Biden OKs new Israel attack on Iran; MSM, others complicit

Per the second half of the header, I want to expand on a restack note I did about Ken Klippenstein's piece last Saturday about the first half of the header.

First, the meat, which gets at both halves of the header:

Two Top Secret documents outlining Israel’s preparations for a large-scale attack on Iran – which would be Israel’s largest, and here’s what’s most interesting: the mainstream media is silent. Colleagues at some of the biggest media outlets, from The New York Times to NBC, tell me that their outlets are aware of the documents. But it’s been days and no one in the sanctioned elite press is reporting on them (Axios only just reported their existence but declined to publish the documents themselves). As with the J.D. Vance Dossier, which the entire media knew about but refused to publish, it appears the media has once again lost its nerve – and its sense of what’s news.

The mainstream media has generally decided that it won’t publish classified material, in effect deputizing themselves as enforcers of the national security state’s secrecy regime. They did this last year with highly classified Ukraine documents they refused to publish (which my editor published at Newsweek).

To put it bluntly, major media are petrified of running afoul of the national security state. And not without reason. My decision to publish the Vance Dossier got me thrown off X (Twitter) and links to the story were blocked on the platform along with Meta’s Facebook, Instagram and even Google Docs. Let’s see if that happens again here.

There you go.

First, the second half.

Although Ken didn't use the word "cowed," I did in my note. I think that's a fair inference of his implication, as he DID use the word "petrified."

(And, so far, neither he nor I appear to be thrown off Twitter.)

Rather, as noted in the second half of the header, "complicit" is the word.

This is different than the Vance dossier. This is Israel, and the mainstream media run that up the flagpole and salute that, period and end of story.

It may be in part fears about the national security state/deep state, but I think that's secondary, and even the secondary falls into two parts.

The bigger of those two parts is fear of loss of access. The "elite press," as Ken calls them, is also the "inside the Beltway" media, as Ken knows. Or "access journalism," as Ken also knows.

Within that, the stenos of the Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ Fighting 101st Keyboarders (thanks, Atrios), definitely don't want to lose access to insider intelligence sources. It's like a domestic version of being embedded.

Now, the leaks themselves.

As Ken knows, DC is a one-industry town, and the coin of the realm / grease that oils the machines, after money itself, is leaks.

From the White House and executive branch, leaks are almost always deliberate with political purpose.

(Genocide Joe now says he is "deeply concerned" about this, and his Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ spox John Kirby says the Waffle House doesn't know whether it was a hack or a leak. Sure you don't. That said, the Beeb says it explicitly mentioned Israel's nukes. But, that's a head fake to think that makes it a hack, not a leak. Could it be forged? Different question, but still highly doubtful.)

So, what IS that purpose?

One, per the "complicit," is to test just how complicit the MSM is. Now we have an update on that.

Two and related, is to prep the stenos for when the attack might actually happen and know what to ask.

Three? A pseudo-shot across Bibi's bow. As Ken notes, we spy on Israel. This lets them know what we know. But, per the oath for trial witnesses about the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, it surely does NOT tell ALL that we know. And, it may not have only truth in there, as far as the "nothing but," either.

As a pseudo-shot, in other words, this is another of those red lines that Genocide Joe continues to lay down on Israel for US public consumption that he has no intention of enforcing. This also is in the context of the presidential election, with early voting underway in many states. It's another way, via Genocide Joe, for Kamala is a Zionist Cop to look tough as well, even as she continues moving her own Overton Window right. Darth Cheney and the kiddies and sellout adults at Voters of Tomorrow who have Lincoln Project connections surely approve.

Three, part 2? Let's not forget, as many people know, and as Ken put in a previous post, but didn't link to in this one, that Merikkka just put a THAAD battery in Israel — with a US crew to run it to boot. That basically says "Do what you want to, Bibi, I got your back." That said, both that THAAD and the Iron Dome must suck if a Hezbollah drone was able to target Bibi's house.

Four? Ken calls out the Beltway stenos again in a new piece. Here's a key takeaway:

“Covert UAV operations” were observed on October 15, the NGA says, indicating that Israel’s RA-01 stealth drone was initiating a flight or returning from one, likely over Iran. Israel is flying stealth (covert) drones over Iran? That’s a story in itself. This would be a capability similar to the U.S. RQ-170/180 drones, which are super secret and barely ever mentioned in the U.S. media. But they are known to operate out of Chabelley airfield in Djibouti. Are they overflying Israel to take a look and thwart its “concealment” methods?

Complicit indeed is the MSM for not reporting this.

Ken also notes how part of US spying ON Israel is informed BY Israeli intelligence.

With that all in mind? And, the explicit mention of "nuclear"? We're now at the point of discussing what type of leak this is, as in, "political" or "principled"? (That said, principled leaks still have political angles.)

These docs showing up on an Iranian Telegram channel could be seen as supporting the "principled" angle, if the leaker is deeply serious about making sure all the Middle East players know. And, the "nuclear" is probably part of what pisses Biden off. The US now knows that Israel, and the rest of the world, knows that, behind closed doors at least, we openly discuss that Israel has nukes.

And, with all this? Any idea that a Harris administration could restart some sort of 2015 non-proliferation deal with Iran is toast.

The Gadfly slate for 2024 races

You've already seen my "Vote the Commie" for president, so we'll tackle other races here, with brief explainers.

Statewide races

Senate: Write-in Tracey Andrus. There's no Green, and Colin Allred is a ConservaDem in general and a genocide supporter in particular. Andrus is "interesting," but that is better than undervoting.

U.S. House, Dist. 26: Ernest Lineberger III may indeed be Ernest. He's environmentally minded enough to drive a Prius. But, his appeal to faith? That floats my boat no more from Democrats than Republicans, even if he's an ELCA Lutheran (I presume) rather than LCMS. And, teh Google says I presumed wrong. He's one of a minority of LCMS Lutherans to be Democrat. There's no Green, no write-in, and while Phil Gray seems to be a generic non-Mises Mice Libertarian, he is a Libertarian. Undervote.

Railroad Commission: Green Eddie Espinoza.

Statewide judicial races: None of the Democrats are ConservaDems, and state courts don't address federal issues, so vote the Democrats. Beyond that, Court of Criminal Appeals Rethuglicans refuse to follow the state's junk science law in cases like Robert Roberson. I mean, it's only 11 years old. When your own party in the state House is exasperated?

Regional races:

SBOE District 12: George King, the Democrat, is a public school teacher. Enough said. Vote him, even if he engages in a high level of veneration for the U.S. Constitution.

State Senate District 30: Dale Frey as the Democrat looks solid. Vote him.

State House District 68: Incumbent Republican David Spiller, while a Paxton impeachment manager, was a flip-flopper on vouchers in Abbott's last special session. In addition to being a wingnut Republican, the flip-flop is an additional issue. Democrat Stacey Swann is running on that issue.

Second Court of Appeals? All unchallenged Rethuglicans. Congrats to Texas Democrats for not running more candidates.

Believe nothing, including bios of family members in journalism, eh Patrick Cockburn? Pardon me while I Beat the Devil named Claud

I think I just went meta on Patrick Cockburn's bio of dad Claud.

And, yes, this is going to be fun and a takedown, and added fun since it's Counterpunch where I saw this, and given thoughts at the end of a recent Substack piece, in depth, about third party voting, I'm realizing more and more, but for different reasons than 20 years ago, the degree of growing dislike in some ways for Counterpunch.

Let's start here, from the book's editorial blurb:

Cockburn wrote dispatches while fighting in the Spanish Civil War. In Spain, he helped W. H. Auden and clashed with George Orwell. Claud’s private life, too, was eventful. He was married three times, once to Jean Ross, the model for Christopher Isherwood’s Sally Bowles.

OK?

That's versus Wiki's page:

Cockburn's reporting in Spain, as "Frank Pitcairn", was heavily criticised by George Orwell in his 1938 memoir Homage to Catalonia.[11] Orwell accused Cockburn of being under the control of Stalinist handlers and was critical of Cockburn's depiction of the Barcelona May Days in which Orwell had taken part and during which anti-Stalinist communists and anarchists were caught and executed by operatives of the Soviet NKVD.[11] Specifically, to undermine anti-Stalinist factions on the Republican side, Cockburn falsely reported that the anti-Stalinist figurehead Andrés Nin, who had been tortured and executed by the NKVD,[12] was alive and well after escaping to fascist territory.[13]

Oops ... Or ... whitewash?

And, I've read about the May Days in Orwell biographies. It was serious, and it was where Orwell first really started looking askance at tyranny of the left as well as of the right. In addition, it seems a deliberate slur by Cockburn to claim Nin, a well-known (at that time) non-Stalinist Catalan leftist, had escaped to Fascist territory.

Reality? Nin was first an anarcho-syndicalist, along with being a Left Oppositionalist, then a Trot. The NKVD had "good reason" to whack him. 

Indeed, this, per Wiki's piece:

During the spring of 1937 the Republican police located an alleged letter written by Nin to Francisco Franco, in which the Trotskyist leader was to endorse a plan for an uprising by the Madrid fifth column; the letter, in reality a forgery by the NKVD,[26] constituted one of the main pieces of evidence against Nin.[27] After the May Events, the Communist campaign against the POUM [Workers Party of Marxist Unification] intensified. Its leaders were openly accused of being fascists and conspiring with Franco.[28] As early as 28 May, Communist pressure got the authorities to suspend the circulation of the party's newspaper, La Batalla.[29]

Oops again. The entry goes on to note that Nin's death was almost certainly on orders from Moscow. (Nin had moved there in the early 1920s, joined the Left Opposition in 1926, and left the USSR in 1930.) It also notes that an NKVD assassination was being rumored about just days after Nin was arrested. 

As far as good reason to whack him? Wiki's piece on it notes that POUM had become larger than the official Communist Party of Spain. With Nin as one of its founders, there's other reason Stalin would want him dead. Let's add that in those above mentioned May Days or May Events, the Spanish Communist Party and allies attacked POUM and allies.

Per Claud's catchphrase, "Believe nothing until it's been officially denied"? We'll see what official high-dollar reviewers say about it, and what Patrick says about them.

Or, to riff on something else? Rather than "Beat the devil," Claud was his press agent and now Patrick is Claud's Wormwood.

And, one biggie is out, from the London Review of Books. Sadly, Neil Ascherson may be doing some whitewashing, with this in the first paragraph:

To the end of his life, Cockburn stuck to two other core beliefs. The first was his instinctive scepticism and cynicism about all who hold authority: the British establishment, all governments and even the leadership of the Comintern and the Communist Party of Great Britain, of which he was for many years a wayward member.

Sure. No USSR or CPSU mentioned there. The Comintern in general?

He does get somewhat better when he talks about the May Days and the book:

Patrick Cockburn’s account now reaches an eternally inflamed region: the ethics of journalism. Inevitably, he brings up the bloody communist coup in Barcelona in May 1937, and the way two British writers – Cockburn and Orwell – recorded it. Orwell had been wounded fighting with the vaguely Trotskyite POUM militia and found the crushing of non-Stalinist units and the terror used to hunt down their sympathisers unforgivable. Cockburn took the party line, writing in the Daily Worker that the POUM was full of saboteurs and had been stealing weapons – even tanks – from the Republic. These allegations were lies, and he must have known it. It’s worth adding that both men later modified their views slightly. Orwell recognised, if he did not fully accept, the argument that only a unified army, under strong central command, stood a chance of defeating Franco. Cockburn came to deplore the savagery of Soviet agents in Barcelona: ‘The rooting out of heresy ... in 1937 did become an evil preoccupation.

Still pale-washing if not a full whitewash, and Ascheron doesn't admit that Cockburn in all likelihood knew the truth at the time. And, that said, hold on to the name of Neil Ascherson; he's going to show up again before we're done.

So, LRB at least, is a review that Cockburn fils won't have to officially deny.

None of this is to excuse Orwell's "snitch list." But, contra this O'Shaughnessy's piece, Wikipedia doesn't make Claud "sound sinister," it simply reports his actual sinisterness.

But, wait, that's not all. The book's blurb, per the first link, concludes:

Patrick Cockburn, himself an international journalist, chronicles his father Claud’s lifelong dedication to a guerrilla campaign against the powerful on behalf of the powerless. It is a biography for today’s age, in which journalism is frequently suppressed, overshadowed, undervalued, and corrupted

Well? See above in part.

To add to the above info from Wiki?

According to writer Adam Hochschild, Cockburn functioned as Stalinist propagandist during the war "on [Communist] Party orders".[14] In one instance, Cockburn claimed to have been an eyewitness to a battle that he totally invented.[14] This hoax was intended to persuade the French prime minister that Francisco Franco's forces were weaker than they appeared and thus make the Republicans seem worthier candidates for help in obtaining arms. The ruse worked, and the French border was opened for a previously-stalled artillery shipment.[15]

And:

British historian D.C. ... Watt alleges that the information printed in The Week included rumours, some of which suited Moscow's interests.[18] Watt used as an example the claim The Week made in February–March 1939 that German troops were concentrating in Klagenfurt for an invasion of Yugoslavia, which Watt says had no basis in reality.

Again, oops. Or more than oops, of course.

Neither of those is a capital offense, but they add to shading the truth. On the Yugoslavian invasion rumor, I suspect that Stalin's intent, as this was before the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, was to try to push various countries of eastern Europe into a united anti-Hitler front under USSR control.

Duncan Campbell, set to interview Patrick Oct. 24, writes up the Guardian's review. He notes that, on the hoax battle, Patrick notes in his introduction that Claud was unrepentant, and by not challenging it himself, justifies it.

Claud was really a guerrilla campaigner against the powerful of the right, but not the left, where instead he was a deliberate flak. 

Will Patrick tell us how much money the Soviet Union sent to his dad? I'm presuming that some of this, like the presumably willful slander against Nin, wasn't for free. That said, if it was, he's

Interestingly, the blurb claims he was married three times, when multiple sources say 2x plus one or more domestic partnerships.

At The New Republic, Paul Berman's lancing of Alexander Cockburn makes me think that apple didn't fall far from the parental tree, either. This:

Could probably be said about Claud, too. 

His own Marxism was a product of the little world in London around the New Left Review in the 1960s—an Anglo-Marxism that had gotten its start in the 1950s by inching away from the British Communist Party, and after many years had failed to inch very far. Anglo-Marxism, in his presentation, looked on the Soviet Union as a gray and uninteresting place, which, by lending support to Third World liberation struggles in the remote tropics and hotlands, nonetheless served as the powerhouse of social progress.

That said, it raises one other issue: Anti-Zionism vs antisemitism. That was one reason I de-blogrolled Counterpunch long ago; the other was stuff that follows from the above. And, yes, I thought Alex went over that line at times. (That said, the TNR piece gives a blanket defense to Zionism.)

But wait. Berman pivots from Alec to Claud:

Claud Cockburn was a propagandist for the Communist Parties of Britain and the Soviet Union during the period of the Great Purge.

And then to those Barcelona days in particular:

In Madrid his access to Soviet officials was at the highest level, such that one day he found himself listening to the voice of Stalin himself on the other end of the telephone line. His son assures us in A Colossal Wreck that Claud Cockburn was, in spite of appearances, a fine man who would never have turned over names to the Soviet police in Spain. But then, proud of his father, Alexander includes within the Wreck a brief memoir by Claud of his Spanish experiences, which leaves the impression that, in regard to the Soviet police activities, Claud was not a reluctant participant. ... Claud cites his own “experience in the field of espionage, or rather, counter-espionage.” He was “a section leader of the counter-espionage department of the Spanish Republican government dealing with Anglo-Saxon personalities,” which does sound like a job dedicated to informing the police.

Oops! I guess being a police informer somehow fits in with being skeptical and cynical about all who hold authority?

Berman wraps with:

Soviet journalism alarmed still other people, and one of those frightened persons was George Orwell. In Homage to Catalonia, his own account of the Spanish war, Orwell subjected the Soviet propaganda to a sharp analysis, generally without singling out individual journalists. But he did single out Frank Pitcairn, meaning Claud Cockburn, whose news stories evidently drove Orwell into a fury. I have always supposed that, when Orwell laid out the principles of totalitarianism in Nineteen Eighty-Four, one of his inspirations was Claud Cockburn, British correspondent: a cheerful example of a man willing to say everything and its opposite in the interest of a totalitarian state, committed to the renunciation of truth, to the hatred of free-thinkers, to the cause of persecution, and to the cult of obedience.

So, yes, Orwell's snitch list (same link as above, so you don't have to hunt, because we're getting back to it now) was loathsome. But, it didn't come out of the blue, either. Let's not forget that Orwell's trenchmate Bob Smille faced the same end as Nin.

That snitch list link, from Wiki? Quotes one Alec Cockburn:

Cockburn attacked Orwell's description of Paul Robeson as "anti-white", pointing out Robeson had campaigned to help Welsh coal miners. Cockburn also said the list revealed Orwell as a bigot: "There seems to be general agreement by Orwell's fans, left and right, to skate gently over Orwell's suspicions of Jews, homosexuals and blacks."

Tu quoque on the antisemitism claims. 

And, another bit of possible hypocrisy, tying back to a review of this book:

The journalist Neal Ascherson was critical of Orwell's decision to give the information to the IRD, claiming "there is a difference between being determined to expose the stupidity of Stalinism and the scale of the purges and throwing yourself into the business of denouncing people you know"

"Oops" has been used before.

And with that and for various other reasons? Sorry, but I'll pass, Joshua Frank, on donating for your 30th anniversary. And, you're passing out made in China (or wherever) environmentally wasteful T-shirts as bonus merch? Speaking of? How much of all that merch, if any, is made in the US of A?

Voters of Tomorrow? Full of shit, and even more, full of sellouts

I'm voting for the Communist, not Jill Stein, but I can still call out Blue Anon PR groups, who think they're cute, but are actually full of shit. And full of sellouts.

And, Voters of Tomorrow  founded by Santiago Mayer, is exactly that. Per their Wiki, they endorsed Genocide Joe in March, then Kamala is a ZionistCop as soon as she pushed him aside.

Now, per Stein's campaign email account, they're attacking her with a not-serious, and presumably full of shit, TikTok campaign.

Their website hoists them by their own petard:

Too many politicians have failed our generation by putting their futures over ours.

Really. As I said on Twitter, this would be:

Kamala is a Cop? Kamala is a Zionist Cop? Kamala is a Friend of Banksters?

There you go. Putting banksters and Zionists, and provoking Russia into unnecessary war, is putting your futures first how?

Also per their Wiki:

In 2022, Voters of Tomorrow published its "Gen Z Agenda," a legislative platform based on polling of college students nationwide. The platform contains policies including raising the minimum wage, abolishing the filibuster in Congress, protecting abortion rights, preventing gun violence, and combating climate change.[25][4] Voters of Tomorrow claims it lobbied The White House and over 100 Congressional offices on its "Gen Z Agenda" in 2022 and boasted its progress in certain areas.

Really? Dems could have done LOTS more to federalize Roe when Dear Leader was president, especially his first two years. They could have pushed for a minimum wage hike — AND put a COLA into the minimum wage — during Genocide Joe's first two years.

We haven't even mentioned the Democrats stealing the Green New Deal, watering it down, then not passing it. Democrats don't take climate change seriously. They'll lie about that, though.

We haven't even talked about AOC, a fraud already years ago.

That said, let's look at the board and advisors, per the about page.

The one non-kiddie pool board member? First is Randi Weingarten. Signer of that bullshit Harper's letter of 2020. Second is Olivia Troye, a Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ member who worked in Mike Pence's office when he was Veep. Seriously, she's a piece of fucking work. Third is Rania Batrice, a Palestinian-American sellout of her own people, as she's stanning for genocide.

Advisors? Michele Alexander (NOT the New Jim Crow author) is also a sellout of Palestinians, stanning for Harris despite her past with Physicians for Human Rights and DAWN/MENA plus Human Rights Watch. Joely Fisher? Hollywood Democrat eye candy. Sari Beth Rosenberg? History teacher who apparently doesn't teach students enough about the Nakba. Fred Wellman? Bankrupt friend of Lincoln Project guru Steve Schmidt.

Santiago Mayer may have been sincere in founding the organization, but he's willingly let himself be co-opted. Think of him as a BlueAnon Charlie Kirk if you want to be cynical. Shit, for all I know, this may be like Chuckles and that's not cynicism.

Anyway, all of you, along with Shepard Fairey? Fuck off. Per Drop Site News, this is the type of horror you support. Or this. And this is the contempt for international law you support.

Or this, since Biden admits helping kill Sinwar.

Shortly after the October 7 massacres, I directed Special Operations personnel and our intelligence professionals to work side-by-side with their Israeli counterparts to help locate and track Sinwar and other Hamas leaders hiding in Gaza.

And, Genocide Joe ignored the background of decades of Bibi and decades of Zionism leading to this point.

So did Kamala is a Zionist Cop in a statement almost identical to Genocide Joe's.

No wonder a lot Muslim voters don't like you, and actually support the Jill Stein that you hate:

Yes, Trump feels the same way. And? You have an option to be ethical. And have chosen wrongly.

Let me add that Mayer is himself a sellout. He started the group over Trump's "Muslim ban."

You're sellouts, those of you I listed above who have claimed to support human rights, or who have a Palestinian background.

Tim O'Hare? I blame Beto

The Trib and Pro Publica have a long story on Tarrant County's nutbar county judge. And, nutbar he is.

A large part of the nutbar is Wilks and Dunn type Christian nationalism. 

That said, for non-Texans? No, county judge isn't really like a mayor. Rather, it's like an elected county executive in many other Southern states. That's how Mitch the Turtle McConnell got his political start. Yes, the county judge, like a mayor in a council-mayor city government, presides over meetings and such. But, like a city manager, the county judge sets the agenda, oversees all non-elected county offices and departments, etc., etc.

His own Republican predecessor essentially calls him Manichean.

Oh, O'Hare is a dickhead, too.

Cutting someone off AND having them taken out of the Commissioners Court meeting for going eight seconds over their allotted speaking time in public forum? Dickish.

And, this is nothing new. The main story, at top link, notes that he was this way ever since getting elected to Farmers Branch's city council nearly 20 years ago.

As for the I blame Beto?

I said after the 2022 election that, if R.F. O'Rourke hadn't done his "254 counties" schtick and had focused more on urban, suburban and nearby exurban counties, he had a better chance of winning. And, that would have meant more time in Tarrant County, which might have provided enough coattails for O'Hare's Democratic opponent to be elected, as the county shifted about 6 percentage points "redder" than 2018. Per that link, Fort Bend County in 2022 also reversed a trend of going bluer, as did Williamson. And, I said back in 2018 that Beto-Bob was a Dum Fuq for his "all 254" strategery that year in his Senate run. 

With all that said, the mind boggles over who Gilberto Hinojosa, skipper of the SS Texas Democratic Minnow, and party stalwarts, will come up for on the gubernatorial race in 2026. We had Beto-Bob two years ago, Loopy Lupe Valdez in 2018, Pink Tennies Wendy Davis in 2014 and Bland Bill White in 2010. Hey, Gilberto, neither one of the Castro brothers are saving you. Mark Cuban as a celebrity candidate is bigly unlikely.

Finally, no, #BlueAnon nutters, Kenny Boy Paxton did not make Beto lose.

Counterpunch and India: Cluelessness on reality

Counterpunch sounds semi-incredulous that India's Army Chief of Staff would salute Israel's booby-trapping pagers, even noting India has faced that before. 

Really? This IS the Islamophobic BJP ruling India. Since Narendra Modi's ascent to the prime minstership, he has drawn ever closer to Israel. You know, like Tulsi Gabbard.

Yes, India has signed various international conventions against this. So has the US, and that hasn't stopped Genocide Joe from cutting blank checks to Bibi.

This story also ignores Modi's own role, when head of that state, in the 2002 Gujarat riots.

And, Gen. Upendra Dwivedi was just appointed this summer. Likely has Modi political ties.

If this was meant to be rhetorical? It fell flat on its face.

Meanwhile, Counterpunch continues to flack anti-BDSer Noam Chomsky, as well as duopoly sell-out Ralph Nader, which I mentioned a week ago.

Texas Progressives see Kenny Boy Paxton lose again

The first abortion aid lawsuit enabled under SB 8 has been dropped. And, that shithead Jonathan Mitchell refused to comment. Side note: Will this give ballot opponents of an abortion remains ban in Amarillo more ammunition?

Parts of 2021's SB 1, about voter assistance, were struck down last week. U.S. District Judge Xavier. Rodriguez cited the 1965 Voting Right Act. Unfortunately, it's too late to change forms for this election, which means some voters, and those assisting them, will still feel intimidated, which is the whole purpose. Why it took this long for a ruling to be made? Presumably, dilatory tactics by Kenny Boy Paxton are part of it. (That said, other parts of the bill were already struck down.)

Kenny Boy also had part of a state statute declared unconstitutional on him last week.

The Fifth Circuit has removed Judge Janis Jack from overseeing the long-ongoing case over problems with Texas' foster care system. The plaintiffs' lawyer said they will appeal. No indication on whether or not the ruling can be stayed during the appeal. As for the Fifth Circuit panel and its mindset? Tex-ass deserves getting roasted at times. And, the three? Edith Jones, a Reagan appointee, might seem less wingnut than a Shrub Bush or Trumpy one. Wrong. She's faced allegations of racism and more in the past. Cory Wilson? Authored the Fifth Circuit ruling saying the Congressional ban on people with domestic violence history owning guns was unconstitutional, which was overturned by the Supreme Court; he's a Trump appointee. Edith Clement? Another wingnut of sorts, but one with less in the way of being memorable. Both she and Jones were allegedly on Shrub's shortlist for the SCOTUS seat that went to Roberts.

SocraticGadfly looked at the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7, 2023, mainly at much of "mainstream media" giving passes to mainstream politicians.

The Monthly offers a preview of the Cancun Ted Cruz vs ConservaDem Colin Allred Oct. 15 debate, with questions it would like to see asked. Especially on Israel-Gaza, the questions are shit, because Biden's "urging" that the conflict cease is itself shit.

TxDOT is paying a bunch of money to take back the south Houston loop tollway, Texas 288 (not to be confused with the Texas 288 loop in Denton) from the private contractor that built it. When Danny Goeb lies about the benefits of the takeover, you know Texans are being screwed. Of course, per the story, the big lie is about the need for it in the first place.

Off the Kuff interviewed Railroad Commissioner candidate Katherine Culbert and CD14 candidate Rhonda Hart. 

Space City Weather does not want to hear your crap about "controlling the weather".  

Paradise in Hell translates JD Vance. 

The TSTA Blog urges you to join the fight against vouchers.  

El Paso Matters explains why "mass deportation" would be really bad for Texas.  

Nonsequiteuse makes the case against a Steve Radack comeback.  

The Bloggess learns something about wasps while decorating for Halloween.

Federal judge: Texas statute Kenny Boy Paxton is using to harass groups he doesn't like is unconstitutional

Texas' "request to examine" lawsuit, ever more abused by Kenny Boy Paxton, has been struck down by a federal judge as unconstitutional. The Trib links to Bloomberg Law, which cites Mark Lane's reasoning about the statute, more than a century old:

Judge Mark Lane of the Western District of Texas said his decision “wasn’t that hard” because Texas’ Request to Examine statute doesn’t expressly allow a served party to pursue pre-compliance judicial review before producing requested records. ...

Lane said the Request to Examine statute was written for another time, and that recently it has been “frankensteined” by Paxton’s office to include exceptions that don’t appear in the law. The law requires immediate production of requested records, leaving a served party no chance to seek pre-compliance judicial review. The US Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that a served party is entitled to a court’s review in Los Angeles v. Patel.

There you go.

The Trib wonders how this will play out in state courts, vis-a-vis individuals who have no presence outside Texas. That said, the Sixth and Eighth Amendments have been fairly, if not totally, "federalized," so I don't think state courts can really ignore this.

Too bad the 200-plus-year-old US Constitution doesn't get more and more judicial rulings about being from another time.

Third party news roundup, Oct. 11

Although Claudia de la Cruz will be my protest vote within a protest vote, her campaign never responded to me asking by email why she had yet to register to attend a third-party candidate forum, the Free and Equal Elections Debate, to which she had been invited. Other than travel costs from NYC to LA, it's FREE exposure! 

Hey, Claudia? The few bucks I might have given you personally or PSL? Maybe not.

I emailed a second time. We'll see if I hear back.

(Hey, Cort Greene? In 2028, I COULD vote for the SWP cultist party. But won't.)

Next, though I'm protesting against Jill Stein, the Abandon Harris movement, formerly Abandon Biden, has officially endorsed her. That's unlike Lexie Zeidan and fellow DSA Rosey shitheads at the "Uncommitted" movement, whom I originally called "Abandon Biden" but who have no actual connection to any "Abandon" movement. They're "committed" — to keep supporting genocide.

The Democraps are doubling down on the "A vote for Stein is a vote for Trump" bullshit. You don't own my vote, as I said in 2016 and spelled out in 2020 (with a GP skeptical analysis) so fuck off. Reminder: Even in a swing state like Georgia with a large Libertarian Party, you never hear Rethuglicans doing this.

==

Update: For Cort Greene and any SWP cultists he drags here in his train? 

First, there are plenty more things in life to focus on than intra-Trot fights, Trot vs Tankie fights, Trot vs Maoist fights, or pseudo-Trot Zionist fights against all of the above! Remember, that's who today's SWP is. As for Cort's Fashbusters, given that the "about" page really doesn't have anything about it, the simplest conclusion is that it's SWP fellow-travelers/front-group/entryism project. I still haven't forgotten about entryism, dude.

Second, one can oppose what China is doing in Xinjiang, and in Tibet, AND oppose US foreign policy spinning on it AND oppose American stanners for Beijing like Max Blumenthal. Not hard to do.

Third, one can express legitimate concerns about Iran, while calling out blind hatred of Iran that's driven by Zionism.

Fourth, back to the start of the first point? Go hiking. Take a walk in your city park, or in a state or national recreation area. Watch butterflies. Cook something, like a frittata. I've done all in the past four days. In other words, get a life.

Fucking Donald Trump is why I'm no longer on Twitter, even as the NYT continues to be craven

As discussed in detail here, two weeks ago, my then-primary Twitter Shitter account got blocked by Elmo Musk and his Nazi goons because I posted the link to Ken Klippenstein's Substack about the J.D. Vance screening dossier allegedly hacked by Iran. (Note: If you're still working at Shitter, especially in some branch like Shitter "Security" two years after Musk bought the company, you're a Nazi goon. Period and end of story.)

Well now, per the NY Times (with an interesting angle, per the pull quote coming up) explains that Team Trump was behind this:

After a reporter’s publication of hacked Trump campaign information last month, the campaign connected with X to prevent the circulation of links to the material on the platform, according to two people with knowledge of the events. X eventually blocked links to the material and suspended the reporter’s account.

There you are.

What's interesting is that Maggie Haberman (barf me) et al never mention either what the material is — which those of us in the know, know — or who the reporter is, and ditto on that.

Are they, or an editor above their heads, worried about Elmo freezing the New York Times' Shitter account, too? What cravenness, especially when survey after survey shows that most of Merikkka gets little news information from Shitter.

Let's contrast with Mediaite, which linked to the NYT:

The Trump campaign “connected” with social media platform X, owned by billionaire MAGA supporter Elon Musk, to suppress links to a journalist’s newsletter that contained a leaked dossier allegedly stolen from the campaign when Iran reportedly hacked it.

The September newsletter, published by journalist Ken Klippenstein, included a dossier on former President Donald Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance (R-OH), which Klippenstein was sent by an unknown source who claimed it had been acquired in a hack of the Trump campaign. Other news outlets said they’d also obtained some hacked information but chose not to publish it.

There you go.

Alternet gets quotes calling out the NYT:

Journalist Steve Mullis notes, “It’s crazy that this is a single paragraph in the NYT’s Elon Musk story. Given that there were congressional hearings accusing Biden and Democrats of doing this sort of thing, this should be its own huge story.”

It goes on to note how the NYT story doesn't do a deep dive on foreign money (like Saudi money) coming into Elmo's PAC. 

Side note on this? The "ranking member" for Democrats in some House committee could call hearings. So could any Senate committee, since that's Democrat-majority. But, because Iran is the alleged hacker and "Israel," they'll be as fucking craving as Maggie Habs.

Also, Emptywheel (not linking) mentions that Habs et al didn't mention Elmo's "joking" about Harris and assassination attempts less than two full weeks before he booted Ken off Shitter.

I read this via Mediagazer's feed, so I have some other sites that also, like the NYT, did NOT mention Klippenstein by name. That includes Mother Jones (shock me), Daily Beast (NYT only reference in passing, but its Justin Baragona was a shithead shill two weeks ago on shrilly insisting that Klippenstein was doxxing), The New Republic, TPM (like Daily Beast, only in passing), Raw Story.

Then there's the WaPost, all on its own in a tangential piece of shittiness:

Hackers linked to Iran reportedly obtained the briefing book compiled as Trump was vetting potential running mates. (His former vice president, Mike Pence, needed to be replaced on the ticket for noteworthy reasons.) The hackers shopped the briefing book around, finding few takers.

Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein bit, however, publishing the document on his website. And in short order, X banned Klippenstein’s account, purportedly because the linked document included personal information about Vance.

This makes Ken look like some poor schlub, rather than a principled reporter, formerly of the Intercept. This isn't NYT-craven, it's "throw Ken under the bus" craven. Is there any wonder why many people on the left, for better reasons than Trump Trainers, don't trust the lamestream media any more?

Update, Oct. 12: Klippenstein got his Shitter restored and wrote about it on Substack. Including that link, I appealed again and got restored, too. I'm still using the Fuckbook page I created, though, and also Substack Notes, to post much of my blogging links. I told him on Shitter that he needs to write about Habs et al being so craven at the NYT.

Alternet? Worse than Counterpunch on electoral politics

After what is pretty close to the last straw with Counterpunch recently, over the anniversary of the Third Gazan War, as I'm calling it, I thought, let's check other allegedly leftist sites.

First stop? Alternet.

Alternet has a mix of head-fake pseudo-legit critiques of Stein and stuff that's "gotcha" right off the bat.

Among the "gotcha"? Calling out Stein for using a signature gathering firm with connections to Trump and possibly to J6. Is there any callout of Democrats' democracy suppression? No. Worse? It's a fucking reprint of a Salon article. THIS gotcha, signal-boosting AOC in the process, on the other hand? All their own. I'd thought of putting Alternet on my new blogs feed. Nuh-uh. This one, though behind Counterpunch's paywall? An APRIL payment by Stein's campaign (NOT her, technically) to a "Church of Cannabis"? Found for free at MSN, the payment was just $300 and was for renting the building for a speech. The piece, originally at Raw Story, has Russiagate Stein/Putin/Mike Flynn gotcha in it, too.

Candidates to the left of Stein? Not.Even.Covered.

Texas Progressives look at oiliness in the Permian and in politicos

The Trib offers its latest assessment of Dade Phelan's chances of keeping the Texas House Speakership.

Related? The Texas Observer wonders if the House will remain anti-voucher after the elections. (Answer: Too close to call right now, so the speculation doesn't matter yet.)

Given all of Oxy's problems within petroleum major and mid-majors, there's no way I'd trust it to run a carbon injection plant it wants.

The RRC is dealing with a major new blowout.

More and more medical societies and organizations, especially ones focused on women's health, are boycotting Texas and other anti-abortion states as sites for their annual conferences, or individual members are creating alternative meetings if the organizations won't relocate.

Shock me that Greg Abbott is engaged in A: Theatrics; B. Mislabeling a drug gang as terrorists; C. Doing something that attempts to intrude on federal power.

Tarrant County Appraisal District, under the new law with directly elected board members in larger counties, is allegedly violating state law. So says state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, the guy who pushed for such restructuring. And, it may not be the worst county district! Bettencourt repoliticized the system; his shock at the actual repoliticization is bullshit.

Off the Kuff covered some polling and campaign news for Colin Allred. 

SocraticGadfly offered up the latest installment in his series on Southwest Airlines vs Elliott Investment Management.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project posted a list of questions local political press could ask the six Houston City Council Republican, to see if they support the authoritarians & proponents of mass deportations put forth by the Republican Party up and down the ballot in 2024.  (Yours truly could send Neil some questions to pass on to City Council Democrats to see if they support national Democrat vote suppression. He could also remind Neil that Kamala is a Border Cop. He does this rather than not run Neil.)

The Current tells you about some political events to avoid. 

Texas 2036 wants to spread the word about free or low-cost ACA plans that many people qualify for.

CultureMap offers some mammogram advice in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  

Evan Mintz reminds us what Donald Trump thought of Houston after Hurricane Harvey.  

Laney Hawes laughs at some election conspiracy infighting.

Psychological proof Dear Leader was seen as a head fake on neoliberalism

Regular readers here know who I mean by Dear Leader.

The psychological proof?

At Psy Post, new research indicates a sharp split within Black men on their mental health after Obama's 2012 re-election. And that split was along class and income guidelines.

The researchers found that college-educated Black men saw a significant improvement in their mental health, with nearly three fewer poor mental health days reported per month after the election. In contrast, Black men without a college education reported experiencing one additional poor mental health day per month.

That sounds fairly notable.

Why? Various possibilities.

And, per the researcher, yes, this does call for further thought.

The researchers propose several reasons for this divergence. One possibility is that less-educated Black men felt Obama had not lived up to the promises he made during his campaign. These men may have expected Obama to tackle issues like job creation, healthcare access, and systemic inequality more effectively. As these promises went unfulfilled in their eyes, their mental health may have worsened due to feelings of disappointment or relative deprivation—a sense that they were being left behind compared to other groups, including more affluent or educated Black men

Looking at the current election, and what the average Trump Trainer thinks vs the reality of Project 2025? Should Trump get back in office, I would expect a similar split among White men.

Political news roundup — Green-Dem fight in Wisconsin, Bernie and AOC in Tex-ass

The Green Party's presence in Wisconsin is making Democrats nervous. Specifically, in the last decade, Madison has elected 10 Greens to local office, the piece notes. Stand by for Cort Greene to try to comment on this post. That said, Politico's piece doesn't report on why the Republicans don't worry the same way about Libertarians, even though in decades past through now, they've lost multiple US Senate seats in Georgia because of Libertarian candidates, for example. It does note that Kamala is a Zionist Cop Harris appears to be getting more pro-Palestinian supporters than Genocide Joe was.

Meanwhile, Alexia Sabor, chair of Dane County Dems, says:

“If you want power in a third party, start teaching the Green Party or whoever to run for school board and village board, and stop running for president and governor.”

Ignoring the info in the paragraph above.

Or, rather, lying about it.

And, the Wisconsin GP has promised Sabor that there will be more of that, and challenges for things like state rep, in 2026.

==

Why DID AOC and Bernie Sanders come to Tex-ass recently? Did they drink some of the Gilberto Hinojosa Kool-Aid? As part of the piece, Dan Solomon correctly notes that, no, there's not some big pool of non-voting Texans just waiting to flip the D switch. Instead, there's just a big pool of generally non-voting Texans.

Also of note: ConservaDem Colin Allred avoided both like the plague.

Speaking of and related? Like Kuff, I didn't know Adam Kinzinger had moved to Tex-ass. Unlike Kuff, I'm far more skeptical of his Republicans for Allred push. And, beyond the piece, will Kinzinger get normalized enough to be the Dems' 2026 gubernatorial nominee?

==

Kamala is a Zionist Cop's campaign staff, anonymously, admits "just folks" Tim Walz has a "misspeaking" problem. It's not yet as bad as Dementia Joe's lies, but stay tuned! And shock me.

=

Remember when Kamala was a Pre-Zionist Cop and Friend of Banksters? Like Steve Mnuchin? THAT, it's clear, hasn't changed.

=

The Smartmatic vs Fox lawsuit is turning ugly.

Oct. 7, 2023, one year later

Since the lamestream media won't give you the facts? This roundup post is a callout post as well.

Let's start with NPR. No, Genocide Joe and Kamala is a Zionist Cop did NOT have tributes to all the victims. They had no tribute to Palestinian victims before or after Oct. 7. Neither did Dementia Don, of course.

The WSJ, before you hit the paywall, is honest enough to talk about divisions in Israel strong enough there were dueling ceremonies. US LSM won't discuss that, either.

At the Beeb, British mainstream media, they didn't talk about dueling memorials in Israel. They did cite the fatuousness of Genocide Joe and British Prime Minister Der Starmer:

Outside of Israel, President Biden joined other world leaders in condemning what he called the "unspeakable brutality" of the Hamas attacks a year ago.

He also expressed horror at the subsequent war, saying "far too many civilians had suffered, far too much".

Mourners also gathered at vigils around the world including in Australia, South Africa, Germany and the United States.

In the UK, Sir Keir Starmer told the House of Commons he supported Israel's right to defend itself. But Britain's prime minister insisted there was no military solution to the current crisis and appealed for all sides to "step back".

Without calling it fatuousness. Neither Genocide Joe nor Der Starmer will do anything beyond "appeals," the international political equivalent of #ThoughtsAndPrayers, the old Shitter hashtag, or #TotsAndPears as parodied by many of us secularists.

Indeed, as Axios notes (and this is not at all new) Biden and Harris have their thumbs on the scales. Dementia Don would do just the same.

The ZioNazi government of Bibi Netanyahu, meanwhile, is ignoring alleged divisions, and using the world shifting focus to Lebanon, to try to continue to grind Gaza to dust.

And, friends on Facebook who have voted outside the duopoly in the past still want me to vote for lesser evilism.

Meanwhile, Counterpunch talks about Oct. 7 leaning on lesser evilism Noam Chomsky with a chaser of sellout Ralph Nader. 

Oh, for you BlueAnon and MAGAts alike? Start by reading Ilan Pappe, "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," or another of his books. Then go to Shlomo Sand's "The Invention of the Jewish People." Before you even think about "going there," both are Jews inside Israel.

The Freedom Socialist Party? Who?

Never heard of them before. And, that's after doing a fair amount of research this year. So, their critique / attack on the Socialist Equality Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation is sketchy. Their attack in that piece on the Socialist Workers Party is spot on, as is the ones on Jill Stein and Cornell West. Here's their Wiki; they've run a presidential nominee of their own once since splitting from the SWP back in the 1960s.

That said, looking at the subsections in their "about," they appear to be strongly identitarian politics, above all on feminism, which the SEP has halfway-correctly criticized in the PSL. And, more specifically, they're Trots. See their FAQ for more.

My "vote the Commie" for the PSL is as much a protest vote against protest votes as anything else, I'll admit. I'm "post-capitalist," not "anti-capitalist," and have long noted, as have others, that Marx may have been right on description of his era, but wrong on prescription. I have gone further in noting that Hegelian dialectic is crappy philosophy and literally creates pseudoscience when used as the backbone for any theory or thesis within any social science, whether it's the original dialectical idealism or the Marxist dialectical materialism. (That applies in spades with the natural sciences, of course.)

I should add that, in post-Reagan Merikkka, I'm suspicious of groups with "freedom" in their names; these people could be a CIA front group.

Counterpunch? You've lost me with Chomsky AND with Nader

Counterpunch, on US elections issues, has been "losing" me for months now. Start with the lack of profiling of third-party candidates. Yeah, that's not their metier, but, at the same time, more than once in the past couple of months, they've run stuff that HAS at least verged halfway close to GOTV writing for the left hand of the duopoly.

And, now, today, on the one year anniversary of the start of the Third Gazan War or whatever name we should give the current round of mindless Israeli ethnic cleansing, after years of goading both Gazan and West Bank Palestinians?

Counterpunch Radio uses a Noam Chomsky "infographic" type quote as art for blurbing its podcast. Barf me.

First, long before he was brain-dead, Chomsky tried to "nudge" Green (and SPUSA) presidential nominee out of the race in 2020. He wasn't alone. Barbara Ehrenreich, Norman Solomon and others who know better were his fellow travelers.

That said, that's nothing new. That same year, Chomsky, who's long been a duopoly sheepdogger, was one of the signers of that odious Harper's letter. (So was Cornel West, which is why I didn't really believe his schtick a full year ago, even before he decided to try copulating with Nick Brana.)

And, while Margaret Kimberly went too far (shock me) in claiming Chomsky is fully opposed to BDS? He's nowhere near being in support of it; receipts are here. (Neither is Norman Finkelstein, who flat-out rejects it, as well as still cluelessly clinging to the two-state solution.)

Reminder: Last week, the UN General Assembly, in essence, officially called for UN member states to engage in BDS against Israel.

Beyond all of the above? Chomsky has been "filtered" through his second wife for years.

While I'm here? This, too. And, this goes straight to Jeff St. Clair, an unreconstructed Naderite, as well as Cockburn fils. Running Ralph Nader calling out Dems over Israel and Gaza. Nader officially endorsed Genocide Joe two weeks before Oct. 7 and has never unendorsed him or succesor Kamala is a Zionist Cop. On St. Clair, I had somewhat moderated my stance on his stance on Nader and the Green Party at one time, but I've hardened it again, and more so after Oct. 7. In my opinion, the Green Party internal reforms for 2004 weren't perfect, but they weren't horrible. AND, contra Nader and St. Clair, they weren't entirely officially targeted at him. Also IMO, he, like Cornel West, wanted the nomination on a platter. Yeah, there's a lot of AccommoGreens, but still?

Also, per my "endorsed" link? There's LOTS of stuff that St. Clair won't tell you. Like Nader being a shitter on Terri Schiavo. Like him being a crappy boss per both Kurt Eichenwald and Tim Shorrock, among others. Both have receipts. Nader has been anti-labor in other ways. Consumer advocates in general, like environmentalists, have a history there.

Anyway, this isn't Counterpunch Radio referencing Chomsky. This is Counterpunch continuing to platform him.

Off the Kuff practicing election disinformation

That's what we have at a post last Thursday.

I quote:

They also didn’t report on the Presidential result in the story. That was 49-44 for Trump over Kamala Harris, with 1% for Jill Stein and 0 for independent Cornel West. Given that West is a write-in, and therefore won’t be on the ballot, and there is a Libertarian who will be on the ballot but wasn’t included, this is another result for a non-existent race.

And my response:

And, it's flat out untrue to say that because Cornel West is a write-in, he won't be on the ballot. To put it another way, that's election disinformation. I don't mean that metaphorically; I mean that literally. This is election misinformation at a minimum, disinformation at a maximum.

And, Kuff's been around enough, and in Democrat politics enough, I say "dis" not just "mis."

Beyond that, Kuff knows from a recent Texas Progressives roundup, that I'm voting for Claudia de la Cruz, a write-in, for president. (I also said in comments that I'm also doing one of the write-ins for Senate.)

And, again, this is how people like me take voting more seriously than the duopoly stanners.

Top blogging of September

As normal, these were the 10 most read pieces in September. Not all of them were written in September; older pieces that have temporarily become "evergreen" will be described with a bit more detail. And, since I usually write this out a couple of days in advance, this was as of Oct. 2.

We'll cut to the chase and do No. 1 and 2 first, then do the Letterman-style countdown for the others.

At No. 1, I said that another shoe partially dropped at Southwest Airlines, in a partial cave-in to the vulture capitalists at Elliott Investment Management.

No. 2 was the backstory to that, that another shoe was about to drop.

No. 10 was a third-party update including Brainworm Bobby's dropping out.

No. 9? My take on the pseudo-Trots and actual Zionist genocide supporters at the Socialist Workers Party.

No. 3, to skip, was related, an Aug. 30 third-party update, signal posted by Cort Greene, a diehard member of the SWP cult.

No. 8? Going meta, it was the top blogging of August. Among items trending in that was that third party update, Photoshop-skewering Shepard Fairey, mocking Scott Ritter and more.

No. 7? I noted that Grist and Fast Company had sharply divergent takes on the present and future of "fake food"; Grist's take makes me wonder if it's not playing Yevgeny Morozov's "solutionism," or what I call "salvific technologism."

No. 6? Inspired by a subreddit, my rhetorical question about if US national parks should have free entrance gets a firm no from me.

No. 5? Back to electoral politics, as the Texas Trib had a semi-failure in its look at independent voters.

No. 4? I looked at how the Twitterverse (where I no longer am) was quick to weaponize anti-Chinese thought, and otherwise spread misinformation, on the Israeli booby-trapped pagers.

Enforcement by private suit OK in Tex-ass but not California?

In the case of Tex-ass, I'm talking about its pre-Dobbs law that allowed private residents to sue over abortion and abortion assistance, still being used by a few wingnut ex-boyfriends who are almost certainly being bankrolled by people with some connection to Farris Wilks and Tim Dunn. That was the law that SCOTUS essentially punted on pre-Dobbs and has never, in reality, done a final revisitation.

Well, California passed a similar law over "election deepfake" videos, but a federal district judge struck it down as unconstitutional. Per John A. Mendez, maybe the law is "a hammer instead of a scalpel," but maybe more than a scalpel is needed. Frankly, this is just another example of how the federal judiciary is behind the curve, and arguably falls further behind the curve all the time, in matters related to the online world.

Christopher Kohls, the plaintiff? His deepfake that was among those that prompted the law is so nutters that Elmo signal-boosted him on Twitter.

As for First Amendment worries? The laws in question include an "actual malice" standard and a "materiality" standard. Is it borderline? I'll agree. Is it way out of bounds? I'll disagree. And, maybe First Amendment scholars, stalwarts and activist groups aren't all that much ahead of the federal judiciary.

Science: Climate change, roses, talking primates, more

Climate change, and its ongoing worsening, leads Matthew Huber to look seriously at many issues. They include how accurate climate models will be decades out (contra Katharine Hayhoe and Michael Mann, he thinks they're "undercounting"), just how much "resilience" the average human body has and more. 

On this issue politically? Besides remembering that, to the degree Democrats pretend to be serious about climate change (Republicans don't even do that), their answers are neoliberal and ignore class-based issues, which Huber discusses.

==

If you've hiked in the US Southwest very much, you've probably seen or heard "Don't bust the crust." If you understand why, you'll probably be interested to read about attempts to grow man-made biocrust.

==

One gene is why a rose pricks you. Can it be reverse engineered?

==

Can chimps speak? New study of old video adds fuel to the debate.

Can't we have better independent and third-party campaign coverage?

The two best blog-type sites out there that I am aware of are Bill Redpath and Richard Winger's Ballot Access News, and Independent Political Report.

Neither has comment moderation. Neither uses IP addresses or other things to block anybody, AFAIK.

BAN has long been run over by troll-type commenters who aren't even funny.

IPR has this "Nuña," about whom I've commented before, who's now more and more at BAN. He's some type of alt-right, alt-white paleoconservative, and a proven liar (and an Islamophobe with that). And, he's made what I consider a veiled threat. And, I've told Jordan at IPR about it. It has been hauled down, and they're going to look at their bigger policy issues.

I've seen this rodeo before at places like High Country News, which semi-caved to the wingers on their website, but then eventually turned off comments there, but still allows them on their Facebook page.

Look at Mondoweiss. It has a formal username policy, and it will ban you by IP if you break any of its rules.

OTOH, this shows that, despite many ardent third party protestors that "many people agree with us," uh, no they don't. Sadly, definitely not so on the left.

Counterpunch bitches about the duopoly enough, but then stans for anti-BDSer and hardcore duopolist Noam Chomsky AND duopoly fellator Ralph Nader. (Ralph is still butt-hurt over the Green Party in 2004 and Jeff St. Clair largely accepts that straight up, while also ignoring that Ralphie is against organized labor in many ways and sucked personally as a boss.) Alternet? Straight up BlueAnon.

Texas Progressives talk election thoughts

SocraticGadfly does an early breakout of his "Gadfly slate" for president and says "vote for the Commie."

Off the Kuff analyzed a new poll of Bexar County to see what it might tell us about the state as a whole. 

A federal judge put on hold parts of 2023's SB 1 that deal with state attempts to control (intimidate?) so-called vote harvesting. 

Eliazar Cisneros was the lone person convicted in the 2020 Trump Train driving harassment case. In the court of moral affairs, all were guilty as shit. In the court of the court, Cisneros may win on appeal.

Ken Paxton lost his suit against the State Fair of Texas' gun ban at Fair Park. Kuff has a good roundup of all the coverage, which includes the ScoTx note that Paxton didn't even really lay out much of a legal case. 

Paxton continues to legally harass non-profits helping migrants.

The Trib, the AP, and PBS' Frontline jointly take a real look at the border. It's not bad as far as it goes, but the story doesn't at all investigate what's behind Mexican enforcement of its southern border and other things.

The Trib interviews Amarillo Mayor Cole Stanley about his steering the city council away from adopting an abortion travel ban.

Unions inside prisons — for the inmates? Yes, really, including in Texas. And, the Observer explains why they're needed in all the states of Merikkka.

Kelcy Warren, feudal lord of Energy Transfer, is now working to be a shithole about the National Labor Relations Board.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project said John Whitmire, Rodney Ellis & Carol Alvarado have every opportunity to fight for democracy & support Texas Democrats in 2024.  

Texas 2036 looks at the state of mental health.

Reform Austin reminds us who Corey DeAngelis is. 

 Law Dork reports on the latest hearing in the Llano County public library book ban case, in which forced birth zealot Jonathan Mitchell claimed that public libraries only exist "as a matter of grace".  

Your Local Epidemiologist asks why so many Americans expected a perfect COVID-19 vaccine.

Southwest's last cave-in to Elliott Investment Management wasn't enough but it won't do more (for now)

Several things came up at and in relationship to Southwest's Investor Day on Sept. 26.

First, some of the flight side stuff.

The biggie, for me, though not No. 1 in the CNN story? Both my checked bags will continue to fly free!

“The company believes any change in the current policy… would drive down demand and far outweigh any revenue gains created by imposing and collecting bag fees,” it said Thursday.

Jordan also told investors in July that charging for bags would delay the time it takes to load the planes as passengers seek a place to store carry-on bags they are now checking. The airline said Thursday part of its plan to improve profitability is to further improve its turn-around time when planes are on the ground.

This story has more details on the cost split. Southwest said it could take in $1.5 million in gross revenue, but at the cost of $1.8 million in expenses. That, then, is a no-brainer.

Second is that, though reservability for assigned seats will start next year, the actual practice won't begin until 2026.

Also per that first link, Southwest will start doing some sort of flight partnering or code sharing with foreign airlines. Given its limited, Caribbean focused (and that only after acquiring Air Tran) international offerings, it should have done this long ago. But, not being on Travelocity and Expedia limited that. No details at the link of the specifics on this. So, yeah, Elliott isn't all wrong. Sad it took a vulture capitalist to get this done.

They still should fix their reservation system and currency issues so as to offer their own flights to Canada. This is really sad. They don't have to fly everywhere, but let's say Calgary and Edmonton, both for tourists and for Dallas, Houston and Denver awl bidness folks to visit their Canadian counterparts is a no-brainer. Toronto and Ottawa, for business and political travel. Maybe Montreal. Wouldn't add more. Given their American basis, would definitely not add Quebec City and would be hesitant even on Montreal, re language issues.

On the non-flight side?

Per that second link, David Singer, head vulture at Elliott, said the changes still aren't enough and said he still is looking at a shareholder meeting, which Elliott's 10 percent ownership stake allows him to call.

More on that, and on the poison pill defense Southwest has, at my link of a month ago. Problem is, Southwest allows any investor above 10 percent to call the shareholder meeting, but the poison pill of a stock buyback offer, doesn't kick in until 12.5 percent.

That said, per the first and second links, Southwest did an internal stock buyback in the run-up to the investors day.

More here from Southwest PR.

And, in other Southwest news, it's taking San Antonio to court over an alleged bait and switch on terminal improvements.

Mondoweiss agrees with me on the "uncommitted" movement

I said in June that "Listen to America" co-director Lexie Zeidan was lying to herself (as were fellow organization members), lying to readers / followers / political public, or lying to both, when telling Mondoweiss' Michael Arria that they weren't committing to third parties but could still pressure Biden (this was before he withdrew).

Mondoweiss' Ethan Eblaghie has a follow-up. The title is the tale: "The Uncommitted Movement has failed because it refused to punish Democrats."

Here's the nutgras from Eblaghie, who appears to be a member of the movement himself.

Lacking any internal mechanisms for decision-making, the Uncommitted National Movement defaulted to an unacknowledged cadre of spokespeople, such as Waleed Shahid, Lexis Dena Zeidan, and Asma Mohammed, among others, like Layla and Abbas. These individuals were not subject to democratic control, setting the political lines of a movement over 740,000 people strong entirely unchecked by the many grassroots organizers that supported the campaign.

While uncommitted leaders in many states, like Wisconsin, New Jersey, and Rhode Island have raised calls for voters to reject Harris entirely in the general election, the Uncommitted National Movement took a conciliatory approach, giving Harris ample time to engage with our demands after the convention and failing to commit to withholding their support for her even in the absence of her compliance.

Again, lines up with what I said in June.

And, here's the play-out:

In continuing to attempt to move Harris, we must reconcile the Uncommitted National Movement’s refusal to make good on the threat with the size of the voting base behind us, and determine how to make Harris feel more threatened by the anti-war movement against her. Abdicating the best card in our hand – our collective tactical vote – means we no longer have any leverage.

Urging voters to oppose Trump, putting the cart before the horse, means that, on a fundamental level, we accept that the horrific genocide in Gaza and the US-funded murder of over 40,000 Palestinians, is not a red line in this election. On a political level, it means that a small cadre of unelected and unaccountable spokespeople have bartered away what remains of our hand without the input of our state leaders and a thorough, winning analysis of what comes next for the robust movement for an arms embargo on Israel in the United States.

Again, what I said in June.

Going BEYOND Eblaghie, it's why I suspected Jill Stein passed on choosing a Michigander, especially an Arab-American Michigander, as her Veep. She's going down the lesser evilism route herself. And, as I said there, anybody who knows Stein knows this is nothing new.

The St. Louis Cardinals suck and the New York Times called them out

The John Mozeliak/Bill DeWitt Cardinals emperor has no clothes. That's been obvious for some time, but The New York Times/Athletic just MASSIVELY called them out. Here's the nut grafs, about one-quarter in:

“We’re in trouble,” one team employee said. “This is not easily fixable within the next year, or year after. This is going to take some time.

“I don’t know how this was f—ed up so bad over the last few years.” ...

“It’s broken,” one staffer said. “Our system is broken in a way. How it got there, I don’t know.”

The big question is, how much difference will it make?

When you have nutters on r/cardinals like u/holdmywong saying this team could have a better winning mark than the 2006 World Series winners, all while ignoring things like the Pythagorean of this year vs that, and the fact that everybody not a "junior Mo" knows the facts, or you have people like u/milyabe saying "Cardinal Way" like Bernie Miklasz 2010 (who I called out at the time), and then protesting they didn't say it was unique? it could take a LONG time.

Seriously? Mo's going to be as "unobtrusive" as possible until the end of next year and his expected retirement. Likely successor Chaim Bloom? We know what he was like in Boston. (He wasn't as horrible as his worst detractors say, but he wasn't nearly as good as his most ardent defenders claim.) And, Bill DeWitt III's vague noises this summer about wanting taxpayer money for stadium tweaks?

Yeah, the piece notes Bloom was good in Tampa. But that was a decade ago. More general managers and presidents of baseball operations — even some owners — are more grounded in the analytics world today. That issue applies here in St. Louie, too:

(H)igh-profile success almost always ensures that other organizations take notice, and eventually rivals built similar analytical models. Over time, a key difference emerged: Other clubs invested more in their models than the Cardinals were investing in theirs. As innovation spread through the industry the Cardinals stagnated. Their advantage began to slip.

There you go, Bloom.

And, Mo is straddling two horses. 

(A)ccording to people familiar with the organization’s business decisions, Mozeliak has been operating with a set amount of money to split between the Cardinals’ entire baseball operations department, and the front office has repeatedly chosen to invest in the big-league team. Those decisions resulted in repeated cuts to player development, both stateside and in Latin America.

So, this is really Bill DeWitt, per Miklasz, not putting a crowbar in DeWallet. Now, one wonders if to some degree this is like the Dallas Cowboys, where Stephen Jones restrains Daddy Jethro Jerry. 

==

Update, Sept. 30: Chaim Bloom has officially been named Mo's successor for 2026. Also of note? GM Mike Girsch got shoved in a fancy broom closet with the title of "vice president of special operations."

Several posts related to it at the r/Cardinals subreddit.

This one rightly wonders how much more of a leash Bloom will have than Mo did.

This one, from a Red Sox fan, splits the diff on Bloom's over/under.

Via a third, Bob Nightengale, after discussing who he thinks should be given this year's MLB awards, looks hard at the Cardinals' future. He thinks they will go semi-full rebuild, starting with shopping Sonny Gray. It's said that the Cards, acting like a low-ball team, would try to trade Gray to the low-ball Reds. He also notes the Brew Crew are interested in Goldy.

Bankshotting off Zionism for .... I"m not sure what

Russ and Pam Martens' "Wall Street on Parade" is generally very good — when it sticks to writing about the banksters.

When it ventures beyond that, it generally falls into generic Blue Anon territory. In the past, for example, they've seen fit to attack Russia for various things in the Russia-Ukraine war without batting an eye at similar issues done by Ukraine. Things like war crimes.

So, Tuesday, when the pair wrote about "Deadly, Exploding Pagers ...," but only tacked Israel's pager bobby-trapping to the end of a piece about the newest revelations on Chinese hacking?

It came off as clickbait at a minimum.

By ignoring that the US has — albeit without explosives — done what Israel has done in supply-chain hacking, and nearly a decade ago, it came off as American exceptionist, Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ division post, not just the bankshotting off Zionism, but the attack on China.

In both of that, it came off as trivializing what's happening in Lebanon, and Gaza before that.

They wrote one piece about Gaza since last October.

(They've actually written in the long past a few pieces about Snowden, per Bruce Schneier's piece about NSA hacking. I didn't search too hard as their search window doesn't actually go in strict chronological order on newest to oldest.) 

Back to the matter at hand? The Schneier link was posted within a piece from Tuesday, which went up about the same time as the Martens', which said that none of this is new. And, also not new here in Merikka. Bruce notes that the FBI created a shell company back in 2019. There's Stuxnet, of course.

This is the bottom line:

But now that the line has been crossed, other countries will almost certainly start to consider this sort of tactic as within bounds.

So, are the Martens going to bitch when Russia bobby-traps Ukrainian cellphones? Or, looking retrospectively, what if Dear Leader's CIA had used that, rather than a drone, to off Anwar al-Awliki?

Per their original post, the idea that we can stop this? Doubtful. We get a lot of tech goods from China. And, not just oil, but a lot of other raw materials, like heavy metals, come from Russia and are fungible.

They also raised the issue of gas price gouging in 2022. Problem? Gas prices were actually higher when the emergence from the Great Recession started in 2012. Was there price gouging then? Yes, there was a brief spike in 2022, but for the whole year? Nope. More pricey in 2012.

Again, they're often very good when talking about the banksters. Hit and miss elsewhere. And, yeah, some of their takes on the Russia-Ukraine war left me predisposed to be a bit skeptical about their other non-bankster writing. Speaking of, they decided they had to haul in the Wagner Group along with Bernie Madoff and Jeffrey Epstein about shady people banking at JP Morgan Chase.