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....

Reality Winner walked off with one classified document. just one. she was arrested, jailed, denied bail, convicted and swiftly sentenced to five years in prison. no one asked her nicely to pretty please just give the document back. there were no negotiations. one document. prison.

Jack Teixeira took dozens of classified documents home and put them on a server in order to impress his dipshit gamer friends. he was arrested, denied bail, and is currently sitting in prison, awaiting trial. again, there were no negotiations. action, consequence.

Little Donny Fuckface took thousands of classified documents, hid them, pawed through them, denied he had them, claimed they belonged to him, said he’d already given them back, moved them, ignored a subpoena asking him nicely to return them, moved them again, instructed his lawyers and assistants to lie to the feds about them, kept them on his desk, wrote to-do lists on them, stashed them in the unspeakably tacky shitter of his vermin-infested Florida golf motel, took them with him when he traveled, and waved them in the faces of randos at his ratty New Jersey ex-wife cemetery.

right now, he is free on his own recognizance and able to fly around the country and stoke his deranged worshipers into a rabid frenzy. he even has his own personal hand-picked judge who is doing everything within her power to derail his trial and help him avoid consequences. and as batshit insane as all of that sounds, this week we learned about something that makes this whole sordid story a thousand times worse: Donald Trump blabbed nuclear secrets to one of his cronies.

HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania House has advanced a bill to change the date of the 2024 presidential primary while rejecting an effort to implement expanded voter ID requirements, mail ballot rule changes, and a slew of other provisions.

In a contentious session Thursday that included singing, yelling, and arguments over the events of Jan. 6, the state House passed a bill along party lines that would move the date of the 2024 presidential primary from April 23 to
April 2.

A second bill to move the primary to March 19 — previously approved by the state Senate — failed with a wide margin of bipartisan opposition. By the time of the vote, that bill had morphed into an omnibus election reform package.

- snip -

The current date of the 2024 primary, April 23, conflicts with the Jewish holiday of Passover and places the swing state late in the primary cycle. While the effort to move the primary has received bipartisan, bicameral, and gubernatorial support, counties, school boards, and a legislative advisory board are concerned it will strain local election offices, especially if lawmakers drag the decision out.

NBC is ready to open the 49th season of “Saturday Night Live,” pushed back just a week or two from when the series might normally launch in the fall.

After being shut down in May by the Hollywood writers strike, “SNL” will return on October 14, marking the first of three consecutive weeks of original broadcasts, NBC said in an announcement Wednesday. Ice Spice will serve as musical guest. Pete Davidson had been scheduled to host the show last season, before the strike forced “SNL” to go dark. Bad Bunny will host and perform on Oct. 21.

The entire cast is set to return, with a single addition: Chloe Troast, who has performed with the writer trio that makes up SNL’s “Please Don’t Destroy,” joins as a featured player. NBC did not say whether any of the current group of featured players, which include Sarah Sherman and James Austin Johnson, had been promoted to the main cast.

As more TV viewers migrate to streaming services to watch their favorite scripted dramas and comedies on demand, “SNL” has taken on new importance for NBC. Once relegated to airing after the late local news in a time slot network executives didn’t consider paramount, the program now runs live across the U.S. all at once, meaning that it runs in primetime in certain parts of the country. The show is one of the most-watched entertainment programs on TV among viewers between 18 and 49, the demographic most preferred by advertisers.

it was during the lunch break of the second day of Little Donny Fuckface’s civil fraud trial that Donny had a super awesome idea.

while his ace team of parking garage lawyers tucked into their meals, Donny — bored, restless, and boiling over with barely-stifled anger — took out his phone, logged onto his crappy app, and —

Trump took to his Truth Social media network to share a MAGA-aligned Twitter user’s post asking, “Why is Judge Engoron's Principal Law Clerk, Allison R. Greenfield, palling around with Chuck Schumer?” Trump also linked to her personal Instagram page.
Trump called her “Schumer's girlfriend”—Greenfield is not dating the senator—and complained that she “is running this case against me. How disgraceful!”

and because that wasn’t dumb enough, the stupid shit then sent the post out to the millions of people on his email list.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Jill Biden is urging women to consult their doctors about getting mammograms or other cancer screenings, saying in a new public service announcement for Breast Cancer Awareness Month that early detection saves lives.

“October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and I’m asking you to put your health first,” the first lady says in the 30-second spot recorded amid flower blooms in the White House Rose Garden. Take a moment to talk to your doctor about whether it’s time for your mammogram or other cancer screenings,” she says in the announcement airing this week on the Lifetime cable network. “There is no one-size-fits-all approach, but we know that early detection of cancer saves lives.”

Biden’s ad is part of an annual breast cancer awareness campaign by Lifetime, according to the cable network. A separate public service announcement featuring similar messages from actor Keshia Knight Pulliam and TV correspondent Rachel Lindsay will also be broadcast by the network.

The first lady is a longtime advocate for breast cancer education and prevention dating to 1993, when four of her friends were diagnosed with the disease. Shortly afterward, she launched the Biden Breast Health Initiative to teach high school girls in Delaware about the importance of early detection.

Stevie Nicks said she can’t envision another Fleetwood Mac tour following the death of her friend and bandmate Christine McVie, telling Vulture: “You can’t replace her, you just can’t.”

Nicks continued: “Without her, what is it? You know what I mean? She was like my soul mate, my musical soul mate, and my best friend that I spent more time with than any of my other best friends outside of Fleetwood Mac. Christine was my best friend.”

In an extremely touching moment, the musician went on to frame her relationship with McVie (as she’s done in the past) in terms of Taylor Swift lyrics, specifically “You’re On Your Own, Kid,” and the line, “you always have been.” Nicks said, “That was Christine and I. We were on our own in that band. We always were. We protected each other. Who am I going to look over to on the right and have them not be there behind that Hammond organ? When she died, I figured we really can’t go any further with this. There’s no reason to.”

For Nicks, a Fleetwood Mac tour without McVie would require dropping her songs from the set list, which would mean the absence of a lot of hits (the band tried this during a tour without her in 2009). “She wrote all the really super pop hits. None of the rest of us could write those songs,” Nicks said. “What would happen is we’d have to take the songs out, like we did when she actually retired for 18 years. We couldn’t re-create those songs. So we became a much more hard-rock band.”