They want to kill them all....

Israel pushes deeper into Gaza and frees Hamas captive

Benjamin Netanyahu rejects calls for a cease-fire.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Israeli ground forces pushed deeper into Gaza on Monday, advancing in tanks and other armored vehicles on the territory’s main city and freeing a soldier held captive by Hamas militants. The Israeli prime minister rejected calls for a cease-fire, even as airstrikes landed near hospitals where thousands of Palestinians are sheltering beside the wounded.

The military said a female soldier captured during Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 incursion was rescued in Gaza — the first since the weekslong war began. It provided few details, but said in a statement that Pvt. Ori Megidish “is doing well” and had met with her family.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed her home, saying the “achievement” by Israel’s security forces “illustrates our commitment to free all the hostages.”

He also rejected calls for a cease-fire to facilitate the release of captives or end the war, which he has said will be long and difficult. “Calls for a cease-fire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas,” he told a press conference. “That will not happen.”

He also said he has no plans to resign in the face of mounting anger over the failure of Israel’s vaunted security forces to prevent the worst surprise attack on the country in a half century.

Hamas and other militant groups are believed to be holding some 240 captives, including men, women and children. Netanyahu has faced mounting pressure to secure their release even as Israel wages a punishing war it says is aimed at crushing Hamas and ending its 16-year rule over the territory.

Hamas, which has released four hostages, has said it would let the others go in return for thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, including many implicated or convicted in deadly attacks on Israelis. Israel has dismissed the offer, and Netanyahu said the ground invasion “creates the possibility” of getting the hostages out, adding that Hamas will “only do it under pressure.”

Hamas released a short video Monday purporting to show three other female captives. One of the women delivers a brief statement — likely under duress — criticizing Israel’s response to the hostage crisis.

It was not clear when the Hamas video was made. The Associated Press usually refrains from reporting details of hostage videos because they show individuals speaking under duress and are often used for propaganda purposes.

The military has been vague about its operations inside Gaza, including the location and number of troops. Israel has declared a new “phase” in the war but stopped short of declaring an all-out ground invasion, even as it has deployed tens of thousands of troops to the border.

The movements of recent days, including larger ground operations both north and east of Gaza City, point to a focus on the city. Israel says much of Hamas’ forces and militant infrastructure, including hundreds of miles (kilometers) of tunnels, are in Gaza City, which before the war was home to over 650,000 people, a population comparable to that of Washington, D.C.

Though Israel ordered Palestinians to flee the north, where Gaza City is located, and move south, hundreds of thousands remain, in part because Israel has also bombarded targets in so-called safe zones. Around 117,000 displaced people hoping to stay safe from strikes are staying in hospitals in northern Gaza, alongside thousands of patients and staff, according to U.N. figures.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, says nearly 672,000 Palestinians are sheltering in its schools and other facilities across Gaza, which have reached four times their capacity.

The death toll among Palestinians passed 8,300, mostly women and children, the Gaza Health Ministry said Monday. The figure is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence. More than 1.4 million people in Gaza have fled their homes.

Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ initial attack, also an unprecedented figure.

Video circulating on social media showed an Israeli tank and bulldozer in central Gaza blocking the territory’s main highway, which the Israeli military in recent weeks has suggested Palestinians use to evacuate to the south.

The video, taken by a local journalist, shows a car approaching an earth barrier across the road. The car stops and turns around. As it heads away, a tank appears to open fire, and an explosion engulfs the car. The journalist, in another car, races away in terror, screaming, “Go back! Go back!” at an approaching ambulance and other vehicles.

The Gaza Health Ministry later said three people were killed in the car that was hit.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, declined to comment on where Israeli forces are deployed. He said additional infantry, armored, engineering and artillery units had entered Gaza and the operations would continue to “expand and intensify.”

The military said troops have killed dozens of militants who attacked from inside buildings and tunnels. It said that in the last few days, it had struck more than 600 militant targets, including weapons depots and antitank missile launching positions. Palestinian militants have continued firing rockets into Israel, including toward its commercial hub, Tel Aviv.

Hamas said its fighters clashed with Israeli troops who entered the northwest. It was not possible to independently confirm battlefield claims made by either side.

Meanwhile, crowded hospitals in northern Gaza came under growing threat.

Gaza’s Health Ministry shared video footage that appeared to show an explosion and a column of smoke near the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital for cancer patients. The hospital director, Dr. Sobhi Skaik, said it had sustained damage in a strike that endangered patients.

All 10 hospitals operating in northern Gaza have received evacuation orders, the U.N.’s office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs said. Staff have refused to leave, saying evacuation would mean death for patients on ventilators.

Strikes hit within 50 meters (yards) of Al Quds Hospital after it received two calls from Israeli authorities on Sunday ordering it to evacuate, the Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service said. Some windows were blown out, and rooms were covered in debris. It said 14,000 people are sheltering there.

Israel says it targets Hamas fighters and infrastructure and that the militants operate among civilians, putting them in danger.

Beyond the fighting, conditions for civilians in Gaza are continually deteriorating as food, medicine and fuel run dangerously low amid a weekslong Israeli siege.

With no central power for weeks and little fuel, hospitals are struggling to keep emergency generators running to operate incubators and other life-saving equipment. UNRWA has been trying to keep water pumps and bakeries running.

On Sunday, the largest convoy of humanitarian aid yet — 33 trucks — entered the territory from Egypt, and another 26 entered on Monday. Relief workers say the amount is still far less than what is needed for the population of 2.3 million people.

The fighting has raised concerns that the violence could spread across the region. Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah have engaged in daily skirmishes along Israel’s northern border.

In the occupied West Bank, Israel said its warplanes carried out airstrikes Monday against militants clashing with its forces in the Jenin refugee camp. Hamas said four of its fighters were killed there. As of Sunday, Israeli forces and settlers have killed 123 Palestinians, including 33 minors, in the West Bank, half of them during search-and-arrest operations, the U.N. said.

Clarifies

Canada clarifies its stance on a ‘humanitarian truce’

Foreign minister urges “all parties” to let foreign nationals out of Gaza, and humanitarian aid in.

By ZI-ANN LUM

Canada now wants a “humanitarian truce” in the Israel-Hamas war three days after it abstained from a U.N. resolution calling for one.

The shift is the latest sign of foreign policy incoherence from Canada, which abstained from Friday’s U.N. vote even though Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had backed the idea of “humanitarian pauses” just days earlier.

“Time is running out,” Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said Monday during a speech that attempted to define Canadian foreign policy in an era of geopolitical crises.

“We need an agreement from all parties to get foreign nationals out, including Canadians. To release all hostages. And to allow food, fuel and water into Gaza,” Joly told a Toronto business audience.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday that “the second stage of the war” had started, and violence in Gaza is expected to ratchet up.

The United Nations adopted Friday’s resolution calling for the protection of civilians while upholding “legal and humanitarian obligations” during the unfolding crisis. Fourteen countries including Israel and the United States voted against it. Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom abstained while France voted in favor.

Canada tried unsuccessfully to amend the U.N. resolution to “unequivocally” reject and condemn “the terrorist attacks by Hamas,” though not the violence unfolding in Gaza.

Truce vs. pause

On Monday, U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby was championing the call for humanitarian pauses.

“These would be localized, they would be short duration,” he told CNN. “There may be a need for multiple of them to get humanitarian aid in, but also to see if we can’t negotiate for the release of hostages, and find a way to get them out safely.”

A senior Canadian government official clarified that “truce” conveys the same meaning as “pauses,” and that Ottawa’s position hasn’t changed. But Joly is currently using the word “truce” because people were confused by the meaning of “humanitarian pauses.” The official, granted anonymity to speak freely on internal discussions, said both terms are likely to be used interchangeably going forward.

Deliveries of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip have been limited since Israel imposed a total blockade on the enclave in response to Hamas’ attacks on Oct. 7 that left more than 1,400 Israelis dead.

Israeli airstrikes since Netanyahu’s declaration of war on Hamas have led to the deaths of at least 8,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

Global Affairs Canada said as of Monday it is in contact with 460 Canadians, permanent residents and family members in Gaza who have reached out to the government for help.

Trudeau’s government is under fire from advocacy groups for its steadfast support of Israel and its reluctance to call for an immediate ceasefire. Some members of Trudeau’s Liberal caucus also want the prime minister to support a ceasefire.

Canada’s reluctance to condemn Israel for violence and civilian deaths in Gaza has shaken diaspora community members.

Ottawa-based Imam Sikander Hashmi warned Trudeau and his Cabinet against sleepwalking their way toward a moral and policy failure in the Middle East. He urged leaders to call for an immediate ceasefire.

“Your silence and inaction is shouting out loud that our blood and pain are worthless,” Hashmi said in a Monday press conference on Parliament Hill.

‘Pragmatic diplomacy’ put to the test

In her speech, Joly pledged more “forward-leaning engagement” with new partners.

She announced Canada’s foreign policy will be guided by two principles: a vigorous defense of the country’s sovereignty, along with the use of “pragmatic diplomacy” to mediate and mollify international conflicts.

“We are not naive about what engagement will accomplish,” Joly said. “But if we refuse to engage, we create additional incentives for those whose actions we strongly oppose to join together.”

She blamed Russia’s war in Ukraine for spiking gas and grocery prices at home.

Joly, who has been foreign minister for two years, has few wins on successful international engagement beyond Canada’s involvement in Ukraine.

Ottawa disentangled itself from pressure to lead a multinational military intervention in Haiti, despite calls from Washington to get more involved on the ground.

Earlier this fall, Trudeau cited “credible allegations” and suggested agents of India’s government may have been involved in the murder on Canadian soil of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar. It has made it tricky for Canadian diplomats dealing with nations that are vying for closer ties with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

To add to the pile, Joly told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken last October that Canada wants in on the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity. Global Affairs Canada confirmed to POLITICO that talks about Canada’s membership in U.S. President Joe Biden’s trade club are ongoing.

Won’t run

Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer says he won’t run for another term

He was elected to his deep-blue seat in 1996.

By ANDREW ZHANG

Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat who has represented Oregon in the House for nearly 30 years, said Monday that he would not run for another term.

“From my first minutes on Capitol Hill I have worked to promote a more civil and functioning Congress,” he said in a press release. “I firmly believe that when we focus on things that bring people together rather than divide them, that is when we make real progress.”

He was elected to his current seat representing Oregon’s 3rd Congressional District, which now spans from the heart of Portland eastward, in 1996 to fill a seat that fellow Democrat Ron Wyden left to take his current spot in the Senate. Given that it has a deep lean toward Democrats — the Cook Political Report rates it as D +22 — the seat will almost certainly stay in the hands of his party next year.

Recognized around the Capitol for wearing bowties as well as a bike pin on his lapel, Blumenauer founded and co-chairs the Congressional Bike Caucus and advocated for funding for nationwide bike infrastructure. A lawyer by training, he currently holds a coveted spot on the House Ways and Means Committee, the powerful tax-writing panel.

“It was a difficult decision to not run for re-election,” he said in the release, which touted his accomplishments in restructuring the tax code in the face of climate change and reforming federal cannabis law. “Particularly after the amazing successes of the last several years. I’m proud of the progress we’ve made.”

His retirement from Congress will cap a half-century in public service, including time in the state legislature, Portland’s city government and a regional board of commissioners. Blumenauer first shared the news with several local news outlets.

“Earl has been a fierce protector of our public lands, a staunch advocate for cannabis reform and a champion for livable communities where every family can thrive,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a release applauding Blumenauer for his service. “Earl and his bicycle pins will be greatly missed after the conclusion of this term, and I wish him and his family the best as he begins this next chapter.”

Other members of the House not seeking another term in 2024 include Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.), Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.), John Sarbanes (D-Md.), and Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.). In addition, 11 House members are running for U.S. Senate seats.

“I have been fortunate to call Earl Blumenauer a mentor and a friend since I first ran for Congress,” fellow Oregon Democrat Suzanne Bonamici wrote on X, the platform previously known as Twitter, in response to the news. “The Portland region, the State of Oregon, and the country have all benefitted enormously from Earl’s vision and leadership.

Not important but funny...

3 Expert Shoemakers Say Ron DeSantis Is Probably Wearing Height Boosters

The internet has questions about the governor’s boots. So I asked the experts.

By DEREK GUY

In the last few weeks, posts mocking Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ strangely shaped cowboy boots have racked up millions of views on Twitter and TikTok, with online sleuths trying to determine whether he’s wearing height-boosting insoles to pump himself up against a 6’3” primary frontrunner with a penchant for nicknames who reportedly considered calling DeSantis “Tiny D.” (If the 2001 Yale baseball team roster is to be believed, DeSantis stands at 5’11”.) Posters have sketched over photos of the boots, showing where they think DeSantis’ feet sit inside. “Slay queen,” captioned one TikTok user. Hashtags like “parisfashionweek” and “mallgothfashion” abound. And former President Donald Trump himself even shared one of the posts on Truth Social.

It sounds vain to fret over height in a political race, but DeSantis has reason to worry: Over the last century or so, taller candidates have tended to have an advantage in general elections — with the notable exceptions of former President Barack Obama, who is shorter than Mitt Romney, and President Joe Biden, who is shorter than Trump.

Three top experts in the field say the cowboy boot truthers might be onto something.

“I’ve dealt with these politicians many times,” says Zephan Parker, the bespoke bootmaker behind Houston’s popular Parker Boot Company, which, he says, has made height-increasing cowboy boots for a number of Texan politicians. (No, he won’t reveal any names.) “I’ve helped them with their lifts. [DeSantis] is wearing lifts; there’s no doubt.”

For Parker, there are two giveaways. At a DeSantis campaign event in Tampa, a photo was taken of him from his side, showing the governor in his black cowboy boots and navy worsted suit. Traditional Western boots are typically built with an elevated heel, ranging from 1 1/2” to 1 7/8”. DeSantis’ boots have a traditional Western silhouette, but, to Parker, the heels appear shorter. When you stick inserts into cowboy boots, the combination of the height-increasing lifts and the heels can “turn them into five-inch stilettos,” Parker says. “That’s too much for the common man. So on a ready-made boot, they’ll cut down the heel about half an inch to accommodate the lifts, which looks to be what happened here.” (Shaving down the heels does negate some of the height value of having lifts in the first place.)

The other giveaway, Parker says, is the boots’ tops (what most people would recognize as the shaft). Cowboy boots are made to fit snugly; on their website, Tecovas recommends getting boots sized so that you feel a rush of air leave the boot when your heels drop into place. But such a snug fit leaves little room for a wedge-shaped lift, so people who wear lifts often have to size up in width. This increases all the other measurements in tandem, including the circumference of the tops.

Twitter embed of Ron Desantis speaking at an event.

Looking at this photo of DeSantis at a Tampa campaign event, Parker says the tops of his boots are pushing against his trouser legs, and the heels are shorter than normal.

Looking at the photo of DeSantis at his Tampa campaign event, Parker points out how the tops are pushing against his trouser legs. “He looks like he’s wearing trousers with an eight-inch opening,” the bootmaker estimates, “which is plenty of room for a Western boot on a man of his proportions.” The fact that the tops push against the trouser legs suggests to Parker “the boots are bigger than intended, probably to accommodate his lifts.”

DeSantis’ campaign denies the allegation that he’s wearing lifts. On Monday, DeSantis told podcast host Patrick Bet-David that his boots are “just standard, off-the-rack Lucchese boots.” In an email to POLITICO Magazine, DeSantis’ press secretary, Bryan Griffin, writes, “Considering the fact that Politico Magazine admittedly spent money to consult ‘boot experts’ to run this hit piece on DeSantis tells you all you need to know about their ‘journalism.’ The governor doesn’t pad his boots, but if he ever needed anything to line a pet cage or fold up and wedge under a table leg, that would be the highest and best use for Politico Magazine.” (To be clear, POLITICO Magazine did not compensate any of the boot makers quoted in this story. Also, POLITICO Magazine does not appear in print. —Ed.)

Graham Ebner, an Austin-based cowboy bootmaker who trained at Texas Traditions — widely considered one of the country’s best bespoke cowboy bootmakers — also suspects the governor is wearing lifts. “Three things stick out to me,” he says, “the instep, the toe spring and where the ball of his foot is sitting in the boots.”

In shoemaking, the term “instep” refers to the area of your foot where shoelaces usually sit. Ebner notes that almost every photo of DeSantis shows an unusually high instep that angles nearly 60 degrees, pushing the leather outward and making it unusually taut. This high instep showed up when DeSantis campaigned at the Iowa State Fair, meeting voters mid-stride while wearing jeans and his campaign’s fishing shirt, as well as when he spoke to guests at the Family Leadership Summit over the summer. “Instead of the leather hugging the inside arch of his foot, as it should, it looks like his foot is being lifted up and stretching out the leather,” Ebner says.

The toe spring — a technical shoemaking term for how the toes curl up — is also much more pronounced than normal, says Ebner, suggesting to the bootmaker that DeSantis’ toes are too far back in the boot and there’s nothing inside to hold them down. The ball of the foot similarly appears oddly placed, he says. “In the photo of him sitting on the wooden stool, you can see where the ball of his foot is protruding on the right boot,” Ebner says. “It’s a good inch behind where it should be. It should not be in that position unless the heels were being lifted dramatically.”

Nicholas Templeman is a London-based shoemaker who worked for seven years as a lastmaker — someone who creates the wooden form that determines the shape of bespoke shoes — at John Lobb of St. James Street, the oldest continually operating bespoke shoe-making company in the world. Today, he has his own firm and serves as a judge for the World Championships of Shoemaking, an annual competition held in Europe. He notes that DeSantis’ boots have a very unusual wrinkle high up on the decorative tops (a shoemaker’s term for the boot’s shaft). “In London, a four-piece boot like this is called a half-Wellington,” Templeman explains. “On a half-Wellington, the vamp seam — the horizontal seam that sits near your ankle — curves up at the front because this is where your ankle bends. You wouldn’t make a boot so that the ankle bends at the tops, especially on a cowboy boot, because the decorative stitching makes this area weaker.” For Templeman, the bending in this area on DeSantis’ boots suggests that an interior wedge is lifting DeSantis’ heel up, causing his ankle to crease an area higher than designed. “If you put your foot into a regular pair of Western cowboy boots, that area is just going to be your shin, which doesn’t bend,” he says.

Templeman also notes that DeSantis’ boots have a lot of material hanging over the welt (the stitching that connects the sole to the boots’ uppers, the part of the shoe that covers the foot), which is likely caused by his foot being seated incorrectly. “The front of your foot is wider than the middle. So, if you put lifts inside a pair of ready-made boots, you’re going to put the front of your foot in the middle of the boot, which is not shaped for the widest part of your foot. This will push out the leather and cause it to hang over the boot.” Plus, DeSantis’ shins look unusually long for his proportions — an effect likely caused by standing on his tippy toes, Templeman says.

There are ways to make lifts look natural, but they require a few trips to a bespoke shoemaker, not buying ready-made cowboy boots in a slightly larger size and slipping ready-made lifts inside, which the experts say DeSantis appears to have done. Creating convincing height-boost footwear involves a few things: a boot or shoe that’s made to fit the foot when the heel is lifted, some clever concealment (on a low shoe, this will be a higher topline, so the shoe sits higher on the foot), and some planning (e.g., splitting the difference between the increased height gained from the lift and the cowboy boot heel, so neither is doing the bulk of the work).

The million-dollar question: How high do these shoemakers suspect DeSantis’ lifts are? Each estimated them to be about 1.5” — high enough to make a difference in his appearance, so long as you don’t look too closely at his feet.

Day 1

Takeaways from Day 1 of the Trump disqualification trial in Colorado

By Marshall Cohen and Devan Cole

The 14th Amendment disqualification trial against Donald Trump began Monday in Colorado with a group of voters tying to use the Civil War-era amendment to remove the former president from the 2024 ballot, citing his role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

In a Denver courtroom, Trump’s lawyers clashed with the challengers, bashing their case as an “anti-democratic” end-around to derail Trump’s campaign without giving voters a say. The challengers argued that their litigation was an unfortunate but necessary step to ensure a “fair” 2024 election by keeping an ineligible candidate off the ballot.

In addition to opening statements, a US Capitol Police officer who was on the front lines of the violent assault and Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat who recounted the horrors of running from the pro-Trump mob, testified for the challengers.

The case revolves around Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which says that US officials who take an oath to uphold the Constitution are disqualified from future office if they “engaged in insurrection” or have “given aid or comfort” to insurrectionists. However, the Constitution is vague about how this ban should be enforced, and it has only been used twice since the 19th century.

The trial is expected to last for one week and the judge has said she wants to issue her decision by Thanksgiving, so there is time for appeals before the ballot-printing process begins in January for the GOP primary in Colorado on March 5, 2024.

Here are the highlights from the first day of the historic trial:

Trump ‘betrayed’ his oath, challengers say

Lawyers for the Republican and independent voters who filed the lawsuit said in their opening statements that their goal is to “ensure Colorado has a fair election among eligible candidates.” Their case is backed by left-leaning watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

“Our Constitution prevents people who betrayed their solemn oath, as Trump did here, from serving in office again,” said Eric Olson, an attorney for the challengers. “Colorado law gives these voters the right to make sure their votes will count by coming to this court and ensuring that only eligible candidates appear on our ballots. Trump engaged in insurrection, and therefore cannot appear on the ballot.”

He added, “No person, not even the former president, is above the law.”

The presentation also featured footage from the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol and clips from the 2020 campaign in which Trump praised violence by his supporters, including his infamous comment to the right-wing Proud Boys group to “stand back and stand by.”

Connecting Trump to the violence is a key part of the voters’ case, which faces an uphill climb. Citing evidence from the January 6 committee, Olson said Trump “summoned and organized” the mob and “knew” they were “armed and dangerous.”

“Importantly, he helped them out by refusing to mobilize resources to stop the attack,” Olson said.

Trump lawyer blasts ‘fringe’ lawsuit

Trump lawyer Scott Gessler, a former Colorado secretary of state, blasted the proceedings and said the case was “weak,” “anti-democratic” and relied on “fringe” theories. He urged Colorado District Judge Sarah Wallace to not “interfere” with the 2024 election removing Trump from the ballot.

“This court should not interfere with that fundamental value – that rule of democracy. It’s the people who get to decide, and this lawsuit seeks to cancel that principle,” Gessler said.

A key part of Trump’s defense is that the January 6 insurrection was not actually an insurrection, as envisioned by the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in response to the full-blown rebellion that occurred during the Civil War.

“When it comes to decide as to who should lead our nation, it’s the people of the United States of America that gets to make those decisions, not six voters in Colorado,” Gessler said, referring to the plaintiffs.

Congressman describes ‘haunting’ Jan. 6 experience

Testifying for the anti-Trump challengers, Swalwell described the “haunting” experience of sheltering in the House chamber on January 6 while the right-wing mob surrounded the area.

A California Democrat and fiery Trump critic, Swalwell described how he realized in real time that Trump was endangering him and his colleagues by directing his supporters to go to the Capitol. The challengers used Swalwell’s testimony to try to connect Trump’s actions and words to the violent rampage by his supporters.

“(Trump) aimed at the Capitol by saying that he was in solidarity and going to the Capitol with them – that we’re going to go to the Capitol – a lot of us in the cloakroom looked at each other in an ‘Oh God, what does this mean for us?’ kind of feeling,” Swalwell said.

After the rioters violently breached the building, they nearly reached the House chamber. Swalwell described how the chaotic situation became extremely grave – with the Electoral College proceedings halted, police officers ordering members to put on gas masks, the House chaplain praying and a gunshot ringing out in the distance.

He said he prepared for a fight and coordinated with Rep. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat and former Marine, who helped lawmakers put on gas masks, sometimes “using his teeth to rip them open.”

“He also handed me a pen that was sitting on the table … and he said … ‘if any of them get near you just put this in their neck,’” Swalwell said.

Colorado election official looks for guidance

Outside of court, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said Monday on CNN that she hopes the trial will provide guidance on Trump’s eligibility for the ballot.

“We’ve never had this type of situation occur where a sitting president incites the insurrection and then has the audacity to run again. So there are real questions about whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment disqualifies him. I look forward to the judge giving guidance on the topic,” Griswold, a Democrat, said on “CNN News Central.”

The defendants sued Trump and Griswold, who hasn’t taken a position on whether the former president is disqualified and has said she’ll do whatever the judge orders her to do.

Griswold said on CNN that she believes Trump incited the January 6 insurrection, but added that it will be up to the judge to decide whether it means he “engaged” in the insurrection and is disqualified from office.

She also brushed off the possibility that the lawsuit could be seen as a political abuse of the legal process by targeting the GOP front-runner.

“It’s an appropriate mechanism to file a lawsuit. What is inappropriate is trying to steal an election from the American people, inciting an insurrection, having a scheme of fake electors, having conversations about stealing or seizing voter equipment,” Griswold said. “Those things are unreasonable. A court case like we’re seeing play out here, I think is just fine.”

Keep blocking military promotions

Tuberville says he will keep blocking military promotions despite Israel’s war

By Sam Fossum and Manu Raju

Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who has held up military promotions for nine months, slammed a proposal being floated to change the chamber’s rules to allow a vote on many of the nominations en masse and attacked the White House and Senate Democrats for not negotiating with him.

“It’s typical of this place. This administration would rather burn the Senate down and that’s what would happen. … If you change the rules of the Senate then it lasts forever,” Tuberville told CNN’s Manu Raju. “So they would rather burn down the Senate than negotiate.”

All Senate Democrats would have to join with nine Republicans for this latest plan to work. The bloc of nominees wouldn’t include some higher-level military promotions, which senators would still want to confirm one at a time. The proposal could go to the Senate Rules Committee as soon as this week, a source told CNN Thursday.

Tuberville has been holding up military promotions since February because of a Department of Defense policy that reimburses travel costs for military members requiring reproductive care outside of the state in which they are stationed. The department enacted the policy after the reversal of Roe v. Wade last year overturned the constitutional right to an abortion and left the issue to individual states.

The Alabama Republican added: “If they go around and, without negotiating, change the rules of the Senate it just goes to show you they want it their way or the highway.”

Tuberville, declining to provide specifics, said that members of the military tell him that his holds are not impacting readiness – something which the Pentagon and White House have repeatedly highlighted in their arguments urging the senator to lift his objections.

“If I thought this was happening, I wouldn’t be doing this. And I’ve told you that all along. And the people that I trust tell me that it’s not,” he told CNN.

Tuberville’s hold is affecting a number of senior military posts in the Middle East as the US deploys units to the area amid heightened tensions after a series of attacks on coalition bases and the crisis in Israel and Gaza.

The commander of the US Navy’s 5th Fleet – which is responsible for US naval operations in the Middle East region including the Red Sea and Gulf of Oman – is still awaiting promotion to deputy commander of US Central Command, which oversees US forces and operations in the region.

The deputy commanders of both the 5th Fleet and US Air Forces Central are also included in Tuberville’s hold, as well as Central Command’s deputy director of strategy, plans and policy.

Last month, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro told CNN the holds would have a “negative impact” on combat readiness. He was joined by the secretaries for the Army and Air Force in describing Tuberville’s actions as harmful to US interests.

Tuberville also said that he has had little or no interaction with the White House about the possibility of finding a solution.

“No conversation. Nobody wants to negotiate. You know this is not a negotiating crowd over in the White House,” Tuberville said.

Tuberville also noted that he had spoken with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona Independent, for 30 minutes about the possible rule change and said he doesn’t think she would support it.

Under the hold, the Senate can still confirm individual military promotions, which the body has done for a few high-profile appointments, but cannot approve hundreds of promotions at once as a time-saving measure.

Will oil save us????

They went hunting for fossil fuels. What they found could help save the world

By Laura Paddison

When two scientists went looking for fossil fuels beneath the ground of northeastern France, they did not expect to discover something which could supercharge the effort to tackle the climate crisis.

Jacques Pironon and Phillipe De Donato, both directors of research at France’s National Centre of Scientific Research, were assessing the amount of methane in the subsoils of the Lorraine mining basin using a “world first” specialized probe, able to analyze gases dissolved in the water of rock formations deep underground.

A couple of hundred meters down, the probe found low concentrations of hydrogen. “This was not a real surprise for us,” Pironon told CNN; it’s common to find small amounts near the surface of a borehole. But as the probe went deeper, the concentration ticked up. At 1,100 meters down it was 14%, at 1,250 meters it was 20%.

This was surprising, Pironon said. It indicated the presence of a large reservoir of hydrogen beneath. They ran calculations and estimated the deposit could contain between 6 million and 250 million metric tons of hydrogen.

That could make it one of the largest deposits of “white hydrogen” ever discovered, Pironon said. The find has helped fuel an already feverish interest in the gas.

White hydrogen – also referred to as “natural,” “gold” or “geologic” hydrogen – is naturally produced or present in the Earth’s crust and has become something of a climate holy grail.

Hydrogen produces only water when burned, making it very attractive as a potential clean energy source for industries like aviation, shipping and steel-making that need so much energy it’s almost impossible to meet through renewables such as solar and wind.

But while hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, it generally exists combined with other molecules. Currently, commercial hydrogen is produced in an energy-intensive process almost entirely powered by fossil fuels.

A rainbow of colors is used as a shorthand for the different types of hydrogen. “Gray” is made from methane gas and “brown” from coal. “Blue” hydrogen is the same as gray, but the planet-heating pollution produced is captured before it goes into the atmosphere.

The most promising from a climate perspective is “green” hydrogen, made using renewable energy to split water. Yet production remains small scale and expensive.

That’s why interest in white hydrogen, a potentially abundant, untapped source of clean-burning energy, has ratcheted up over the last few years.

‘We haven’t been looking in the right places’

“If you had asked me four years ago what I thought about natural hydrogen, I would have told you ‘oh, it doesn’t exist,’” said Geoffrey Ellis, a geochemist with the US Geological Survey. “Hydrogen’s out there, we know it’s around,” he said, but scientists thought big accumulations weren’t possible.

Then he found out about Mali. Arguably, the catalyst for the current interest in white hydrogen can be traced to this West African country.

In 1987, in the village of Bourakébougou, a driller was left with burns after a water well unexpectedly exploded as he leaned over the edge of it while smoking a cigarette.

The well was swiftly plugged and abandoned until 2011, when it was unplugged by an oil and gas company and reportedly found to be producing a gas that was 98% hydrogen. The hydrogen was used to power the village, and more than a decade later, it is still producing.

When a study came out about the well in 2018, it caught the attention of the science community, including Ellis. His initial reaction was that there had to be something wrong with the research, “because we just know that this can’t happen.”

Then the pandemic hit and he had time on his hands to start digging. The more he read, the more he realized “we just haven’t been looking for it, we haven’t been looking in the right places.”

The recent discoveries are exciting for Ellis, who has been working as a petroleum geochemist since the 1980s. He witnessed the rapid growth of the shale gas industry in the US, which revolutionized the energy market. “Now,” he said, “here we are in what I think is probably a second revolution.”

White hydrogen is “very promising,” agreed Isabelle Moretti, a scientific researcher at the University of Pau et des Pays de l’Adour and the University of Sorbonne and a white hydrogen expert.

“Now the question is no longer about the resource… but where to find large economic reserves,” she told CNN.

A slew of startups

Dozens of processes generate white hydrogen but there is still some uncertainty about how large natural deposits form.

Geologists have tended to focus on “serpentinization,” where water reacts with iron-rich rocks to produce hydrogen, and “radiolysis,” a radiation-driven breakdown of water molecules.

White hydrogen deposits have been found throughout the world, including in the US, eastern Europe, Russia, Australia, Oman, as well as France and Mali.

Some have been discovered by accident, others by hunting for clues like features in the landscapes sometimes referred to as “fairy circles” – shallow, elliptical depressions that can leak hydrogen.

Ellis estimates globally there could be tens of billions of tons of white hydrogen. This would be vastly more than the 100 million tons a year of hydrogen that is currently produced and the 500 million tons predicted to be produced annually by 2050, he said.

“Most of this is almost certainly going to be in very small accumulations or very far offshore, or just too deep to actually be economic to produce,” he said. But if just 1% can be found and produced, it would provide 500 million tons of hydrogen for 200 years, he added.

It’s a tantalizing prospect for a slew of startups.

Australia-based Gold Hydrogen is currently drilling in the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia. It targeted that spot after scouring the state’s archives and discovering that back in the 1920s, a number of boreholes had been drilled there which had very high concentrations of hydrogen. The prospectors, only interested in fossil fuels, abandoned them.

“We’re very excited by what we’re seeing,” said managing director Neil McDonald. There is more testing and drilling to do but the company could get into early production possibly in late 2024, he told CNN.

Some startups are seeing eye-popping investments. Koloma, a Denver-based white hydrogen start-up, has secured $91 million from investors, including the Bill Gates-founded investment firm Breakthrough Energy Ventures – although the company remains tight-lipped about exactly where in the US it is drilling and when it is aiming for commercialization.

Another Denver-based company, Natural Hydrogen Energy, founded by geochemist Viacheslav Zgonnik, has completed an exploratory hydrogen borehole in Nebraska in 2019 and has plans for new wells. The world is “very close to the first commercial projects,” Zgonnik told CNN.

“Natural hydrogen is a solution which will allow us to get get to speed” on climate action, he said.

From hype to reality

The challenge for these businesses and for scientists will be translating hypothetical promise into a commercial reality.

“There could be a period of decades where there’s a lot of trial and error and false starts,” Ellis said. But speed is vital. “If it’s going to take us 200 years to develop the resource, that’s not really going to be of much use.”

But many of the startups are bullish. Some predict years, not decades, to commercialization. “We have all necessary technology we need, with some slight modifications,” Zgonnik said.

Challenges remain. In some countries, regulations are an obstacle. Costs also need to be worked out. According to calculations based on the Mali well, white hydrogen could cost around $1 a kilogram to produce – compared to around $6 a kilogram for green hydrogen. But white hydrogen could quickly become more expensive if large deposits require deeper drilling.

Back in the Lorraine basin, Pironon and De Donato’s next steps are to drill down to 3,000 meters to get a clearer idea of exactly how much white hydrogen there is.

There’s a long way to go, but it would be ironic if this region – once one of western Europe’s key coal producers – became an epicenter of a new white hydrogen industry.

Chaotic scenes

"We cannot cope": Palestinian doctor describes chaotic scenes inside Gaza's largest hospital

From CNN's Vasco Cotovio and Abeer Salman

The head of surgery at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza — the enclave’s largest — says staff at the facility “cannot cope” with the huge number of patients they are treating, as he shared video of the chaotic scenes inside the hospital’s emergency ward. 

The video he recorded and sent to CNN shows several rows of patients lining both sides of a hospital corridor, some on stretchers, others simply lying on the floor. 

“This is the yellow area of our emergency department at the Shifa medical complex. Injured people there, there, there…,” Dr. Marwan Sai’ida says as he pans the camera, covering the entire length of the corridor. “[We are] overrun with patients, huge number of injured people.”

Like most specialists at the hospital, he says he is now just working in the emergency ward to help treat the many wounded that continue to arrive. 

“[It is] difficult to cope with this situation, this is horrible, the staff cannot cope with this huge number of injured people,” he says, “There’s no more space.”

Sai’ida, who is also the head of International Cooperation at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, says there are currently 8,000 people at the hospital, and called on global leaders to act to end the war.

Just another fucking nut-job......

Mike Johnson Conducted Seminars Promoting the US as a “Christian Nation”

The new House speaker called for “Biblically-sanctioned government.”

DAVID CORN

Rep. Mike Johnson, the newly elected Republican House speaker, used to conduct a seminar in churches premised on the idea that the United States is a “Christian nation.” This ministry, as he has referred to it, is yet more evidence that Johnson is committed to a hardcore Christian fundamentalism that shapes his views of politics and government.

The seminar, titled “Answers for Our Times: Government, Culture, and Christianity,” was organized by Onward Christian Education Services, Inc., a company owned by his wife, Kelly Johnson, a Christian counselor and anti-abortion activist who calls herself a “leader in the pro-family movement.” The website for her counseling service—which was taken down shortly after Johnson became speaker—described the seminar, which featured both her and Johnson, as exploring several questions, such as, “What is happening in America and how do we fix it?” The list includes this query: “Can our heritage as a Christian nation be preserved?” There were different versions of the seminar running from two-hour-long lectures to retreats lasting two days. 

Mike and Kelly Johnson, each a fundamentalist Christian and culture war battler who advocates adhering to what they call a “Biblical worldview,” launched this initiative in 2019. After one such presentation on February 24, 2019, at the First Baptist Church in Bossier City, Louisiana, where they are members—an event that also featured Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council—a local television news show reported that the seminar’s goal was to “keep God in Government.” Johnson posted the article on his congressional website. 

According to a Louisiana Baptist newsletter, the Johnsons intended to first pitch their seminars to Baptist churches in the Pelican State before expanding to other states. The publication reported that the couple’s goal was “to equip churches to take a stand against the cultural attacks now being directed at people of faith, the traditional family and basic freedoms embedded in the U.S. Constitution.” It noted that Johnson said he was compelled to create this new ministry while serving in the US House because he was concerned “that too many believers today feel ill-informed to provide substantive answers to fake arguments.” It quoted Johnson: “Our nation is entering one of the most challenging seasons in its history and there is an urgent need for God’s people to be armed and ready with the Truth.” He was referring to what fundamentalists call “Biblical truth.”

A promotion blurb for the seminar described it this way: “As polls show that Christianity is in rapid decline in America, and the culture is growing more secularized and more coarsened, many believers feel ill-informed and ill-prepared to do anything to reverse these trends. Scripture is clear that we have an obligation to provide substantive answers… But HOW?”

At a “Answers for Our Times” seminar held at the First Baptist Church of Haughton, Louisiana, in April 2019, Kelly Johnson proclaimed that “Biblical Christianity” is the only “valid worldview.” Nothing else, she said, “makes sense.” She contended that guidance to the problems of today can be found in the “simple answers in the Bible.” Mike Johnson referred to the Bible as the “owner’s manual” for “how things are supposed to operate” and called for “Biblically-sanctioned government.” Johnson complained that there is now “total chaos on the street… God’s not at the top anymore.” He added, “The problem is most people” want “the government to take care of us now, we want the government to provide us everything… It will not work because it defies the created order of the Creator… The government has replaced the Creator. Government is becoming God.”

Mike Johnson ran through a quick version of US history, in which he insisted, “We began as a Christian nation.” He pointed out that Christopher Columbus said that he journeyed to the Americas “to bring the gospel to unknown coastlands and people.” Johnson added, “We would call him an evangelical today.” Fired up, he offered a litany of statements from the nation’s founders, government officials, and Supreme Court officials who cited God or religion as essential to the United States. “Is this a Christian nation?” he asked. “Yes, we live in a post-Christian culture. I think that’s beyond dispute. You can’t even argue with a straight face that this did not begin as a Christian nation.”

At this seminar, Mike Johnson groused that few of his colleagues in government abide by or even recognize God’s principles—that is, his view of God’s principles—and he expressed great cynicism about his fellow politicians: 

A shocking number of elected officials in this country and state do not have a fully formed philosophy of government. They don’t know what their world view is. They’re just moving around waiting for whatever the loudest voice or the most powerful lobbyist tells them how to vote. God help us. That’s why we’re in the situation we’re in… They poll it. It’s not necessarily what his constituents want. I try to do every day what my constituents want. But sometimes what your constituents want does not line up with the principles God gave us for government. And you have to have conviction enough to stand [up] to your own people in a town hall and say, “I know you feel that way, but this is what you’re missing.” And I’m telling you, there’s a tiny percentage of elected officials who are willing to do that. 

Mike Johnson sees himself as part of small band of righteous officials who take on the hard task of governing strictly according to the tenets of Christian fundamentalism. He and Kelly are true believers. He has long associated with Christian nationalism; crusaded against gay rights and same-sex marriage; decried no-fault divorce; and pushed for a total ban on abortion. Her Christian counseling practice has compared homosexuality to bestiality and incest. They share a dark view of the modern world. In a sermon he preached in 2016, Johnson declared, “We’re living in a completely amoral society.” And during a podcast last year with Jordan Peterson, the Canadian conservative provocateur, he said that “sinister” elites were responsible for orchestrating climate change as an issue to achieve global “control.”

In a time of political upheaval, cultural clashes, and war, it’s clear that Mike Johnson believes he has the solution. It’s not government of the people, but government shaped by his fundamentalist worldview. As his wife and partner-in-preaching says, nothing else makes sense. They possess the truth, and now, as he has become second in the line of presidential succession, he has the opportunity to meld power to this truth and serve the goal of making America a Christian nation. 

There isn't a buss big enough to through that lard ass under......

Ivanka’s Branding Whiplash: From Kim’s Birthday Bash to the Witness Stand

The date is set. The eldest Trump daughter will be forced to testify in her dad’s blockbuster fraud trial.

JAMES WEST

For the briefest of moments, it must have felt like the good old days for the former president’s eldest daughter.

But fresh from her star turn at Kim Kardashian’s celebrity-studded 43rd birthday party in Beverly Hills, Ivanka Trump will be back in the public eye very soon, in far less glamorous climes: The witness stand of a downtown Manhattan courtroom.

Seemingly desperate to distance herself from her dad, the eldest Trump daughter will nonetheless be forced to testify in his $250 million New York civil fraud case on November 3, after Judge Arthur Engoron on Friday rejected Ivanka’s bid to avoid testifying in open court, according to the Associated Press. Ivanka Trump’s lawyers had stated that she hasn’t been part of the Trump Organization since 2017 and currently resides in Florida, arguing that the New York court shouldn’t have jurisdiction over her.

Ivanka, along with Eric and Don Jr., will now be compelled to take the stand ahead of the main defendant himself, Donald Trump. The former president will appear on November 6, in the blockbuster trial that threatens to unravel his sprawling business empire.

Ivanka has wanted to move on from all this drama, explicitly announcing she won’t be joining her father’s 2024 campaign. In the “billionaire bunker,” she now calls home—a 300-acre gated community on an island near Miami called Indian Creek Village—Ivanka’s friends have reportedly been supportive of her bid to write a new chapter. According to the New York Times, “Ms. Trump now generally minds her own business and people close to her think it is time she is allowed to move on with her new life.”

Still, the Kardashian invite must have felt like a genuine turning point, as she was welcomed back into a cloistered elite circle that also included Jeff Bezos’s partner Lauren Sanchez. “So blessed to have hit the jackpot of friends!” Kardashian gushed on an Instagram gallery post featuring Ivanka. But even in this bubble, there were pesky reminders of her father’s alleged mob behavior. According to the Times, one photographer yelled at Ivanka on the way to Kim’s party, asking if she was “afraid to testify” at the trial. She didn’t answer.

No one, in my estimation, has chronicled Ivanka Trump’s intricate theatrics more adeptly than my colleague Inae Oh. She has highlighted Ivanka’s hypocrisy concerning women; how the media often helps to launder Ivanka’s image; and pointed out her “piss poor” relationship with the truth, especially when supporting her father’s Big Lie. Inae even compiled a list of events that form “one of the most enduring storylines of the Trump era,” revolving around Ivanka’s efforts to improve her public image, even as her father’s administration descended into chaos: “Things are going off the rails, but never fear—Ivanka is diligently working behind the scenes to be the least problematic member of the administration, details of which conveniently find their way to the media.”

We’ll closely follow Ivanka’s high-wire act on the stand and provide updates.