/2023/07/22/morgan-stanley-credits-bidenomics-for-economic-surge/
Morgan Stanley Credits ‘Bidenomics’ for Economic Surge
July 22, 2023 at 7:28 am EDT By Taegan Goddard
Morgan Stanley Credits 'Bidenomics' for Economic Surge
https://politicalwire.com/2023/07/22/morgan-stanley-credits-bidenomics-for-economic-surge/
Morgan Stanley Credits ‘Bidenomics’ for Economic Surge
July 22, 2023 at 7:28 am EDT By Taegan Goddard
Morgan Stanley is crediting President Biden’s economic policies with driving an unexpected surge in the U.S. economy that is so significant that the bank was forced to make a “sizable upward revision” to its estimates for U.S. gross domestic product, CNBC reports.
As a result of these unexpected swells, Morgan Stanley now projects 1.9% GDP growth for the first half of this year. That’s nearly four times higher than the bank’s previous forecast of 0.5%.
As a result of these unexpected swells, Morgan Stanley now projects 1.9% GDP growth for the first half of this year. That’s nearly four times higher than the bank’s previous forecast of 0.5%.
July 22, 2023
That Sound You Hear Is Donald Trump Screaming, Crying, and Throwing Up in a Mar-a-Lago Bathroom
Levin Report
That Sound You Hear Is Donald Trump Screaming, Crying, and Throwing Up in a Mar-a-Lago Bathroom
On the same day that word came down racketeering charges are likely to come out of the Fulton County probe, Judge Aileen Cannon set a date for the classified-documents trial for well before the 2024 election.
By Bess Levin
July 21, 2023
Donald Trump received some no good, extremely bad legal news on Friday, when The Guardian reported that Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney criminally investigating his attempt to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia has “developed evidence to charge a sprawling racketeering indictment next month,” according to people familiar with the matter. Obviously, being charged with racketeering would be exactly as bad as it sounds—and yet somehow, that wasn’t even the worst news the ex-president received today.
Instead, it was likely the decision by Aileen Cannon—a federal judge Trump himself appointed—to set a trial date of May 20, 2024, for Trump to face off with the federal government in the classified-documents case, that had staffers and aides hiding in hallways and coat closets to avoid Trump’s ire (and whatever ketchup bottles he could get his hands on). While the spring date is several months later than prosecutors had requested, it is very much well before the postelection one Team Trump had been angling for in the hopes of putting it off until the ex-president could have won a second term and made all of his legal problems—on the federal level, that is—go away.
Of course, just because Cannon issued a ruling that Trump will undoubtedly be very unhappy about today does not mean she won’t, as many fear, blow up the case in his favor when the trial finally kicks off. (As The Washington Post notes, “In her role, Cannon can have a significant impact on the case, including by ruling on what evidence can be included and deciding on any potential motions challenging the charges.”) On the other hand, the government’s indictment against Trump is said to be extremely strong: After the charges were unveiled last month, former attorney general Bill Barr opined: “I was shocked by the degree of sensitivity of these documents and how many there were, frankly. If even half of it is true, he’s toast.” As one Fox News legal analyst noted, “All the government has to do is stick the landing on one count, and he could have a terminal sentence. We’re talking about crimes that have a 10- or 20-year period as a maximum.” (Trump, along with his alleged co-conspirator, has pleaded not guilty.)
Incidentally, the documents case isn’t even the first criminal trial that Trump will have to fit into his schedule next spring. His trial versus the Manhattan district attorney—who charged him in April with various crimes related to his hush money deals—is slated to begin March 25, three weeks after Super Tuesday. (Trump has also pleaded not guilty in that case.)
more...
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/07/donald-trump-fulton-county-racketeering-documents-trial-date
July 22, 2023
Extremists Want to Ban Discussing Their Abortion Bans
by Jim Hightower | July 21, 2023 - 5:55am
— from OtherWords
Unfortunately, it’s 1984 again in America.
Not the year. The book. George Orwell’s classic novel tells of a far-right totalitarian clique that uses “newspeak” and “doublethink” to impose their rigid, anti-democratic doctrine on society.
snip//
To their amazement, however, the great majority of Americans — including many Republican voters — think abortion ought to be generally available, with each woman deciding what’s best for her. Moreover, the idea of Big Brother imposing a federal ban is massively unpopular.
No problem, say today’s Orwellian newspeakers, we’ll just ban the word “ban” from our PR campaigns. Thus their harsh abortion ban has magically morphed linguistically into a “pro-life plan.” There — feel better?
Doubling down on their propaganda ploy, the abortion truth twisters are also plotting to ban reporters from using what one called “the big ban word.” Anti-abortion agents are now barraging news outlets with warnings that any use of that verb will be considered proof of political bias.
Sure enough, rather than risk right-wing fury, some scaredy-cat reporters are already caving in, meekly describing bans as “restrictions on procedures.” How nice — a kinder, gentler tyranny!
To keep up with the 2023 version of Orwell’s Thought Police, follow journalist Jessica Valenti’s diligent tracking of anti-abortion trickery at Jessica.substack.com.
Jim Hightower: Extremists Want to Ban Discussing Their Abortion Bans
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jim-hightower/107028/extremists-want-to-ban-discussing-their-abortion-bansExtremists Want to Ban Discussing Their Abortion Bans
by Jim Hightower | July 21, 2023 - 5:55am
— from OtherWords
Unfortunately, it’s 1984 again in America.
Not the year. The book. George Orwell’s classic novel tells of a far-right totalitarian clique that uses “newspeak” and “doublethink” to impose their rigid, anti-democratic doctrine on society.
snip//
To their amazement, however, the great majority of Americans — including many Republican voters — think abortion ought to be generally available, with each woman deciding what’s best for her. Moreover, the idea of Big Brother imposing a federal ban is massively unpopular.
No problem, say today’s Orwellian newspeakers, we’ll just ban the word “ban” from our PR campaigns. Thus their harsh abortion ban has magically morphed linguistically into a “pro-life plan.” There — feel better?
Doubling down on their propaganda ploy, the abortion truth twisters are also plotting to ban reporters from using what one called “the big ban word.” Anti-abortion agents are now barraging news outlets with warnings that any use of that verb will be considered proof of political bias.
Sure enough, rather than risk right-wing fury, some scaredy-cat reporters are already caving in, meekly describing bans as “restrictions on procedures.” How nice — a kinder, gentler tyranny!
To keep up with the 2023 version of Orwell’s Thought Police, follow journalist Jessica Valenti’s diligent tracking of anti-abortion trickery at Jessica.substack.com.
July 22, 2023
https://politicalwire.com/2023/07/21/biden-picks-female-admiral-to-lead-navy/
Biden Picks Female Admiral to Lead Navy
July 21, 2023 at 4:53 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard
Biden Picks Female Admiral to Lead Navy
https://politicalwire.com/2023/07/21/biden-picks-female-admiral-to-lead-navy/
Biden Picks Female Admiral to Lead Navy
July 21, 2023 at 4:53 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard
“President Joe Biden has chosen Adm. Lisa Franchetti to lead the Navy, an unprecedented choice that, if she is confirmed, will make her the first woman to be a Pentagon service chief and the first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” the AP reports.
July 21, 2023
Letter from Biden’s Washington
Finally, the Trump Case We’ve Been Waiting For
But, with 2024 looming, is it already too late?
By Susan B. Glasser
July 20, 2023
One word came to mind when I heard the news this week that Donald Trump had received a target letter from the Justice Department special prosecutor Jack Smith, indicating that an indictment is likely of the former President on charges connected with his effort to overturn the 2020 election and remain in power: Finally. This, in the end, is the heart of the matter, a long-delayed reckoning with an offense against the constitutional system so great that it is without historic precedent—no President before Trump ever did such a thing.
snip//
Republicans used to revel every four years in their self-proclaimed status as the party of “law and order.” Now they follow Trump into attacks on federal prosecutors, on the Justice Department, on the F.B.I. It’s anyone’s guess how far down this road McCarthy may be willing to go, as the former President combines his legal defense with a political campaign of vengeance, retribution, and personal survival. It was surreal to see pictures of the Speaker as Joe Biden’s guest at the annual White House congressional picnic this week, grinning and chomping on an ice-cream bar, even as he seemed all too willing to light the place on fire if that’s what his restive pro-Trump majority were to demand.
The prospect of Trump returning to the White House is an existential one for American democracy, a political test from which there is no escaping. If this wasn’t clear before, it must be now. A reëlected Trump would be a President subject to no constraints at all—having twice dodged congressional impeachment, and either beaten back the Justice Department and the courts or delayed so long that he could seek to use his regained executive powers to nullify the cases against him. Trump, in his ever-more-apocalyptic rhetoric surrounding his effort to retake the White House, has taken to calling his 2024 race “the final battle.” I have increasingly come to believe that he is correct.
Given the stakes, there’s much to anticipate about what Smith’s latest case against Trump might look like. According to the Times, his target letter indicated that Trump could be prosecuted under three criminal statutes: conspiracy to defraud the government, obstruction of an official proceeding, and even a law enacted after the Civil War to give federal agents a means of prosecuting Southern white supremacists, including Ku Klux Klan members who resorted to terrorism to prevent newly freed Blacks from voting.
But knowing what he will be charged with does not mean there is nothing left to learn about this unprecedented plot against America. For that, we must wait for the indictment: Will there be new details showing that it was the President himself who orchestrated the conspiracy to overturn election results in battleground states? New examples of Trump pressuring officials or government agencies? Damning evidence in his own words that he knew he had lost the election and proceeded anyway? Will there be a turncoat—Mark Meadows, perhaps?—to provide revelations from inside Trump’s fevered quest to stay in office after the voters had spoken? I hope and expect so after more than two and a half years of waiting. And yet somehow those questions still seem subordinate to the one that the indictment will not and cannot answer: Did it come too late? ?
Finally, the Trump Case We've Been Waiting For
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/finally-the-trump-case-weve-been-waiting-forLetter from Biden’s Washington
Finally, the Trump Case We’ve Been Waiting For
But, with 2024 looming, is it already too late?
By Susan B. Glasser
July 20, 2023
One word came to mind when I heard the news this week that Donald Trump had received a target letter from the Justice Department special prosecutor Jack Smith, indicating that an indictment is likely of the former President on charges connected with his effort to overturn the 2020 election and remain in power: Finally. This, in the end, is the heart of the matter, a long-delayed reckoning with an offense against the constitutional system so great that it is without historic precedent—no President before Trump ever did such a thing.
snip//
Republicans used to revel every four years in their self-proclaimed status as the party of “law and order.” Now they follow Trump into attacks on federal prosecutors, on the Justice Department, on the F.B.I. It’s anyone’s guess how far down this road McCarthy may be willing to go, as the former President combines his legal defense with a political campaign of vengeance, retribution, and personal survival. It was surreal to see pictures of the Speaker as Joe Biden’s guest at the annual White House congressional picnic this week, grinning and chomping on an ice-cream bar, even as he seemed all too willing to light the place on fire if that’s what his restive pro-Trump majority were to demand.
The prospect of Trump returning to the White House is an existential one for American democracy, a political test from which there is no escaping. If this wasn’t clear before, it must be now. A reëlected Trump would be a President subject to no constraints at all—having twice dodged congressional impeachment, and either beaten back the Justice Department and the courts or delayed so long that he could seek to use his regained executive powers to nullify the cases against him. Trump, in his ever-more-apocalyptic rhetoric surrounding his effort to retake the White House, has taken to calling his 2024 race “the final battle.” I have increasingly come to believe that he is correct.
Given the stakes, there’s much to anticipate about what Smith’s latest case against Trump might look like. According to the Times, his target letter indicated that Trump could be prosecuted under three criminal statutes: conspiracy to defraud the government, obstruction of an official proceeding, and even a law enacted after the Civil War to give federal agents a means of prosecuting Southern white supremacists, including Ku Klux Klan members who resorted to terrorism to prevent newly freed Blacks from voting.
But knowing what he will be charged with does not mean there is nothing left to learn about this unprecedented plot against America. For that, we must wait for the indictment: Will there be new details showing that it was the President himself who orchestrated the conspiracy to overturn election results in battleground states? New examples of Trump pressuring officials or government agencies? Damning evidence in his own words that he knew he had lost the election and proceeded anyway? Will there be a turncoat—Mark Meadows, perhaps?—to provide revelations from inside Trump’s fevered quest to stay in office after the voters had spoken? I hope and expect so after more than two and a half years of waiting. And yet somehow those questions still seem subordinate to the one that the indictment will not and cannot answer: Did it come too late? ?
July 20, 2023
GOP Pushes Disastrous Environmental Plan As The Planet Bakes
House Republicans want to turbocharge the very industries chiefly responsible for the accelerating climate crisis.
By
Chris D'Angelo
and
Roque Planas
Jul 19, 2023, 05:45 PM EDT
House Republicans on Wednesday advanced an appropriations bill for federal environmental agencies that would boost development of the same fossil fuels driving the myriad disasters that have ravaged the Northern Hemisphere this year.
The legislation includes sweeping funding cuts for the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior Department and the White House’s Council of Environmental Quality. It would mandate numerous additional oil and gas lease sales, both on- and offshore, and would advance mining development, including in an area near Minnesota’s iconic Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness where the Biden administration has banned such extraction.
The legislation would also torpedo and stonewall protections for wild animals, and would rescind more than $9 billion provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s signature climate law that Democrats passed last year.
more...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gop-environmental-plan-climate-change_n_64b810c2e4b0dcb4cab6c1fe
GOP Pushes Disastrous Environmental Plan As The Planet Bakes
GOP Pushes Disastrous Environmental Plan As The Planet Bakes
House Republicans want to turbocharge the very industries chiefly responsible for the accelerating climate crisis.
By
Chris D'Angelo
and
Roque Planas
Jul 19, 2023, 05:45 PM EDT
House Republicans on Wednesday advanced an appropriations bill for federal environmental agencies that would boost development of the same fossil fuels driving the myriad disasters that have ravaged the Northern Hemisphere this year.
The legislation includes sweeping funding cuts for the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior Department and the White House’s Council of Environmental Quality. It would mandate numerous additional oil and gas lease sales, both on- and offshore, and would advance mining development, including in an area near Minnesota’s iconic Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness where the Biden administration has banned such extraction.
The legislation would also torpedo and stonewall protections for wild animals, and would rescind more than $9 billion provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s signature climate law that Democrats passed last year.
more...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gop-environmental-plan-climate-change_n_64b810c2e4b0dcb4cab6c1fe
July 20, 2023
https://politicalwire.com/2023/07/19/florida-schools-will-teach-how-blacks-benefited-from-slavery/
Florida Schools to Teach Blacks Benefited from Slavery
July 19, 2023 at 5:28 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard
Florida Schools to Teach Blacks Benefited from Slavery
https://politicalwire.com/2023/07/19/florida-schools-will-teach-how-blacks-benefited-from-slavery/
Florida Schools to Teach Blacks Benefited from Slavery
July 19, 2023 at 5:28 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard
“Students at Florida public schools will now learn that Black people benefited from slavery because it taught them skills,” the Florida Phoenix reports.
“This change is part of the African American history standards the State Board of Education approved at a Wednesday meeting.”
Tallahassee Democrat: “After more than an hour of public comment, with a majority of speakers opposed, the board voted unanimously to approve the social studies standards for African American history for kindergarten through 12th grades.”
“This change is part of the African American history standards the State Board of Education approved at a Wednesday meeting.”
Tallahassee Democrat: “After more than an hour of public comment, with a majority of speakers opposed, the board voted unanimously to approve the social studies standards for African American history for kindergarten through 12th grades.”
July 19, 2023
Levin Report
Chris Christie Suggests Jared Kushner May Not Have Been Entirely Truthful When Testifying About Trump’s Failed Election Coup
“He doesn’t want to be disinvited to Thanksgiving.”
By Bess Levin
July 17, 2023
Last week, The New York Times reported that Jared Kushner had testified before a federal grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, and that when he did, the former first son-in-law apparently suggested that “Mr. Trump truly believed the election was stolen.” Such a claim is significant because federal prosecutors, led by special counsel Jack Smith, appear to be trying to determine if Trump knew his attempts to stay in power were based on a lie—and while the feds do not need, like, a video of Trump saying, “Look at me, breaking the law” to indict him, their case would be made significantly stronger if, as the Times notes, “they can produce evidence that the defendant knows there is no legal or factual basis for a claim but goes ahead with making it anyway.” In other words, in testifying that it was his understanding that Trump truly thought the 2020 election was stolen from him, Kushner did a major solid for his father-in-law, and any potential defense said father-in-law’s attorneys might mount. But at least one person has suggested Kushner‘s testimony may not have been entirely aboveboard.
In an interview with ABC on Sunday, former Trump ally turned 2024 GOP rival Chris Christie told George Stephanopoulos, “[Trump] doesn’t believe he won. He was concerned before the election that he was losing, and I know that because he said it to me directly. So, you know, he knows he didn’t win. But his ego, George, won’t permit him to believe that he’s the only person in America, outside the state of Delaware, to ever have lost to Joe Biden. And so his ego is running that. And am I surprised that Jared Kushner would say that? He doesn’t want to be disinvited to Thanksgiving, George, so he said what he needed to say.”
https://twitter.com/i/status/1680596661393825793
Chris Christie Suggests Jared Kushner May Not Have Been Entirely Truthful When Testifying...
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/07/chris-christie-jared-kushner-donald-trump-grand-jury-testimony#intcid=_vanity-fair-verso-hp-trending_4947dbcb-340a-4fd2-8651-134c1c3feb1d_popular4-1Levin Report
Chris Christie Suggests Jared Kushner May Not Have Been Entirely Truthful When Testifying About Trump’s Failed Election Coup
“He doesn’t want to be disinvited to Thanksgiving.”
By Bess Levin
July 17, 2023
Last week, The New York Times reported that Jared Kushner had testified before a federal grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, and that when he did, the former first son-in-law apparently suggested that “Mr. Trump truly believed the election was stolen.” Such a claim is significant because federal prosecutors, led by special counsel Jack Smith, appear to be trying to determine if Trump knew his attempts to stay in power were based on a lie—and while the feds do not need, like, a video of Trump saying, “Look at me, breaking the law” to indict him, their case would be made significantly stronger if, as the Times notes, “they can produce evidence that the defendant knows there is no legal or factual basis for a claim but goes ahead with making it anyway.” In other words, in testifying that it was his understanding that Trump truly thought the 2020 election was stolen from him, Kushner did a major solid for his father-in-law, and any potential defense said father-in-law’s attorneys might mount. But at least one person has suggested Kushner‘s testimony may not have been entirely aboveboard.
In an interview with ABC on Sunday, former Trump ally turned 2024 GOP rival Chris Christie told George Stephanopoulos, “[Trump] doesn’t believe he won. He was concerned before the election that he was losing, and I know that because he said it to me directly. So, you know, he knows he didn’t win. But his ego, George, won’t permit him to believe that he’s the only person in America, outside the state of Delaware, to ever have lost to Joe Biden. And so his ego is running that. And am I surprised that Jared Kushner would say that? He doesn’t want to be disinvited to Thanksgiving, George, so he said what he needed to say.”
https://twitter.com/i/status/1680596661393825793
July 18, 2023
Trump Won’t Return Israeli Antiquities
July 18, 2023 at 6:26 am EDT By Taegan Goddard
Trump Won't Return Israeli Antiquities
https://politicalwire.com/2023/07/18/trump-wont-return-israeli-antiquities/Trump Won’t Return Israeli Antiquities
July 18, 2023 at 6:26 am EDT By Taegan Goddard
“Antiquities belonging to Israel have been kept for the past several months at former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, and senior Israeli figures have unsuccessfully tried to have them returned to Israel,” Haaretz reports.
“Among the antiquities are ancient ceramic candles which are part of Israel’s national treasures collection. They were sent to the U.S. in 2019 with the approval of then-Director of the Israeli Antiquities Authority, Israel Hasson, on the condition that they be returned within weeks, yet almost four years later, they have yet to be returned.”
“Among the antiquities are ancient ceramic candles which are part of Israel’s national treasures collection. They were sent to the U.S. in 2019 with the approval of then-Director of the Israeli Antiquities Authority, Israel Hasson, on the condition that they be returned within weeks, yet almost four years later, they have yet to be returned.”
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