49ERS

Seriously, Calee.  Do you want us to throw you out of the Union?

A draft resolution set to be debated this weekend at the California Democratic Party State Convention, obtained by Fox News, accuses the Israeli government of willfully "aligning with the virulent Islamophobia" of white supremacist groups in the U.S. -- and links Israel indirectly to the Oct. 2018 massacre of 11 congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue.

The resolution could prompt a dramatic floor debate at the convention if the party's Resolutions Committee decides to table it, Fox News is told, as prominent national Democrats have wrestled with high-profile allegations of anti-Semitism in their ranks in recent months. Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar and Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, in particular, have faced scrutiny from their own party for comments widely perceived to be anti-Semitic. In March, the House passed a bipartisan resolution condemning various forms of bigotry in response.

A COLLECTION OF CELLS

That's all that's going on here.

Even before the baby girl was born, doctors knew she was going to be small. She was being delivered by emergency Caesarean section after spending only 23 weeks and three days in gestation because her mother was suffering from preeclampsia, a life-threatening condition that can slow a baby’s growth in the womb.

But as Paul Wozniak, a neonatologist at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women & Newborns in San Diego, stood in the delivery room last December looking down at the infant he had just been handed, he was shocked.

 

“I thought, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t believe how small she is,’ ” Wozniak told The Washington Post. The doctors had anticipated the baby would be around 400 grams, or slightly less than 1 pound, but she was even tinier. “We weren’t expecting anyone this small,” he said.

 

Despite her small size and the host of health complications that can potentially be deadly for a “micro-preemie,” or a premature infant born before 28 weeks, Saybie lived. After nearly five months in the neonatal intensive care unit, Saybie’s parents, who wished to remain anonymous, took their “healthy 5-pound infant” home earlier this month, the hospital said.

FLIPPER GOES FULL NAZI

Never go full Nazi.

SAD

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Dumbass - NY) is white supremacist.

AND NOW...IDIOTS

The following steaming pile was uttered about a man with an Orthodox Jewish daughter and son-in-law and who also moved the US embassy in Israel to the city Israel calls its capital.

Former governor of Massachusetts and 2020 Republican presidential candidate Bill Weld said President Trump would prefer a “Aryan nation” during a Q&A at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute.

“I celebrate that America has always been a melting pot. It seems he [Trump] would prefer an Aryan nation. I know that sounds strong and tough but he’s very interested in bloodlines and it has resonance,” Weld said during while reading a prepared description of his platform at the institute’s “Getting to the Point” program on May 21.

NOT SEEING A DOWN SIDE

To be perfectly honest with you, this feels a lot like pre-Civil War Virginia, say, announcing that it was down to its last slave market.

By the end of this week, it will likely be impossible to get a legal abortion in Missouri. The state's last remaining abortion clinic warned that its license to provide abortions expires Friday, and Planned Parenthood says the state is "refusing to renew" it. If indeed Missouri's health department fails to renew the annual license, the clinic will no longer be able to provide abortion services, though it will continue providing other women's health services, CBS News reports. Planned Parenthood is suing for a restraining order in an attempt to prevent the state from blocking abortion services, and a circuit court judge will hear arguments Wednesday.

HORRIBLE ANALOGIES WATCH

NARRATOR: It isn't anything like that at all.

“The demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler,” said the physicist, William Happer, who serves on the National Security Council as the president’s deputy assistant for emerging technologies.

INTERESTING QUESTION

Hmmm.

I think I'd divide mine as follows: one Cardinals, one Blues, one Missouri University football, one Missouri University basketball and one St. Louis University basketball.

RIP

When I was a kid, I didn't have too many professional football heroes.  It was tough to when the Cardinals were your NFL team.  But this guy was one of them.

BLOWBACK

Missouri joins the club.

Add Missouri to the list of states with strict new laws on abortion. Gov. Mike Parson on Friday signed a measure banning the procedure after eight weeks, with no exceptions for rape or incest, reports the Hill. As with laws in other states, including Alabama and Georgia, legal challenges await. Proponents of the law hope those challenges will eventually end up in the Supreme Court and lead to an overturning of Roe v. Wade. The law is "a strong message to the nation that here in Missouri, we will always stand for life, protect women’s health and advocate for the unborn," said Parson.

Will any of these laws stand up?  Doubtful given Supreme Court jurisprudence.  But one could say the same thing about the recent Infanticidalist push in Virginia, New York and Vermont to allow abortions right up to the very moment before the umbilical cord is cut.  And if you propose or pass laws like that, you have no right to be shocked by laws like these.

UPDATE: The Infanticidalists push all-in.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

So getting an abortion should require a background check and a waiting period?

WHAT'S THIS WE STUFF?

Not my problem, Gav.  I live in Missouri.

Gov. Gavin Newsom called growing homelessness in California a national disgrace as he announced Tuesday that he is launching a task force to find solutions amid a housing crisis in the most populous state.

The Democratic governor said the state has lacked a strategy to curb homelessness but argued that answers will come from the local level. He said the group will work with cities and counties to develop regional plans for addressing the issue.

 

Newsom made the announcement in Oakland, where county officials said the number of homeless people rose 43 percent over the last two years. Recent data from other counties has shown large increases, too.

 

Besides, you already know what Calee has to do.

GOOD TIMES

Remember when Democrats and the American news media, if you'll pardon the redundancy, were swooning over the prospect of Mikey Nats running for president against Trump in 2020?

Michael Avenatti’s legal troubles deepened after the embattled lawyer was indicted on charges of fraud and aggravated identity theft for allegedly stealing the advance on a book deal from the porn actress Stormy Daniels, his most famous client, and using the money on personal expenses like a monthly car payment on a Ferrari.

The indictment by a federal grand jury, announced Wednesday by prosecutors in Manhattan, also charges Avenatti with extorting millions of dollars from Nike Inc., an allegation first made in March when the attorney was arrested outside the New York offices of the shoemaker’s law firm.

Avenatti, 48, faces criminal prosecution in two states. In California, he was indicted in March on three dozen charges, including a claim that he stole millions of dollars from a paraplegic client’s settlement with Los Angeles County. In New York, he is accused of lying and forging documents to persuade a literary agent to divert money owed to his client to an account he controlled. Avenatti used the money for personal and business purposes, according to the indictment.

HO. LEE. CRAP.

I don't know if you know anything about the National Hockey League but the rough equivalent of a solar eclipse happened tonight.  For the first time in 49 years, one of the teams in this year's Stanley Cup finals will be the St. Louis Blues.

I'm 63 years old.  I was 12 going on 13 when the Blues got started in 1967.  And we weren't even supposed to get that team; I've read that it was supposed to go to Baltimore.  But whichever Wirtz (the family who owned the Chicago Black Hawks) ran the Hawks at the time offered a deal.

Apparently, the Hawks ran a Central Hockey League farm team in St. Louis called the St. Louis Braves. I loved those guys; first professional sports team I ever listened to religiously on the radio regardless of what my parents thought about it.  Somehow, the Wirtz family also found itself stuck with the St. Louis Arena which was a dump back then. 

So whatever Wirtz this was had a simple proposal for a local named Sid Salomon Jr., a Missouri Democratic Party power broker who supposedly got Harry Truman on the '44 presidential ticket.  Take the St. Louis Arena off my hands and I'll get you into the NHL.

Salomon wasn't at all crazy about the idea but his son, Sid III, was and, I guess, talked his old man into it.  So Salomon bought the Arena, Wirtz returned the favor and the St. Louis Blues were born.  Salomon did what he could to improve the Arena, it wasn't too bad and I spent a lot of my youth there watching hockey, basketball, indoor soccer, Roller Derby, things like that.

But the place, in far too many ways, remained a dump until the day that they blew it up.

In one fell swoop, the NHL went from six teams to twelve.  I guess there was nothing else they could have done but the league kept the six old teams in one division and dumped the six expansion teams into the other one.

For the first three years they existed, my Blues won their division and got into the Stanley Cup finals.  And they didn't win a single game.  Twice against Montreal (Jean Beliveau era), once against Boston (Bobby Orr era).

Four-and-out all three years. 

And my Blues haven't been close to being back ever since. 

Until today.

It's always been touch-and-go for this franchise.  In the 80's, they used to be regularly outdrawn by indoor soccer.  Before that, they came this close to moving to Saskatoon.  They've torn this team down and rebuilt it more times than I can count.  And it was at the end of just last year that the Blues were in such sorry shape that many of us were absolutely convinced that they wouldn't make the playoffs this season at all.

But if my boys actually do end up taking down this pot, figure on at least a week of Web silence from this end because I'll be too continually drunk to get out on the Internet.

UPDATE:  This is how weird this NHL season has been around here.

 

AND NOW...IDIOTS

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (Dumbass-New York) provides yet another choice piece of infanticidalist illogic and stupidity.

Dear Carolyn,

Until men can both have babies and/or ever get an equal say on whether or not those babies live or die, you REALLY might want to dial this one back.

UPDATE: A "Roman Catholic" writer named Matthew Schmitz tweeted the following.

So what exactly is that thing in there, Matty?  A fiddlehead fern?

UPDATE: It was suggested in the comments that maybe Matt was being sarcastic.  If he was, there's a lot of really inept sarcasm going around.

And if US abolitionists had been "reasonable" instead of forcing the South to secede, the US never would have had a civil war and 600,000 American lives would have been spared agonizing deaths.  Granted, this country would have had slavery well into 20th Century but hey, if you want to make a "reasonable" omelette...

Jon, I can't believe you think that's a legitimate argument to make about anything at all.  After all, if people had wings, we could go ahead and do away with the air travel industry. But one more thing, Jon.  When are you going to officially convert to Episcopalianity?  Lord knows, it sounds as though the Episcopal deity would be a much better fit for you.

TWITTER'S A CESSPOOL

Most of the time.

DEAR DEMOCRATS

GERMANY thinks you need to dial back your anti-Semitism.

UPDATE:  Welcome to your future.

49ERS

California threatens to commit seppuku.

A top California environmental regulator is threatening to enact tough, new pollution rules -- including an unprecedented ban on cars burning petroleum-based fuels -- in response to a Trump administration plan to relax vehicle emission standards.

 
California Air Resources Board Chairman Mary Nichols said the state would be forced to pursue “extreme” requirements to offset the uptick in pollution that would be unleashed if federal vehicle emission and fuel economy standards are weakened.

Nichols did not explicitly outline possible changes at Thursday’s event, which was held to discuss the consequences of the Trump proposals and potential California countermeasures. But in remarks prepared for the meeting, she raised the specter of outlawing conventional vehicles with combustion engines, as well as tougher anti-pollution requirements on everything from fuel to the refineries producing it.

UPDATE: Here's hoping, Egypt.

THAT'S EASY

If you ever convict a fetus of first-degree murder, feel free to abort it.

AND NOW...IDIOTS

Freshman congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (Dimwit - MI) was recently quoted as saying:

"There’s always kind of a calming feeling I tell folks when I think of the Holocaust, and the tragedy of the Holocaust, and the fact that it was my ancestors — Palestinians — who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence in many ways, have been wiped out, and some people's passports," Tlaib said just after the 28 minute mark. "And just all of it was in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews, post-the Holocaust, post-the tragedy and the horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time. And I love the fact that it was my ancestors that provided that, right, in many ways. But they did it in a way that took their human dignity away and it was forced on them.”

Setting aside the rhetorical ineptitude of using the terms "calming feeling" and "Holocaust" in the same sentence leaves us with the ahistorical fairy tale of "[Palestinians] trying to create a safe haven for Jews, post-the Holocaust, post-the tragedy and the horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time."

Rash?  Even CNN fact-checked you.

Which, given the post-war history of the place, is pretty close to the stupidest thing anybody's ever written, said or thought about anything.  Of the two men in the following picture, one was considered a leader of the "Palestinian" people.  The other one wasn't.

 

STOP

Just...stop.

Stockholm-based architecture firm Ulf Mejergren Architects (UMA) has proposed a giant swimming pool that spans the whole roof of the Notre-Dame cathedral which was exposed to a devastating fire on April 15, 2019. 

UMA's proposal draws attention more to "publicness" of the cathedral and a giant swimming pool spans the whole structure as "a new meditative space with unmatched views over Paris."
 

REST EASY, BRITAIN

Your tireless and ever-vigilant constabulary is keeping you safe from...tool kits.

THIS JUST IN

It's safe to ignore whatever idiocy comes out of Alexandria OhCrap-She'sTalkingAgain's mouth.  Further updates as they become available.

CLOSE TO THE END

My roller-coaster ride's almost over.  Another one of my childhood icons has gone home.

LYSSIE?

Lots and lots and lots of us have believed and proclaimed this very idea for most of our lives.  So it's great to know that you and Mike Pence are finally on the same page.

UPDATE: Lyssie will walk this back any day now.

UPDATE: Told you.

QUICK QUESTION

Where is your food grown or raised, dumbass?  Have fun starving to death.

HOW TO KNOW WHEN YOU'RE WINNING

When you drive your opponents this bat-crap.

A liberal college student was arrested for assaulting a representative of the pro-life group Created Equal after she attacked him at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill - and it was all caught on camera.

Jillian Ward, 19, a pro-choice feminist and aspiring journalist, said she was triggered by graphic photographs depicting aborted children put up by Created Equal. The group uses the images to show "the gruesome reality of abortion and to engage students in conversation about this human injustice."

 

Ward approached the group's display on April 2, asking them, "Did y’all put these up?”

When Austin Beigel confirmed that he did, she raced toward him with fists flying. Beigel was allegedly punched in the face a number of times and was also hit in the stomach.

“F***ing terrible person,” Ward screamed. “You’re a terrible person. You — this is not okay. This is not okay. This is not okay. Shut the f**k up right now. This is wrong. This is triggering. You’re not an innocent human being. You’re a terrible person.”

UNC campus police arrested Ward and she is expected to make a court appearance in June.

No, not too psychotic.

I don't know what this whack job is eventually going to be charged with.  Ideally, she should be convicted of felonious assault, receive whatever period of probation the court deems appropriate and then spend the rest of her life having to explain her felony conviction to prospective employers or to the general public if she should actually happen to find a journalism job.

CHEAP ENERGY

Back in the day, three or four McDonald's Apple Pies could heat your entire house.

FOWE PAW

Democratic presidential candidate Bob "Fleeing The Scene" O'Rourke writes off Iowa.

Former Texas congressman and 2020 Democratic candidate Beto O'Rourke is facing heat from Iowans, who accused him of not eating a signature local "breakfast pizza" he said he was snacking on while on social media.

 

Casey's General Store, a gas station and convenience store chain in the state, is a favorite among locals for its "breakfast pizza," which has scrambled eggs and is served with cheese sauce or sausage gravy. 

"We're eating some breakfast pizza right now," O'Rourke told his Instagram followers in a video of himself eating pizza on the road.

Barstool Sports' Trent Ryan accused O'Rourke of "pretending" to be eating a slice of breakfast pizza, pointing out how what he was consuming had marinara sauce, which doesn't come on the iconic pie.

"What a fraud. How can we trust anything he says after something like this? Did he seriously think Iowans weren’t going to realize that?" Ryan wrote. "That’s the part that makes me the most mad. He made that video thinking he could sneak a regular a-- piece of pizza by us brainless flyover hicks and we’d just smile and give him our vote for president.

Well think again you Texas f---. We caught it and you just lost Iowa’s vote with that embarrassing pizza charade. Get out of our state and never come back."

Dave Burge has a recommendation for Bob-Bob-Bobbin-Along on how to repair the damage.

For instance Iowa is proud of its corn, so you should always wear a red sweatshirt that says "CORNHUSKERS" at all your Iowa campaign events to let the locals know how much you love their delicious Iowa corn.

Unless you live in the Midwest, you have no conception how great that tweet is.

DAMN, Bobby.  What is the matter with you?  This is exactly the sort of stupid, cultural own goal that Flyover Country REALLY hates.  I mean, if you want St. Louis to vote for you, don't post a photo of you eating an Oscar Mayer hot dog and tell me it's a pork steak.

NOTE TO SELF

Avoid "trendy" food fads.

A Mongolian couple reportedly died after contracting the bubonic plague from the consumption of raw marmot meat and kidney, causing a six-day quarantine in the western Bayan Olgii province of Mongolia that borders China and Russia, according to the BBC.

It is believed that the couple was seeking positive health benefits when they consumed the marmot. Ariuntuya Ochirpurev, a World Health Organization official based out of Mongolia's capital city, Ulaanbaatar, told BBC that some people believe eating marmot is a folk remedy capable of delivering good health.

DAMNED IF YOU DO...

I've got a better idea.  Let's stop being joyless, hypercritical douchenozzles.

COSMO: Knock it off with the daddy pictures.

ME: Okay (runs picture of Meghan holding the baby).

COSMO: Is that all women are to you?  Baby-making machines?

A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE

Never EVER tell me there's no God.

A heart recipient ran into his donor's family completely by chance at an MLB game—and it was all due to a bunch of T-shirts. CBS News reports that Savannah Chavez Roesch and family members went to the St. Louis Cardinals' "Transplant Awareness Day" on April 28, all wearing bright-green shirts with the face of her brother, Donovan Bulger, who was an organ donor. In a Facebook post, Roesch notes she'd exchanged letters with the recipient of her brother's heart, but she explains they weren't allowed to offer any info that identified themselves beyond first names. As Roesch and her family were getting their photo taken at the game, however, a woman approached and asked if they knew Bulger; she'd recognized his face on their shirts. When Roesch confirmed the query, the woman had a confession: She was the daughter of John Sueme, the recipient of Bulger's heart, and he was at the game.

"I think everyone in the ballpark heard our cries & shrieks of complete shock & joy!!!!" Roesch writes. "I think Donovan arranged us to meet this way. What are the chances of this happening?!?" She includes an emotional video in her Facebook post that shows Sueme hugging her family members close so they could hear and feel Bulger's heart beating in his chest. Per ABC News, Sueme had received Bulger's heart in 2016, after a five-year stint in a heart failure clinic. The two families also took group pictures together and exchanged contact information. "It was kind of a magical moment, and I hope we can continue this relationship," Sueme says.

AND NOW...IDIOTS

Top of my head, I'd say that Pennsylvania State Representative Brian Sims represents a cerulean blue district, regularly gets an aircraft carrier full of money from Murder, Inc. or both.

A Pennsylvania state lawmaker is under fire after provoking several confrontations with people protesting a Planned Parenthood facility in Philadelphia, all of which he filmed.

 

In the videos, state Rep. Brian Sims (Dumbass) can be seen criticizing and rebuking various people standing outside the Planned Parenthood clinic who are protesting the facility for providing abortions.

 

In one segment from a video posted last week, Sims offers $100 to anyone who can provide details about the identity of a woman holding a rosary so that he can protest outside her home.

 

“If you know who this woman is and if you can give me her address, we’ll protest out in front of her home,” Sims said in the video. “Let’s go protest out in front of house and tell her what’s right for her body."

 

That's called "doxing," by the way.  That term refers to putting the names and addresses of your political opponents and pictures of their houses out on Twitter or some other social media platform so that leftists know where they live and be able to easily do whatever the left likes to do to such people.  But then dickweed doubles down.

 

In another video uploaded earlier this year from the same facility, Sims walks up to three teenage girls who were there to pray and again asks if someone will identify them.

 

“I’ve got $100 to anyone who will identify these three. I’m going to donate to Planned Parenthood,” the lawmaker said of the girls. 

 

Doxing teenaged girls?  Got to tell you, Jefferson Davis, I don't see that going over well.

UPDATE: This explains this turd quite well.

YOU KNOW WHAT GRINDS RASHIDA TLAIB'S GEARS?

Jews who shoot back.

I'M SORRY, ISRAEL

I just wish that there was something I could do.

REALITY CHECK

Nancy French, "best-selling author," according to the Washington Post and wife of National Review's David French, is horrified that so many so-called Christians are perfectly okay with the fact that Donald J. Trump is the President of the United States.

I was there that day and swallowed hard as the crowd, full of anti-Romney fervor, cheered. Was this what Christians were about? Making theology a political litmus test struck me as terribly misguided, especially since Christians, more and more, find ourselves at the short end of that stick. Yet, when this evangelical crowd had a chance to mock a good man for his beliefs, they relished the opportunity.

My husband and I, members of the Presbyterian Church of America and Republicans at the time, should have been welcomed by the “values” voters. After getting to know Romney and his wife, Ann Romney, when I worked on a book project with her in 2007, we threw our support behind them and suddenly became the target of evangelical ire. One political activist saw me wearing a Romney campaign hat and angrily said, “You obviously don’t love America,” leaving me near tears, since my husband was just days from deploying to Iraq. She would later become a vocal supporter of Donald Trump.

 

Romney won the GOP nomination four years later, but neither he nor Huckabee ever became president. Nearly a decade later, evangelical Republican voters embraced Trump despite his well-documented flaws, sins and lack of repentance. Throughout his career, Romney has stood for strong moral values, sometimes at great personal and political cost, but he has never been Christian enough for some Republicans. Somehow, after everything we’ve seen, President Trump still is.

 

Hubby agrees.

It’s hard to think of a single prominent American Christian who better illustrates the collapsing Evangelical public witness than Franklin Graham, Billy Graham’s son. His commitment to the Christian character of American public officials seems to depend largely on their partisan political identity.

Let’s look at the record. In 1998, at the height of Bill Clinton’s sex scandals, the younger Graham wrote a powerful op-ed in the Wall Street Journal combating Clinton’s assertion that his affair was a “private” matter. Clinton argued that his misdeeds were “between me, the two people I love the most — my wife and our daughter — and our God.” Graham noted that even the most private of sins can have very public, devastating consequences, and he asked a simple question: “If [Clinton] will lie to or mislead his wife and daughter, those with whom he is most intimate, what will prevent him from doing the same to the American public?”

True.  If you can lie before your Creator, you can lie before me easily enough.

But here's the deal.

You need some work done at your house.  So you jump on to some online database or other and you turn up two names, both of whom you know personally.

Contractor Number One is as upstanding a guy as you've ever met.  Married to his first wife and won't even look at another woman.  But then you look at his customer reviews.

One or two three-stars, some two-stars and a WHOLE lot of one-stars.  You read headings like "LOUSY" and "DO NOT PATRONIZE" and "CROOK" over and over.  Again and again, you read about how people are suing him for work not done or done sloppily.

Contractor Number Two is, basically, a piece of garbage.  He's on his third wife but that's going to change soon since he's on his fourth mistress.  Dude will basically sleep with anything or anybody that's not tied down.

But you look at his online reviews.  Five-stars all the way down the line.  Service-wise, nobody has a bad thing to say about him.

Which one are you going to hire, Dave?  Nanner?

Thought so.

Professional Conservatism^TM gave us John McCain in 2008.  Good guy, great guy, noble guy.  Godawful presidential candidate.  Four years later, Professional Conservatism^TM gave us Mitt Romney, another candidate who had no idea how to beat a Democrat. 

Who did you think we were going to select four years after that?  Someone who genuinely wants it, someone who treats my concerns as actually important?

Or Jeb Bush?

Dave?  Nanner?  We weren't picking the Presiding Bishop of the United States.   We were picking this country's First Civil Servant. 

And that was all we were doing.

Grow the damn hell up.

IF IT WALKS LIKE A DUCK...

Explain to me again why the "deep state" is right-wing paranoia.

The conversation at a London bar in September 2016 took a strange turn when the woman sitting across from George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign adviser, asked a direct question: Was the Trump campaign working with Russia?

 

The woman had set up the meeting to discuss foreign policy issues. But she was actually a government investigator posing as a research assistant, according to people familiar with the operation. The F.B.I. sent her to London as part of the counterintelligence inquiry opened that summer to better understand the Trump campaign’s links to Russia.

 

The American government’s affiliation with the woman, who said her name was Azra Turk, is one previously unreported detail of an operation that has become a political flash point in the face of accusations by President Trump and his allies that American law enforcement and intelligence officials spied on his campaign to undermine his electoral chances. Last year, he called it “Spygate.”

 

The decision to use Ms. Turk in the operation aimed at a presidential campaign official shows the level of alarm inside the F.B.I. during a frantic period when the bureau was trying to determine the scope of Russia’s attempts to disrupt the 2016 election, but could also give ammunition to Mr. Trump and his allies for their spying claims.

 

Ms. Turk went to London to help oversee the politically sensitive operation, working alongside a longtime informant, the Cambridge professor Stefan A. Halper. The move was a sign that the bureau wanted in place a trained investigator for a layer of oversight, as well as someone who could gather information for or serve as a credible witness in any potential prosecution that emerged from the case.

 

A spokesman for the F.B.I. declined to comment, as did a lawyer for Mr. Halper, Robert D. Luskin. Last year, Bill Priestap, then the bureau’s top counterintelligence agent who was deeply involved in the Russia inquiry, told Congress during a closed-door hearing that there was no F.B.I. conspiracy against Mr. Trump or his campaign.

 

Put it in the comments.  I'll wait.

UPDATE: Deeper and deeper.

AIRHEAD

It's a good thing Kirsten Gillibrand isn't going to be the Democratic candidate for president in 2020 because this is pretty close to the stupidest idea anyone has ever proposed about anything.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., unveiled a plan on Wednesday to give every voter up to $600 in what she calls "Democracy Dollars" that they can donate to federal candidates for office.

In an exclusive interview with NBC News to discuss the roll out of her first major 2020 policy initiative, Gillibrand said her "Clean Elections Plan" would help reduce the influence of big money in politics. 

 

"If you want to accomplish anything that the American people want us to accomplish — whether it's healthcare as a right, better public schools, better economy — you have to take on the greed and corruption that determine everything in Washington," she said.

Under Gillibrand's plan, every eligible voter could register for vouchers to donate up to $100 in a primary election and $100 in a general election each cycle, either all at once or in $10 increments to one or more candidates over time. Each participant would get a separate $200 pool for House, Senate and presidential contests for a total maximum donation of $600 for those federal offices.

There would be strings attached for both donors and candidates. The money could go only to elections in the donor's state, although they could be used for House candidates outside the voter's district.

Here's the deal, Kirstie.  If you ever gave me $600, it would be a cold day in Hell before I wasted it on any politician and I don't care what their party is.  I've got food to buy and bills to pay, the sort of stuff that people with actual lives deal with every single day.

But hey, you do you.

Moron.

WHY YOU GOT TRUMP

My home state senator continues to impress.

KICKING AND SCREAMING

The New York Times is slowly being dragged into the light.

The Times published an appalling political cartoon in the opinion pages of its international print edition late last week. It portrayed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel as a dog wearing a Star of David on a collar. He was leading President Trump, drawn as a blind man wearing a skullcap.

Or kippah or yarmulke or whatever.

The cartoon was chosen from a syndication service by a production editor who did not recognize its anti-Semitism. Yet however it came to be published, the appearance of such an obviously bigoted cartoon in a mainstream publication is evidence of a profound danger — not only of anti-Semitism but of numbness to its creep, to the insidious way this ancient, enduring prejudice is once again working itself into public view and common conversation.

Anti-Semitism, "this ancient, enduring prejudice," isn't "once again working itself into public view and common conversation."  It's been here for some time and the fact that the Times thought that going full Julius Streicher wouldn't be noticed basically proves it.  Oh, and it's probably better if you stuff the whole "I'm not anti-Semitic, I'm anti-Zionist" crap because nobody's buying it.

This is also a period of rising criticism of Israel, much of it directed at the rightward drift of its own government and some of it even questioning Israel’s very foundation as a Jewish state. We have been and remain stalwart supporters of Israel, and believe that good-faith criticism should work to strengthen it over the long term by helping it stay true to its democratic values. But anti-Zionism can clearly serve as a cover for anti-Semitism — and some criticism of Israel, as the cartoon demonstrated, is couched openly in anti-Semitic terms.

But we are talking about The New York Times so it somehow has to figure out a way to work in some blame for the most pro-Israel president this country has ever had, with an Orthodox Jewish daughter, son-in-law and grandkids, for this rising tide of anti-Semitism.

As anti-Semitism has surged from the internet into the streets, President Trump has done too little to rouse the national conscience against it. Though he condemned the cartoon in The Times, he has failed to speak out against anti-Semitic groups like the white nationalists who marched in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 chanting, “Jews will not replace us.” He has practiced a politics of intolerance for diversity, and attacks on some minority groups threaten the safety of every minority group.

It's not there yet.  But The New York Times is on its way.

In the 1930s and the 1940s, The Times was largely silent as anti-Semitism rose up and bathed the world in blood. That failure still haunts this newspaper. Now, rightly, The Times has declared itself “deeply sorry” for the cartoon and called it “unacceptable.” Apologies are important, but the deeper obligation of The Times is to focus on leading through unblinking journalism and the clear editorial expression of its values. Society in recent years has shown healthy signs of increased sensitivity to other forms of bigotry, yet somehow anti-Semitism can often still be dismissed as a disease gnawing only at the fringes of society. That is a dangerous mistake. As recent events have shown, it is a very mainstream problem.

A good start.  But it still doesn't explain why somebody actually thought that cartoon was acceptable in this day and age or why no one called them on it.

That's your problem, New York Times.