First up, Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Ugly Rudy G"
Now the news. REUTERS notes:
A U.S. judge temporarily blocked Special Counsel Jack Smith from releasing a report on his investigations into President-elect Donald Trump, a court order showed on Tuesday.
U.S. District Aileen Cannon, who presided over the now-dismissed case accusing Trump of illegally holding onto classified documents, directed the Justice Department not to release the report until a federal appeals court rules on a request from Trump's two former co-defendants in the case.
Other legal experts speculated that Cannon's move was less about the report itself and more about her jockeying for a position on the Supreme Court. Attorney Jeffrey Evan Gold, who is a legal analyst for CNN, NBC, ABC and others, responded to the news of Cannon blocking the report's release by referring to her as "Justice Cannon." Northeastern Illinois University political science professor William Adler wrote that Americans should "get used to" saying "Supreme Court nominee Aileen Cannon." And Politico magazine contributor Joshua Zeitz opined that it was "pretty easy to see how this goes."
"Alito will retire, Trump will name her to the court, and she’ll easily be confirmed with unanimous GOP support and a handful of older Democratic Senators who think it’s still 1978," Zeitz wrote.
Jon Favreau, a host of “Pod Save America,” highlighted in a recent podcast episode that President Biden “did not return the favor” after being awarded the Presidential Medal by former President Obama.
Favreau, alongside co-hosts and fellow former Obama aides Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor, discussed the recipients of the nation’s highest civilian honor. While talking about the topic, with some laughter, Favreau pointed out Obama presented Biden with a Medal of Freedom in 2017, but the outgoing president did not “return the favor” during his term.
“Obama gave one to Biden, and Biden did not return the favor,” Favreau said during the podcast episode released Tuesday.
“Yeah, well,” Favreau responded, while laughing.
“I guess they’re not really on speaking terms, I suppose, after all that’s happened!” Lovett added with a laugh.
This comes after Zuckerberg paid a visit to Trump's estate at Mar-a-Lago, and as a number of tech billionaires are under fire — even from some Trump supporters — as their companies give millions to fund Trump's inauguration festivities.
"Yesterday Zuckerberg appointed Dana White to Meta’s board of directors. What are White’s relative qualifications for such a role? He, uh, manages Ultimate Fighting Championship? LOL no, obviously White’s qualification is that he is one of Donald Trump’s closest friends and top endorsers. He was literally all over the campaign stumping for Trump," wrote Last. Then, Zuckerberg's newly-appointed public policy strategist, former George W. Bush administration official Joel Kaplan, "went onto Donald Trump’s favorite morning show, Fox & Friends, and announced that Facebook is killing its fact-checking program and making its content moderation strategy more like Elon Musk’s Twitter/X regime. Because that has been such a success I’m Ron Burgundy?"
Donald Trump couldn’t help but gloat Tuesday that he’d successfully bullied Mark Zuckerberg into making a spate of policy changes at Meta that will allow for the rampant spread of misinformation.
During a press conference, one reporter asked the president-elect whether he thought he had anything to do with Zuckerberg’s decision to supposedly recommit his social media platforms to free speech by demolishing its fact-checking system, as well as certain content filters and restrictions.
“Do you think he’s directly responding to the threats that you have made to him in the past?” the reporter asked.
“Probably,” Trump replied.
Meta has been censoring content labeled with LGBTQ+ hashtags on Instagram, according to journalist Taylor Lorenz.
The hashtags, which include #lesbian, #bisexual, #gay, #trans, #queer, #nonbinary, #pansexual, #transwomen, #Tgirl, #Tboy, #Tgirlsarebeautiful, #bisexualpride, and #lesbianpride, were hidden under the company’s “sensitive content” policy targeting “sexually suggestive content.”
[. . .]
Lorenz reached out to Meta for comment regarding these restrictions, which prompted the company to reverse them shortly thereafter. “These search terms and hashtags were mistakenly restricted,” said a representative from Meta to Lorenz. “It’s important to us that all communities feel safe and welcome on Meta apps, and we do not consider LGBTQ+ terms to be sensitive under our policies.”
Fox News joined in the broadside Thursday night. Frequent network contributor and former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told guests on a segment of Hannity he was hosting that he was "offended" by Cheney's receipt of the award.
"I don’t know how you feel, but I was offended that President Biden gave the second-highest medal of honor— it’s not called the Medal of Honor, but a medal honoring these two congressmen... Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson. What’s your reaction to that?” he asked one of his guests, Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Florida.
Warner sat down with Gabbard, Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, on Wednesday, a meeting that had been highly anticipated as part of her push to win Democratic support.
But Warner, who is expected to remain the top Democrat on the Intelligence panel, indicated that he remains concerned about her nomination, putting a dent in those hopes.
“I had questions going in. I have questions coming out,” Warner told reporters at the Capitol.
“This is an extraordinarily important job,” he continued. “A lot of this [is] also about protecting the independence of the intelligence community and making sure we continue to have the ability to share classified information with our allies.”
On BLUESKY and Tulsi, supposed lefty Pat Haruki is blocked by me. She's done a very long thread supporting Tulsi. It's a 'factual' thread from a supposed LGBTQ+ "supporter."
A thread that leaves out Tulsi's transphobia. The fact that as late as October you can find her attacking the woman whose boxing at the Olympics was targeted by right-wing idiots. The woman is a woman, was born a woman, but as late as October -- long after the lie had been shown to be a lie -- was still attacking the woman online and calling the woman a man. Equally true, when she wanted to be president, Tulsi finally felt the need to disown her decades of homophobia -- and this isn't a fifty year old, this is someone who started early to have decades -- decades -- of homophobia and made statments that it was Daddy and not her. And the military opened her eyes, she insisted, to LGBTQ+ issues and equality. She's a liar and the proof there is in the fact that she immediately started attacking trans people as part of her shift to the right and she attacked gay people non-stop when she supported all of Ron DeSantis' Don't Say Gay nonsense.
Pat Haruki might be the nice person she thinks she is in her BLUESKY profile but that would just make her a deeply stupid person for doing a lengthy thread pointing out all the 'goodness' of Tulsi. Again, Pat's the one who says she herself is a supporter of the LGBTQ+ community but apparently not enough of a supporter to actually do any work to find out about Tulsi's well known history there.
I'm sorry, I actually do support LGBTQ+ rights
That's the crap ass type of people that they truly are.
Warren’s 33 Page Letter Contains 72 Questions; Senator Will Seek Answers at January 14 Hearing
“Your confirmation as Secretary of Defense would be detrimental to our national security and disrespect a diverse array of servicemembers who are willing to sacrifice for our country.”
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sent Defense Secretary-Nominee Pete Hegseth a 33-page letter detailing her concerns with his nomination. She asked Hegseth 72 questions ahead of his Armed Services Committee nomination hearing, requesting a response by no later than January 10, 2025, and asked that he come prepared to answer her questions at his January 14 hearing before the Committee.
“I have serious concerns about your qualifications to serve in this role given your past history, including mismanagement of two non-profit organizations you ran, accusations of sexual assault and drinking problems, your blatant disregard for the contributions of female servicemembers, support for war crimes and torture, threats to politicize the military, advocating for ‘war’ against political enemies, threats to undermine DoD readiness and diversity, and contempt for veterans receiving benefits they earned,” wrote Senator Warren.
Senator Warren’s concerns include:
- Hegseth’s record of organizational mismanagement,
including exhibits of wasteful spending and inappropriate behavior as
head of the nonprofits, Vets for Freedom (VFF) and Concerned Veterans
for America (CVA).
“Your record of gross mismanagement of organizations you previously led raises alarm about your ability to manage a department with a budget of almost $850 billion, which accounts for over half of discretionary federal spending,” wrote Senator Warren. - Reports of Hegseth’s excessive drinking, including
at least 11 separate incidents in which Hegseth has been described as
drinking excessively or inappropriately, including at work.
“At any moment the Secretary of Defense can be called upon to provide critical national security advice to the president. But you have been repeatedly accused of exhibiting a pattern of alcohol abuse,” wrote the senator. “While I believe we should support individuals with substance use disorders, we cannot have a Secretary of Defense, charged with making essential and critical national security decisions involving life and death, who is also struggling with alcohol abuse.” - Allegations of sexual assault and harassment by Hegseth.
This follows allegations described in a memo the Trump transition team
received that Hegseth “raped a then-30-year-old conservative group
staffer in his room after drinking at a hotel bar” on October 8, 2017,
as well as reports that while Hegseth was president of CVA, he and other
members of his management team “sexually pursued the organization’s
female staffers.”
- Hegseth’s stated opposition to women serving in combat roles in
the military, despite the fact that women are critical to our national
security and comprise nearly 18 percent of active-duty servicemembers.
“Your rhetoric and behavior toward women would set a tone from the top of DoD that women are not welcome in the military, that their valuable contributions will not be recognized, and that sexual assault, sexual harassment, and other mistreatment of women is acceptable,” wrote Senator Warren. - Hegseth’s vocal threats to politicize and undermine the
military, including purging senior military leaders for civilian
leaders’ policy positions.
- Hegseth’s support for war crimes and the use of torture,
including recently saying that he “told his platoon they could ignore
directives limiting when they can shoot” and arguing against the rules
of war. Hegseth even went as far as to defend troops accused of war
crimes for executing captives after the shooting had stopped.
Additionally, Hegseth has supported the use of torture, including the
use of waterboarding, despite evidence proving that torture is not an
effective means of obtaining accurate information or gaining detainee
cooperation.
- Hegseth’s threat to diversity in the military. In a
book Hegseth published last year, he wrote that, when Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell was repealed, he was initially “mostly ambivalent” but that he “now
regrets that passive perspective.” Additionally, he has mocked and
misgendered transgender servicemembers, and said that “the dumbest
phrase on planet Earth in the military is ‘our diversity is our
strength.’”
- Hegseth’s advocacy for ‘war’ against political enemies. In
Hegseth’s latest book, he called “the American Left…an existential
threat to freedom” and later wrote, “Our American Crusade is not about
literal swords, and our fight is not with guns. Yet.” He later called upon his readers to buy a gun and train to use it.
“Your deliberate choice to frame your differences with a political party as a war calls into question whether you would be able to lead this Department in an apolitical manner,” wrote Senator Warren. - Hegseth’s opposition to working with allies,
including calling for NATO to be “scrapped” and expressing “skepticism
about the idea that supporting Kyiv is needed to keep Russia from moving
into NATO territory.” Hegseth went as far as to call Russia’s invasion
of Ukraine Putin’s “‘give me my s*** back’ war.” It is unclear how
Hegseth will be able to work with Muslim leaders and Muslim-majority
countries given that he was described as “drunkenly chanting ‘Kill All
Muslims! Kill All Muslims!’” while he was on an official tour for
Concerned Veterans for America.
- Hegseth’s criticism of veterans benefits, including
raising complaints that veterans groups “encourage veterans to apply
for every government benefit they can ever get after they leave the
service,” referring to benefits that veterans have earned.
- Hegseth’s threats to the quality of the Defense of Defense Education Activity agency (DoDEA), given his previous comments that “almost no school — public or private — seems safe” and he has urged Americans to “Get your kids out of government school systems right now if you can.” He has also called for an educational insurgency, insisting that “classical Christian education” is the solution to “the Left having a stranglehold over American education.”
“I am deeply concerned by the many ways in which your past behavior and rhetoric indicates that you are unfit to lead the Department of Defense,” concluded the senator. “Your confirmation as Secretary of Defense would be detrimental to our national security and disrespect a diverse array of servicemembers who are willing to sacrifice for our country.”
On December 17, 2024, Senator Warren led her colleagues from the Senate Armed Services Committee, including Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), in writing to Susan Wiles, President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming Chief of Staff, about whether Pete Hegseth’s attitudes toward women, including his opposition to women in combat, and allegations of sexual assault and harassment, disqualify him to be the next Secretary of Defense.
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GRIMM8 hours ago
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I'd say I'm bitter too8 hours ago
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MTG and Boe-Boe8 hours ago
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Patti and Luther8 hours ago
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Washed up Giuliani8 hours ago
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