The world on fire

While we wait for the reported spring offensive by Ukraine, Russia says we helped them try to kill Putin. Not a completely fantastic claim, considering US history. But I doubt very much we'd do that in this case.

Russia has accused the US of being behind what it says was a drone attack on the Kremlin intended to kill Vladimir Putin.

[...]

[Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry] Peskov, said Ukraine was merely implementing US plans “dictated” by Washington, but did not provide any evidence to support the allegations.

  Guardian

Not to mention evidence that it wasn't a desperate Russians' move.

Dramatic video footage on Wednesday showed two flying objects approaching the Kremlin and one hitting the rooftop of the Kremlin Senate, an 18th-century mansion within the grounds of the president’s official residence.

Putin was not in the building at the time of the attack, Peskov said on Wednesday.

And while I don't have a guess as to who might be responsible, I can't believe anyone under the US or official Ukraine orders would think such a move could kill Putin, or could do anything but ratchet up the situation.

Throughout the 14-month conflict, the Kremlin has repeatedly asserted, without providing evidence, that the west started the war in Ukraine. Russian officials have also blamed western nations for orchestrating attacks inside Russia.

The Russian ambassador to the UK previously claimed, without providing evidence, that British special forces were involved in a Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow’s Black Sea fleet last October.

[...]

The former Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, said the overnight drone attack on the Kremlin left Moscow with no options but to “eliminate” Zelenskiy and his “clique” in Kyiv.

Making it suspicious at best.

However, there are early signs that the Kremlin is keen to project a sense of normality after the incident. Peskov said on Thursday that Putin would not give a special presidential address in connection with the attack and that the “usual, working” situation was in place. Peskov added that Putin was planning to work from the Kremlin on Thursday.

[...]

Margarita Simonyan, the influential head of RT, said the Kremlin’s somewhat muted response to the incident indicated the drone attack was not a false flag by the Kremlin with the aim to justify further escalation.

I wouldn't bet on it. But hey, maybe it was Ukraine. I find it very odd that they've announced a counteroffensive for spring. Why announce it?

Ukrainian officials have acknowledged that unlike last September’s sudden sweep through much of Kharkiv region, they may lack the element of surprise in any larger counter-offensive.

  CNN

Well, since you've announced it, I'd say that's a good possibility. At any rate, things are a hot mess over there. And we won't even talk about the situation in Sudan.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The biggest loser loses again

A judge dismissed Donald Trump’s $100 million lawsuit against the New York Times and its reporters over an award-winning 2018 expose on his taxes.

New York State Supreme Court Justice Robert Reed threw out the case in a ruling Wednesday that also ordered the former president to pay the news outlet’s attorneys fees and costs.

“Courts have long recognized that reporters are entitled to engage in legal and ordinary newsgathering activities without fear of tort liability — as these actions are at the very corner of protected First Amendment activity,” Reed said in his ruling.

  MSN

UPDATE 09:34 pm: Trump's niece Mary was also a defendant.

She must feel well vindicated.  Check out this passage from the judge's decision:

Because they can't win if they don't cheat

Texas lawmakers advanced a bill this week that would allow the secretary of state, who is handpicked by the governor, to overturn the results of an election in the state’s largest county and order a new one.

The bill targets Harris County, the largest in the state and the third-largest in the U.S., which includes Houston and has a population of around 4.7 million.

  The Hill

A large percentage being black people.

Democrats edged out a closely watched contest for Harris County judge, the highest position in the county, in November. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo (D) defeated Alexandra del Moral Mealer (R) by less than 20,000 votes after the GOP spent heavily to unseat Hidalgo.

Following the elections, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) called for an investigation into the issues in the county.

[...]

Written to apply to counties with a population over 2.7 million — which only applies to Harris County in the state — the bill follows criticism by Republican lawmakers over polling issues in the county in the 2022 midterm elections. It passed the state Senate on Tuesday, and now must be considered in the House.

[...]

It would allow the secretary of state, currently Republican Jane Nelson, to order a new election in the county if 2 percent or more of the polling locations ran out of ballot paper for more than an hour.

What could go wrong?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Another day, another American mass shooting

"Should" doing a lot of work here

Judge Michael Luttig, respected retired conservative judge who testified at Trump's 2nd impeachment.  Should was doing a lot of work there, too.  And didn't prevail.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Teasing out Tucker's firing

A text message sent by Tucker Carlson that set off a panic at the highest levels of Fox on the eve of its billion-dollar defamation trial showed its most popular host sharing his private, inflammatory views about violence and race.

The discovery of the message contributed to a chain of events that ultimately led to Mr. Carlson’s firing.

[...]

A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington. A group of Trump guys surrounded an Antifa kid and started pounding the living shit out of him. It was three against one, at least. Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight. Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it. Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: this isn’t good for me. I’m becoming something I don’t want to be. The Antifa creep is a human being. Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I’m sure I’d hate him personally if I knew him, I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed. If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?

[...]

The text alarmed the Fox board, which saw the message a day before Fox was set to defend itself against Dominion Voting Systems before a jury.

[...]

The day after the discovery, the board told Fox executives it was bringing in an outside law firm to conduct an investigation into Mr. Carlson’s conduct.

  NYT

"How white men fight" - honorably, evidently, in Tucker's mind. 

Anyway, I don't buy that this particular message weighed more than others in his firing. After all, at least in this one, Tucker seems to be coming to a reasoned conclusion about his unbidden feelings of hatred.  And, it's not like they didn't know what he said openly on his show.

A recurring theme of his show during the six years that it ran in prime time on Fox News was the displacement of white Americans by people of color. Mr. Carlson often framed topics in the news as part of a larger struggle between “us” and “them,” with immigrants and other marginalized groups steadily and surely taking from whites what had long been theirs: political and cultural power in the United States.

He attacked Black social justice activists and portrayed immigrants from Central America as a blight on the nation. He said in 2018 that immigrants make the country “dirtier.”

In the aftermath of a mass shooting in El Paso at the hands of a gunman who cited white supremacist beliefs in his manifesto, Mr. Carlson declared on his show that white supremacy was “not a real problem,” likening it to a conspiracy theory.

[...]

In other messages he had referred to women — including a senior Fox executive — in crude and misogynistic terms. The message about the fight also played a role in the company’s decision to settle with Dominion for $787.5 million, the highest known payout in a defamation case.

No doubt. It added to the pile of shit that was about to come out in trial. And Tucker would have had to go on the stand. And lie, I suspect.

The text message added to a growing number of internal issues involving Mr. Carlson that led the company’s leadership to conclude he was more of a problem than an asset and had to go, according to several people with knowledge of the decision.

I suspect they had been weighing the balance for a while.

The contents of the text were disclosed in interviews with several people close to the defamation lawsuit against Fox. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing a message that is protected by a court order. In public filings, it remains hidden behind a block of black text.

[...]

Many of the messages shared in the case, including those among Fox executives and hosts, were released publicly. But others, like the one between Mr. Carlson and one of his producers in the hours after Jan. 6, 2021, remain redacted.

The worst will eventually leak, I expect.

The text message came to the attention of Fox’s board of directors and even some senior executives only last month, on the Sunday before the trial was set to begin.

[...]

The next day, the board told Fox’s leadership about its plan to have the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz investigate Mr. Carlson.

And I expect that is what caused Fox executives to settle the case abruptly.

Fox’s lawyers had produced the text as part of the discovery process and were involved in the redactions. Mr. Carlson had even been asked about it during a deposition, according to several people who have read the unredacted transcripts of his deposition.

It was not guaranteed that the text would have been revealed in open court. Dominion’s lawyers had still not decided whether they would introduce the text in front of the jury. [...] The two sides disagreed on whether the Dominion lawyers could have presented such a redacted message at trial if they had decided to do so, a decision that would have ultimately fallen to the judge.

As I was saying, it wasn't the straw the broke the camel's back. They knew about it for some time.

How Fox’s executives and board handled the case in the months before the trial was scheduled to begin is expected to be at issue in shareholder lawsuits filed against the company in Delaware.

I guess Fox will want to settle that one for sure. 

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Another day, another American mass shooting

Too bad we can't do anything about it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 10:25 am:

Texas realism

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Another failed Trump company and a whistleblower

It's impossible to keep up with all the Trump scandals and scams. This one connects with Trump's attempt to get a Trump Media co-founder to give some of his shares to Melania. (Yeah, I'd already forgotten that one myself.)

Will Wilkerson, 38, a former executive who was vice president of operations for the Trump Media and Technology Group, overseeing the development of Truth Social is now working as a barista trainer at Starbucks in North Carolina in a $16-an-hour job.

He was fired six months ago by Trump after giving 150,000 internal documents, contracts, and emails to the Securities and Exchange Commission and federal and state investigators.

Wilkerson's high-paying job with Trump together with stock options had the potential to make him a millionaire, but he decided to distance himself from the Truth Social platform after he became concerned that investors in the company might be at risk of losing their investments.

[...]

After contacting investigators in New York and Florida he accused the Trump Media and Technology Group of violating securities laws revealing inconsistencies in the company's expenses that could put shareholders at risk.

  MSN

There will be suits and countersuits around that, beginning with Devin Nunes, who is having lawsuit problems of his own.

This month, the company's chief executive, former Republican congressman Devin Nunes, sued Wilkerson for defamation in a court in Florida.

Nunes claims he had been subjected to 'anxiety,' 'insecurity,' 'mental anguish' and 'emotional distress' as a result of Wilkerson's comments.

[...]

Wilkerson has now become a federally-protected whistleblower.

[...]

The Post has described Wilkerson as 'one of the biggest threats to the Trump company's future.'

[...]

'Ultimately, you know, I just want to do what's right.'

Damn rare in Trump world.

He says that he could not stay silent while the company's executives gave what he viewed were misleading information to investors, many of whom are small-time shareholders loyal to the Trump brand.

[...]

Among the emails submitted to investigators is an exchange between Wilkerson and fellow co-founder Andy Litinsky, who was allegedly fired as payback for refusing to hand over some of his shares, worth millions of dollars, to former first lady Melania Trump.

Trump had already been given 90 percent of the company’s shares in exchange for the use of his name and some minor involvement.

[...]

Wilkerson also shed light on inconsistencies in the company's expenses. 'The vast majority of SPACs just don't rack up these kinds of expenses … and the shareholders could be in some danger of getting pursued by the unpaid vendors,' he said.

What? Like in every other fucking fraudulent, disastrous company Trump has run?

The early hype of Trump Media had made it into a financial blockbuster with an initial public offering raising $300 million for Digital World, while a group of private investors pledged another $1 billion.

Investors had sent the stock price of the SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) soaring to a high of $175 on the strength of its proposed merger with Trump Media.

In September 2022, shortly before Wilkerson was fired, Forbes magazine estimated that Trump's stake in Trump Media was his 'single most valuable asset,' worth roughly $730 million.

But the value of the venture has plummeted since then, with each Digital World share now worth about $13.

[...]

If the SEC takes action against Trump's company Wilkerson could make millions of dollars through the agency's whistleblower reward program, but there is no guarantee.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump's rape case (ongoing)

The case is back in court today.  We were expecting Trump to complain about the judge being biased.  And he did.

In an 18-page letter filed early on Monday in Manhattan federal court, lawyer Joe Tacopina accused Kaplan of being biased against Trump, including in the jury’s presence.

[...]

The judge denied the motion for a mistrial before testimony resumed on Monday. He did not explain his decision.

[...]

Trump, who is seeking the presidency again in 2024 and is currently the Republican frontrunner, has not attended the trial.

[...]

The proceedings are expected to last through the week.

  alJazeera

(Here's that article.)

I think Tacopina may have scored a point here:

He'll use that in closing arguments along with the following to claim Carroll is making this all up, or in the alternative, that she suffered no injury from the incident:

Perhaps the jury will believe Trump raped her, but won't think she deserves much in the way of damages.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 05/02/2023: