HARRISBURG — Facing pushback from Muslim organizations, Gov. Josh Shapiro on Friday stood by his strong condemnation of Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel that killed 1,300 people last weekend, as emotional reactions in Pennsylvania to a new war in the Middle East intensified.

Mr. Shapiro, the state’s third Jewish governor, early in the week called the attacks abhorrent and said, “We stand in solidarity against terror and are praying for all people in Israel.” A response from a statewide group of Muslim organizations that included some in Pittsburgh said Mr. Shapiro had “failed to represent, recognize, and respect all Pennsylvanians.”

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Mr. Shapiro got support from Sen. Judy Schwank, D-Berks and co-chair of the recently created Pennsylvania Jewish Legislative Caucus. On Friday, she said she was certain Mr. Shapiro had no intention of dismissing the concerns and desire for safety of the Palestinian people.

Her voice choking with emotion, Ms. Schwank said, “For American Jews, Israel is our heart. It is considered our homeland.” She added, “Viscerally, it is so important to us. I honestly think it is part of our DNA.” At the same time, she said, prospects for peace appeared grim. “I fear this conflict is escalating and there is going to be a significant loss of life, both for Israelis and Palestinians.”

yesterday, House Republicans held their Big Secret Vote for a Speaker nominee. the choice was clear: vote for Jim Jordan, vote for Steve Scalise, or guzzle bleach. in the end, there wasn’t much drama. Repubs picked Scalise on the very first ballot.

Jimmy Jords was soundly defeated. when all was said and done, nobody really wanted to have an under-dressed rape-enabler shouting at them all day long. bleach guzzling ran a close third.

now of course Steve has his own thorny little issue: he’s a fucking white supremacist — and he’s been one for a very long time. in 2002, Scalise was guest of honor at a white supremacy conference. it doesn’t get more whitely supreme than that. Supreme Steve hasn’t tried to hide any of this — he’s only tried to sugar-coat it.

so, how do you put a happy face on racism? pretty clumsily, it turns out, by saying the most dipshittiest things imaginable. most famously, Scalise has called himself “David Duke without the baggage.”

beloved drag performer and dog rescue aficionado George If That Even Is Your Real Name Santos (R-Kleptopia) is almost as much of a twentyfour-seven felony factory as Republican standard-bearer Little Donny Fuckface.

he’s certainly giving Trump a run for the money in the superceding indictment category.

already under indictment for 13 counts of such super fun things as forgery and credit card fraud, yesterday’s superceding indictment added ten more kick-ass counts of wire fraud, identity theft and living large off campaign donations.

I mean, what’s the point of running for office if you can’t use campaign funds to buy designer clothing? so far, exactly zero of Santos’s Republican colleagues have called for him to resign. ace job, you sniveling cowards, take a victory lap.

Local judicial races rarely attract attention, but partisan politics are playing a role in a Delaware County race this fall. In a move insiders say represents a bold shift in local politics, Delaware County Democrats are recommending that voters remove three Republican judges from the county Court of Common Pleas in November.

It’s rare for local party officials to get involved in judicial retention elections — in which voters decide every 10 years whether a sitting judge should remain on the bench. The Delaware County Democratic Committee is bucking a long-standing norm.

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A rare recommendation

Passed by a narrow 18-17 majority last Wednesday, the county Democrats’ decision not to support retention of three GOP judges from the Delaware County Court means the party will share that recommendation with voters ahead of the Nov. 7 general election.

Guiney said the party’s decision is not to criticize any individual decisions made by the judges. Those judges, Richard M. Cappelli, Barry C. Dozor, and William Chip Mackrides, have either run as or been endorsed by Republicans.

More than 25 years after the finale of “Seinfeld,” it seems the beloved sitcom might be getting a second ending. When asked if he liked the ending of “Seinfeld” during a stand-up set on Saturday night, Jerry Seinfeld told a Boston audience that he “has a little secret” about the finale of the show.

“Something is going to happen that has to do with that ending. It hasn’t happened yet,” Seinfeld said to big cheers. “Just what you are thinking about, Larry [David] and I have also been thinking about. So, you’ll see.”

In 2018, the comedian teased on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” that a “Seinfeld” revival was “possible,” but he did not further elaborate.

In the finale of “Seinfeld,” Jerry (Seinfeld), Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), George (Jason Alexander) and Kramer (Michael Richards) are arrested and locked up in prison. More than 76 million people tuned in live, making it one of the most-watched television broadcasts in history, but the series’ final episode received quite a lot of backlash, with Seinfeld himself expressing regret over the ending in the years following.

Special Counsel Jack Smith has requested D.C. Judge Tanya Chutkan “impose reasonable boundaries […] of prohibiting public identification of potential or selected jurors,” in Donald Trump’s 2024 election interference trial.

In a Tuesday filing to D.C.’s District Court, Smith wrote that “in light of the public attention that is expected [at the trial], and the defendant’s record of using public social media platforms in an intimidating manner,” the court should impose standard practices to ensure the protection of jury members, as well as impose “additional clear guidelines for use of information regarding potential jurors.”

Those measures include the use of a preliminary questionnaire to aid in expediting the jury selection process, a prohibition on research into potential jurors “beyond what is publicly available,” a restriction from “asking to ‘follow’ or ‘friend’ anyone, or make any analogous affirmative request, to gain access to posts or profiles that are not otherwise publicly available,” and the enforcement of rules preventing the public distribution of jurors names or identifying information.

Jury selection for the trial is expected to begin in December. Trump is facing four criminal counts related to his efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election, and around the events of Jan. 6: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of, and attempt to obstruct, an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.

let’s take a closer look at a thing I mentioned at the end of yesterday’s post. Donald Trump fucking loves to collude with Russia.

Trump desperately wants to be Vladimir’s bestie. he does everything he can to stay in Putin’s good graces. why? is it because Donny dreams of opening a Trump Tower in Moscow? is it something more insidious, like kompromat? in the end, it doesn’t matter. what matters is that Donald Trump is a Russian asset.

on May 11, 2017 — less than 4 months after his inauguration, and one day after firing James Comey — Trump invited Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to the Oval Office for a closed-door meeting. we’re not sure exactly what was discussed — in fact, Americans only learned about the meeting after photos were published in the Russian press — but we do know this:

President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.

The information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.

The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said Trump’s decision to do so endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State.

holy fucking shit. now take a guess who the “U.S. partner” was. here’s a hint: it was Israel.

WASHINGTON — Five of the nine House Democrats who voted against a pro-Israel resolution this summer — including Western Pennsylvania’s U.S. Rep. Summer Lee — have condemned Hamas for its weekend attack against the Jewish state.

Ms. Lee, D-Swissvale, was joined by Reps. Jamaal Bowman and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Delia Ramirez of Illinois in tweeting out specific condemnations of the Palestinian group that is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

A sixth lawmaker, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., didn’t mention Hamas by name but sided with Israel as she tweeted that “these devastating attacks on Israelis are deeply alarming and my heart breaks for the victims & their loved ones.”

Separately, as Israel struck back against Hamas on Monday, U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., said he supports the Jewish state “neutralizing the terrorists responsible for this barbarism.”

I’m not here to write about the shit-show in the Middle East. that’s above my pay grade — if people much smarter than I haven’t been able to solve it, I’m sure as hell not going to be able to do it in a post. but I am going to try to make some sense out of some bullshit that’s been happening over the weekend.

now, I hope you’re sitting down because I’m going to tell you something that’s going to shock you to your very core: Republicans are lying their fucking faces off about what’s going on.

first the truth, then the lie. in August, the US and Iran made a deal: Iran would free five Americans and in return, the US would un-freeze $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue.

....

now here’s the Republican lie: “Joe Biden gave 6 billion taxpayer dollars to Iran and they gave it to Hamas and Hamas used it to attack Israel and it’s all Joe Biden’s fault.”

I had been planning to write this week about the negotiations among President Biden, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia to normalize Israel-Saudi ties in return for a U.S.-Saudi defense treaty....

So much for that. Saturday’s surprise attack by Hamas fighters into Israel is a grim reminder that, in the Middle East, war-fighting usually takes precedence over peacemaking. It is hard to imagine the Saudi-Israeli peace talks making much progress as Israel reels from the worst surprise attack it has suffered since the 1973 Yom Kippur War — and as it mobilizes for what is likely to be its largest ground assault into the Gaza Strip since Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009. Indeed, though we don’t know for sure why Hamas chose to strike exactly now, this could well be part of a larger attempt by Iran and its proxies — including Hamas — to prevent a historic reconciliation between Jerusalem and Riyadh.

It is shocking enough to see internet footage of the Hamas attack as an American witnessing events from afar. The shock must be many times greater for Israelis who have to process the calamity that has befallen their country. This is Israel’s 9/11, and, just as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks rippled out across the world from Afghanistan to Iraq, so, too, will the 10/7 attacks ripple out in ways that are as dangerous as they are unpredictable.

Israel has gotten accustomed to the threat posed by Hamas rockets — and there was indeed a large-scale rocket attack from the Gaza Strip on Saturday. But there is no precedent for the massive ground assault that Hamas also mounted. Hamas’s fighters managed to penetrate Israeli border posts and the border fence enclosing Gaza, rampaging through surrounding Israeli communities, massacring innocent civilians and seizing hostages. They even managed to penetrate Israeli military bases and seize Israeli tanks and other armored vehicles. Hamas fighters are committing war crimes while carrying out a daring terrorist operation that has shaken Israel’s sense of security. Israel will no doubt strike back with an overwhelming military response....