Day: May 7, 2024

Episode 170 has been uploaded.

Preview:

YouTube, later.

A-Block

• SPECIAL COMMENT: The reaction to Justice Merchan’s stark warning to Trump that he may put him in jail the next time he violates the gag order, and the defense inside the Trump cult of Kristi Noem for murdering her dog and threatening Biden’s dog — these are actually the same story. The point is: killing.
• They are about one thing: at their core, Noem and Trump and MAGA and Trump’s Supreme Court Justices and his slaves inside the House and the Senate believe they have a right to kill. Today, they have a right to kill their dogs. Tomorrow? Your dog. Then the judge. The day after that immigrants. Finally, anything and anybody.
• Do not mistake them, nor what this is about. Do not forget that even as chilling a phrase as “political violence” is itself just a euphemism. Political violence is: murder. Individual murder, mass murder, or if the rest of us are lucky, just attempted murder or threatened murder.
• Every Trump attack on every witness, on every judge, on every prosecutor, on every opponent; every stochastic call to “end” this; every reference to “bedlam”; every meme of the President of the United States bound and gagged; every Tim Scott refusing to honor the outcome of an election; every reference to patriots and deep states and rigged elections and I am your retribution — they all have the unspoken second half: those who try to stop us will do what we say or we will kill them. One third of Trump supporters who’ve heard about Noem killing her dog told a YouGov poll that it WAS acceptable. 29 percent weren’t sure. So the total of Trump voters who would not criticize it was six out of ten.
• AS THIS UNFOLDS, THE NEW YORK TIMES completely disconnects from reality: “When you are Democrat you start off essentially at 40 percent [of the vote] because you have civil service, you have the unions and you have welfare. They get welfare to vote, and then they cheat on top of that. They cheat,” Trump said of Biden and the Democrats. “ ’These people are running a Gestapo administration,’ Mr. Trump told donors who attended the event at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, Florida, according to an audio recording obtained by The New York Times.”
• An audio recording. OBTAINED by The New York Times. Where is this recording? Why has this recording not been made public by The Times? Why is the paper suppressing it?
• Incredibly, at the same time the paper’s editor gave an interview to Semafor News that discredits everyone who works at The Times as he dismisses any awareness that his coverage has normalized Trump without a sufficient sense of crisis or threat. “To say that the threats of democracy are so great that the media is going to abandon its central role as a source of impartial information to help people vote — that’s essentially saying that the news media should become a propaganda arm for a single candidate, because we prefer that candidate’s agenda,” said Joe Kahn. “It’s our job to cover the full range of issues that people have. At the moment, democracy is one of them. But it’s not the top one — immigration happens to be the top, and the economy and inflation is the second. Should we stop covering those things because they’re favorable to Trump?” Nothing to see here. Just the editor-in-chief of The New York Times living in a world defined by Fox News talking points, and populated entirely by straw men.

B-Block

• THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Tigers say their new uniforms are “going 0-60.”

• Nancy “I skipped morning sex so that I could be here” Mace claims the victim of half the GOP Antisemitic tropes is behind all the pro-Palestinian protests, too. And Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe has the new podcast every one has been clamoring: he co-hosts with Kellyanne Conjob.

Maybe someone should create a podcast where Kellyanne Conway and Lauren Boebert co-host. It would be called (I’m sure you saw this one coming a mile away) “Con job and Hand job.”

• THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL/SPORTS PART 1: Seen anything about this week being the 70th Anniversary of Roger Bannister “breaking the 4-Minute mile”? There’s one problem.

C-Block

• THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL/SPORTS PART 2: That one problem? Roger Bannister WAS NOT the first man to run a mile in four minutes or less. It’s a sad story with a lot of bias and even racism in it.

Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.

In a significant move to deepen ties with Europe, Chinese President Xi Jinping embarked on a state visit to France, marking his first stop on a European tour aimed at rebuilding relations amidst global tensions. The visit, which began on May 6, 2024, saw President Xi engaging in high level talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

The discussions were centered around trade, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, and the broader perspective for Sino-French relations.

President Xi’s visit is particularly noteworthy as it is his first trip to Europe since 2019. It included meetings with Macron and EU chief von der Leyen, highlighting the importance of this diplomatic engagement. The Chinese leader’s agenda also covered the situation in the Middle East, where both leaders expressed their shared goals for an immediate ceasefire and political resolution.

The visit of President Xi could potentially herald a new era of cooperation between China and France, with implications for the wider international community. The outcomes of these high-level meetings may set China’s interactions with other European nations as President Xi continues his tour to Serbia and Hungary.

Pro-EU rallies continued despite the Orthodox Easter holidays. On Saturday night, a few thousand protesters gathered at the Kashveti Church, just across the street from the parliament building, to attend the Easter vigil, once again blocking Rustaveli Avenue. Protesters brought and swapped red eggs and Easter cakes as part of the Easter tradition.

---

On Easter Monday, when Georgians commemorate the deceased, a group of protesters against the Foreign Agents Law gathered at Tbilisi’s Heroes’ Square memorial to honor the memory of those who gave their lives fighting for a united Georgia. In Georgia, May 6 is also St. George’s Day.

---

The 2024 Easter Epistle of Patriarch Ilia the II accentuated the need for unity and peace. He lamented the distraction of people from spiritual thoughts to earthly life due to recent “political processes” and called for unity out of “love for the homeland,” emphasizing the need to “live together peacefully” despite people’s differences.

---

On Easter Sunday, media outlets reported that Lado Apkhazava, a school teacher from the Western Georgian region of Guria and the winner of the National Teacher’s Award, and his son were attacked and physically assaulted by several men near his apartment in the town of Lanchkhuti. Apkhazava claims that he was targeted because of his publicly critical stance over the Foreign Agents Law and his participation in protest rallies. Police launched an investigation into the attack on a school teacher.

---

Another Georgian fighter, Soso Gugutashvili, was killed while fighting in Ukraine, the Georgian combat unit “Black Eagle” reported on May 5. The Foreign Ministry confirmed the information to Civil. ge. The latest casualty brings the unofficial death toll of Georgian citizens fighting in Ukraine against the Russian invasion to 48.

---

On May 4, at the meeting with the EU Ambassadors, President Salome Zurabishvili described the ruling Georgian Dream founder and honorary chairman Bidzina Ivanishvili’s speech at the April 29 counter-rally in support of the Foreign Agents Bill as “very provocative… towards you [EU], but also the Georgian population.” According to the President, Georgia is in a “tense” situation and, in this context, called on Ambassadors to encourage high-level visits from Europe in May as a busier period in Europe begins in June.

---

In a telephone conversation with Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, European Council President Charles Michel expressed “EU’s full support to all Georgians who put the European future of their country first,” urging the Georgian leader not to miss a historic chance. Michel’s friendly warning fell on deaf ears, as the the Georgian readout of the same conversation states that PM Kobakhidze conveyed to the President of the European Council his “disappointment that despite numerous invitations, our partners have been reluctant to engage in substantive discussions on transparency law.”

Pro-EU rallies continued despite the Orthodox Easter holidays. On Saturday night, a few thousand protesters gathered at the Kashveti Church, just across the street from the parliament building, to attend the Easter vigil, once again blocking Rustaveli Avenue. Protesters brought and swapped red eggs and Easter cakes as part of the Easter tradition.

---

On Easter Monday, when Georgians commemorate the deceased, a group of protesters against the Foreign Agents Law gathered at Tbilisi’s Heroes’ Square memorial to honor the memory of those who gave their lives fighting for a united Georgia. In Georgia, May 6 is also St. George’s Day.

---

The 2024 Easter Epistle of Patriarch Ilia the II accentuated the need for unity and peace. He lamented the distraction of people from spiritual thoughts to earthly life due to recent “political processes” and called for unity out of “love for the homeland,” emphasizing the need to “live together peacefully” despite people’s differences.

---

On Easter Sunday, media outlets reported that Lado Apkhazava, a school teacher from the Western Georgian region of Guria and the winner of the National Teacher’s Award, and his son were attacked and physically assaulted by several men near his apartment in the town of Lanchkhuti. Apkhazava claims that he was targeted because of his publicly critical stance over the Foreign Agents Law and his participation in protest rallies. Police launched an investigation into the attack on a school teacher.

---

Another Georgian fighter, Soso Gugutashvili, was killed while fighting in Ukraine, the Georgian combat unit “Black Eagle” reported on May 5. The Foreign Ministry confirmed the information to Civil. ge. The latest casualty brings the unofficial death toll of Georgian citizens fighting in Ukraine against the Russian invasion to 48.

---

On May 4, at the meeting with the EU Ambassadors, President Salome Zurabishvili described the ruling Georgian Dream founder and honorary chairman Bidzina Ivanishvili’s speech at the April 29 counter-rally in support of the Foreign Agents Bill as “very provocative… towards you [EU], but also the Georgian population.” According to the President, Georgia is in a “tense” situation and, in this context, called on Ambassadors to encourage high-level visits from Europe in May as a busier period in Europe begins in June.

---

In a telephone conversation with Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, European Council President Charles Michel expressed “EU’s full support to all Georgians who put the European future of their country first,” urging the Georgian leader not to miss a historic chance. Michel’s friendly warning fell on deaf ears, as the the Georgian readout of the same conversation states that PM Kobakhidze conveyed to the President of the European Council his “disappointment that despite numerous invitations, our partners have been reluctant to engage in substantive discussions on transparency law.”

The Caspian-Black Sea-European Green Energy Corridor, a visionary initiative aimed at bolstering sustainable energy infrastructure and fostering regional economic integration, is poised to take a significant step forward this year. Elnur Soltanov, Deputy Minister of Energy of Azerbaijan, recently revealed that the evaluation process, crucial for the establishment of this corridor, is set to commence imminently. This development underscores the commitment of the participating nations to embrace renewable energy and promote cross-border collaboration.

Nasir Mammadov, Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to Iraq, met with the country’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.

Trump Says Montana Sen. Jon Tester ‘Looks Pregnant’ In Digs About His Weight  Yahoo News Canada

It’s only ‘surprising’ that the Dem donors who love Biden back Hamas if you haven’t been paying attention  New York Post

Biden faces widening partisan split over Israel  CNN

Biden speaks with Netanyahu as Israelis appear closer to Rafah offensive  Plattsburgh Press Republican