RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Brazil’s federal police say the former right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, attempted to launch a coup in 2022 to stay in office following his relection defeat. The police indicted 36 other people, as part of what they say was a criminal conspiracy working to keep Bolsonaro in power, after he lost the 2022 election to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Among the dozens allegedly part of the conspiracy are Bolsonaro’s former defense minister, who was also his vice-presidential running mate, and a number of former close aides. The Federal Police report called the coup an attempt to “violently dismantle the constitutional state”.
The nearly 900-page report now goes to Brazil’s Supreme Court to be referred to the attorney general who will decide whether to go ahead and try the former president.
Great. Just great. I wake up to Shermichael Singleton of CNN whining that “other people have nominated controversial appointments.” Jesus. Now, Singleton’s saying that the report on Gaetz should not be released. So that tells you everything about him. This is as new information comes out about Gaetz and the “network” of payments he engaged in to keep these women from talking. (See New York Times, NYT).
I still don’t hear the “army of workers” we were promised to finish this remodel/demolition job outside. Mike, my partner, dreamed that he had come home and found that they had torn the entire back of the house off. They found moisture. Mike, in the dream, said that there was good wood there. That’s our level of anxiety just in our own lives not to mention the fact that the entire country has fallen apart.
I woke up from a dream that I was cat sitting, well baby sitting for two cats. Another cat came over and told the young female cat that the world was coming to an end tomorrow and that everybody she knew was leaving her. The female cat (orangey) was folded up in my lap terrified. Her younger brother was sitting just to my left, cowering. I started screaming at this Trump supporter man, father of the offending cat, sitting on a sofa in front of me, that no matter what you believed it was cruel to tell a child that the world was coming to an end and everybody she loved was leaving her. Yep. Tells you where we are this morning.
Shermichael Singleton, fucking Shermichael Singleton. Men’s positions on Gaetz will tell you something about them, not Gaetz. He’s a “Republican strategist?” What, I thought he was a journalist. He’s still a Republican strategist? Jesus, he’s black in case you didn’t already know.
Ohhhhhh groan. Now Singleton is arguing that it’s your job, as a strategist, to move the nomination along if that’s what the principle wants. These people are acting like this is business as usual, Trump is a normal candidate, person, blob in the universe. I hate this. I just hate this.
Over 1000 days of war for the Ukrainians. It exhausts me and I’m not even involved. Russia has used some kind of new missile to attack Ukraine overnight. This is, evidently, a response to allowing Ukraine to use longer range missiles. They attacked Dnipro.
Ohhhhhh (holds head in hands) Matt Whittaker. Jesus, former Gen. Mark Hertling uses the fact that Whittaker played football (and Hertling tells us where) as evidence that he’s a “somewhat normal guy.” Ohhhhhhhh I just can’t take it. I’m going back to bed. This is an important position; they learn detailed military information.
The “Holiday shopping season,” that’s what they are covering next. Jesus H. Christ.
Over on MSNBC we see animals that Putin has had trapped, fighting to get out of their cages, being transported as a gift to the leader of North Korea, a thank you gift, live animals, a bear and an African lion. Bastard, fucking bastard.
ICC has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.
Israel is trying to solve a problem it created invading Lebanon. 1979 Iran decides it wants to be a player. Israel invaded Beirut in 1982, this created Hezbollah. This, she argues, is much like the U.S. invasion of Iraq when administration officials thought they were going to remake the Middle East. Joe Scarborough is now saying that he thought the same thing (of course). What we need is a strategy for the day after. (Note: This is always the case, Scarborough has on this dynamite reporter just from Lebanon. But, does he let her talk? No, we have to listen to how Joe knew this was going to happen years ago. Of course. How could it be different? I wish I had a program that ran for four hours every weekday to tell people that I told them so, years ago.)
Ghattas: They say “we are remaking the Middle East.” There is tactical success, but this does not guarantee what will happen the day after. In Gaza, there is no strategy. “Does Israel want to go into eternal war?” Do they want to “mow the grass” in Lebanon as well? I don’t think Israelis want that. You need to address the core issues. The Lebanese want a deal.
Lebanese see the U.S. as key in any deal for peace. A ceasefire can be a gift to Trump.
I’m going downstairs to see what’s going on. Mike takes our nine former feral cats outside every morning to mill around the back yard. Pooper is already back inside, upstairs staring at me from the storage cabinet at the foot of the bed. I can see his little eyes just over the top of the bed, sussing up how I feel. He’s my little guardian, monopolizing the second floor, keeping his mom and a safety zone for himself. Cats, male cats, are a hoot. There’s always something going on with them. The girls, no problems at all. They cuddle together (mother and daughter) on the sofa downstairs and talk about nail colors and never cause one single problem. It’s the boys, always the boys, jockeying for power in the male dominance hierarchy. Pooper’s part in this is to a very large extent, guarding the second floor where he would like exclusive occupancy. The two roly polys, Cool Mustard and Short Change, are so big and so fat they can afford to ignore him, but he has the rest of the house bullied into submission. Every once in a while Jake will come upstairs, but he doesn’t stay for long and is not comfortable. It’s just too much trouble taking on the monster Hiram Bernard (Pooper’s real name).
9:30 AM
O.K. Everything’s fine downstairs. Cats, most of them, came back inside on their own. It’s too cold for them – these are coastal Georgia feral cats. 55 is too cold for them.
Back on MSNBC, Joe has spent almost a half an hour talking about the Gaetz nomination – such important lines of discussion as whether the Trump team was “blindsided” by the Gaetz revelations. This is total drivel, who cares? And, of course, the discussion is intended to skirt the real issue that Trump made these nominations to stick the finger in the eye of the administrative state. Trump and his people are making a joke out of the existing state structure, but coverage like that of Morning Joe are normalizing these picks acting like they are politics as usual.
The Israelis have issued draft notices to some of the Ultra-Orthodox, despite demonstrations against it. It will be interesting to see what happens with that.
Podcast: You Decide. “Understanding Trump’s Plan for Mass Deportation.” (11/21/24)
Interview with Lee Gelernt, Deputy Director, American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project
The use of the military is flatly illegal. It has to be a foreign government invading. People will also push back if they see military walking down the streets dragging people out.
If they try to use the National Guard there are legal challenges.
If he sends lots of ICE officers, there will be little to challenge in the courts, but there are only now around 6,000 enforcement ICE agents, total.
It’s not illegal to be harsh with enforcement measures.
You can deputize local law enforcement, but the local law enforcement agencies can push back.
There is a law Trump can invoke which allows summary removals even in the interior of the country. This is a big problem because the immigrant will not even go before a judge.
Can he end birth right citizenship, by executive order. This would involve the Supreme Court destroying 100 years of precedent.
Law enforcement has no right to deport American citizens, but what they will most likely do is to deport the parents and leave them with the choice of ripping their children up and taking them to another country or leaving them.
There are other interviews in this podcast on the same subject.
Morning Joe and Mika looked respectively defiant and half mad this morning. They started running clips of the attorney for the women accusing Matt Gaetz, saying that the fact that the federal prosecution was dropped doesn’t mean he is not guilty. Then, they started off the panel discussion with, wait for it, football. They did the stereotype Mika protesting the discussion, quietly and politely, and Joe saying “Let us talk.”
When Joe’s back is against the wall, I am always reminded of a line from “Manchurian Candidate.” The mother asks her son why he always looks like his head is about to come to a point. Joe is tight lipped, defiant of their choice to interview Trump, and plowing ahead like nothing happened.
This is exactly what they did after they finally got out of Trump’s ass in 2016. I think they did so because Trump revealed publicly their adulterous affair that involved several children.
Just a note, Gaetz is a man who walked around the floor of the House showing other members video of him having sex with women.
Joe’s now quoting scripture to Rev. Al. “Everybody acts like this is the last election.” He’s making the case that a lot of people voted for Trump. “Get to work.” So, “we’re not always going to see eye to eye, but we can get there together.” I swear to God, when Scarborough is taken away in the paddy wagon, he is going to be lecturing the police officers: “The institutions are holding.”
Sharpton is arguing that we have to minimize the damage of the Trump administration and goes on to defend Joe and Mika for meeting with Trump. Jesus. What toadies. Sharpton: “All sides need to meet with all sides.” How nice. Sharpton is claiming that we need to get Trump to appoint black men to his cabinet. Holy Crap. What difference would that make.
Joe: What a difference between social media and the “real world.” “There’s another election in two years.” (Note: Yeah, that’s what will fix things.) Joe is saying that there “will be consequences” in two years for people who are accused of having sex with underage women. (Note: Right.) “There are elections in two years and things will not go well.” (Note: Right, just like they didn’t go well in 2024).
When someone is ill, and you know that they are likely to die, no amount of preparing will ever make you able to bear the death easily. When the death comes, it is a blow to the gut, even if you thought it would happen, even if you knew it would happen. No amount of preparation…
It’s day 11. And while I am not finished taking the medication for COVID, I am up. I’ve got my armor on, strapped to my chest – my phone case, my glasses, my spinal stimulator, and my Ukrainian necklace. This is not over.
Over on AMVO, they are perpetuating the idiocy that “all this money” going to Ukraine should be spent “at home.” The money for Ukraine largely is spent at home, with defense contractors and people who work for them. And, the notion that when this money is “spent at home” it is going to affect the boneheads voting for them is just nuts.
Steve (recently out of prison) Bannon has a regular show on AMVO. He conducts this display of evil tortured argument in front of Catholic dominionist symbols. Steve (built that wall scammer) is a dangerous person.
Russian lawmakers on Tuesday passed a controversial bill outlawing so-called “childfree propaganda,” as authorities ramp up efforts to both increase birth rates and promote “traditional values” among families.
— Read on www.themoscowtimes.com/
Americans are used to hearing that every election is “the most important in our lifetime.” This year, both candidates have taken it a step further, arguing that
— Read on marxist.com/what-is-trumpism.htm
Trump, they say is losing it, melting down because of the situation with the polls. “It’s going to be so much fun. It’ll be nasty a little bit at times, and maybe at the beginning in particular, but it’s going to be something” Good lord, what does this mean? About removing fluoride from water: “It sound O.K. to me.” He’s talking about hitting Michelle Obama. What?
There’s a late breaking poll which has a reputation of being right especially late in the game showing Harris up in the polls.
Proud Boys were at the Atlanta rally for Trump yesterday? According to Andrea Mitchell citing Garett Haag.
Podcast: The President’s Daily Brief (11/4/24) “Daring Israeli Raid….
(Note: While this podcast is good for foreign and especially military updates, it is right wing and has associations with right wing organizations like Hillsdale College).
Iran has said that they can develop nuclear weapons if they are under existential threat. The leader’s fatwah against the use of nuclear arms 2003 is the only thing prohibiting this. This is one of the most explicit acknowledgments of their ability. CIA has said that they could amass enough material to build a weapon within about a week.
Leaders of the Helsinki Commission are putting pressure on Biden to allow Poland to extend their anti-missile coverage over Ukraine. This comes as Russians increasingly attack western Ukraine. This is dangerously close to NATO regions. This is now a new request. There is a change in NATO leadership that may help get potential for reconsideration.
An Iranian/American journalist has been imprisoned in Iran, according to the State Department.
Trump in PA.
Trump is blathering the same old garbage. There are women behind him cheering about other people being put in jail.
Trump wants to return to an era like that of his father’s – the world according to Fred Trump – who always respected police officers, just like the guys on January 6th.
When Trump starts these “off-script” little stories, the people in the audience think he’s talking to them directly. There’s an intimacy about it. It’s an intimacy that most politicians cannot match. They can’t talk off-script. They have to be handed a focus-group tested speech and they cannot even tell a story off script. They are not speakers. They are not politicians really. They are money makers, money raisers. They are cardboard ciphers who are put up there with focus-group tested speeches. They don’t like audiences. They don’t like people. (Note; Politican whose staff had to put a noise scrambling device in front of him to keep the press from recording his off the cuff statements.)
They have put all these women behind Trump speaking in Pennsylvania. “Make America wealthy again.” Jesus. He’s telling some story about an old women taking three apples (imported from somewhere) to the cashier. She takes one back and buys two. This should not be happening anywhere in the US. Jesus.
Trump says he will cut taxes on workers. These people are morons. He says he’s going to cut all their energy bills. “He doesn’t fight for your fracking.” (Talking about some local politician.)
Trump is introducing Barron and Ivanka (neither of whom are there at the rally). Ah, and Melania who is also not there.
“We’re not going to let anybody laugh at us.” The whole world is evidently laughing at us.
Just think, in addition to all the other weird as shit stuff, Trump ends every rally speech with YMCA the anthem of the Gay Male Community.
I truly hope I have just listened to Trump’s last rally speech.
If he wins I am going to lose my mind. It is a country half full of morons. It will take generations to repair the damage that has been caused by a party promoting the dumbing down of the population for political purposes.
Trump is fantasizing about shooting Liz Cheney in the face. He didn’t just say he wanted to execute her, he gave all the details, such a sigh of a domestic abuser. Let’s see how she likes having nine barrels aimed at her face. It reminds me of the story of “The Snake” Trump repeated told in a truly serial murder voice about a kind hearted woman helping a snake that bit her. The man is truly so very sick.
Woke up to a review of the Movie “Apprentice” made recently by an independent film maker who is Iranian. I can’t wait to see it. The discussion was interesting, all about how the Republicans and the Democrats allowed deregulation that ruined the film industry (along with a lot of other things.) It’s on the podcast “The Lever.” An interview with the writer, Gabriel Sherman. The way the movie industry ran away from this movie because they were afraid of offending Trump is just so disturbing. At Cannes, the movie was greeted with an eight-minute standing ovation, and positive reviews by the critics. But because the Trump campaign released a statement saying they were going to sue, Hollywood couldn’t get away fast enough. It is revolting, just like the reaction of almost everybody else in the society.
Charlie Kirk is warning that Trump is going to lose. According to Joe Scarborough. I saw Kirk on Bannon’s show the day after Bannon got out of prison. I didn’t hear him say this, but he looked very worried, and Bannon is warning people, trying to put the fear of God in them.
On Morning Joe they are talking about how the Trump campaign ought to be expanding the base, but they are alienating parts of the base, important parts of the base. But, if you are going to steal an election, you don’t have to expand the base. The base is irrelevant. The base is only the brown shirts you are going to use after the coup.
They are arguing for a new trial for the men who murdered Ahmaud Arbery. It makes my skin crawl.
Apparently, it’s a new movie about himself called The Apprentice. When The Apprentice premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, it got rave reviews. Starring two well-known actors and written by a prominent screenwriter, the movie had box office success written all over it.
But no studio wanted it, at least here in the United States. That’s because Donald Trump immediately threatened legal action. But even more, the specter of a second Trump presidency has Hollywood terrified, terrified of what that could mean for their bottom line.
And it’s not just Hollywood. In the past two weeks, the billionaire owners of The Washington Post and LA. Times blocked their papers from endorsing Kamala Harris.
Moves that were widely seen to be a signal to Donald Trump, or perhaps a plea, don’t hurt our businesses. And to screenwriter Gabriel Sherman, the writer of The Apprentice, it could represent a paradigm shift in the media business as a whole, especially if Trump returns to office. Today on Lever Time, I’m going to dive into that question.
Is political art dead? What are the consequences of[…]”
Podcast. “Israel News Talk Radio” (Note: Right Wing Israeli) The Jews Wo Make the Best Combat Soldiers 10/28/24)
• (Note: Many on the right in Israel strongly support the election of Trump.)
According to Lenny Goldberg, host of this podcast:
• So many of the fallen Israeli soldiers are from the settlements.
• These are great soldiers because they live on the land, grow upon the land, unlike the (citified) kids that come from Tel Aviv.
• “Hill top youth” they are called by Goldberg. “They know who the enemy is.” “They hate the enemy.” They know that “this government and this army is so messed up.”
• The “hill top youth” knows that the military command has no idea what they are going to do with Gaza when they get “the Hamas” out of there.
• “The government and the Shin Bet persecute the hill top youth” but they still go out and fight. The “settler kids” make “the best soldiers.”
• There are “response teams” in these settler groups. These kids go out with the response teams and so they are familiar not only with the land, but with fighting and weapons.
• They know “the deck is stacked against them.”
• Many Israelis are “upset” because there are so many extreme right wingers in the military. Some soldiers are complaining that the military is filled with right wing extremists. Lenny (podcaster) quotes the headline from a newspaper where over a hundred soldiers, after seeing a “far right spirit sweeping the army” and frustrated over the failure to get back the hostages, they are saying that if Netanyahu doesn’t make a deal with Hamas, 130 reservists will no longer report for duty. The fact that there are right wingers in the military means that there are “good jews in the army with motivation” who are only extremists “for these leftists.” “Thank God” for these “extremists.” If the leftists see “right wing fanatics” then don’t serve.
• It’s like these movie stars who threatened to leave the US if Trump wins. “Let them leave.”
• A lot of these leftist soldiers are “very dangerous and very idealistic in their leftwing ideology.” Goldberg talks about a practice of the Israeli army where they are entering a building that they are not sure of, and they get an Arab to go into the building first. Goldberg agrees with this practice.
“Why should a Jewish soldier get blown up? Let the Arab be blown up.”. Leftist soldiers film this and send it out, to get these soldiers into trouble. “It’s the settlers or the religious soldiers who understand Jewish war ethics that the life of one Jew is worth all the Arabs in Gaza.”
• Moses last words to the Jewish people were “You shall tramp on their high places.” (Note: The high places of the enemy.)
• But, “We have one ear on what Washington wants us to do.”
• In the Six Day war, we didn’t care what the world thought. “It’s the religion that gives you the motivation to fight.” “You’re doing God’s work.”
• “The entire world belongs to God Almighty….he gives the land of Israel to whoever he wants to….” There were people here (in Israel) when God gave the land to the Israelis. (He’s using the story of God giving them the land of Caanan?) God said, “I’m bringing in new tenants.” ” That’s our claim to the land.”
• There are a number of claims to the land 1) the historical claim that we lived there (Netanyahu used this), 2) the claim that the Arabs attacked us a number of times and he who conquers wins, 3) and the air tight claim, “that God gave Israel to the Jewish people. “It’s in the Bible.”
• The first argument can be discredited by the fact that Jews were conquered by the Romans. So the historical argument is not air tight. The only real genuine claim is that God gave Israel to Jews.
• In Lebanon there are villages not far from the Jewish towns, “fancy…. European style” houses are there. There were fancy houses in Gaza as well. In the basements of these houses, you see “weapons of war” the quantity and the quality our soldiers have never seen. Soldiers see “what they are planning for us.” Hezbollah was prepared for a wave of attacks. Everything “was so sophisticated” “Like nothing they (the soldiers) had ever seen.” The medical kits as well, were “high level…equipment.” It was all from Russia.
• This is a “war of survival….we have no choice”….we have the soldiers but we don’t have the heads. As the leaders of the military admit, we have only used a portion of our capabilities.
• The military leaders and the government have this “thing about proportionality.” We are getting attacked on four fronts, 100,000 people displaced in Northers Israel and they are worried about proportionality.
• Rabbi Mer Kahana, talking about the first Lebanon War.
• The “tragedy of the IDF pulling out of Lebanon before really finishing the job. And we have to…pray that that scenario doesn’t repeat itself.”
• Parallels to the Lebanese war today.
o There “will be a great cheer from all the leftists and from the American Jewish Committee. Israel will pull out of Lebanon….” “We had in our power to physically liquidate these … Nazis….kill them, kill them. Stomp, pressure…” Unafraid of what the world says.
o In the first weeks of the (first Lebanon) war “Peace Now, and the leftists, and the world, and CBS, and the New York Times…gave orders to its troops” not to use air power when attacking PLO positions that are in civilian areas because you “might kill civilians.”
o The Israelis had to go in without cover. It was an “Insane decision….All the Arabs of Lebanon are not worth the life of one Jewish soldier….In World War II, the Gentiles understood how to fight a war…bombed the cities….They were bombing the German people, because….the German people that was going to back Hitler….who cheered Hitler.”
o “…there wasn’t time for misplaced pity…our rabbis tell us, he who has mercy on the cruel will someday be cruel unto the merciful. We had pity on the Arabs in Lebanon….”
o “Nothing happens in this world except that God wills it…Jewish weakness is a desecration of God’s name….The lesson of the Holocaust, the real one…the Germans laughed at them and mocked them and said, Jews where is your God?…We empty God from the world by our being weak.”
o “…he (God) shows the nations through the Jewish people…only Jewish strength and only Jewish power and only Jewish victory can prove to them that there is a God in Israel.”
o The state of Israel was “an explosion of Jewish power…Jewish strength…Jewish pride…”
o In the six day war: “We saw God. The world saw God. The world trembled….we took this miracle and we threw it away….”
o Moshe Dayan, opposed taking the Golan Heights in 1967 because it might kill Russians. “He was a secular man of little faith, no faith.
