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[not]

Israel has not agreed to this deal.

In his speech from the White House, Biden acknowledged internal divisions inside Israel that could prevent a hostage deal from being agreed it.

“I know there are those in Israel who will not agree with this plan. And will call for the war to continue indefinitely. Some, some are even in the government coalition,” he said, an unsubtle reference to hardliners in Netanyahu’s government who have resisted efforts to mediate an end to the conflict.

“They made it clear they want to occupy Gaza. They want to keep fighting for years and the hostages are not a priority to them,” Biden said.

Though he did not name anyone in his speech, Biden has previously singled out National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir as among those in Netanyahu’s governing coalition who are making any progress difficult.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/31/politics/biden-middle-east-remarks/index.html

This is literally the deal that Israel's cabinet agreed to unanimously.

They claimed that if Cuomo was removed Trump would be pardoned in New York.

Hence time to implement my idea of blacklisting any person who ever said anything along those lines on social media and banning them from working in the Democratic Party for life. And this does mean Brooklyn Dad Defiant. (And no it does no matter if he retracted that tweet. It was never an acceptable view to ever have.)

How would Donald Trump have gotten pardoned in the first place in New York?

Either because Andrew Cuomo is apparently the only Democrat capable of winning statewide in New York and thus a Republican governor would get elected and pardon him or Kathy Hochul would because she was some sort of sleeper agent for Trump.

And Francis has done another -ism, this time a remark about how women be gossiping. For an eighty-seven-year-old frankly-more-cishet-seeming-than-most-popes Peronist living and working in Italy to say something unkind about women off the cuff is about as surprising as for him to say something unkind about gay people, but two serious gaffes of this kind coming in quick succession is obviously pretty unusual for this man in particular.

I'm going to start considering the possibility of cognitive decline. As Al said about another living legend of Latin American public life:

Pretty obviously senile by this point.

Which other politicians would you categorize as senile?

If you mean seriously (as I do in this case), then ones that display clear signs of the sort of mental deterioration associated with various forms of dementia. Strange and disturbing statements that have some relation to the sorts of things the person in question might once have said are a better indication that getting names wrong and terminology confused: the false positive rate on the latter would be absurdly high. In terms of people still in leadership positions, the classic case would be Urho Kekkonen.

I hope I'm wrong about this, and in any case Francis has enough planned for late this year—trips; documents; the synod—that we can probably assume he's not mere days or weeks from death, but I think this is a possibility worth taking into account in addition to his obviously declining physical health.

https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1796633753931907396

Has all these years any poster debased himself more than OSR the last 24 hours?
At least his anti-Trump facade won't be fooling anyone any more.

I made the same argument in March of this year and as President Johnson can confirm I had made these arguments in late 2020 as well when Trump was first being investigated for this .

So I’m consistent on this

Consistently awful, yes.

[not]

Israel has not agreed to this deal.

In his speech from the White House, Biden acknowledged internal divisions inside Israel that could prevent a hostage deal from being agreed it.

“I know there are those in Israel who will not agree with this plan. And will call for the war to continue indefinitely. Some, some are even in the government coalition,” he said, an unsubtle reference to hardliners in Netanyahu’s government who have resisted efforts to mediate an end to the conflict.

“They made it clear they want to occupy Gaza. They want to keep fighting for years and the hostages are not a priority to them,” Biden said.

Though he did not name anyone in his speech, Biden has previously singled out National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir as among those in Netanyahu’s governing coalition who are making any progress difficult.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/31/politics/biden-middle-east-remarks/index.html

For what, lol. If GOP prosecutors anywhere had anything on the Clintons, Obamas, or Joe Biden they could successfully indict them for, let alone prosecute, they would have done so already.

At least for Obama, there's a clear case to make: He wore a tan suit. Let's not forget the biggest scandal of presidency.

Indeed. It was the worst scandal since the Teapot Dome scandal in 1923.

I honestly don't think Obama committed any crimes.  Any attempts to argue that he did are basically conspiracy theories.  However, the more likely retaliation would be going after the Clintons, who have a much shadier past.

^ Has any high-profile perpetrator of white collar crime ever shown remorse or accountability, like, ever?

I took a class on white collar crime last semester and a consistent theme from our guest speakers who were defense attorneys is that they found violent criminals are far easier to work with than white collar criminals. At least the former will acknowledge they did something bad

Also the New York Court of Appeals is the final court with authority over New York law. In order to appeal to SCOTUS on these grounds Trump's lawyers would have to argue that the New York system somehow violated the Constitution or federal law, a huge stretch.

I'm not seeing any coherent argument to allow a SCOTUS appeal. Theoretically the felony charge could be thrown out by a New York court thus giving the option to either retry Trump for misdemeanor charges only or drop it, but any such appeal for that wouldn't be happening until next year.

And even if Trump's lawyers concocted some bizarre thrown together case that would allow for it repealed in federal jurisdiction, that wouldn't grant it the fast track to SCOTUS without going through the lower level federal courts first. The January 6 case did because that involved questions of Presidential immunity, but there's nothing in this case at all related to the fact that Trump is a former President. (Former Presidential candidate yes, but that's not the same thing.) The justice overseeing the Second Circuit could likely grant it status to be immediately heard, but that's Sotomayor.

Appeals from the New York Court of the Appeals can go to the Supreme Court in certain circumstances, and I see no reason why they wouldn’t want to be the final say in this case. Even if they refuse to take up an appeal, I think it’s important that the country knows that now rather than after the election.

On what grounds? Again the only real argument Trump would have for appeal is that the actions he was found guilty of do not meet the standard for a felony under New York law. That's entirely a question of New York law.

I actually don’t think the grounds exist, but I am not the arbiter of the law, the Supreme Court is. The same Supreme Court with 3 Trump appointees and 2 more Trump hack judges, the idea that they have no chance of taking this case up just doesn’t seem connected to reality. I actually hope they don’t take it up, but I would like to know if they will now and not 1.5 years in the future.

I hate SCOTUS as much as the next guy but it's pretty unlikely that they have five votes to take this "just because" without a real constitutional reason. Other than Alito and Thomas, the current conservative justices do still seem to want to exist on the periphery of respectability, if for no other reason than to legitimize the rest of their decisions.

[Finally]

Finally:

""The Biden administration has quietly given Ukraine permission to strike inside Russia — solely near the area of Kharkiv — using U.S.-provided weapons"

“'The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use U.S. weapons for counter-fire purposes in Kharkiv so Ukraine can hit back at Russian forces hitting them or preparing to hit them,' a U.S. official confirmed," @ErinBanco
 
https://politico.com/news/2024/05/30/biden-ukraine-weapons-strike-russia-00160731"

And ... Germany just followed, Scholz Government just issued permission to strike military targets inside Russia with German weapons:

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1796467331327017387

Sometimes it's unclear what Scholz' Ukraine strategy, if any, would be if he hadn't Biden as President.