Updates from the Israel-Palestine war: Attacks continue in Rafah, a city Israel told Palestinians to evacuate to. The bombarded area includes a hospital and a United Nations-run shelter with thousands of refugees. The UN agency estimates that 12,000 people pack every square kilometer of Rafah. Israeli airstrikes have destroyed a Mosque and homes there. Attacks nearly struck an Al Jazeera crew live on air. Meanwhile, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh traveled to Cairo, Egypt for Qatari-mediated cease-fire talks. There’s no deal yet, but proposals have been put on the table that would release more Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Donald Dumped: The Colorado Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that former President Trump is ineligible for office under the 14th Amendment’s insurrectionist ban and the state removed him from the ballot, CNN reported. Holy shit? An appeal will certainly head to the US Supreme Court in no time. We’ll see if those conservatives are the “originalists” they claim to be. The New York Times wrote about what might happen next.
Trump defended racist remarks: The former President defended his explicitly white supremacist comments about migrants crossing the southern border, “poisoning the Blood of America,” to a crowd of Christmas trees and MAGA hats. As extremism researchers have pointed out, the sentiment bore the resemblance to fascist writers like, I don’t know, this guy named Adolf Hitler? Extremism experts pointed out the similarity to rhetoric the Nazi leader justified the persecution and eventual mass death of European Jews with the purity of the pseudoscientific Aryan racial ideology. Trump said he “never read Mein Kampf.” Dude, we know the only books you’ve read are Hop on Pop, The Art of The Deal, and the novelization of Home Alone 2 and that’s not the point. He didn’t address the Colorado decision.
Speaking of insurrection: A judge sentenced Charles Donohoe, a Proud Boy lieutenant and Marine veteran from North Carolina who cooperated with federal prosecutors, to 40 months in prison Tuesday. It’s a sliver of leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio’s 22-year sentence. Donohoe’s already served 38 months so he’ll likely be out in two months. Before apologizing to his family and America, Donohoe told the court that he knew he was breaking the law the moment the barricades went down. He pleaded guilty last August. His sentence is more than two years shorter than what federal guidelines recommend. The Washington Post reported that details of just how Donohoe helped prosecutors were redacted from a sentencing memo.
I hope you’re hungry—for nothing: This Republican-controlled Congress (the 118th) voted more times (724) and passed fewer laws (27) than any time in the past decade, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. There was still plenty of bullshit under the reign of Democrats last year, they at least passed (248) a significantly higher percentage of bills they voted on (549).
New Green River Killer victim identified with DNA testing: Police collected what remained of Lori Anne Razpotnik in Auburn 38 years ago. Until 2023, she was known as “Bones 17,” one anonymous victim in the 49 women Gary Ridgway killed. She ran away from her Lewis County home at 15 in 1982 and her family never saw her again. According to the Seattle Times, she was last seen climbing into a truck. Three years later, a car swerved off Mountain View highway and into a ditch where investigators found the remains of several victims. A last set of remains, “Bones 20,” has not been identified.
Alaska Airlines Pilots Informational Picket: The union and airline still cannot reach an agreement on a contract, so a bunch of off-duty flight attendants and pilots held a picket outside Sea-Tac Tuesday, KING 5 reported. They wanted to remind stressed holiday travelers they’re not the only ones getting fucked by an airline this Christmas. While the company held out their empty hands and cried about their “economically infeasible” proposal, they were working out a deal to buy Hawaiian Airlines for nearly $2 billion.
Young Edmonds woman found dead in Nevada desert: Marayna Rodgers vanished after meeting with a friend, 19-year-old Sakari Hampton, and her boyfriend, former University of Arizona basketball player Chance Comanche, in Las Vegas. They reported her missing, and police charged them with kidnapping, and then amended those charges to murder, according to the Tacoma News Tribune. Rodgers was a nurse at Overlake Hospital Medical Center in Bellevue.
Car collides with Renton school bus: The sedan slammed into a bus transporting adult students with disabilities in the rain Tuesday afternoon, spinning and fishtailing into the impact. One car passenger died. Two were taken to the hospital. All on the bus survived. The Renton Police Department is investigating the car’s driver for potential DUI charges, according to KIRO 7. Police think the three occupants of the car are in their early 20s.
New infection-resistant metal implants could save lives: Each year, more than 100,000 people who undergo joint replacement get infections from bacteria colonizing their metal implants weeks or months after the surgery; half die. Amit Bandyopadhyay and Susmita Bose, a husband-wife professor power couple at Washington State University developed a 3-D printed alternative with an antibacterial alloy of titanium, tantalum, and copper, staving off bacterial infection, reports KUOW.
“… half die.” Wrong; KUOW clearly said that “half of them will need revision surgeries.”
Does anyone at The Stranger actually read — not to mention comprehend — the stories they post links to?
While the Colorado decision will no doubt be reversed by the majority league of bad ethics (SCOTUS), it is fun to celebrate small victories as they happen
So keep us not in suspense! What did Bob Ferguson say when you trusty The_Stranger reporters asked him how soon Washington would be joining Colorado in removing trump from our ballot?
@2: at least they’ll have to enumerate the process for applying Am 14 Section 3. like, you have to be convicted of x, or the congress has to vote that you y.
also, a miracle could occur and end our long national nightmare. SCOTUS upholds the CO decision, or a fatal stroke. either way.
That photo of the former guy looks just like the one where he’s yelling at the kid mowing his lawn. I guess he looks like that a lot then. Always yelling at someone about something.
@5 SCOTUS ruling that criminal conviction of a short list of federal crimes is needed for disqualification is probably the best way forward. As much as I would like the CO verdict to be upheld in entirety, it would leave a lot of room for red states to start disqualifying democrats for supporting BLM protests.
On the plus side, that ruling would appeal to the Roberts “I’m just calling balls and strikes here” approach. It would also set precedent without pulling a Bush v. Gore-style decision where they make a decision but supposedly only for this instance. And it wouldn’t have the Supreme Court making a specific ruling on Trump’s eligibility–that would be a result the Jack Smith trial. I could definitely see getting a 6-3 majority on this ruling, with Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett joining the liberals.
@11: in what universe were BLM protests insurrection or rebellion against the Constitution of the United States?
‘Police collected what remained of Lori Anne Razpotnik in Auburn 38 years ago. Until 2023, she was known as “Bones 17,” one anonymous victim in the 49 women Gary Ridgway killed.‘
We should always keep in mind evidence shown in court linked Ridgway to just seven victims; as part of the deal which spared his life, he pled guilty to all 48 of them. Also as part of that deal, he took investigators to the sites he’d dumped some of the other victims’ bodies, but he was never connected by any evidence to most of the Green River killings. Then-King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng tacitly admitted this: “We could have gone forward with seven counts, but that is all we could have ever hoped to solve.” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Ridgway)
Interestingly, back before the long-overdue DNA testing (then-Sheriff Reichert had repeatedly declared it unnecessary) connected Ridgway to those seven murders, investigators had hypothesized the existence of more than one killer, and that these killers had an informal, grisly contest going. This hypothesis was based on some of the victims disappearing within short time spans of each other; could one person have abducted multiple persons in such a short time, from different places? Once Ridgway had successfully bargained for his life, Maleng and Reichert simply slammed their investigation books closed, and declared themselves heroic.
@10: Still can’t figure out why we’re doing this, eh? If you’re still convinced you’re right anyway, then how about you follow your own logic?
@14: LOL, inside the aging paranoid anti-communist bubble. I should have known. I guess that’s all the reason a red state legislature requires.
Vivian, GREAT work. I love you. I’ve been nagging in the Slog comments for months about overreliance on tweets for news aggregation as Twitter’s just gotten worse and worse, a morally reprehensible site to associate with. Today, your Slog AM didn’t include a single tweet. YESS!!!! No sarcasm, no smug, I’m genuinely pleased and proud of the change.
@15 when you are burning down police stations (MN), attempting to burn down federal court houses (OR) and creating anarchist zones where people are killed (here) I think that might quality under insurrection laws. The point is it only takes someone’s opinion right now to make it stick. Trump is awful but he has yet to be convicted of anything so I think this sets a dangerous precedent that could escalate to actual facism and not just the pretend kind that progressives like to drone on about.
Given the fact that Trump was impeached twice, faces 91 indictments, has a missing binder full of national security secrets, is a raging white supremacist terrorists who incited the act of domestic terrorism on 1/6/2021 and continues to engage in all forms of deceitful and repugnant behavior (behavior for which any other person in this country would have been imprisoned long ago) and so many people are insisting he will be president again (when he never really was president, as in he never did the job, he just squatted in and smeared shit all over the walls of the White House) is just one of the many things happening in this country that proves this country, this so-called democracy, this failed experiment, is failing and will fail spectacularly and painfully.
@12 A bunch of the J6 defendants used a selective prosecution argument that they were treated much worse than BLM protestors. The judges all shot that down, but it’s out there in the right wing mediaverse.
@19 You do know that Trump was added as a party to the Colorado lawsuit specifically so that he could present evidence? And that there was an impartial finder of fact (aka a state judge) in that lawsuit? And that the state judge found that Trump had engaged in insurrection but wasn’t convinced that the 14th Amendment applied to the presidency? And that the CO supreme court took specific note that he didn’t even try to refute most of the evidence that he had engaged in insurrection? He did have an opportunity to present evidence; he just didn’t have any and/or didn’t present it. I’m not saying that a civil suit is the only way, but I don’t see how Trump was denied due process in this case, no matter how much he yells that he was.
The chances of civil war are pretty low. Trump’s people have seen how he cut loose the J6 folks and are less likely to stick their necks out for him again. Plus a whole lot of the foot soldiers are still in jail from that little adventure.
@23 Let’s game this out. SCOTUS can decide the case before or after the Jack Smith trial, and they can make a determination that Trump is eligible, not eligible, or may not be eligible (see below).
Let’s start with my timing, with a ruling before the Jack Smith verdict. If they conclude that CO properly kept Trump off the ballot, then there are riots in red states and many red states move to keep Biden off the ballot. Not good for democracy. If they rule that Trump is eligible, then they invite even more scrutiny from the left, especially if Clarence Thomas did not recuse himself. Not great for the standing of the court. If they take my approach and require that someone be convicted of a short list of crimes (likely including one or more charged by Jack Smith) be kept off the ballot, then they are not making the final decision. That happens with the jury verdict. So they keep their hands clean while setting clear standards for the future and damping down red state shenanigans. Sure, the partisans will yell, but the middle will likely be on board.
If they rule after the Jack Smith verdict, they get none of the benefit of keeping their hands clean. No matter what their verdict is, they are putting Trump on the ballot or keeping him off.
On another line, the earlier SCOTUS resolves the question, the less likely they are to make a hash of the primary calendar. If they rule in June, then the R presidential candidate has already been chosen if not formalized at the convention. If SCOTUS rules earlier and the Jack Smith trial is over by mid April and disqualifies Trump, there’s quite a bit of primary season still left.
I’m not going to argue with Noah Feldman’s reasoning, but Amanda Marcotte has some plausible reasons why SCOTUS (minus Thomas and Alito) might want to let the CO decision stand:
https://www.salon.com/2023/12/20/booting-off-the-ballot-isnt-just-legally-correct–its-the-smart-move-for-the/
YAAAAYY, Colorado! I’d love to see a good number of states following suit in rejecting the Orange Turd from another term of shitting all over the White House and democracy. Otherwise, we can count on becoming a desolate 3rd World wasteland of dystopian lawlessness.
@5, @12, and @15 Max Solomon: I’m with you on not wanting to see another image of the Orange Turd again.
Like you, I too, am ever hopeful of that miracle that SCOTUS upholds the CO decision and / or the Orange Turd has a fatal stroke, to be cornholed ever after in Hell.
@20 xina for the WIN!
@29 CKathes: Thank you for giving us hope.
boatgeek: don’t underestimate the veniality of Alito and co.
My guess is they allow Trump to be on the CO ballot immediately (but temporarily until they can look into the issue in their own sweet time) but will say if he is convicted of insurrection then the 14th kicks in and his votes are wasted.
For Jack Smith they will slow walk ‘such an important precedent setting case’ the issue until such time as Trump can pardon himself.
Basically by doing the minimum and slow walking it, they will get the results they want.
Heads they win, tails, we lose.
I think all Alito has to do is stay the CO supreme court ruling pending further US supreme court review and slow walk everything. They know they can and will get away with it. They really don’t worry about clean hands anymore. Maybe Roberts, but the rest of the right never heard of sanitizer.
@31 – You are assuming that the Supremes WANT To help Trump. They have shown little inclination to go along with his shenanigans so far and I suspect that they would just as soon be rid of him. They are quite conservative, but I don’t think they are MAGAts (except Fat Clarence, who is something of a maggot). If they can find a way to not have to prevent someone from shivving him, they may well take it.
@raindrop: should Hamas remain on the ballot in Palestine? Just askin…
@32 Ideally, yes, I would prefer to see Trump defeated at the ballot box. But with Biden unwisely running for re-election we are at serious risk of that not happening. Trump becoming president again would be a far worse outcome than bad optics from a court decision.
@32 raindrop and @36 CKathes: Will someone please wake me when true justice is served, the Orange Turd ends up cornholed in prison and / or drops dead, whether or not it’s incarcerated?
I fully agree with Max Solomon: I wish the Orange Turd would just die, and soon. Then maybe this dystopian overhyped media nightmare would be over. Finally.
@33 dvs99: We can only hope, although I don’t have much optimism for the Orange Turd-appointed neofascists in the Extreme Court.