Now its Katy Tur: Every time I check in on @Msnbc they're talking sensationalizinghand-wringing over the MTG - Crockett ..etc exchange.
Move on. Don't overplay your hand #MSNBC. Do some real reporting ..
[The Bell, Telegram] An unknown assailant shot several times at Slovak Prime Minister Fico
An assassination attempt was made on the life of the Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, who occupies a conditionally pro-Russian position. An unknown person shot him as he left a building in the town of Gandlova. The shooter has been detained.
UPD. The prime minister's condition is preliminary and he is in hospital, where he was taken by helicopter.
[NYTimes]: Nicole Shanahan Ventures Onto the Stump for Kennedy
The Silicon Valley lawyer, chosen by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his running mate, made her first solo outing on the stump. She is to appear alongside him at a rally on Monday in Austin, Texas. By By Chris Cameron
[NYTimes]: Susan Hoffinger, the prosecutor, picks up where she left off, with Michael Cohen on the verge of describing having made the hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels. She shows him a series of emails with Keith Davidson, who was Daniels’s lawyer in 2016. Davidson, who has already testified he was frustrated by a delay in receiving the payment, says in the email that it wasn't necessary for him to speak to Cohen, and that he just wanted to be paid. ..
Important read. [Gifted article, no paywall. The Washington Post] Under Putin, a militarized new Russia rises to challenge U.S. and the West By Robyn Dixon
In Putin’s bid to recast Russia as a global superpower, he champions a society built on pro-war activism, puritanical values and scaled-back social rights. https://wapo.st/3yhcopj
Esther describes a thunderstorm having taken shelter in a hunting lodge: “we sat, just within the doorway, watching the storm. It was grand to see how the wind awoke, and bent the trees, and drove the rain before it like a cloud of smoke; and to hear the solemn thunder, and to see the lightning; and, while thinking with awe of the tremendous powers by which our little lives are encompassed,
Illustration: Where Nemo has been buried
“Is this place of abomination, consecrated ground?’
‘I don’t know nothink of consequential ground,’ says Jo, still staring.
‘Is it blessed?’
‘WHICH?’ says Jo, in the last degree amazed.
‘Is it blessed?”
Dickens possessed copies of G. A. Walker’s Series of Lectures on the Actual Condition of the Metropolitan Graveyards (1846) which detail the dreadful conditions in London burial grounds.”
[NYTimes]: Stormy Daniels is now talking about meeting Trump for dinner. She says that when he first emerged from his hotel suite, he was wearing “silk or satin” pajamas, which Daniels compared to those often sported by Hugh Hefner. She asked him to change, and he returned in more standard dress clothes. By Jonah Bromwich
[NYTimes]: Live Updates: Stormy Daniels Is Expected to Testify in Trump’s Trial
Ms. Daniels, who received $130,000 in hush money to keep silent about her story of having had sex with Donald J. Trump, is at the center of the case against him.
Very, important read. [Gifted Article, The Atlantic]: Democracy Is Losing the Propaganda War
Autocrats in China, Russia, and elsewhere are now making common cause with MAGA Republicans to discredit liberalism and freedom around the world. By Anne Applebaum.
Mark 10:14 Suffer the little children to come unto me
The Visit to the Brickmaker's by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne) for Bleak House, Chapter VIII, "Covering a Multitude of Sins,"
In essence, Dickens here counters the belief frequently voiced by contemporary middle- and upper-class commentators that the poor "are different from us," they do not find the death of children all that upsetting, and they therefore must be almost a separate species.
[NYTimes]: Hope Hicks is now describing the initial Wall Street Journal article about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels. She says she cannot recall certain facts about this period, including a conversation with Michael Cohen. But she says if the prosecution has something to refresh her memory, she is willing to look at it. She has gotten considerably more nervous-looking again, clenching her jaw and stumbling a bit in her speech.
This is really important, read and share this. [Gifted article, The Washington Post] This should be a 5-alarm fire for anyone who cares about inflation
With the 2024 election approaching, the central bank’s independence is on the line. By Catherine Rampell
[NYTimes]: The prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, is really bearing down on Keith Davidson, grilling him on how Stormy Daniels’s denials could have been thought to be true. It’s a really important point to highlight for jurors — and to make as memorable as possible — again to take the wind out of the sails of any argument by the defense that Daniels denied her encounter with Trump. By Jonah Bromwich
The Little Old Lady Phiz (Hablot K. Browne) March 1852 Etching.
Passage Illustrated: Initiating the Wards into the Ways of Chancery
"Oh!" said she. "The wards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy, I am sure, to have the honour! It is a good omen for youth, and hope, and beauty when they find themselves in this place, and don't know what's to come of it."
[...]
[NYTimes]: The Trump campaign has removed two posts from its campaign website that Justice Merchan determined were violations of a gag order preventing Trump from attacking potential witnesses. Both posts involved Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer. By Michael Gold
Any politician who runs for office sensing a divine mandate soon confronts a bracing reality: Campaigns are built around the accumulation of money, power, and influence, currencies of a kingdom to which Christians do not belong. Dual citizenship is not a biblical option...
