Ann's Mega Dub

Friday, January 10, 2025

The FBI informant going to prison had dual citizenship

That's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Miss Sassy On A Leash" and let's hope Chump walks JD regularly so that Miss Sassy doesn't piddle on the White House carpet.

This post's corrupt liar? It's a government employee of sorts. Someone who was on the FBI's payroll. Filip Timotija (The Hill) reports:

The former FBI informant who fabricated claims about President Biden and his son Hunter Biden accepting bribes was sentenced Wednesday to six years in prison, according to court documents.

Alexander Smirnov, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, pleaded guilty in mid-December to four counts for falsifying statements, in part, that spearheaded a Republican congressional probe into the Biden family. Apart from lying to the FBI, Smirnov also pleaded guilty to unrelated tax evasion counts for concealing millions in income.

Smirnov told the FBI that the head of Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company, informed him that he paid both Bidens $5 million, a false claim that was significant within the House GOP’s investigation into the Biden family.

The ex-informant admitted to giving “false derogatory information” about the commander in chief and Hunter Biden.

He will get credit for the time he spent in prison since February 2024. That month, he was arrested and charged with making false statements.

So a liar and a dual-citizen. I'm with C.I., we don't need to be doing that. You want to be an American citizen? Wonderful. I'm happy for you and glad to have you in the country. You want to be half a citizen? Oh, hell no. That doesn't mean you can't come here without being a citizen. You can go through the official process, for example.

But if you're trying to become a US citizen and you're retaining your original citizenship? (A) You don't really need to have citizenship in this country. (B) You're not really in any danger.

Harry still has his British citizenship and here's here in this country with no issues via his American-born wife. If he wanted to become an American citizen, he could. But if he did that while trying to retain his British citizenship, I would have a problem.

You don't need multiple citizenship. And I don't need your divided loyalties. Was the Israeli-American doing Netanyahu's business for him? Netanyahu has hated Joe Biden for years. You lied about the president of the United States committing a crime? I don't think you're an American citizen. Seems to me you made your choice to just be an Israeli citizen when you falsely testified about a crime an American committed -- falsely, intentionally.

That should have been part of the sentencing, in fact: You're American citizenship is revoked, you are no longer welcome in this country, you can return to Israel when your sentence is up.

And I don't care whether you were born in the US or not. If you go to court for a felony and you have citizenship in another country or countries as well as this one, part of your punishment should be ending your US citizenship. Someone who is only an American? They are us, we have to keep them. Good or bad. But if you have multiple citizenship and you commit a felony, I say you get expelled from this country.

This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Friday, January 10, 2025. Rudy G doesn't need a sick day from school after all, Donald Chump wants a woman who threatened a doctor's office to become a US ambassador, Elon Musk's father shows off the racism that is the hallmark of the Musk family, Senator *Elizabeth Warren* has serious questions for Chump' IRS nominee and much more.

There's bad weather in parts of the United States, fires here in California and former President Jimmy Carter's memorial was this week so, for a number of reasons, people have been missing work. So it might be considered normal that West Virginia's House Delegate Brandon Steele (Republican) missed his swearing in Wednesday to the state legislature However, Amelia Ferrell Knisely (RAW STORY) explains there was a little more than that going on:

Two days before Christmas, the wife of a West Virginia lawmaker called 911 telling the operator she was concerned about him drunkenly handling assault rifles and screaming at people looking at Christmas lights in their neighborhood.

The report contains statements from Brandon Steele expressing concern about “possible threats regarding trials that he is working,” and concerns from Brianne Steele about her husband’s “paranoid” behavior and alcoholism.

And, kids, that's another reason we don't mix drinking and politics (see yesterday's snapshot). Leslie Rubin (WCHS) reports that, in fact, there were two phone calls to 911:

According to audio recordings sent anonymously to the media and House leaders, there were two separate 911 calls.

The first came from a child who reported someone was breaking into the home before Steele's wife got on the phone and said no one was trying to break in. She told the dispatcher her husband was "extremely drunk" and outside the home with rifles. "He's got the kids so scared and he says there's somebody who keeps driving by the house."

She abruptly hung up when the dispatcher asked if he was under the influence of alcohol, drugs or both.

After calling operators back, she said she had to hang up because her husband had come back inside the house.

The second call lasted more than 20 minutes while she stayed inside a bathroom with their three children waiting for police to arrive.

When the dispatcher asked her if she was safe, she said, "I don't know." She explained Steele was carrying "very dangerous" rifles and had access to many weapons. She could also be heard trying to comfort and calm the children.

Being an attorney and having a degree in criminal justice, you might think the 43-year-old would know better; however, the anti-abortion, coronavirus 'skeptic' (conspiracy nut -- even though he caught corona -- maybe he forgot and thought it was the case of beer in the garage?), anti-worker Republican clearly did not know better and so he took to terrorizing his family. But, hey, swear him in, right? Just another crook or kook in our government.

On the topic of violence and Republicans, Travis Gettys (RAW STORY) reports on the woman Donald Chump wants to be the US Ambassador to Swedene:

The president-elect tapped Christine Jack Toretti, a Pennsylvania-based GOP fundraiser, as the top diplomat to the Scandinavian nation after she was twice rejected by the Senate during Trump's last term as ambassador to Malta, reported Politico.

“Christine is an incredible businesswoman, philanthropist, public servant, and (Republican National) Committeewoman for the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Trump said in a statement posted on Truth Social.

She's a violent person who apparently prone to believing that threatening a doctor's office is a solid anger management tool:

Toretti at the time reportedly was under a restraining order filed against her by her ex-husband's doctor, who she blamed for the end of her marriage to former University of Arizona men's basketball coach Lute Olson.

The doctor alleged that Toretti came to his Tucson, Arizona, office and "behaved in a threatening manner" toward staff members and then came into his office and placed a bullet-riddled target practice sheet on his desk.

Speaking of political crooks, Rudy Giuliani. Ann covers Rudy G at her site (where her focus tends to be the crooks of politics) and has noted Rudy G this week in the following:

As Ann's noted this week, Rudy G continues attempting to evade the court and refuses to pay what he's been sentenced to pay. The new twist has been his claim that he's infirm and can't get on a plane and leave Florida. The judge asked for proof. 'Proof' was presented and the judge was talking travel ban for the 'sickly' Rudy G. Travel ban? B-b-b-but the love of his pathetic life, Donald Chump, is sworn in Monday January 20th!!!!

Faced with missing out on his man, Rudy G has done an about face as his bad tummy ache suddenly disappeared and he could get dressed to go to school after all. David Edwards (RAW STORY) reports, "Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani withdrew a request to appear virtually for an upcoming trial in New York after a judge ruled that he would also not be able travel to President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration." Now Rudy can make the inauguration and, no doubt, sing "Stand By Your Man" to Donald in person.

THE VANGUARD continues to probe and explore what makes people grifters. We'll note two of the videos they did with Mahdi Hasan discussing the grift of MORNING JOE, TYT and Matt Taibi.

On the topic of the grifters of MORNING JOE, Yasmeen Hamadeh (DAILY BEAST) notes:

While discussing how Trump beat Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, guest and NYU professor Scott Galloway told Brzezinski: “We are in the midst of a series of small revolutions to correct income inequality. And the reason we put an insurrectionist and a rapist in office is because, for the first time in our nation’s history, a 30-year-old man or woman isn’t doing as well as his or his or her parents were at 30.”

After their conversation ended, Brzezinski quickly corrected Galloway’s wording.

“I want to make a comment about a word that was used in this interview,” she told viewers. “Donald Trump was tried civilly and was found liable of sexual abuse, not rape. The judge in the case likened his actions to rape, but the liability was officially called ‘sexual abuse.’”

ABC News settled a defamation suit with Trump in December, after anchor George Stephanopoulos inaccurately said the president-elect was found “liable for rape” in E. Jean Carroll’s case against him during an on-air interview with Nancy Mace in March.

It was rape, per the judge. The conviction was sexual assault. There are differences in the wording but the popular understanding of sexual assault is rape. Chump objects to that. And yet . . . Jerry Lambe (LAW AND CRIME) notes:

Donald Trump implored a federal judge in Pennsylvania to toss out the defamation lawsuit filed against him by members of the Central Park Five over comments the president-elect made during last year’s presidential debate, claiming the falsely-accused quintet are portraying his “substantially true” comments out of context.

The 12-page reply motion seeking to have the suit dismissed was filed Wednesday in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and reiterated many of Trump’s previous arguments about the case, mainly, claiming the plaintiffs rely on “misrepresentations of President-elect Trump’s arguments” that could only be defamatory if one were “reviewing the at-issue statements out of context.”

Unlike Chump, the Central Park Five are actually innocent. Chump has been lying about them for years. There is no popular understanding of "innocent" beyond being innocent. So he's bothered when the shapes are filled in on sexual assault but he feels he's free to demonize and lie without any responsibility?

Let's move over to Elon Musk. Nick Lampson (NEWSWEEK) reports:

The United States Air Force, Department of Defense, and other agencies are investigating Elon Musk and SpaceX for allegedly failing to disclose meetings with adversarial foreign leaders as required by federal law.

This is absolutely inexcusable. Musk's SpaceX has handled nearly 80 percent of U.S. government sponsored rocket launches this year, including critical national security missions. Yet Musk has reportedly met with China and Russia's top leaders numerous times; the Wall Street Journal reported that Vladimir Putin explicitly asked Musk to help Xi Jinping, the chairman of China's Central Military Commission, with a political matter. These communications may present a concern for the U.S. because China and Russia are America's top space rivals, and they are working together to challenge America's space dominance.

You know what else they should do? Revoke Musk's security clearance.

You can only ride one horse at a time.

You can only be dedicated to one country.

Elon Musk has citizenship from the country he grew up in and was raised in (and that his father hails from -- South Africa) from the country his mother was born in before she moved to South Africa (Canada) and, despite breaking the rules, managed to purchase US citizenship.

No.

A dual national would be suspicious enough. He has citizenship in three countries. Iraq, when they did their 2005 Constitution, rightly said hell no to that nonsense. You're not supposed to be able, for example, hold office in Iraq if you have dual citizenship.

He's got triple citizenship -- allowing him to flee if he wants -- and so these secret meetings with rivals/enemies/what-have-you are not acceptable.

Again, just on the citizenship issue, I would question his loyalties. But when you add on to that his secret meetings with two other governments -- neither of which is he a citizen of, as far as we know -- you've got a very big problem. He is a security risk. It's insane to pretend otherwise. He does not understand this country and he doesn't care about it enough to renounce his citizenship in two other countries. So we're not first on the list and, therefore, he can't be trusted with national security issues.

Repeating, Elon Musk is not an American. He was born in South Africa which is also his father's native country. Via his mother, he got Canadian citizenship. She moved to South Africa as a child and stayed until apartheid was falling. That's when the family flees. If you don't understand that, you don't understand Elon and his trashy family or the level of racism that he considers 'normal' and 'natural.' His ugly mother was White and tall so she got to be a minor model in South Africa. She's an idiot and is often in the news for her gross stupidity. Now Elon's father has made the news. No surprise, he's expressing racism.

Maira Butt (INDEPENDENT) explains:

Good Morning Britain host Susanna Reid bluntly shut down the father of Elon Musk after he compared far-right leader Tommy Robinson to Nelson Mandela.

Musk, 53, has drawn widespread criticism for his alleged propagation of false claims about grooming gangs on social media, and was blamed for stoking the flames of riots sparked by murders in Southport last year.

[. . .]

Matters escalated when the father of the X/Twitter owner doubled down on his comparison between far-right leader Robinson – whose real name is Stephen Yaxley Lennon – and Nelson Mandela, before shifting to the issue of a Canadian referendum.

Reid called the comparison “utterly bizarre”, quickly shutting down the rant as she interjected: “Right, Errol, thank you very much indeed but I feel that we’re drifting slightly from the core issues for our audience.”

She then addressed viewers as she explained: “I think we slightly drifted away from how democracy works and the legal system in this country as well.”

Elon Musk, who bought his American 'citizenship' (and didn't follow the rules required for American citizenship), has been glorified by idiots in the US forever and a day. And I'm not talking about the MAGA fools that got on board with him more recently. I'm talking about 'progressives' and other idiots. I'm talking about THE SIMPSONS' cartoon. I'm talking about Alyssa Milano.. Last night, Stan noted ("3 actors (only one worth praising") the role FAMILY GUY has played in attempting to turn hate mongers into cuddly friends.

I offended people -- and on this issue and at this site, and I honestly don't care -- when I noted a popular actress who is from South Africa and I noted that I didn't trust her. She's White. She grew up under apartheid. She's never denounced it. As I explained, if you lived in South Africa during apartheid and you were White and did nothing to end apartheid, I don't trust you. Oh, I'm sure you'd smile to my face. And I'm just as sure you'd mock me or rip me apart as soon as I walked out of the room.

Apartheid was a destructive system that destroyed so many lives. And it took decades to end it. It took all of us around the world protesting and calling it out and calling out the filth that labeled Nelson Mandela a 'terrorist.' So, yeah, I am prejudiced against Whites who thrived under apartheid. I feel you owe the world an apology. And if you can't even denounce it today, I assume you miss it.

Everything about Elon goes to his being raised to believe that being White makes him superior to others.

And everything about him -- back when he was 'left' and today when he's moved over to the right -- testifies to someone who is a racist and believes in and supports racism.

And when THE SIMPSONS and others were glorifying him, whispers of NDAs where he was trying to silence victims of his racism were abundant.

So I never understood that.

But here's your chance to catch up if you got left behind due to the 'left' previously praising him. (I should probably say the White 'left.' But I hope that was already understood.)

His father went on TV and it wasn't fifty years ago and it wasn't thirty years ago. It was this week.

This White man was wealthy in South Africa thanks to his skin color and who was not at all troubled by the barriers constructed to prevent Black people from getting ahead or even just surviving.

And now, decades later, apartheid may have crumbled but he still clutches the hate and he goes on TV and calls Nelson Mandela a 'terrorist.'

This is not rare strand, this is the core of the Musk family.

Every time he does or says something, you need to grasp that apartheid is the filter to look through because he was raised in that system, he believes in that system and he's never denounced it.

Instead of addressing this, the corporate press and some on the 'left' turned him into some sort of a folk hero in the '10s and we're suffering today because of it.

If you never get how White the filter the US media looks through is, just grasp that a more diverse media would have been questioning Musk all along, not building him up, but studying to see if he was attempting to duplicate apartheid in his companies and via his companies.

Free speech is not making threats -- though Elon allows it. You can threaten Black people as a whole or an individual on Twitter. You could threaten to shoot up Target over the merchandise and Elon didn't take those down. (When reported to the authorities, some of the 'free speechers' took their Tweets down themselves.)

Free speech is not threatening violence against Black people. But too much of the media -- and the 'left' -- wanted to pretend it was. When you see those photos on Twitter where a White person is trying to hang a Black person, grasp that for Elon Musk this is natural and unoffensive.

Racism doesn't belong on social media. Hatred aimed at whole groups of people does not belong on social media.

Again, this is not a free speech issue. I support free speech. Doctored or AI images that are violent and denigrate Black people are defended by Glenn Greenwald and Jonathan Turley but they don't call out book banning and they don't call out attacks on trans people at public events.

Freedom of speech, for them, just means free to be as racist and ugly as they can be. And if you've seen Jonathan or Glenneth, you know they are deeply, deeply ugly -- on the outside and the inside.

And the corporate media's not going to hold them accountable. NEWSWEEK, yesterday, did celebrity porn for Elon Musk because someone said Elon might be "best hope" for a development. Might be. That's the fawning corporate media always does. Kissing up like crazy. Regular people? They usually have to actually do something to get praise. NEWSWEEK too often mistakes ad copy for journalism.

From the sewer of Musk and Twitter to the sewer of Mark Suckerberg, Molly Sprayregen (LGBTQ NATION) reports:

Erika Hilton, a Black trans member of Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies, has asked the U.N. to investigate Mark Zuckerberg’s revelation that Meta will end fact-checking and allow anti-LGBTQ+ hate speech to go unchecked on its platforms, which include Facebook and Instagram.

“Policy changes by large corporations like Meta continue to put the lives of LGBTQIA+ individuals at risk,” Hilton wrote in a document sent to Nicolas Levrat, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on minority issues, as reported by InfoMoney.

She added that Meta’s new policies “can be considered complicit in the dissemination of practices that violate the rights of groups protected by Brazilian legislation.”

Suckerberg is a lying piece of trash who's about to have hell rain down on him. It's called karma. And he'll deserve every bit of it.

In other news, many are wondering where the Democrats have been of late? Not US House Rep Jasmine Crockett, mind you, but the many, many elected Dems in Congress who seem to have lost their voice in recent weeks. Is it a nasty cold? Ross Rosenfeld (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes:

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed the Laken Riley Act, which would allow Homeland Security to detain and deport undocumented immigrants who have merely been charged—not convicted—of minor, nonviolent crimes. If the bill also prevails in the Senate, where it is expected to advance later this week, Donald Trump would sign it immediately upon taking office—at which point we could see people deported, without due process, simply because a cop alleges that they stole, say, a tube of toothpaste from CVS. It’s also easy to imagine how MAGA-friendly law enforcement and prosecutors could take advantage of such a law, exaggerating or even fabricating charges in the hopes of nabbing an “illegal.”

We’ve seen a similar tone from many other Democrats since Kamala Harris’s loss to Trump—and not just the usual moderates, but also progressive torchbearers like Bernie Sanders. He has been offering to work with Trump to cap credit card fees and raise the minimum wage (good luck with those). He told Business Insider last month that Elon Musk is a “very smart guy” whom he’d like to work with on cutting defense spending. Though he criticized Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s conspiratorial thinking and views on vaccines, Sanders seemed eager to work with him on other health-related issues.

It’s as if Democrats have become accomplices in their perceived fait accompli. Many of them have taken it as a given that defaulting to an oppositional stance is antithetical to democratic principles, and that it is incumbent upon them following an election loss to find compromises with Republicans in order to achieve progress where possible. They’re ignoring, however, the actual dynamics of the situation—namely that, by helping Trump achieve victories, they will only increase his power and influence, and thereby advance Trumpism. This is the Trump paradox.

[. . .]

We might expect such rhetoric from a Democratic congressman in southwest Ohio, but even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, that working-class pugilist from the Bronx, opined to Punchbowl, “The reason why I think oftentimes Democrats occasionally lose elections is because we’re too reflexively anti-Republican, and that we don’t lean into an ambitious vision for working-class Americans strongly enough.” It was the Democrats, mind you, who included $83 billion under Biden’s American Rescue Act to shore up pensions for American workers, including over a million Teamsters who then largely turned their back on Kamala Harris in November. As for her contention that Democrats are too reflexively anti-Republican, well, there’s much to reflexively oppose. Republicans are the party of bigotry, sophistry, and cruelty. And they’re certainly reflexively anti-Democratic (not to mention anti-democratic).

Ocasio-Cortez is not out of line with other New York pols, by the way: As Politico noted on Wednesday, Governor Kathy Hochul and numerous state legislators have backed away from confronting Trump, mistakenly calculating that voters will respect them more if only they cower and kowtow a bit more.

What a difference four years—and an election decided by fewer than two and a half million votes—can make. So long, #Resistance. Hello, #Surrender.

Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:

Long bragged about securing $3 million faulty refund, claimed “everybody qualifies” for credit, encouraged people to question accountants

“Borders on absurdity,” said external auditor about Long’s firm’s interpretation of ERTC eligibility

Podcast with Billy Long detailing his work pushing the ERTC mysteriously removed from online platforms last month

Text of Letter (PDF)

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to Billy Long, President-elect Trump’s nominee for Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner, detailing her concerns with Long’s qualifications and requesting answers to his involvement in potential abuse of the Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC).

“Although you bill yourself as a ‘Certified Business and Tax Adviser,’ this certification appears to only require a three-day training. Indeed, your lack of significant management or tax experience—and your promotion of credits that have been “magnet[s] for fraud”—raise serious questions about your qualifications to lead the IRS,” wrote Senator Warren.

After leaving Congress in 2023, Billy Long worked for Commerce Terrace Consulting and Lifetime Advisers, where he repeatedly pushed businesses to file for the ERTC, a refundable tax credit designed to support struggling businesses able to demonstrate that the COVID-19 pandemic impacted their bottom line and helped keep them afloat. Firms known as “ERTC mills” specialize in exploiting the credit’s eligibility criteria, opening the door for fraud and abuse — resulting in huge delays and harms to honest businesses trying to rightfully claim the credit.

Long himself has a troubling record of appearing to exploit the credit’s eligibility criteria for his clients’ — and his own — profit. Long publicly claimed that “everybody qualifies” for the credit and instructed his social media followers to “DM [him] to save 40% on [their] taxes.” Long bragged that he helped secure a $3.6 million ERTC payout for an organization, only for its chief executive to say that “it had ultimately dropped its claim after receiving advice that it may not qualify for the credit. Long also stated that businesses he’s worked with “have had the best two years of their life” during the pandemic, and urged people to question their accountants — and turn to him to produce an ERTC success story, instead. When Congress was considering shutting the program down due to rampant fraud, Long “traveled to Washington to try to persuade [his] former colleagues in Congress…not to follow through.”

“Your most significant tax experience has been your recent work promoting a fraud-ridden pandemic-era tax credit, which you have incorrectly claimed “everybody qualifies” for,” wrote Senator Warren.

Lifetime Advisors, the lawsuit-ridden firm that Long promoted, has been criticized for taking an “aggressive stance” on ERTC eligibility. Two accredited accountants reportedly left the company “after raising concerns about how the firm prepared taxes.” Meanwhile, Lifetime had a clear financial stake in pushing questionable ERTC claims – with one contract granting Lifetime 20% of a $300,000 ERTC credit in fees from a client. One nonprofit hired Lifetime but was later warned by an external auditor that Lifetime’s “expansive interpretation” of the ERTC eligibility criteria “borders on absurdity” – causing the nonprofit to return its refund to avoid a potential IRS audit (Lifetime refused to refund its fee).

“Given the widespread issues caused by ERTC mills, taxpayers deserve a better understanding of your role in this space,” wrote Senator Warren.

A podcast episode in which Billy Long detailed his work pushing the ERTC and potentially exploiting its eligibility criteria was mysteriously removed from online platforms last month.

“I am also troubled that shortly after the announcement of your nomination, with no explanation, and after press reports of your appearance on it, the podcast cited above was pulled down from multiple podcast platforms, including the Listen Notes website, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, raising questions about whether your full record on tax issues is being obscured in advance of your confirmation hearing,” concluded Senator Warren.

Senator Warren highlighted her concerns with Long's qualifications when his nomination was first announced, saying: “Billy Long’s nomination to lead the I.R.S. is bad news for middle-class taxpayers and a win for ultra-wealthy tax cheats...If he’s confirmed, taxpayers can expect longer wait times for customer service, a more complicated process to file taxes, and free rein for the rich and powerful to continue rigging the system at the expense of everyone else.”

###

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Cult Member? Yes. Sex Slave? No" went up yesterday. The following sites updated:

Thursday, January 9, 2025

Grifter Giuliani

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Cult Member? Yes. Sex Slave? No" went up today.

Grifter Rudy Giuliani continues to have bad days and remains in the news because he continues attempting to evade justice. Apparently, the judge is now skeptical of Rudy G's new medical claims. Sarah K. Burris (Raw Story) reports:

A legal analyst said the judge presiding over Rudy Giuliani's defamation case just called the Trump ally's bluff.

Lisa Rubin noticed an update from Judge Beryl Howell, who is presiding over Giuliani's case in Washington D.C.

Giuliani was due in federal court on Friday to face another contempt motion involving Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the women he falsely claimed stole the Georgia election for President Joe Biden.

Now, Giuliani has filed a notice that he wants to appear virtually because he's ill.

[. . .]

Rubin said Judge Howell is calling Giuliani's bluff, asking that he sign, "under penalty of perjury," a "sworn declaration ... that, except for travel required for court proceedings, he has been unable to travel and has not traveled from his residence in Florida for the past 30 days."

And the judge was right to be skeptical about Rudy G's supposed bad condition he's currently in. Khaleda Rahman (NEWSWEEK) reports:

Howell considered the request, and issued a minute order that requires Giuliani to file a sworn declaration "under penalty of perjury" saying that "he has been unable to travel and has not traveled from his residence in Florida" for the past 30 days in order to be excused from in-person attendance at the hearing.

Howell's order also said Giuliani must swear that "he remains unable to and will not travel in the next 30 days (i.e., the period from December 9, 2024, to February 7, 2025), due to these same medical conditions and security concerns."

However, Giuliani was among the attendees at an event held at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort over the weekend.

He later posted an image of himself greeting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on his Instagram account, writing in a caption: "I was honored to welcome Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to Mar-a-Lago this weekend. Prime Minister Meloni is a fantastic leader and will serve as a strong ally and friend to President Donald Trump and the American people."

Furthermore, the declaration would require Giuliani to agree not to attend Trump's inauguration in Washington, D.C., on January 20.

Faking fake ass. Looks like the judge has the rat cornered.

This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, January 9, 2025. Donald Chump can't stop disgusting all of the US allies, Cenk has been masturbating the dead ghost of centrist David Broder and sadly some are picking up the same talking points, Senator Patty Murray remembers January 6,. 2021, and much more.

Nicholas Slayton (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes:

When Joe Biden leaves office on January 20, he’ll retire from public life having notched one unequivocal foreign policy victory. Shortly after becoming president, Biden drastically scaled down America’s global drone war. For years, drone aircraft operated by both the U.S. armed forces and the CIA have carried out targeted strikes all across the constantly shifting “global war on terror” theater. Biden’s policy was a sharp reversal from his predecessor, who expanded the drone war to its highest level, all while covering up details on the number of strikes and how many people were killed. And it’s all but guaranteed that Biden’s biggest foreign policy success will be quickly undone when Trump regains power.

The fault lies with Congress. Washington lawmakers have shown little urgency in repealing the underlying laws and authorizations that have enabled and expanded the “war on terror.” Now they’re soon to be used by Trump, who has promised “retribution” at home and the continuation of unilateral military action abroad, with little to no transparency. Trump will take office fully aware of the challenges he faces and the leeway that inattentive Capitol Hill lawmakers—content to either bask in the “success” of our foreign policy or, more often, serve as courtier-critics amid its failures—have granted the executive branch. Trump is stacking his Cabinet with the kind of true believers who will take advantage of the lack of legislative pushback and who will be more radical than those who served in his first term.

Despite the high stakes of war powers potentially reverting to MAGA’s hands, and Biden’s effort to scale back some of the wretched excesses of the “war on terror” era, Democrats spent the last four years doing little to rescind the power that the executive branch accrued since 9/11. Instead, they dutifully upheld a broken status quo in which two decades of American policy treated the post-9/11 security state’s legal structure as sacrosanct. They will come to regret their passivity.

I know this question will confuse anti-social people like Marjorie Taylor Greene who never grew up with friends but we need to ask it: What happens in the next four years if the US needs friends?

Our southern neighbor is Mexico. We've had good relations with Mexico for decades so we know they'll help us if -- Oh. Wait. Maya Averbuch (BLOOMBERG NEWS) reports:

Mexico’s president responded in kind to Donald Trump’s latest jibes, suggesting part of the US be renamed instead of the Gulf of Mexico.

A day after the incoming US president said the body of water between his country, Mexico and the Caribbean should be called the “Gulf of America,” Claudia Sheinbaum presented early maps of the Americas at her daily press briefing.

The Gulf of Mexico’s name has held since the early 17th century and is recognized by the United Nations, she said. Sheinbaum also joked that states including California and Texas could revert to their former name, “America Mexicana.”

“It sounds good, doesn’t it?” Sheinbaum quipped to reporters Wednesday in Mexico City.

Trump escalated the feud with his southern neighbor at a press conference Tuesday at his Mar-a-Lago resort. In addition to saying he would rename the gulf, he claimed Mexico was “run by the cartels,” argued it cannot continue to serve as a transit point for millions of undocumented migrants heading to the US, and reiterated his threat to impose 25% tariffs on Mexican goods.

Oh.

Okay.

Well don't lose hope. We've got a northern border as well.

Canada. We can count on Canada. Since 1815, when The War of 1812 ended, we've had solid relations with Canada. So we can surely count on them if we --

Huh?

Oh. Zachary Folk (DAILY BEAST) reports:

A prominent Canadian politician shot back at U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s suggestion that the two countries should merge by suggesting that his nation could purchase two American border states instead.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, the leader of Canada’s most populous province since 2018, joked on Monday that Canada could instead purchase Alaska and Minnesota as a counteroffer.

“I know under my watch, in Ontario, we would never be for that at all,” Ford said of Trump’s threats to acquire its northern neighbor on Canada’s CTV News. “We have the greatest country in the world. We have the greatest province anywhere.”

Uh. Okay. Well, fences make good neighbors, right? Don't they say that? Not sure how fences can help us out in an attack or how they can help us in a disaster. Maybe Europe?

At least we have good relations with Europe, right? Oh, wait, Chump's roll dog Elon Musk keeps trying to butt into the UK elections and keeps attacking the prime minister. Based on solid evidence though, right? No based upon some British strand of QAnon. Joe Miller, Hannah Murphy, Lucy Fisher, Peter Andringa, Sam Joiner and Anna Gross (FINANCIAL TIMES OF LONDON) note:

Elon Musk’s recent obsession with UK politics is being fuelled by a series of popular accounts on his social media platform X, which the billionaire appears to be turning to for information on the grooming gangs scandal and Sir Keir Starmer’s track record as a prosecutor.

An analysis of the entrepreneur’s feed by the Financial Times found that Musk — whose attacks on the British prime minister and senior politicians have become more scathing over the past week — has amplified or responded to a handful of X accounts that have posted extensively about the handling of historic sex crimes in the country.

They include Viségrad 24 — an account with more than 1.2mn followers run by British-born South African-Pole Stefan Tompson — social media personality Mario Nawfal, and Malaysian influencer Ian Miles Cheong, alongside several less popular right-leaning accounts purportedly based in the UK.

O.K. So Mexico's out, Canada's out, the UK's out. Alright. Well we've got France. We've got our friends France and Germany and we can always count on them. So that's good, that's --

Alex Therrien (BBC NEWS) reports:

Germany and France have warned Donald Trump against threatening Greenland, after the US president-elect refused to rule out using military force to seize Denmark's autonomous territory.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said "the principle of the inviolability of borders applies to every country... no matter whether it's a very small one or a very powerful one".

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said "there is obviously no question that the European Union would let other nations of the world attack its sovereign borders".

So rule out Germany, France, Greenland, the UK, Canada and Mexico. Well . . . okay. It's a big world.

But our friendships in it are shrinking thanks to Chump. Nik Popli (TIME) reports:

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday declined to rule out using the U.S. military to acquire Greenland or the Panama Canal, ideas he has repeatedly floated since winning the election.

[. . .]

Panama’s president has said that the Panama Canal is also not for sale. Trump has suggested that he might seek to regain control of the waterway, which was handed over to Panama in 1999 under a treaty brokered by then-President Jimmy Carter, who passed away Dec. 29. Trump has long criticized the agreement, claiming that Panama has “overcharged” the U.S. for access to the canal and that the country’s control of such a critical global chokepoint is harmful to American interests.

Wait!!! Down under. Australia. Australia's always there for the US -- like a tag along. Look at the Iraq War. So there's Australia that we can -- Oops. Writing for Australia's non-partisan think tank Lowey Institute, Michael Fullilove noted ahead of the US presidential election, "There is no evidence that Donald Trump’s beliefs have altered over the past four years. Indeed, Trump 2.0 may be less restrained than Trump 1.0. If he returns to the White House in January, US allies should neither turn away from Trump nor hug him too tight. Rather, Australia should engage a second Trump administration pragmatically, build up its own national capabilities, and work with like-minded nations to reinforce the liberal international order that Trump disparages."

Putin! Trump has a long standing relationship with Putin that goes back and Russia will stand with us and -- Woops. Right after the election, Russian state-TV began mocking Chump by airing nude photos of the First Lady-elect.

Okay, well, Putin's not the only War Criminal in the world, right? Last April, the US State Dept published their latest Country Reports on Human Rights Practices and there is North Korea. Kim Jong Un.

Now there's a man that no one in the world can trust. But. But. But Chump does get along with him.

Oops. Chump's no longer first in line! He's a lady in waiting and among those ahead of him? Vladimir Putin. Daniel R. DePetris (LOS ANGELES TIMES) notes:

Despite three Trump-Kim meetings, face-to-face diplomacy failed to produce anything over the long-term. While Trump managed to get North Korea to suspend missile tests for a year — no small accomplishment given its past activity — the flashy summitry ultimately crashed and burned. In the end, Trump and Kim, their personal chemistry notwithstanding, were unable to come to terms — Trump, pushed by his hawkish advisors, advocated for North Korea’s complete denuclearization; Kim, meanwhile, was only willing to demobilize his main plutonium research facility at Yongbyon.

[. . .]

First, Kim hasn’t forgotten his previous meetings with Trump. He sees the summitry of 2018 and 2019 as a waste of time at best and a personal humiliation at worst. This shouldn’t be a surprise; the North Korean dictator staked significant capital on negotiating an agreement to lift U.S. sanctions and to normalize Pyongyang-U.S. relations. His entreaties failed on both accounts. Three summits later, U.S. sanctions remained intact and U.S.-North Korea relations remained in their usual acrimony.

Chump's become a leper on the world stage.

Maybe Bette Midler can remind him that . . . you've got to have friends . . .

. . .

Philip Elliott (TIME) points out, "Only on the globe of Trump’s imagination does this Godzilla-esque trampling of sovereignty make any rational sense. It’s like the incoming Leader of the Free World is treating the map like a real-life Monopoly board to be dominated. Trump’s boasts may be as reliable as play money, but that does not mean the world beyond his gilded Florida club can treat his pronouncements as musings meant to be ignored."

Here's Tabitha with more on Chump's attacks on our allies.

Ben Meiselas has a strong commentary on Canada's response to Chump's endless attacks and threats

Now let's move over to THE VANGUARD>

Overall some strong points but there are a few areas of needed improvement.

Have a beer with whomever?

Zac and Gavin are too young to get it. They didn't vote in 2000. They don't realize how old and moldy Cenk's stupid 'advice' and slogan (passed off as a plan) actually is.

A friend born in 1963 loves to yell "Corn on the Boomers!" (I think it's building on something in one of those CHILDREN OF THE CORN movies.) He's upset because he is a Boomer. But he doesn't consider himself one. And for decades has been calling the Baby Boom generation out for various misdeeds he feels that they have committed.

But let's all yell with him right now, "CORN ON THE BOOMERS!"

Please, Zac and Gavin, stop the nonsense of have a beer with someone.

There are logical reasons for stopping it but the most needed reason is that's what the airhead chattering class that sold out in 2000 would say on TV over and over. That really took hold -- have a beer with -- when Al Gore was running against Bully Boy Bush and centrists columnists at NYT and THE WASHINGTON POST -- especially in their TV appearances, would insist that you vote by who you'd like to have a beer with. Often followed by an attack on Al Gore because he would talk your ear off about this or that and Bully Boy Bush would just be the perfect get-drunk companion.

Cenk's 'plan' was not developed by him. It's 'conventional wisdom' -- decades old -- that was never accurate but did allow the press corps to spend time on that nonsense when supposedly covering the 2000 presidential race instead of dealing with actual issues.

Second.

Do you want to spit on your female listeners?

Because that segment also does that.

Do women not exist in the world of that video?

Oh, one did. She fed the homeless and good for her.

However, it was talk to your dad, talk your nephew, talk to --- And it was all men.

Women aren't political? They can't talk to MAGAs? And women aren't a part of MAGA? On both sides of that supposedly desired conversation, women exist. But all the examples are males and it's not once in the video, it's over and over.

Third, I would never tell anyone to have a beer with someone for a huge variety of reasons. But I especially would never tell someone to go have a beer with someone whose side carried out an insurrection. I would never put anyone in that situation.

That's not safe. I don't care if it's 'family' or not -- and news stories make it clear about the violence MAGAs have exhibited towards their families and there is the insurrection about to be released whose son in Texas has been in the news about how he fears for his own life now that his father is getting out of prison.

I would never say, "Go get intoxicated with someone so delusional that they will verbally defend an attack on democracy."

That's a recipe for disaster.

But the main thing for me again goes to Cenk is an old man and his old -- failed -- ideas are being seen as something he came up with (he didn't) and that he just came up with when, in fact, over two decades ago this sloganeering was being utilized to sell a move to the right.

That's all it was about then.

And, again, they didn't live through it -- Zac and Gavin -- but by taking Cenk's nonsense as serious and worthy of consideration, they are taking the roots of that nonsense on as well -- the whole 'we can all get along' which has consistently meant, 'As mature leftists we have to understand and reach out to the right and we have to compromise our core beliefs.'

Zac and Gavin clearly do not believe in selling out your core beliefs.

But they've accepted the decades old nonsense and it's not advancing anything. It's only making me take time to explain that it's nonsense and why it's nonsense.

In the meantime, people who don't know better are like, "Yeah, let's have a beer!"

For those of us who lived through the nonsense in real time, we are fully aware that nothing David Broder and his ilk did helped the country in any way, shape or form. Their gas baggery led to Bully Boy Bush in the White House which led to attacks on Muslims in this country and around the world, which led to the Iraq War, which led . . .

So many of us see through Cenk right away when he starts talking that garbage.

Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:

ICYMI: Senator Murray recounts her experience locking down inside the Capitol on January 6^th, 2021

ICYMI: Senator Murray Calls Out Tucker Carlson and Fox News for Spreading Lies About 2020 Election and January 6th Insurrection

Murray: “As we will certify today—Donald Trump has been re-elected President. It’s already painfully clear he hopes he can paper over the dark chapter he wrote in our nation’s history. But no action he takes can erase the past, unless we let it—and as long as I can stand, as long as I can speak, as long as I am here, I will not let him, or anyone, rewrite the history of the January 6th Insurrection, or erase the important lessons we must learn from it.”

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), released the following statement on the anniversary of the January 6^th Insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

“Today, we will certify the results of the last election, a process we must never take for granted. We saw four years ago, just how fragile democracy can be. We saw our nation pushed to the edge of tyranny when a leader who didn’t get his way attacked the very foundations of our democracy by inflaming tensions with falsehoods, and cheering those who would use violence to overthrow the will of the American people.

“It was a dark day. One that must always be remembered clearly. Yet partisan voices have tried—and are trying still—to rewrite history that played out in broad daylight. We all have a responsibility to call such efforts out, and to drown out the falsehoods with the truth of that day.

“I was here, in the Capitol—even after most members were evacuated, I was locked down in my office. I heard the insurrectionists storming the building, shouting ‘kill the infidels,’ and banging on my door trying to get in.

“And I am not the only one with a firsthand account, many of our Capitol police have shared their stories of that day. We had officers seriously injured keeping us safe—insurrectionists beat and attacked them. Officers suffered cracked ribs and severe brain injuries. One officer lost an eye. Officers injured in the line of duty died in the aftermath, including those who took their own lives. They sacrificed to keep us safe—we cannot forget that. And it is shameful House Republicans have yet to put up the plaque to honor the brave officers who kept us safe.
“What’s more, the history of January 6^th, 2021 is not just recorded in our memories—there is footage we can show every time Trump and Republicans try to deny it. Anyone who doubts, or questions what happened, need simply watch as rioters and insurrectionists charge past gates, barricades, blaring alarms, and police lines. We can all see them climbing through windows they smashed in, going where it was abundantly clear they should not, and fighting the Capitol police.

“We have the footage, photos, and police reports that show the crimes and violence committed. Insurrectionists brought gas masks, pepper spray, bats, knives, tasers, zip ties—and more. They beat officers with the American flag. They stole documents and laptops. They smeared feces inside the building and built a gallows out front.

“And all the while, Donald Trump, the man who spread the lies that inflamed the crowd, sat by—even as they called to kill his own Vice President. The violence delayed the certification for several dark hours, but in the end, insurrection failed and democracy won.

“For me, the lesson of that day is clear. Democracy—the idea that we are a country where we can debate and have our voices peacefully heard through free and fair elections—is the core principle of America. But democracy doesn’t just happen—we have to work for it. Our democracy is only as strong as our commitment to it. If we want to stay a country where our voices and our votes—not brute force—determine our future, then we have to defend the right to vote and our democratic institutions.

“As we will certify today—Donald Trump has been re-elected President. It’s already painfully clear he hopes he can paper over the dark chapter he wrote in our nation’s history. But no action he takes can erase the past, unless we let it—and as long as I can stand, as long as I can speak, as long as I am here, I will not let him, or anyone, rewrite the history of the January 6th Insurrection, or erase the important lessons we must learn from it.”

###

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Ugly Rudy G" went up last night. He's got two more ready to go. If he wants them both up today, we'll do that. Otherwise, it will be one tonight and one tomorrow night. The following sites updated: