(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Give Them Rakes, Lots and Lots of Rakes - GNR for Bluesday, April 18th [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-18 In an ideal world, a conservative would be a person advising caution; one who shares the goals of bettering the lives of all of us, but is hesitant to spend our resources quickly. We’d negotiate and compromise, working together to solve problems and make the world a better place for everyone. That’s not what we have — our conservatives are protectors of privilege and entitlement. They use bigotry and hate to Balkanize our populace. Their goals are illegitimate; their methods criminal; their leaders despicable. If you are anything like me, you are uncomfortable and outraged at all the attempts to normalize abominable behavior by rightwing political actors. It’s as if the entire membership of the republican party is competing to be named America’s Shittiest Person. If they aren’t busy committing crimes or acts of cruelty, they’ve gone all-in defending some of their fellow sociopaths who happened to get caught. What’s more, they aren’t even attempting to hide the vilest of their beliefs. They’ve graduated from brazen dog-whistling to outright racist/bigoted/homophobic/misogynistic/anti-Semitic/anti-Islamic/undemocratic/treasonous activities. They’ve moved from deplorable on through despicable and all they way to repulsive. Their public proclamations make a mockery of their claimed support of Christianity, Democracy, and justice. They have branded themselves as a brutal obscenity, abdicating any pretense to having socially redeeming traits. Braindead or brainwashed — those are the only two tiny bits of fig leaf mulch left as cover for historical republican voters to cower behind. The rest have happily embraced the Dark Side and sold their souls for access to the failing power of the most corrupt and debased political party in our nation’s history1. We have two choices before us. We can sit back and watch them self-destruct in an orgy of whiny and unattractive victimhood coupled with sick performative cruelty. Or, we can actively help shove them along their path to oblivion. The latter choice, while costing us more effort, has the benefit of mitigating some of the damage they’ll try to do as they circle the drain. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of watching republicans step on rakes. The clanging sound when they smack themselves in the face with the handle is music to my ears. The frequency of missteps appears to be increasing. We start with them doubling down on being flat out wrong on so many issues (when they can be pried away from nonsensical distractions about candy, toys, or laptops) — race, religion, gender, climate, economy, Ukraine, equality, guns, crime, etc. Every public statement is stupider than the last. They march in locked goosestep to support their criminals, fraudsters, molesters, and liars. And they keep stepping on rake after rake. So, I have a modest proposal, let’s give them more rakes. Lots and lots of rakes. Make them take public positions about the stuff they do behind closed doors (stealth law signings), the bills they pass (discriminatory laws), the bills they don’t pass (debt ceiling), the crooks they embrace (Clarence Thomas, tfg), the books they ban, the climate they ignore, the guns they fetishize, the voters they disenfranchise, the greed they enable, and any other old thing they are underwater on. When they don’t answer, ask why they won’t answer. Be relentless. When they try to deflect or distract, ask why they won’t answer. Be relentless. When they deny the facts, ask why they are denying the facts and won’t answer. Be relentless. When they lie to our faces, ask why they are lying to us and won’t answer. Be relentless. When they start jumping up and down and calling us names, ask them why they are getting so upset and won’t answer. Be relentless. Salt the fields with rakes for them to step upon. They excel at stepping on them. We have the power. We have the ability. We can and we will do this. Slava Ukraini! Remember the Children Screw you, Samuel Alito 1It’s not hyperbole. The statement is based on the current criminal indictment and conviction count against party members and supporters. Last night Stephen started out with some gentle ribbing for President Biden, and then tore Fox, Uncle Thomas, and Kristi Noem new ones. x YouTube Video There’s more video out there to enjoy: Stephen Colbert interviews Melania [6:45] Jim Jordan Fights Crime in New York [1:43] Over on the Daily Show, Jordan Klepper Recaps The NRA Convention & Clarence Thomas's Corruption Scandal [10:26] Jimmy Kimmel covered Trump’s Stupid Idea to Arm Teachers, Fox News in Hot Water Over Election Fraud Claims & War on Woke [13:40] SNL’s Weekend Update: Trump Claims Police Cried at His Arrest, Biden Downplays Pentagon Documents Leak [4:07] Of course, news continues to arrive on a mostly daily basis. As Fox News Prepares to Take it on the Chin Yesterday we were supposed to see the opening arguments in the Dominion lawsuit against Fox. On Sunday Judge Davis pushed the start of the trial back by one day. That led to an explosion of speculation. The list of reasons for the delay is extensive: they are settling, they are being sanctioned, a summary judgement is in the works, someone is sick, President Zelenskyy is unavailable to address the court until Tuesday, Hunter Biden’s laptop has filed to quash its subpoena, and the Jewish Space Lasers have taken over the court house, to name a few. Judge Davis gave no reason for the change. The only pundits claiming real sources are the ones who said God came to them in a dream. After going down an internet search rabbit hole, this is all I’ve been able to find of Judge Davis’s actual statement about the delay that’s been directly quoted.: “This is not a press conference, I don’t do that … what I’m telling you is I made the decision to delay the start of the trial until tomorrow,” “it’s a six-week trial. Things happen… this is not unusual… This does not seem unusual to me.” [Curmudgeon’s Soapbox] Everything else being reported about the delay is speculation. The need for the media to fill up our screens and airwaves with endless empty nattering is depressing. The time wasted could be better spent listing the actual crimes committed by tfg, Clarence Thomas, Gym Jordan, and the rest of the Treason Caucus so we don’t forget any of them. Or if it important for Fox and Murdoch to be the focus, listing the lies they told so they don’t get overlooked. The bottom line on the Fox situation is they told malicious and damaging lies. They will have to own it one way or another. Update: As of 7AM Eastern, the trial is still set to convene in 2 hours at 9AM. Popcorn and champagne for everyone! What Happens Next? Rupert Murdoch is old. He’s not in the best of health. He’s not going to live forever. Vanity Fair’s May cover story dives into that upcoming and much anticipated drama. If there’s anything left after Dominion, Smartmatic, various shareholders, and other litigants eviscerate the Lie Machine, once Rupert croaks, there’ll be even more bloodshed to cheer. Vanity Fair: Gabriel Sherman: Inside Rupert Murdoch’s Succession Drama Although he is a nonagenarian intent on living forever, Murdoch has been consumed with the question of his succession. He long wanted one of his three children from his second wife, Anna—Elisabeth, 54, Lachlan, 51, and James, 50—to take over the company one day. Murdoch believed a Darwinian struggle would produce the most capable heir. “He pitted his kids against each other their entire lives. It’s sad,” a person close to the family said. Elisabeth was by many accounts the sharpest, but she is a woman, and Murdoch subscribed to old-fashioned primogeniture. She quit the family business in 2000 and launched her own phenomenally successful television production company. Lachlan shared Murdoch’s right-wing politics and atavistic love for newsprint and their homeland, Australia. “Lachlan was the golden child,” the person close to the family said. But Murdoch worried that his easygoing son, who seemed happiest rock climbing, did not want the top job badly enough. In 2005, Lachlan, then News Corp’s deputy chief operating officer, quit and moved back to Sydney after clashing with Fox News chief Roger Ailes and chief operating officer Peter Chernin. That left James as the heir apparent. For the next decade, James climbed the ranks, vowing to make the Murdoch empire carbon-neutral and investing in prestige media brands like Hulu and the National Geographic Channel. But James’s liberal politics and desire to make News Corp respected in elite circles rankled Murdoch, who continued to woo Lachlan with Ahab-like determination. In 2015, the older son agreed to return from Australia as his father’s heir. “It was a big slap in the face,” a person close to James said. Ascending to the throne and holding on to it are different propositions. Lachlan’s future will be decided by his siblings, all of whom sit on the board of the trust that controls the company through a special class of stock. According to sources briefed on the trust’s governance, Murdoch has four votes while Elisabeth, Lachlan, James, and Prudence, Murdoch’s daughter from his first marriage, each have one. Murdoch’s daughters Chloe and Grace from his third marriage, to Wendi Deng, have a financial stake but no voting rights. After Murdoch’s death, his votes will be distributed equally among the four eldest children, the source said. “The question is, when Rupert dies, how are the kids aligned?” said a former News Corp executive. The central fault line remains the rift between James and Lachlan. According to sources, the brothers no longer speak. James is horrified by Fox News and tells people the network’s embrace of climate denialism, white nationalism, and stolen election conspiracies is a menace to American democracy. But to overthrow Lachlan and get control of Fox, James needs Elisabeth and Prudence to back him—and that is hardly assured. “James is a lone wolf,” the former News Corp executive said. Politically, Elisabeth is liberal, but she has remained close with Rupert and Lachlan; she sat in a box with the pair at the Super Bowl. A person close to Elisabeth says she wants to enjoy the time she has left with her father. “She’s terrified of Rupert dying mad at her,” the source said. Prudence, who has stayed out of the family business, “is a wild card,” the former News Corp executive said. A Limit May Have Been Discovered A republican governor calling for other republicans to resign. Be still my beating heart. After watching republicans defend frauds, thieves, liars, cheats, abusers, pedophiles, traitors, and other assorted fellow republicans, I didn’t think there was any such thing as a line too far. I was wrong. At least one sitting republican politician is against murder for hire. It’s like a breath teeny tiny trace of fresh air. Huffington Post: David Moye: Recording Captures Oklahoma Officials Discussing Hiring Hit Men To Kill Reporters Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) has asked a group of politicians in McCurtain County to resign after a disturbing recording came to light of officials discussing plans to hire a hitman to kill and bury two newspaper reporters. The recording of a county commissioners meeting on March 6 also has one official lamenting that Black people can no longer be lynched and making barbecue jokes about a woman who recently died in a fire, according to regional outlet Heartland Signal. “I am both appalled and disheartened to hear of the horrid comments made by officials in McCurtain County,” Stitt said in a statement. “There is simply no place for such hateful rhetoric in the state of Oklahoma, especially by those that serve to represent the community through their respective office. I will not stand idly by while this takes place.” The Tennessee Goosestep How-de-do I think the Tennessee GOP were jealous of the Floriduh and Texas versions, so they decided to go full Monty with the racism and stupidity. Predictably this has led to a great deal of self-inflicted mutilation of republican thought processes in their state. Yes, that’s correct. It’s been scientifically demonstrated that Tennessee republicans have no actual brains and do all their thinking with their dangly appendages. Wonkette: Gary Legum: Tennessee Republicans Are Racist, Corrupt Dicks Both Publicly And Privately, How Shocking What is going on with Republicans in the state of Tennessee? (State motto: That State That Looks A Bit Like One Of Those Shapes You Learned About In Math Class.) The GOP caucus in the state House has found so many ways to step on their own dicks lately that we can safely assume they will all pee sitting down for the rest of their lives. If we’re picking the most prolific dick-stepper, we’re going with Tennessee Speaker Cameron Sexton, the Republican representative from Crossville. Or is he? Popular Information’s intrepid Judd Legum (full disclosure: yes, we’re very distant cousins, we think, but we have never met; believe it or not, Legums are innumerate in a couple of very specific sections of the mid-Atlantic) has been investigating whether Sexton actually lives in his district, or if he bought an expensive house in Nashville, moved his family there, but has nonetheless been dinging Tennessee’s taxpayers to the tune of thousands of dollars of per diem expenses. Who wants to guess which way this is going? Smacking Down Proud Boys Again Tucker’s little attempted January 6th whitewash (and I mean ‘white’) has reached its expiration date. Politico: Kyle Cheney: Judge in Proud Boys trial rejects claims of government misconduct Prosecutors did not withhold or “suppress” Jan. 6 security footage — aired in February by Tucker Carlson — from the Proud Boys now on trial for seditious conspiracy, a federal judge ruled late Sunday. U.S. District Court Judge Tim Kelly used his 10-page order to knock down a series of thinly premised but eye-popping allegations lodged by one of those defendants, Dominic Pezzola, in recent weeks. In fact, Kelly wrote, Pezzola’s lawyers have had access to most of the footage since September 2021 and the rest since early 2023, far enough in advance for Pezzola to use at trial. But Kelly also noted that there’s simply no indication that any of the footage is exculpatory for Pezzola, who helped ignite the breach of the Capitol building when he smashed a Senate-wing window with a stolen police riot shield. It Seems There’s Trouble Brewing in Magaville The poor liddle sickophants are squabbling amongst themselves again. First good ‘ol Empty Greene decided it was a good idea to sanctify a leaker. I guess she thought this was about the pee-pee tapes. Lindsey wasn’t real happy about that and let her have it with his fully loaded peashooter. Greene replied by photoshopping Lindsey drinking Trans Beer (aka Bud Light). No one will believe that, because Lindsey only drinks whine. The Hill: Sarah Poulus: Marjorie Taylor Greene fires back at Lindsey Graham by posting edited photo of senator hoisting a Bud Light with trans influencer’s image This photo has been altered by a crass, ignorant liar. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) appeared to fire back at Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) for criticizing her defense of the alleged Pentagon document leaker on Sunday by posting an edited image of Graham holding a Bud Light can sporting the image of a trans social media influencer. Graham earlier on Sunday slammed Greene’s Thursday tweet about Jack Teixeira, who has been arrested for his connection to the leak. “Jake Teixeira is white, male, christian, and antiwar,” Greene wrote in the tweet. “That makes him an enemy to the Biden regime. And he told the truth about troops being on the ground in Ukraine and a lot more.” Graham in turn dubbed her response “one of the most irresponsible statements she could make” while appearing on ABC’s “This Week.” You’re Not, But What Am I? Why are a bunch of the openly LGBTQ+ republicans working so hard to give themselves a bad name? Could it be that to be that there’s a republican party rule that says you have to engage in some kind of grooming or they kick you out? We’ve got republicans talking about giving infants and toddlers guns before preschool (Noem), trafficking in teenagers (Gaetz), legalizing marriage for 12-year-olds (Tennessee republicans), exempting churches from child sexual abuse reporting requirements (Arizona and a bunch of other states), and refusing to allow their children to be socialized (homeschoolers). Have you noticed there’s a lot of projection about grooming coming from some of the country’s most ardent groomers? DailyBeast: Will Sommer: ‘Stop the Steal’ Organizer Apologizes After Being Accused of Asking Teen Boys for D*ck Pics A key figure in the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” campaign has apologized after being accused of asking teenage boys for sexual pictures. Ali Alexander has become one of the most ubiquitous figures in the MAGA movement. Trump himself reportedly requested that Alexander speak at his rally before the riot, with his appearance only quashed by a last-minute intervention from Trump’s aides. But this week, Alexander stands at the center of a scandal that raises questions about how powerful men in the far-right treat their younger acolytes. ✂️ The budding online scandal has also roiled the pro-Trump and white supremacist “America First” movement, just months after it reached new levels of notoriety after its leader, Nick Fuentes, dined with Donald Trump and rapper Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago. Now Fuentes is facing backlash from his own supporters over whether he ignored warnings that Alexander, his friend and ally, was allegedly soliciting nude pictures from young men within Fuentes’s movement. The Other Leaker There’s a pretend Russian loving Ukrainian living and selling fish in New Jersey. She got outed by by the fellas over at NAFO and now she’s getting a look from the DOJ. Is she just another misguided Maga suffering from a severe case Dunning-Kruger repercussions? At least, according to other reports, she was keeping all the donations for herself, rather than forwarding them on to that old despotic rascal, Pooty-Poot. USNI News: Heather Mongilio, Sam LaGrone: UPDATED: Feds Investigating Former Sailor Behind Pro-Russian ‘Donbass Devushka’ Accounts The Department of Justice is investigating a former Navy non-commissioned officer for her role in social media accounts that posted a series of leaked Pentagon documents, two U.S. defense officials told USNI News on Monday. Sarah Bils, 37, a former aviation electronics technician 2nd Class who was last stationed at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Wash., according to her official Navy biography, is allegedly behind a pro-Russian series of social media accounts under the banner of “Donbass Devushka,” The Wall Street Journal first reported. The people behind the Donbass Devushka network allegedly posted at least four of the classified documents, leaked by Massachusetts Air Guardsman Jack Teixeira, to their Telegram social media channel.✂️ Bils told The Wall Street Journal that another administrator on the accounts posted four of the documents to the Donbass Devushka Telegram channel. Several Pro-Russian social media accounts picked up the documents after they were shared. The Donbass Devushka social media accounts are the largest English-speaking, pro-Russian accounts that engage in “Russian–style information warfare,” Bils told the Journal. USNI News was unable to reach Bils using listed numbers on Monday. Bils was identified as one of the personas behind the Donbass Devushka social media account by the North Atlantic Fella Organisation (NAFO) – an open source intelligence group that specializes in exposing Russian misinformation. Do You Feel Andycated Yet? After the premature and much mourned death of irony in 2016, its partner satire has been on life support. Thanks to the heroic efforts of Denizens Encouraging Retaining Indigenous Satire In Our Nation, it is struggling intermittently to survive, and Andy Borowitz helps. The New Yorker: Satire from the Borowitz Report: Ginni Thomas Vows Not to Let Husband’s Problems Interfere with Her Work on Supreme Court WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Ginni Thomas has reassured the American people that she is doing everything in her power to keep her husband’s mounting ethical issues from interfering with her work on the United States Supreme Court. Acknowledging that her husband’s controversies were a “distraction,” Thomas said, “They shouldn’t keep me from doing the important work I was sent here to do.” “There are reproductive rights to shred and environmental protections to erase,” she said. “Regardless of the mess Clarence has gotten himself into, I need to keep my focus.” Now That We Understand the Why, Will We Be Able to Stop It? I wonder if an eventual anti-aging vaccine would break through to the anti-vaxxer crowd. My current bias suggests they’d avoid it too. Nature: Gemma Conroy: Ageing studies in five animals suggest how to reverse decline Ageing seems to affect cellular processes in the same way across five very different kinds of life — humans, fruit flies, rats, mice and worms — according to a study published in Nature on 12 April. The findings could help to explain what drives ageing and offer suggestions for how to reverse it.✂️ As animals age, a variety of molecular processes inside cells become less reliable — gene mutations become more frequent, and the ends of chromosomes snap off, making them shorter. Many studies have explored ageing’s effects on gene expression, but few have investigated how it affects transcription — the process whereby genetic information is copied from a blueprint DNA strand to RNA molecules — says Andreas Beyer, a computational biologist at the University of Cologne in Germany. To find out, Beyer and his colleagues analysed genome-wide transcription changes in five organisms: nematode worms, fruit flies, mice, rats and humans, at different adult ages. The researchers measured how ageing changed the speed at which the enzyme that drives transcription, RNA polymerase II (Pol II), moved along the DNA strand as it made the RNA copy. They found that, on average, Pol II became faster with age, but less precise and more error-prone across all five groups. “We saw more mismatches between the reads and reference genome,” says Beyer.✂️ The study is a “really exciting piece of work” that demonstrates how ageing mechanisms are consistent across distantly related species, says Colin Selman, who studies ageing in mammals at the University of Glasgow, UK. It also opens the door to exploring how Pol II could be a target for drugs that slow down the ageing process. Changes to Pol II’s transcription process have been implicated in many diseases, including various types of cancer, and a range of drugs have been developed that target Pol II and the molecules that facilitate it. “There may be opportunities to effectively repurpose some of these drugs to investigate their effects on ageing,” says Selman. I Don’t Know If this is a Palate Cleanser or Pleaser It’s kind of shellfish of me to include this story. I don’t know if it’s better to come off half-baked or well buttered, but if this isn’t just a bunch of abalone, then let’s bloody well investigate. GoodNewsNetwork: Andy Corbley: Seafood Delicacy That May Hold Cure for Cancer is Named Mollusk of the Year An Endangered abalone whose blood could hold a cure for cancer has been crowned “International Mollusk of the Year.” Though it’s not much to look at, the Chilean abalone, a large, carnivorous limpet with a heavy shell, got more than 40% of the public vote, conferring them the grand prize—a full genome sequencing. Juan Diego Alvarez accepted the prize on his species’ behalf at the Senckenberg Natural History Museum in Frankfurt where voting partially took place, calling the victory “one shell step for man.” Musical Interlude If you are up for listening to the original version again, Graham reissued Teach Your Children with a powerful accompanying video a few years ago. Music from Ukraine Fronted by activist and former member of the Ukrainian parliament, Sviatoslav Vakarchuk, the band Okean Elzy is one of the most popular of Ukrainian rock bands. They were formed in Lviv in 1994 and opened for Deep Purple in their first concert outside of Lviv (in Kyiv) in 1996. This song, Квіти мінних зон (Flowers of Mine), was released 8 months ago. x YouTube Video The Lighter Side (with an Edge) At least 6,032 children were killed or wounded because of gun violence in 2022. The NRA spent $1.4 million on federal lobbying in 2022. That works out to $232.10 per child and $0.856 cents to each and every republican US Representative and Senator for every dead or injured child. If you don’t happen to care about injured children, the numbers work out like this: 1676 children killed; $835.32/child; $3.08/(R)/child. x [Janis Joplin voice] 🎶 Soros is just another word for I don’t like the Jews 🎶 — The Volatile Mermaid (@OhNoSheTwitnt) April 2, 2023 Quote(s) of the Day Justice should remove the bandage from her eyes long enough to distinguish between the vicious and the unfortunate. — Robert Green Ingersoll When we say, 'One nation under God, with liberty and justice for all', we are talking about all people. We either ought to believe it or quit saying it . — Hubert H. Humphrey Freedom and justice for all are infinitely more to be desired than pedestals for a few. — Honoré Daumier You need to understand something, you drink deeply from wells of freedom and liberty and opportunity that you did not dig. You eat lavishly from banquet tables prepared for you by your ancestors. You sit under the shade of trees that you did not plant or cultivate or care for. You have a choice in life, you can just sit back, getting fat, dumb, and happy, consuming all the blessings put before you, or it can metabolize inside of you, become fuel to get you into the fight, to make this democracy real, to make it true to its words that we can be a nation of liberty and justice for all. — Cory Booker The Hunting Pressley Report Musings from the desk of Pressley T. NotEver Pressley surrounded by her diverse security detail Dateline: (The living room at Chez NNNE) In today’s edition, Pressley speaks out on press(ley)ing issues faced by Doggie Nation. Take it away Pressley! Two weeks after the first indictment, our corporate media is still busy chasing their mangy tails (and ratings), breathing their nasty reporter breath into the moldering roadkill that is tfg’s comeback campaign for 2024. The corpse stinks so bad none of my cousins will go near it. Even buzzards are turning up their noses. But, the media jackals can’t stop trying to resuscitate it. Us dogs are well known as ass sniffers. It’s what we do. However, there are some asses we refuse to sniff. They stink so bad we are collectively in fear for our noses, should we get too close. Eww de Cruz, MT Stench, Rancid Paul, Gymsocks Jordan, Donnie the Open Sewer, Ron ‘Reeks’ Johnson, OhMyGoshThatsVile Hawley, Tertiary VD Vance, Musk o’ Elon, Really Rotten Meatball Ron, James ‘Leaky Colostomy’ Comer, and Lauren Nasty Poobert are all high up on the avoid at-all-costs list. We’ve decided to give Jack Smith honorary dog status. He’s showing himself to be like me with a bone — I think he’s going to gnaw that misshapen orange chewtoy into submission and then bury it. BREAKING: This report has just arrived from the Searching Out Cute Internet And Bewitchingly Lovable Entertainment division of NNNE Enterprises. x YouTube Video There are goats next door. I’ve been wondering where they came from. Did you know they grow on trees? x YouTube Video Closing Notes The Dead used to close their sets with this rockin’ Chuck Berry cover. From a 1990 show in Louisville, this is the kind of up tempo energy we want to direct at ending the influence of racists and fascists the world over. Well the joint stayed a rockin' Goin' round and round Yeah, reelin' and a rockin' What a crazy sound And they never stopped rockin' 'Til the moon went down x YouTube Video [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/18/2162274/-Give-Them-Rakes-Lots-and-Lots-of-Rakes-GNR-for-Bluesday-April-18th Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/