Kremlin Tells Lawmakers to Blame U.S. for Israel Bloodshed: Report​

Allison Quinn​

News Editor
Published Oct. 11, 2023 7:40AM EDT

Sergei Guneev/Sputnik/Pool via Reuters​

Russian lawmakers have been advised to follow Vladimir Putin’s example and blame the U.S. for the bloodshed in Israel, according to a new report. Citing sources in both houses of parliament, the independent outlet Verstka reports that lawmakers were told to exercise restraint when commenting on the conflict but to accuse Washington of fueling such wars in the Middle East.

Putin, a day earlier, broke his silence on the unrest by calling it “a clear example of the failure of U.S. policy in the Middle East.” The Kremlin believes the violence in Israel and Gaza will ultimately work in Moscow’s favor by distracting the West from Ukraine, according to Bloomberg.

Hamas Founder Killed in Israeli Airstrike, Report Says​

‘ABU OSAMA’

Allison Quinn​

News Editor
Published Oct. 11, 2023 9:55AM EDT

Mohammed Salem/Reuters​

A founding member of Hamas was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza on Tuesday, according to a report. Abd al-Fattah Dukhan, also known as “Abu Osama,” was killed in the Nuseirat neighborhood, according to Israel’s KAN public broadcaster, which cited a Palestinian report.

Dukhan, a former school principal, helped write the group’s charter back in 1987, which calls for the obliteration of Israel. The Israel Defense Forces have said two other top Hamas officials were also killed in recent airstrikes: Zachariah Abu Ma’amar, a senior member of the politburo, and Jawad Abu Shamala, the group’s economy minister.

"Do you really want a guy in that job who chose not to stand up for his guys?" said one former wrestler who attended OSU when Jordan was assistant coach.


House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, speaks to reporters before he heads into a House Republican caucus meeting at the Capitol on Sept. 19.Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images file


Oct. 10, 2023, 6:59 PM CDT / Updated Oct. 11, 2023, 7:09 AM CDT
By Corky Siemaszko

Four of the former Ohio State University wrestlers who have accused Rep. Jim Jordan of failing to protect them from a sexual predator when he was the team’s assistant coach in the 1980s and '90s said Tuesday he has no business being the next speaker of the House.

“Do you really want a guy in that job who chose not to stand up for his guys?” said former OSU wrestler Mike Schyck, one of the hundreds of former athletes and students who say they were sexually abused by school doctor Richard Strauss and have sued the university. “Is that the kind of character trait you want for a House speaker?”

The wrestlers’ decisions to weigh in adds a new dimension to the speaker race, bringing in a controversial part of Jordan’s past that continues to hang over the Ohio Republican and staunch ally of former President Donald Trump.


So far, the OSU affair hasn’t received much focus — one GOP congresswoman recently said she wasn’t even aware of the allegations — but it could continue to follow Jordan. Even if he becomes speaker, there’s a chance he could be deposed in one of the lawsuits.

Jordan is the only declared candidate competing against House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., for the top job in Congress — a post that opened up after an internal GOP revolt ousted Rep. Kevin McCarthy.

The House speaker is also second in the presidential line of succession, after the vice president.

Dunyasha Yetts, another former OSU wrestler who has publicly and repeatedly accused Jordan of lying about not knowing what Strauss was doing to the athletes, said the congressman’s “hypocrisy is unbelievable.”

“He doesn’t deserve to be House speaker,” Yetts said. “He still has to answer for what happened to us.”


Rocky Ratliff, a former OSU wrestler and alleged Strauss victim who is also a lawyer representing some of the plaintiffs suing the school, said Jordan “abandoned his former wrestlers in the Ohio State sexual abuse scandal and cover-up.”

Jordan — who won Trump’s endorsement and has used his post as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to aggressively investigate President Joe Biden and his family — has repeatedly denied any knowledge of sexual abuse by Strauss when Jordan coached at OSU from 1986 to 1994, including overhearing any locker room banter about abuse.
Jordan’s spokesman, Russell Dye, denied the congressman knew about the abuse while working at OSU.

"Chairman Jordan never saw or heard of any abuse, and if he had, he would have dealt with it," Dye said in an email.

Another former OSU wrestler, who has only been identified as John Doe in the latest lawsuit against the university, said he believes Jordan “is qualified for the position” but was reluctant to endorse him.

“My problem with Jimmy is that he has been playing with words instead of supporting us,” Doe said. “None of us used the words ‘sexual abuse’ when we talked about what Doc Strauss was doing to us, we just knew it was weird and Jimmy knew about it because we talked about it all the time in the locker room, at practices, everywhere.”

Strauss, who died in 2005, was accused of preying on hundreds of men who attended the university from the 1970s through the 1990s, mostly under the guise of performing medical exams like hernia checks, which require a doctor to examine a patient’s genitals.

OSU has admitted it failed to protect students from Strauss and has already paid out $60 million in settlement money to 296 victims. And in June, the U.S. Supreme Court stymied OSU’s attempt to dismiss the remaining lawsuits against the school.

Jordan was mentioned by name in the complaints filed with the federal court for the Southern District of Ohio in 2019, and he was also mentioned in some of the earlier lawsuits.

In the 2019 lawsuit, John Doe 23 says that he was present when other athletes were discussing Dr. Strauss’ intrusive exams and that “these discussions occurred in front of Coach Hellickson and Assistant Coach Jordan.”

Ratliff, who along with Schyck and John Doe is part of the remaining lawsuit against OSU, said he plans to depose Jordan and have him testify under oath that he was unaware that Strauss was abusing students.

“His locker was just a few spots away from mine and mine was near Dr. Strauss,’” Schyck said. “And we were always talking about Dr. Strauss. There’s no way he didn’t know what was going on.”

Ohio State found itself on the defensive after a whistleblower, former OSU wrestler Mike DiSabato, came forward early in 2018 with allegations that Strauss molested him and some of his teammates during physicals.

But the Strauss scandal did not become a national story until July 3, 2018, when DiSabato and several other former Ohio State wrestlers told NBC News that Jordan had refused to help them take on OSU — and that Jordan was lying when he insisted he had been unaware of the alleged abuse by the team doctor.

Yetts, in the NBC News report, said Jordan had to have known. He said that when he went to Strauss with a thumb injury and the doctor tried to pull down his pants, he immediately told Jordan and then-head wrestling coach Russ Hellickson. He said they then went in to speak with Strauss.

who is currently committed to Michigan State, but keeping options open

The Biden administration has faced scrutiny over its release of $6 billion in frozen fundsto Iran, which has been found to have helped Hamas plan and execute the assault.

But now, it appears the White House could have also helped to fund Hamas directly, despite being warned about the consequences of doing so. America First Legal published a post on social media in which it announced that it was filing a lawsuit against the Biden administration and was initiating the discovery process to find out what the White House knew about their plan to send aid to Palestinians.

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Trump’s Overrated Peace Plan Helped Enable the Horrors in Israel and Gaza​

The Abraham Accords didn’t bring “the dawn of a new Middle East,” they completely ignored the Palestinians and let the Netanyahu government do almost anything it wanted.

Nicholas Grossman​

Updated Oct. 10, 2023 5:39PM EDT / Published Oct. 10, 2023 3:06PM EDT



No American president caused Hamas’ surprise assault across the Gaza border that killed over 900 Israelis—mostly in deliberate, brutal attacks on civilians, including 260 at a music festival—and kidnapping about 150 more. But U.S. policy, especially the Trump administration’s, contributed to the unsustainable situation that made an outbreak of violence more likely.

Claims that “Trump brought peace to the Middle East” are almost an inversion of reality.

He shifted U.S. policy fully in Israel’s favor—reducing support for the Palestinians and treating their quest for statehood as something that could be ignored—and shaped the regional context by heightening confrontation with Iran without strategic benefit.

Ignoring the Big Problem​

Let’s start with Trump’s relatively most positive contribution, the Abraham Accords. That deal normalized relations between Israel, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), opening flights that sent tourists to each other for the first time.

All three of those countries are small, wealthy American partners that oppose Iran, making an agreement easier. Bahrain hosts the U.S. Navy’s Central Command and the Fifth Fleet. The Trump administration greased the skids with the UAE by authorizing F-35 fighter jet and Reaper drone sales, making them the only country in the Middle East besides Israel with advanced stealth aircraft.

But whatever you think of that price, more peace is a positive development and could provide a stepping stone for a wider Arab-Israeli deal, as the Biden administration has been attempting with Saudi Arabia.

But lying about the Abraham Accords, stretching them into “the dawn of a new Middle East,” and playing them up for an American domestic audience was emblematic of Trump’s larger failure. He threw America’s weight behind Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s squeeze-and-ignore approach to the Palestinians as if the fundamental problem of people displaced and living under occupation would just go away.

Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the U.S. embassy there, breaking American policy since the 1979 Camp David Accords that treated the city as disputed, given Palestinian claims to a capital in East Jerusalem. Trump cut $25 million in U.S. support for Palestinian hospitals, and $200 million from the UN Relief and Works Agency, which has helped displaced Palestinians and their descendants since 1949. In early 2020, Trump’s son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner put out a “peace plan” that mostly just proposed giving Israel what it wants and dismissing Palestinian concerns.

Meanwhile, Israel expanded settlements in the West Bank, along with the corresponding military/policing presence that defends setters from violence (including when the settlers commit some). On the other half of the Palestinian territories, Israel kept Gaza under blockade and fought occasional wars with Hamas. The Israeli government moved further and further right, pursuing West Bank annexation, and the two-state solution, which was never that plausible to begin with, became more and more a pipe dream.

That describes the last decade and a half, since Hamas forcibly took control of Gaza in 2007. Trump gave Israel things it wanted without getting anything in return, and encouraged Netanyahu’s sense that Israel could build international relationships, cultivate partnerships with Arab states who share fears of both Iran and jihadists, and ignore the Palestinians.

But the Bush and Obama administrations essentially punted on the issue, increasing military aid, albeit with varying levels of criticism. For example, Israel bristled when the Obama administration abstained rather than vetoed a UN resolution calling for an end to Israeli settlement-building, but certainly didn’t object when Obama authorized a $38 billion package of military assistance to Israel, the largest in history.

A Message For Us All

Hamas’ invasion of Israel over the weekend, the killing, rape, and kidnapping of civilians, is a reminder that evil will burn its own nation to the ground to rule over the ashes. There is no justification for Hamas’ actions, and they knew what would happen to innocent Palestinians in the wake of their terror.

The butchery we’ve seen in Ukraine, and now in Israel, is indicative of a well-resourced and relentless authoritarian movement that has already washed up on American shores. Donald Trump’s term as president should have been a wake-up call for all of us: He was (and is) happy to consort with autocrats because he, like them, sees the entire world as a zero-sum game.

The terror in Israel also exposes fundamental internal contradictions in the Republican Party. There are numerous examples of this. But here’s just a few:

1. JD Vance and Ron DeSantis said Ukraine is a territorial dispute far from our borders. In the next breath, those same nimrods scream that we must protect and defend Israel, the Middle East’s only democracy, at all costs.
2. Antisemitism still runs rife within the MAGA wing; ie: MTG comparing COVID vaccines to the Holocaust and the Nazi apparel we saw at the January 6th Insurrection.
3. President Trump has a history of reposting antisemitic material and hosted Nick Fuentes and Kanye West (two men who’ve made malignant comments about Jews and women) at the White House.

Now, we know that MAGA has no moral high ground to call out Hamas’ invasion of Israel. So, they’re instead criticizing President Biden.

You heard that right. While President Biden blames Hamas, the GOP blames Biden.

They said that Hamas’ actions were financed by US taxpayers. Even Fox News has consistently and continuously said this isn’t true. Tim Scott and other wannabe Presidential candidates echoed similar lies and are using every television appearance they make to blame our government for the atrocities we’ve seen.

They're ultimately doing the bidding of Iran, Russia, and Hamas.

The United States standing tall as a beacon for freedom, democracy, and decency is the anathema to the worldview of these dictatorial regimes. So it’s the anathema to MAGA’s worldview, too. And that’s why MAGA continues to echo their lies and side with them against the President of the United States.

Make no mistake. President Biden is providing the same moral leadership with Israel that he demonstrated in Ukraine.

MAGA will continue to lie and side with repugnant dictators over democracy. We’ll continue to stand with President Biden and the global fight for democracy.

We get Lincoln Riley and Jaylin Smith. Transcript of what Lincoln Riley said will come after. Here is the link if you wanna follow along.

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“USC tied a season-high with 17 missed tackles against #Arizona, according to Pro Football Focus' initial grading of the game. Safeties were tagged with nine of the misses.

Trojans have now missed 49 tackles the last three gms after having 27 missed tackles the first three gms.”

Embattled Rep. George Santos hit with additional charges, including identity theft​

Prosecutors said Santos claimed he made non-existent loans to his campaign while making unauthorized charges on donors' credit cards.




Oct. 10, 2023, 5:14 PM CDT / Updated Oct. 10, 2023, 5:37 PM CDT
By Tom Winter, Jonathan Dienst and Dareh Gregorian

Federal prosecutors hit Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., with 23 additional charges Tuesday, including allegations of identity theft and that he charged a supporter's credit card in excess of their contribution and then transferred the money to his personal bank account.

Prosecutors said Santos faces “one count of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, two counts of wire fraud, two counts of making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), two counts of falsifying records submitted to obstruct the FEC, two counts of aggravated identity theft, and one count of access device fraud” in a superseding indictment filed Tuesday.

“As alleged, Santos is charged with stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization, lying to the FEC and, by extension, the public about the financial state of his campaign. Santos falsely inflated the campaign’s reported receipts with non-existent loans and contributions that were either fabricated or stolen” Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.

In a press release, prosecutors said the scheme included falsely claiming that relatives of Santos and his then-campaign treasurer Nancy Marks had donated big bucks to his campaign to make it appear that he was raising more money than he actually had in order to qualify for assistance from the national party.

"To create the public appearance that his campaign had met that financial benchmark" for additional funds from the Republican Party "and was otherwise financially viable, Santos and Marks agreed to falsely report to the FEC that at least 10 family members of Santos and Marks had made significant financial contributions to the campaign when Santos and Marks both knew that these individuals had neither made the reported contributions nor given authorization for their personal information to be included in such false public reports."

He's also alleged to have been involved in a credit card scheme where the campaign would charge contributors’ credit cards repeatedly and above FEC individual contribution limits.

“For example, in December 2021, one contributor (the 'Contributor') texted Santos and others to make a contribution to his campaign, providing billing information for two credit cards,” prosecutors said.

“In the days after he received the billing information, Santos used the credit card information to make numerous contributions to his campaign and affiliated political committees in amounts exceeding applicable contribution limits, without the Contributor’s knowledge or authorization,” they said.

On another occasion, he allegedly “charged $12,000 to the Contributor’s credit card, ultimately transferring the vast majority of that money into his personal bank account.”

Prosecutors also shed light on a mysterious $500,000 loan Santos said he gave to his campaign, alleging it was fake loan and that Santos "had less than $8,000 in his personal and business bank accounts" at the time.

In an interview with WABC last year, Santos said that loan and others came from money “I paid myself” through his company the Devolder Organization.

Marks pleaded guilty last week to some of the same conduct involving false FEC filings that Santos was charged with Tuesday, including the allegations about the family members.

Santos was charged earlier this year with seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to the United States House of Representatives. He's pleaded not guilty.

NBC News has reached out to Santos's office for comment.

The first-term congressman first came under scrutiny late last year before he was even sworn-in when The New York Times published a bombshell investigation indicating that much of his résumé appeared to have been manufactured, including claims that he owned numerous properties, was previously employed by Goldman Sachs and Citigroup and had graduated from Baruch College.

Pac-12 Media Day is tomorrow in Las Vegas. Matt will be there for us. Today, they announced the preseason teams:

2023-24 Pac-12 Men's Basketball Preseason Media All-Conference Team

First Team

Oumar Ballo, Arizona

Adem Bona, UCLA

Keion Brooks Jr., Washington

Branden Carlson, Utah

Isaiah Collier, USC

N’Faly Dante, Oregon

Tristan da Silva, Colorado

Boogie Ellis, USC

Spencer Jones, Stanford

KJ Simpson, Colorado

Second Team

Fardaws Aimaq, California

Kylan Boswell, Arizona

Kobe Johnson, USC

Caleb Love, Arizona

Jordan Pope, Oregon State

Honorable Mention (votes from 5-or-more members of media)

Kwame Evans Jr., Oregon

Pelle Larsson, Arizona

Aday Mara, UCLA

Cody Williams, Colorado

Reactions to Menendez, Trump indictments offer partisan case study​

The asymmetry between Democratic and Republican reactions to Bob Menendez's and Donald Trump's indictments speaks volumes about the state of the parties.


Oct. 10, 2023, 10:24 AM CDT
By Steve Benen

In the wake of his highly provocative criminal indictment, Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey has faced resignation calls from 31 of his Democratic colleagues in the chamber. They have plenty of company: His home state’s Democratic governor has called for him to step aside, as have many other party officials at multiple levels of government.

What’s more, it’s not just office-holders. A Public Policy Polling survey in New Jersey, released last week, found the incumbent senator trailing Rep. Andy Kim by 53 points in a hypothetical Democratic primary match-up. A Data for Progress poll, meanwhile, also found Menendez struggling to reach double-digit support among Democratic voters in his own state.

Late last week, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes asked former Sen. Claire McCaskill for her reactions to the partisan response. The Missouri Democrat, an MSNBC political analyst, replied:

“This is the way it’s supposed to work. I mean, one party, you have people who want the norms of ethical behavior and the respect for the rule of law, and, frankly, the sense that whether [Menendez] did something legal or not, what’s in that indictment makes him unattractive to vote for as a United States senator.”

Click to expand...

McCaskill added that the Democratic response to Menendez’s corruption allegations was unfolding against a backdrop in which Republicans were not only rallying behind Donald Trump — who’s facing 91 felony counts across multiple jurisdictions — but several GOP lawmakers actually want him to become the next House speaker.

The asymmetry speaks volumes about the state of the parties. A Washington Post analysis added last week, “Democrats are much more willing than Republicans to say that wrongdoing by those on their side (or related to those on their side) should face any due consequences.”

If this dynamic were limited to just Menendez and Trump, it might be easier to dismiss, but there’s ample evidence showing the breadth of the phenomenon.

When then-Democratic Rep. Corrine Brown of Florida was indicted, Democratic primary voters quickly ousted her.

Similarly, after then-Democratic Rep. Chaka Fattah faced corruption charges, he also lost a primary. Once the Pennsylvania congressman was convicted, his intraparty colleagues quickly showed him the door. When then-Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich faced corruption allegations, it was a Democratic-led legislature that wasted no time in kicking him out of office.

There were no calls to “investigate the investigation.” No one concocted prosecutorial conspiracy theories. It didn’t occur to Democrats to suggest mysterious, wealthy benefactors were somehow involved in the cases. No one in the party alleged “election interference” or demanded that law enforcement officials be “defunded.” Not a single Democratic official, at any level, suggested evidence had been “planted” or that the Justice Department had been “weaponized.”

GOP reactions to related cases in recent years have been qualitatively different. Trump is the prohibitive favorite for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination despite his criminal charges. Ken Paxton is still the attorney general in Texas because much of his party has been unmoved by his own criminal scandals. Rep. George Santos is still in Congress because Republican leaders have been willing to tolerate his scandals, too.

Several other congressional Republicans caught up in corruption scandals in recent years — Chris Collins, Duncan Hunter, Steve Stockman, Rick Renzi, Robin Hayes, and Randall “Duke” Cunningham — were ultimately convicted, only to receive presidential pardons and/or commutations from Trump, none of which received any meaningful pushback from GOP lawmakers.

There’s a partisan difference, and it’s an unflattering one for the contemporary Republican Party.

Biden does what Trump would not: talk to a special counsel​

President Joe Biden sat down and answered questions from his special counsel investigator. It's a step Donald Trump said he'd take, but didn't.


Oct. 10, 2023, 7:40 AM CDT
By Steve Benen

It’s easy to forget, but President Joe Biden has spent the year facing a special counsel investigation. In January, the Delaware Democrat conceded that documents with classified markings were uncovered at his personal home and at an office he used after he was vice president, and Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Robert Hur, a U.S. attorney in the Trump administration, to take a closer look.

The White House and its Democratic allies didn’t exactly respond with anxiety. Biden volunteered the disclosure; he returned what he had; the National Archives didn’t even know the papers were missing; and the incumbent president vowed to cooperate to resolve the matter.

The idea that Biden knowingly, and with deliberate intent, took and hid a small number of sensitive documents was, and remains, far-fetched. What’s more, this isn’t a situation in which he knowingly defied a federal subpoena — unlike a certain someone.

Nevertheless, the probe isn’t yet over, though it appears to be reaching its endpoint. NBC News reported:

President Joe Biden was interviewed as part of the investigation into his handling of classified documents being led by special counsel Robert Hur, the White House said. A person familiar with the matter said Hur personally led the interview. In a statement Monday night, White House spokesman Ian Sams said the voluntary interview was conducted over two days, Sunday and Monday.

Click to expand...

“As we have said from the beginning, the President and the White House are cooperating with this investigation, and as it has been appropriate, we have provided relevant updates publicly, being as transparent as we can consistent with protecting and preserving the integrity of the investigation,” Sams said.

This news comes two weeks after The New York Times reported that Hur and his team have also interviewed “many of Mr. Biden’s closest aides and advisers,” including Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Barb McQuade, a former federal prosecutor and an MSNBC legal analyst, noted via social media that the sit-down meetings between Hur and Biden should generally be seen as the “last step” in the investigation. The University of Michigan law professor added that there will be some analysis and a final report, with an announcement on the results likely “in 30 to 60 days.”

Time will tell what, if anything, comes of this — Biden’s detractors probably shouldn’t get their hopes up — but it’s worth pausing to appreciate the differences between how this president dealt with a special counsel investigation as compared to his immediate predecessor.

While in office, Donald Trump also faced a probe from a special counsel, which led the Republican to publicly trash Robert Mueller, his team, his investigation, and the justice system. Trump told members of his team that he wanted to fire Mueller, and the special counsel’s office documented multiple instances in which the then-president obstructed the process.

As for the idea of Trump sitting down with Mueller, the then-president spent months insisting he was eager to participate in such an interview, but he ultimately agreed only to answer questions in writing.

I’m trying to imagine what the political world’s response would be if Biden responded to the Hur probe the way Trump responded to the Mueller probe.

House Republicans oppose tying Israel and Ukraine aid together

The Biden administration and congressional Democrats are weighing tying legislation for additional military support for Israel with military assistance for Ukraine, setting up a showdown with congressional Republicans deeply opposed to helping Ukraine for incoherent partisan reasons amidst the tumult of a speaker-less chamber.

The looming fight over tying military aid for Israel and Ukraine together is the latest in a series of complicated questions that the new speaker — whichever MAGA sociopath it ultimately ends up being — will have to navigate as the narrow and ungovernable Republican majority grapples with its future.

X Promises to Slow Israel-Hamas Misinfo as Elon Musk Does the Opposite​

Alex Nguyen​

Breaking News Intern
Published Oct. 10, 2023 2:37PM EDT

Patrick Pleul/Reuters​

The social media platform X, formerly Twitter, declared late Monday that it would limit the spread of misinformation regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict. “A cross-company leadership group has assessed this moment as a crisis requiring the highest level of response,” the Trust and Safety team’s statement read. But according to Wired, the team has no leader following the resignation of Ella Irwin in June. The team later added that it had “removed newly created Hamas-affiliated accounts” and others that were “attempting to manipulate trending topics.”

However, Elon Musk’s posts over the weekend worsened the situation. He shared two accounts that he deemed fit for “following the war in real-time,” and promoted a QAnon supporter and anti-Muslim conspiracy theories. But users uncovered that both accounts had posted a fake AI image of an explosion at the Pentagon and that one of them had posted antisemitic comments.

Eliot Higgins, the founder of investigative news outlet Bellingcat, said that sharing false information was beneficial for X Premium subscribers because they receive money for engagement, regardless of accuracy.

ExxonMobil’s Head of Shale Oil Arrested on Sexual Assault Charge​

Dan Ladden-Hall​

News Correspondent
Published Oct. 09, 2023 9:07AM EDT

​

The head of ExxonMobil’s shale oil and gas business was arrested at a Texas budget hotel on a sexual assault charge last week, authorities said. David Scott, 49, was taken into custody early Thursday at a La Quinta Inn & Suites hotel in Magnolia, the Montgomery Sheriff’s Office said. Online jail records show that Scott faces a second-degree felony assault charge and is being held on a $30,000 bond. In a statement,

Exxon said it was aware of the allegations but could not publicly comment on a personal matter, according to the Financial Times. “All ExxonMobil employees, officers and directors are accountable for observing the highest standards of integrity and code of conduct in support of the company’s business and otherwise,” the statement added.

GOP pushes outrageous lie that $6 billion in unfrozen Iranian assets included in prisoner swap were used in Hamas attack on Israel

True to form, Republicans' first thought as horrific violence swept through Israel and Palestine was not about the suffering of those involved, but about how to twist the news into something that they could use to attack President Biden. They quickly found a bad faith approach by insisting that the $6 billion in frozen funds Biden released to Iran in a prisoner exchange had somehow found its way to Hamas and funded the attacks.

Not surprisingly, this story is a complete fabrication. The funds in question, owed to Iran by South Korea for oil purchased prior to Trump-era sanctions being imposed in 2019, have not yet been touched.

Please put him in!!🙏🙏 I’m getting tired of watching Tackett Curtis getting run over and taking terrible angles and hitting the wrong gaps smhk. Cobb is terrible in coverage and I’m confused on why he was considered a big pickup.

Infamous right-wing child-trafficking "hero" and Ivanka Trump adviser sued for sexually abusing women

Five women have sued conservative media darling Tim Ballard, the founder of anti-child-trafficking group Operation Underground Railroad, alleging he sexually manipulated, abused, and harassed them on overseas trips designed to lure and catch child sex traffickers. Previously a special adviser to Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, Ballard was appointed to a White House anti-human-trafficking board in 2019.

Just more of Trump's best people being their best.

How did Israel and the U.S. miss what Hamas was planning?​

“This is Israel’s 9/11. Not since 1973 has there been such a catastrophic intelligence failure in Israel," said one U.S. intel expert. A senior U.S. official said, "We were not tracking this."

Oct. 7, 2023, 1:57 PM CDT
By Dan De Luce, Ken Dilanian and Courtney Kube

The surprise attack by Hamas on Israel suggests a massive intelligence failure as the Israeli government appeared blindsided by the infiltration of Hamas fighters across the southern border and the launch of thousands of rockets.

The Hamas assault by air, land and sea also raised questions as to why U.S. intelligence agencies apparently did not see it coming, experts and former intelligence officials said.

U.S. officials said that if the Israelis knew an attack was imminent, they did not share it with Washington.
“We were not tracking this,” one senior U.S. military official told NBC News.

Trump Wildly Claims Forbes Is a ‘China Propaganda Machine’ After He’s Removed from 400 Richest Americans List​

Dan Ladden-Hall​

News Correspondent
Published Oct. 10, 2023 5:00AM EDT

Brian Snyder/Reuters​

Donald Trump lashed out at Forbes on Monday after the magazine cut him from its list of the wealthiest 400 people in America last week.

On his Truth Social platform, the former president complained that the magazine had “taken me off their Fake Forbes 400 list just by a ‘whisker,’ even though they know that I should be high up on that now very dated and discredited ‘antique,’” and accused the company of being owned by China and its “Sovereign wealth Fund!”

“Removed from The Forbes 400, Trump responds as he always has—by lying about his net worth and saying he should be higher on the list,” Forbes said in response, noting it had taken “extraordinary care in valuing his fortune” and saying its ownership does not, in fact, include China’s wealth fund. Undeterred, Trump later posted on Truth Social to call Forbes a “China Propaganda machine, EXPOSED."

🤣

Another wild game last night, with SC pulling out a victory that didn't exactly leave a great taste in everyone's mouth. But even in a game where Arizona covered by 20 points, the GTSers didn't take the bait and overall faired pretty well, with 5 guesses within single digits and about half the crowd in the teens or lower. But this week was all about one guesser, @Kylerkeener who ALMOST nailed it, but more impressively wrote a full breakdown and even called for it to be in double OT with SC stopping the 2 point conversion. Here was his guess verbatim:

"This is the game that we start hearing it from the crowd as the defense struggles. This will start a fire with CLR and we will start to see some schematic changes for the better. This is also the game where we will see more rushing attempts than passes. This is still a tight game though 42-40 SC in 2OT as Arizona misses the two pointer on the ole Statue of Liberty play with the TFL by Korey Foreman."

Ok, he didn't entirely nail it, but still, pretty solid. I'm not suggesting others do this going forward because it makes finding the guess much more difficult and time consuming, but bravo to him for the near perfect pick this week. The others in single digits were @Larr212121 with a 7 and then @cramwetzel , @dylanbane and @RudyTheTrojan all with a variance of 9.

@cramwetzel continues to lead the overall standing as those are starting to shape up nicely now. Crunch time is coming, so don't miss a week or it could cost you. Beat the Irish!

Our recruiting class is straight hot garbage. Something is wrong in Troy. That is all.