Day: March 19, 2024

Episode 140 has been uploaded.

Preview:

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A-Block

• SPECIAL COMMENT: He said “it’s going to be a blood bath for the country” — and we’re arguing about it.
  • NOT “a blood bath for our auto industry.”
  • NOT “a blood bath for the imported car market.”
  • NOT “a blood bath for Toyota-Thon 2024.”
• “A blood bath for the country” — with no retraction or repudiation by Trump of, say, bloodbaths — and we — the people trying to STOP him — WE are ARGUING about it. Amongst ourselves.
• AND Trump is broke; he tells the court THIRTY insurance underwriters wouldn’t cover his 464 million dollar bond in the New York Fraud case and we’re still supposed to believe he’s a billionaire. AND suddenly he’s a billionaire pleading poverty and, boom, who just reappeared out of nowhere? Paul Manafort, the international money spigot and Russian operative.
• AND I’m still more concerned about THIS: Where is Jack Smith, demanding that Judge Tonya Chutkan revoke Trump’s bail and incarcerate him after he violated the gag order in the Election Subversion case and maligned, threatened, and encouraged OTHERS to malign and threaten Cassidy Hutchinson — and not just OTHERS, but federal officers — federal officers who carry guns: “Our great Secret Service has totally CRUSHED Cassidy Hutchinson’s (who I barely knew) made up (FAKE!) stories about me roughing up Secret Service Agents from the back seat of the Beast (Limo). Has she now changed her testimony? Will she be prosecuted for what she did and said?”
• Trump didn’t just violate the gag order — pared down in appeal but still preventing Trump and his counsel “from making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding” — pared down but clearly barring Trump from even SPECULATING that a likely witness such as Hutchinson fabricated evidence or might be PROSECUTED, AND clearly barring Trump from congratulating the Secret Service for having quote “totally crushed” her, AND barring Trump from trying to coerce her with questions like, “Has she now changed her testimony?, AND FOR THAT MATTER barring Trump from making public statements about OTHER possible witnesses — like members of the Secret Service.
• This isn’t legal nuance. This isn’t novel lawyerly theory. This isn’t Trump’s first violation, either.
  • I want his bail revoked TODAY.
  • I want his ass in jail TODAY.
  • I want his lawyers to have to try to find a Supreme Court judge willing to spring him TODAY.

“You rang?” — Clarence Thomas

B-Block

• POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: MAGA will now start snorting asbestos. The RNC chair says nobody was better off four years ago under Trump.

• The new Trump RNC Chairman’s first task will be to find the next new Trump RNC chairman. So proud of our NYC Mayor. Tommy Tuberville holds the Constitution upside down.

(Didn’t Trump hold a Bible upside down as well? Not surprising, because the stars on the GOP elephant are on upside down, too. I’m sensing a pattern here …)

• ANOTHER Republican (Senator John Barrasso [WY]) calls her “Lincoln Riley.”

So … how old is Barrasso? Asking for a friend who also happens to be a President.

All this confusion over Riley’s name is possible because USC’s football team’s coach is named … Lincoln Riley. (And that is spelled correctly.)

One more Riley-related item: Her father is sick and tired of her being used politically.

• John Avlon misspells his own name. And a town in New York.

• And a Lauren Boebert Bible Blooper.

No, this isn’t about wontons. It’s a new one.

And, as always, there’s a verse from the Gospel of Vernon to cover her actions: “Establish thou the work of thine hands upon the body of thine neighbor; yea, the work of your hands establish thou it.” [Bonus points if you know what this is a parody of.]

• THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The SF Giants fire their beloved PA announcer legend Renel Brooks-Moon and claim it was a “mutual decision.”

• Kristi Noem is THIS close to selling lingerie. And the Republican National Committee sees a guy walking next to President Biden and calls him Biden’s “handler.” Actually he’s the Republican Speaker of the House.

C-Block

• THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The first rule of Fox and The New York Post and other Murdoch “news” outlets: When your baby Hitler is in trouble because he threatened a bloodbath, find a false equivalence somewhere. Take something somebody said — or that somebody didn’t say — and hold them up and call make them the equivalent of Trump and call it. Call it a “Blue Bloodbath” — and guess who they found? Guess who they are equating with Trump? ME. I’M the blue bloodbath. They claimed I hinted at his assassination when in fact I hinted at him dying in prison. [The Twitter/X post has since been removed. — P.] They’ve been doing this since 1996 and intensely after I outsmarted Rupert Murdoch for $800,000 in 2001 and if you think $800,000 means nothing to Rupert Murdoch, you ain’t met him.

Armenia News  NEWS.am

Pashinyan: Demarcation process enters practical phase  mediamax.am

Armenia premier: We want to replace line contact with border with Azerbaijan  NEWS.am

Armenia’s PM warns that Azerbaijan may start war: Report  Al Arabiya English

“Azerbaijan and China enjoy traditional ties of friendship and partnership,” noted the Assistant to the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Head of Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Presidential Administration Hikmet Hajiyev regarding his visit to China, according to Azerbaijan in Focus, reporting AzerTac.

Hikmet Hajiyev noted that during the meeting between President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) held in Samarkand, the strategic tasks were offered to elevate the relations between the two countries to a qualitatively new level and determine new areas of cooperation.

“Currently, relations between Azerbaijan and China are comprehensively developing in this direction. Generally speaking, all-round development of relations between the two countries, further deepening of relations, elevating them to a qualitatively new level has been determined as one of the priority directions in Azerbaijan’s foreign policy,” Hajiyev underlined.

“During the trip, together with our colleagues from China, we will discuss issues concerning the development of relations between the two countries, first of all, political consultations, expansion of economic and trade relations, as well as cooperation in the context of the “Middle Corridor,” the Assistant to the President added. “Currently, the Middle Corridor has once again proven its significance in the development of economic and commercial relations and transportation at the international level. China also demonstrates great interest in this project,” he noted.

Recalling that Azerbaijan will host the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) this year, Hikmet Hajiyev described Azerbaijan and China as developing countries representing the global South. He said that China has accumulated vast experience in the area of “green energy”, adding that the ongoing issues were explored in detail at the meetings held in Beijing.

Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan Hikmet Hajiyev underscored that Azerbaijan and China, the countries that enjoy close relations within international organizations, support each other’s position.

The post Hikmet Hajiyev: Azerbaijan, China enjoy traditional ties of friendship and partnership appeared first on Azerbaijan In Focus.

“Ukraine is facing such problems with ammunition that it will run out of missiles for the air defense of its cities by the end of the month,” writes the Daily Telegraph. CIA director William Burns also mentioned the lack of ammunition in the Ukrainian army. The bag is empty! pic.twitter.com/yTIJLDK3W5

— Real News (@DrNeculai) March 19, 2024

How the financial authorities can take advantage of artificial intelligence  CEPR

‘Alarm bells are ringing’: Poland’s president says NATO must urgently ramp up defense spending  CNBC

A bombshell revelation shed light on a covert operation authorized by former President Donald Trump in 2019, where the Central Intelligence Agency ( …