Just get him on the team!


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My son and I are heading up for the game on Saturday - first time to a game but been to the campus before.

Anyone have suggestions for things to do on Saturday?

Note - This will be my first USC-ND game since 1982 at the Coli.....

high praise…

...we should have seen this Hamas attack coming and taking hostages. Now, according to him, we have to pay for them, too. As I recall, he had no problem at the time of us giving Iran it's money back. I guess double standards are okay when dealing with comrade 19.

House Republicans collapse into anarchy​

By Dana Milbank
Columnist|Follow
October 13, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

War in Israel. War in Ukraine. The federal government shutting down in 35 days. These are uncertain times.

But there is one eternal truth, one unwavering constant to steady us when all else is in flux: Every time the House Republican majority tries to govern, it’s guaranteed to turn into a goat rodeo.

And so it happened again this week, as Republicans tried to elect a new speaker to replace Kevin McCarthy, whom they deposed in a coup the previous week. As the conference gathered on Tuesday night to hear from speaker candidates Steve Scalise (La.) and Jim Jordan (Ohio), Rep. Harriet Hageman (Wyo.), the Trump-backed slayer of Liz Cheney, walked into the caucus meeting wearing a big smile and carrying a lasso. Was she planning to rope some goats? She didn’t say.

A moment later, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), one of the eight Republicans who voted out McCarthy (Calif.), strolled into the caucus meeting with a big red “A” decal on her T-shirt. “I’m wearing the scarlet letter,” she later explained to a group of us, “after the week that I just had last week, being a woman up here and being demonized for my vote.” In her telling, wearing the 17th-century mark of the adulteress showed that “I’m going to do the right thing every single time.”

There was little time to dwell on Mace’s bold reinterpretation of Hawthorne, however, because the defrocked McCarthy himself soon emerged from the caucus meeting, which he quit after leading the opening prayer. Recognizing that he had a captive audience in the 140 or so journalists crowding the hallway, he gave a 13-minute news conference repeating the same thoughts about Israel he had offered in a news conference the day before.

Sadly, the former speaker’s oration was interrupted by the arrival of Patrick McHenry (N.C.), the interim speaker. “Mr. Speaker!” some journalists shouted, trying to ask McCarthy questions. “Mr. Speaker!” other journalists shouted a moment later, trying to ask McHenry questions. The confusion was all the greater because neither man was, actually, the speaker. Republicans didn’t have one of those.

No sooner had that commotion quieted than a new one erupted while the Republican members were meeting: Authorities had just unsealed additional charges against Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), alleging that he stole the identities of his campaign donors, used their credit cards and swindled the Republican Party. The famous fabricator was besieged by shouting reporters when he exited the caucus meeting: “Did you steal people’s identities? Will you resign?”

“I did not have access to my phone,” Santos pleaded. “I have no clue of what you are talking about.” (This was plausible, for intraparty distrust has grown so intense that members had to check their phones at the door.) Reporters and TV crews chased Santos back to his office, crashing into furniture in the hallway. “How can you vote in the speaker election,” asked CNN’s Manu Raju, “when you’ve been charged with all these crimes?”

Santos slammed his office door in Raju’s face.

Scalise, the House majority leader, emerged from the caucus meeting full of confidence that he would win the speakership the next day. “We need a Congress that’s working tomorrow,” he said.

His colleagues were not so sure. “What are the chances we have a speaker tomorrow?” a reporter asked Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.).

Massie, in his 11th year in Congress, responded with a long pause, as if calculating the odds in his head.
“Two percent,” he answered.

“Why two percent?”

Another long pause. “Uh, you know, it’s just the way things are going for us,” Massie replied.

Massie’s handicapping was spot on. Republicans narrowly tapped Scalise to be speaker at another meeting on Wednesday; he got 113 votes on a secret ballot, while Jordan and other candidates got 107. Applause sounded in the conference room at 1:03 p.m. when the tally was announced, and Scalise, rushing to build momentum, called for a speaker vote on the House floor at 3 p.m.

“We’re going to have to go upstairs on the House floor and resolve this and then get the House open again,” said the ebullient majority leader, referring to himself in the third person as “Speaker Scalise.”

“Is it true you don’t have the votes?” a reporter asked. Scalise walked away without answering.

Then, in rapid succession, a dozen House Republicans announced that they would oppose Scalise on the floor — and a dozen more threatened to do the same. Some were the same zealots who stymied McCarthy back in January, when holdouts forced 15 rounds of balloting on the House floor. Others were first-time participants in the GOP dysfunction game. But there were well more than the five needed to deny Scalise the speakership.

Texas Republicans Chip Roy and Michael Cloud said they would oppose Scalise because of the “unacceptable” and “underhanded” rush to vote on the floor. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) said she would oppose him because he’s battling blood cancer. Massie announced his opposition because Scalise had not “articulated a viable plan” on government spending.

Mace, no longer wearing her scarlet “A,” tried to plant a KKK on Scalise. “I personally cannot, in good conscience, vote for someone who attended a white supremacist conference and compared himself to David Duke,” she said on CNN of Scalise’s past comment that, as a Louisiana Republican, he was “David Duke without the baggage.” (This apparently didn’t bother Mace when she accepted Scalise’s campaign help in 2020.)

Rep. Greg Murphy (N.C.) responded to Mace on social media: “#GetADamnLife.”

“The House GOP conference is broken,” Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.) accurately observed, announcing his opposition to Scalise.

But when it came time for the 3 p.m. vote, McHenry instead sent the chamber into an indefinite recess. A few hours later, House GOP leaders called off all votes for the night.

Finally, the day of disarray ended in farce: Santos, facing renewed calls for his expulsion from the House, delivered one more blow to Scalise. Because Scalise hadn’t reached out to the indicted liar, “I’m now declaring I’m an ANYONE but Scalise and come hell or high water I won’t change my mind,” he wrote. “We need a speaker that leads by including every single member of the team.”

Even the aspiring felons.

Michael McCaul (Tex.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, pleaded with his colleagues for sanity, saying the speakership is “going to have to be worked out in the next several hours. We can’t afford this dysfunction.”

Scalise, seeing his speakership slip away before it even began, set about doing what McCarthy had done in January: placating to the hard-liners. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (Fla.), a holdout, stated her conditions for supporting Scalise: defunding the prosecution of Donald Trump by special counsel Jack Smith, issuing a subpoena to Hunter Biden and having the House vote on impeaching President Biden. After meeting with Scalise, Luna pronounced herself “confident” he would meet her requirements.

Even then, she changed her mind within 24 hours, saying “I will no longer be voting for Scalise.”

By late Thursday, after the umpteenth Republican caucus meeting of the week dissolved in recriminations and paralysis, it was looking doubtful that Scalise could get enough GOP votes to be elected speaker. Around 8 p.m., he made it official, telling colleagues he was withdrawing; he had been the speaker nominee for all of 31 hours. “There are some folks that really need to look in the mirror over the next couple of days and decide: Are we going to get it back on track? Or are they going to try to pursue their own agenda?” he told reporters in the Capitol basement. “You can’t do both.”

Nine days after they voted out McCarthy and started this crisis, the leaderless Republicans were right where they began. Would they give the far-right firebrand Jordan a shot? Someone else? Or would they — perish the thought! — finally offer to strike a deal with Democrats? It wasn’t obvious that this fractured and feuding majority could coalesce around anyone, or anything. Only one thing was perfectly clear: Whoever Republicans choose to be speaker will be a leader in name only. This House GOP majority, ungovernable at best, has collapsed into anarchy.

Replied Ciscomani: “That’s to be seen tomorrow.”

Now we know. Baa! Baa!

While many voters are concerned about the president's age, Pritzker argued that Biden has aged well and turned into a "gem," while Trump has become a "coward."

Oct. 11, 2023, 8:23 PM CDT / Updated Oct. 12, 2023, 3:45 PM CDT
By Natasha Korecki

Last week, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker drew national headlines when he wrote a strongly worded letter to President Joe Biden saying his White House needed to step up action on the migrant surge in Chicago.

But this week, Pritzker rose to Biden's defense on one of the most fraught issues of the president’s re-election: age.

Pritzker's strategy is a notable attempt by a prominent Democrat to go on offense on the issue, which has widely been seen as one of Biden's weak points.

Pritzker, who is also a re-election surrogate for Biden, took on the issue in an address to Wisconsin Democrats at a fundraising dinner Wednesday night.

Before about 200 people, including elected officials like Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Gov. Tony Evers, Pritzker laid out a case about how both Biden and former President Donald Trump have aged, arguing Trump has grown toxic, while Biden grew into a “gem.” Pritzker also argued that Democrats shouldn’t shy away from the issue.

“I’ve thought a lot about why people care so much about age in this coming election, and I want to talk to you about it,” Pritzker said, according to audio of the event the Pritzker campaign shared with NBC News. “We need to stop dismissing concerns about the physical age of a candidate, especially when that concern comes from a young person. Instead, what people are afraid of is the age of the candidates’ ideas.

Pritzker then compared and contrasted Trump and Biden, including Trump’s being part of a party that embraced "old" ideas like restricting abortion.

“We have two examples of how people age at the top of our presidential tickets in Donald Trump and Joe Biden,” he said. “It’s not just that Donald Trump doesn’t have Joe Biden’s character; it’s that as he grew old. He had a chance to take all his life experiences and use them to become someone empathetic, courageous and kind. And instead, he chose to be cruel, cowardly and small.”

The move comes after the ROC incorporated sport bodies in four regions illegally annexed by Russia in eastern Ukraine.

12 Oct 2023

The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) has been suspended with immediate effect for recognizing regional sport organizations from four territories annexed from Ukraine, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said.
The IOC added on Thursday that the ROC would not be eligible for any funding after it recognized Olympic Councils from the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, but that it would not affect any Russian athletes competing as neutrals.

“The unilateral decision taken by the Russian Olympic Committee on 5 October 2023 to include, as its members, the regional sports organizations which are under the authority of the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of Ukraine (namely Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia) constitutes a breach of the Olympic Charter,” the IOC said in a statement.

“It violates the territorial integrity of the NOC of Ukraine, as recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in accordance with the Olympic Charter.”

The IOC executive board is meeting in Mumbai, India ahead of the IOC session from October 15-17.

Thursday’s ruling does not affect any decision on Russian and Belarusian athletes’ participation at the Paris 2024 Olympics, which the IOC will consider at a later date.

“The suspension of the ROC does not affect the participation of independent athletes,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams told a press conference on Thursday.

“Today the IOC made another counterproductive decision with obvious political motivations,” the ROC said in a statement.

“This secures de jure what was done de facto back in February 2022,” it added, referring to the ban on Russian athletes issued by most international sports federations in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The IOC initially banned Russia and Belarus from international sports events after Moscow invaded Ukraine that February.

However, in March of this year, the IOC recommended that sports federations allow Russians and Belarusians to return, as neutral athletes in individual events, with no flag, emblem or anthem.

The IOC has said athletes should not be punished for the actions of governments.

​

Lawmakers in both parties are expressing growing openness, both in public and in private, to a bipartisan deal to elect a House speaker as Republicans are continually thwarted in their efforts to do it alone.​

• Andrew Solender

Rep. Don Bacon. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images.

Why it matters: With House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) withdrawing despite winning his party’s nomination, some Republicans are concerned nobody can win the job with just GOP votes.

What they're saying: "There's a sentiment building around [a bipartisan deal] among Democrats and Republicans," Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), a member of Democratic leadership who represents a swing district, told Axios.

• "We're open to anything that's reasonable," said Rep. Maria Salazar (R-Fla.), a member of the moderate Republican Governance Group. "Bipartisanship is not a sin."
• Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a perennial bipartisan dealmaker, said "at this point, there are enough Republican and Democrats saying we've got to get this fixed."
• Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) said, as the situation devolves, he sees Republicans "absolutely" getting more open to a deal: "Yes, I mean you're seeing that."

State of play: With Scalise out of the running, all eyes now turn to Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a co-founder of the right-wing Freedom Caucus.

• But some of Jordan's GOP colleagues are already predicting he'll suffer the same fate as Scalise. "I think he's gonna have a math problem as well," said Mike Garcia (R-Calif.).
• Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) said "it's going to be hard" for Jordan to win.

What we're hearing: A bipartisan group of roughly ten House lawmakers is quietly holding "very" serious discussions, a moderate Republican involved in the discussions told Axios on the condition of anonymity.

• "The question is who gets you to the largest minority of the majority," the GOP lawmaker said. "Is it Don Bacon, who gets 20 [GOP] votes and 200 Democrats? Is it French Hill who gets 100 votes from Republicans? And the fewer Republicans, the more dangerous this is – not just politically, but structurally."
• Another question, the Republican said, is how many speaker candidates need to fail before people soften on the idea: "Kevin, Steve, Jordan, Emmer … how many losses do you have to have to make that an acceptable outcome?"

Between the lines: Congress is unfamiliar with bipartisan coalition governments in the vein of state legislatures and foreign governments – but the House had also never voted to oust a speaker until last Tuesday.

• "We are setting precedent every day," said the moderate Republican. "Whatever solution we have will be unprecedented."
• Democrats say their position hasn't changed from before former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was ousted – they want "institutional reforms, rules changes that allow for bipartisan votes ... not every couple months but every day," said Landsman.

Reality check: Cross-party tensions are still raw after Democrats voted uniformly to remove McCarthy.

• "There was no sense of [bipartisanship] when it was the motion to vacate a week and a half ago," said Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah), "so I don't think anything is credible that could be realistic at the moment."
• Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) expressed skepticism as well: "Has a Democrat come out and said they would support a Republican nominee?"

The bottom line: Just before Scalise dropped out, Bacon said of Republicans, "At some point we're going to be exasperated [and say], 'Okay, this is not working.'"

• Asked after Scalise announced if lawmakers are getting closer to that point, he told Axios: "I think we are ... It's going to be a sort of consensus opinion between a group of us."
• "If this goes on forever, we've got to get the country back going," said Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.).

The Energy Department this morning unveiled plans to provide $7 billion to spur regional "hubs" for producing climate-friendly hydrogen.​

Illustration: Gabriella Turrisi/Axios

• Ben Geman, author of Axios Generate

Why it matters: It's the largest U.S. effort yet to spur production using renewables, nuclear energy, or carbon capture. But there's a long and uncertain road to the projects becoming reality.

• Hydrogen could help decarbonize industries like heavy trucking, steel and power.

The big picture: Officials hope the initiative under the bipartisan infrastructure law will eventually spur over $40 billion in private investment.

• The hubs — involving corporate giants, public agencies and others — are designed to "kickstart" a national network of producers, consumers, and "connective infrastructure."

State of play: DOE estimates the projects will together create tens of thousands of jobs and produce 3 million metric tons of hydrogen annually.

• Use of this hydrogen could cut CO2 each year by "roughly equivalent to combined annual emissions of 5.5 million gasoline-powered cars," DOE said.

🗞️ Driving the news: Seven regional consortia selected for award negotiations include...

• The Appalachian Hydrogen Hub that ties together efforts in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania. It aims to use the region's ample gas supplies to produce hydrogen while capturing process emissions.
• The Midwest Hydrogen Hub, which aims to use renewable, natural gas, and nuclear, DOE said.
• The California Hydrogen Hub, which envisions production using renewable inputs, with a focus on decarbonizing heavy trucking and port operations.

Yes, but: A lot needs to break right. It's a phased process, starting with design, then permitting and lining up financing, and finally building projects, officials said.

• And the Treasury Department is still writing heavily lobbied rules of the road for Inflation Reduction Act tax subsidies.
• Their structure will help determine how quickly — or not — the industry scales.

Lee Moran
Updated Fri, October 13, 2023 at 5:40 AM GMT-7·1 min read

Fox Business’ Neil Cavuto mocked House Republicans ― during an interview with Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) ― over their struggle to find a new speaker after the removal of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from the role.

“Are you worried, though?” Cavuto asked Good on Thursday in a video shared online by Mediaite.

“No offense to you, congressman, but you guys are looking kind of like ‘Keystone Cops’ here,” he added. “You can’t get this done, and it doesn’t bode well for Americans, in their opinion, of you running the House because you can’t seem to run it.”

Good, who backs Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) for the position, argued the same was said following McCarthy’s protracted 15-vote battle to become the speaker in January and that soon after, “nobody cared” how long it had taken.

Cavuto bluntly reminded the Donald Trump-devoted lawmaker exactly how McCarthy’s speakership imploded because of the single motion-vacating deal he cut to obtain power in the first place.

Good has called the COVID-19 pandemic “phony” and voted to overturn the 2020 election result. In 2021, Good claimed that “nearly everything that plagues our society can be attributed to a failure to follow God’s laws for morality and his rules for and definition of marriage and family.”

Washington Post: Biden rises to the occasion on Israel and Hamas. Trump sinks to a new low.

By the Editorial Board
October 12, 2023 at 5:50 p.m. EDT

At a time when the United States, and the world, desperately need decency and moral clarity, President Biden has provided both. His words regarding the wanton atrocities Hamas has committed against hundreds of Israeli civilians, as well as many Americans and citizens of other countries, in the past week have been unequivocal. In remarks to a gathering of American Jewish leaders Wednesday, he described the mass murder as “sheer evil” and likened it to “the worst atrocities of ISIS.”

In condemning the terrorism, and offering support to Israel’s military response, the president also reminded the new emergency war government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of its responsibilities under “the law of war.” These measured statements put the United States in just the right place: supportive of Israel but positioned, if need be, to influence and temper its response.

In short, Mr. Biden has so far met the elementary test of political leadership amid crisis, as those who placed their trust in him at the ballot box three years ago hoped he could. By no means do we intend to endorse all the steps and missteps he and his administration might have taken in the Middle East up to this point. The important thing is how the United States, in concert with allies, deals with the reality that began Saturday.

Nor do we propose to adjudicate all the inevitable controversies that have arisen over who in Hollywood or on college campuses or on the streets of Manhattan said what about Hamas’s massacre. Inevitably — and regrettably — amid many sober and sincere expressions, there were too many instances of justification or outright celebration.

What matters most is what those who exercise, or would exercise, political power say and do. It matters that they show the ability to differentiate — to treat the slaughter of these particular innocents on its own terms, without relativization, even as everyone knows and understands that it occurred within a broader context that includes Palestinian suffering, historical and contemporary. Unreserved condemnation of Hamas’s terrorism is the price of admission to this debate — or, rather, to the morally serious part of it. In that respect, Mr. Biden’s firm words also stand in welcome contrast to the equivocations by a small number of the left-wing members of Congress in his own party, which White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre specifically repudiated.

In a reckless category of their own, however, were the comments of GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump. To be sure, he labeled the Hamas attack a “disgrace” shortly after it occurred — then pivoted to blaming it on Mr. Biden’s policies. That was about par for the partisan course, alas. Yet the former president went in a bizarre new direction Wednesday by heaping scorn on Israel itself for failing to anticipate the attack and lecturing the Jewish state to “step up their game.”

He labeled the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group “very smart,” comparing it to an authoritarian he rates highly for ruling “1.4 billion people ... with an iron fist”: Chinese President Xi Jinping. And he referred to Israel’s defense minister as a “jerk” for purportedly revealing weaknesses in the country’s northern defenses. To top it off, the former president said Mr. Netanyahu had “let us down” by refusing to aid the deadly strike Mr. Trump ordered against the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force on Jan. 3, 2020.

An Israeli spokesman denied the account and dismissed Mr. Trump’s comments as “shameful.” There’s a lesson here for Mr. Netanyahu, who forged a close relationship with Mr. Trump during his presidency, based on the latter’s generally uncritical support for Mr. Netanyahu. There’s a lesson, too, for the Israeli public, among whom Mr. Trump was popular while in office.

Mostly, though, it is Americans who need to take notice of these comments — especially Republicans, both voters and politicians. To their credit, some of Mr. Trump’s rivals for the GOP nomination denounced his remarks. Even by his standards, they showed an extraordinary penchant for rubbing salt in the wounds of an ostensible friend and for converting an international crisis into a drama about himself. Mr. Trump’s latest outburst showed how fortunate this country is that he is not in the White House now and how unfortunate it would be if he ever returned to it.

The difficult days ahead will require rhetorical precision, empathy for victims and strategic thinking about U.S. interests. Real leaders rise to the occasion.

Now you know why Putin was involved in the Hamas invasion of Israel.

Russia launches huge new offensive on the Avdiivka stronghold in eastern Ukraine

With the world's eyes transfixed on the crisis unfolding in the Middle East, Vladimir Putin's bloody, brutal invasion of Ukraine continues unabated. Russian troops have launched a major offensive on the town of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine. Three battalions involving some 2,000 troops and dozens of armored vehicles, supported by fighter jets, are reportedly involved in the large-scale attack on the strategically important town, which acts as the gateway to the Ukrainian separatist city of Donetsk.

Fetterman takes shot at Republicans: "Not sending their best and brightest to Congress!"

“Sometimes you literally just can’t believe, like, these people are making the decisions that are determining the government here. It’s actually scary,” said Fetterman in an appearance on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Yes, yes it is, John.

Trump Doral event with Eric Trump will feature a Hitler-promoting anti-Semite who killed someone

You will not be surprised to learn that this is the FOURTH time that a Hitler-promoting anti-Semite will have appeared together with Eric Trump on his "ReAwaken America" tour. Media Matters for America reports that anti-Semitic fitness influencer Ian Smith (what a world we live in) has promoted neo-Nazi and pro-Hitler propaganda, posted Holocaust denial garbage online, suggested the “good guys” didn’t win World War 2, and complained that Jewish people are behind “all of these things that are used to control us.”

It's almost as if there's something about the Trump brand of white nationalism that really resonates with the American neo-Nazi. Nah....probably just coincidence.

The Bony Face of Failure: Another Foreign Policy Disaster on Jake Sullivan's Watch​

Sickly, sleep-deprived psychopath recently boasted, 'The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades'​

Andrew Stiles

Evidence Shows White House Lied About Biden's Classified Docs​

Evita Duffy-Alfonso
The House Oversight and Accountability Committee announced it has evidence a team of at least five White House employees, President Joe Biden’s personal attorneys, a Department of Defense employee, and more covered up the president’s documents scandal for more than a year and lied about it.

While the president’s lawyers said that the classified documents, which were kept from Biden’s time as vice president, were discovered at the Penn Biden Center on Nov. 2, 2022, the House Oversight Committee has compiled“evidence showing the timeline of relevant events began in 2021 and involved at least five White House employees.”

“There is no reasonable explanation as to why this many White House employees and lawyers were so concerned with retrieving boxes they believed only contained personal documents and materials,” said Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer in a letter to White House counsel Edward Siskel.

The letter details how White House staff coordinated “the organizing, moving, and removing of boxes [at Penn Biden Center] that were later found to contain classified materials” beginning in March of 2021. However, not until Nov. 2, 2022 — over a year later — did the Biden administration inform the National Archives that it had discovered improperly held classified documents.

On March 18, 2021, Annie Tomasini, who was an assistant and senior adviser to the president and director of Oval Office operations, went to the Penn Biden Center “to take inventory of President Biden’s documents and materials,” the letter said.

Then on June 28, 2022, at the direction of Dana Remus, former White House counsel and assistant to the president, Biden’s former assistant Kathy Chung “pack[ed] up President Biden’s documents and materials.” Notably, Remus contacted Chung on a personal phone number and private email address, “thus evading potential Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) disclosures,” Comer wrote. The day of that communication, May 24, 2022, was also “the exact same day the Department of Justice (DOJ) subpoenaed former President Trump for classified documents,” he added.

According to the letter, two days later after Chung packed up Biden’s documents, Remus; Anthony Bernal, an sssistant to the president and senior advisor to the first lady; and a White House employee whose name is unknown went to Penn Biden Center to haul away as many boxes of documents and other materials as would fit in their vehicle.

Several months passed, and on Oct. 12, 2022, Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Oval Office Operations Ashley Williams and Biden’s personal attorney Pat Moore went to the center to do “the next wave of assessing of files and looking at boxes.” The next day, Williams went back to retrieve “a few” of Biden’s boxes, and another of Biden’s personal attorneys, Bob Bauer, texted Chung to say Moore had started sifting through the boxes at the Penn Biden Center.

According to Bauer, Biden’s classified documents were first found at the Penn Biden Center on Nov. 2, 2022 — but the timeline of events he provided leaves out all the aforementioned planning and meddling related to the documents.

Moreover, the White House and Bauer claimed that the National Archives took “possession of the materials” the morning after it was contacted. Yet the White House and Bauer failed to mention that Moore “scheduled a FedEx pickup with Penn Biden Center employees” the day they contacted the Archives on Nov. 2, 2022, and that the delivery driver arrived that day to “load[] the documents and then [take them] down to the loading dock” for shipping.

Your hero in action!

Why is Donald Trump publicly criticizing Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel, while praising Hezbollah’s intelligence? His position likely relates to 2020.


Oct. 12, 2023, 9:49 AM CDT
By Steve Benen

In the wake of Hamas’ surprise attack five days ago, most major American political figures have been eager to express support for Israel and its leaders. As The New York Times reported, Donald Trump, to a surprising degree, has adopted a different kind of posture.

Former President Donald J. Trump, who frequently paints himself as the fiercest defender of Israel to ever occupy the White House, on Wednesday criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a speech in Florida just days after deadly Hamas attacks rocked the country.

Click to expand...

To be sure, at his appearance in West Palm Beach, the Republican continued to blame the crisis on President Joe Biden — an offensive he first launched on Saturday — which was predictable.

What was more surprising was Trump’s other comments about the crisis, the region, and the relevant players.

The former American president claimed, for example, that Netanyahu “let us down” and did “a very terrible thing” when the prime minister — according to Trump’s version of events — decided that Israel would not participate in a mission that targeted Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani in 2020.

Trump also criticized Israeli intelligence, and in the same appearance, described Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, as “very smart” — a label the Republican usually reserves for Russia’s Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jung Un, and China’s Xi Jinping.

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates added soon after, “Statements like this are dangerous and unhinged. It’s completely lost on us why any American would ever praise an Iran-backed terrorist organization as ‘smart.’”

Trump went on to tell Fox News, in reference to Netanyahu, “He has been hurt very badly because of what’s happened here. He was not prepared. He was not prepared, and Israel was not prepared.”

As for why the former president is making comments such as these, there’s a larger context to keep in mind. MSNBC’s Jonathan Lemire reported a few hours ago, for example, that Netanyahu has offered public praise for Biden, “and Trump simply couldn’t stand for that.”

What’s more, let’s not forget what triggered the Republican’s broader animosity against the Israeli prime minister. Remember this Axios report from December 2021?

Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu were the closest of political allies during the four years they overlapped in office, at least in public. Not anymore. “I haven’t spoken to him since,” Trump said of the former Israeli prime minister. “F**k him.”

Click to expand...

Reflecting on Netanyahu congratulating then-President-elect Biden in 2020, while Trump was still trying to overturn his defeat, the former president added, “The first person that congratulated [Biden] was Bibi Netanyahu, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with. ... Bibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake.

"I liked Bibi. I still like Bibi. But I also like loyalty. The first person to congratulate Biden was Bibi. And not only did he congratulate him, he did it on tape.”

To the extent that reality matters, Netanyahu wasn’t even close to being “the first” foreign leader to congratulate Biden, though such details apparently weren’t important to Biden’s predecessor.

It’s against this backdrop that Trump, still overwhelmed with an apparent sense of grievance, thought it’d be appropriate to publicly criticize Netanyahu and Israel, while praising Hezbollah’s intelligence.

Interviews are Josh Henson, Caleb Williams, MarShawn Lloyd, Justin Dedich, Brenden Rice, and Calen Bullock.

Note: Players that practiced with the linebackers are Raesjon Davis, Shane Lee, Eric Gentry, Tackett Curtis and Chris Thompson Jr.

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USC was represented at Pac-12 men's basketball media day in Las Vegas by Andy Enfield, Kobe Johnson and Boogie Ellis today. I was in attendance, and above you can see the entire main stage interview session plus the two breakout sessions to gain some more insight into this year's team as the Trojans prepare to hit the floor for the regular season next month.