DL Open Thread: Sunday, April 10, 2022

Putin Names General Responsible For Syrian Atrocities To Head Invasion Of Ukraine.  There must be a way to take Putin out.

Meet The New Murdoch, As Despicable As The Old Murdoch.  Lest you had thought that anyone in that family was capable of introspection:

In a speech in Sydney celebrating a new initiative at a conservative think tank, Lachlan Murdoch — now 50 and the co-chairman of the family’s News Corp., which owns the Wall Street Journal and New York Post, and chairman and CEO of Fox Corporation — took swipes at the “elites” whom he believes disdain traditional values. He also blasted governments for imposing mandates and business shutdowns to control the pandemic and alleged conspiratorially that “practically all the media suppressed the discovery of Hunter Biden’s laptop.”

The New York Times won a Pulitzer for one of the project’s essays, which expounded upon the legacy of slavery. But it’s become a regular punching bag in right-wing media, and Murdoch blamed the project for stoking partisan divides by “recast[ing] American exceptionalism as racist from inception.”

“How can we expect people to defend the values, interests and sovereignty of this nation,” Murdoch asked, “if we teach our children only our faults and none of our virtues.”

The speech was something of a tipping point for longtime watchers of the Murdoch empire, who once assumed that the children of the 91-year-old Rupert — notably Lachlan and his younger brother James — might be a moderating influence on the media properties that promoted the rise of former president Donald Trump.

Kinda ruins the next season of Succession for me.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Ineligible For Reelection?:

The 14th Amendment of the US Constitution prohibits officeholders from returning to elected positions if they supported an insurrection. The challengers claim that Greene can’t run for reelection because she “aided” the January 6 insurrection, allegedly planned with protest organizers and “encouraged” the violence that disrupted the Electoral College certification.

Federal Judge Amy Totenberg of the Northern District of Georgia said during a lengthy hearing that she has “significant questions and concerns” about a recent ruling in a similar case, which blocked the same challenge against Rep. Madison Cawthorn, a North Carolina Republican.

A group of Georgia voters, backed by a coalition of constitutional scholars and liberal activists, lodged the challenge against Greene last month with state election officials. Greene then filed her own lawsuit in federal court, asking Totenberg to shut down the state-level proceedings.

Totenberg said she will issue a ruling next week, likely on Monday. That’s two days before a state judge is scheduled to hold a hearing on the underlying question of whether Greene engaged in or aided the January 6, 2021, insurrection and whether that disqualifies her from office.

“One of the reasons for that is the difficulty in staff; people are not interested in this job,” said Delmar Police Chief Ivan Barkley. “And knowing what is going on in the legislative circles, I can’t say I blame them.”