Ron DeSantis is receiving pushback from Israeli diplomats, Florida Democrats and the White House after he falsely claimed credit for a gun-running operation to assist Israel’s military operations in Gaza.
The Florida governor and 2024 presidential hopeful declared on Thursday that he had worked with Israel’s consul general in Miami to send military equipment, including drones, body armor and helmets.
His office, according to Reuters, said it had worked to “get weapons and ammunition to Israel through private parties” as part of his high-profile “rescue operation”. The operation involved sending humanitarian supplies on chartered planes and returning from Israel hundreds of US citizens who wanted to come home following the Hamas attacks.
His boast, however, started to unravel when Maor Elbaz-Starinsky, Israel’s consul general, told the news agency he had not asked for DeSantis’s help, and that the governor’s involvement was limited to smoothing paperwork requirements for a previously arranged shipment of “rifle parts” ordered by his government.
“I am not aware and would find it very, very bizarre to think that somebody is procuring weapons and sending it to Israel,” he said. “This is not how we work. And certainly not privately funded.”
Say it ain’t so! Ron DeSantis would never lie about something so easily corroborated!
Bankman-Fried told the jury he didn’t know much about cryptocurrency before launching FTX. “I had absolutely no idea how they worked,” he told Cohen. “I just knew they were things you could trade.” But, he continued, he saw an opportunity to move the cryptocurrency system forward.
Sure, just a babe in the woods.
As FTX took off, Cohen suggested, Bankman-Fried got hopelessly overloaded. Cohen noted how FTX went from single-digit millions of daily trading in 2019 to tens of billions in 2022.
“When you started FTX in 2019, did you expect this level of growth?” Cohen asked.
“Absolutely not,” said Bankman-Fried.
That might actually be true. It might also be true that when he started FTX he had no intention to rip people off. But once the gravy train started rolling… What’s a $40M Bahamas penthouse suite here, $100m in political contributions there…
He similarly expressed in testimony that he had been overwhelmed by the snowballing amount of media attention he received, saying he “hadn’t intended to be a public face of anything”.
“Even when it became sort of overwhelming, when there were more PR and interview requests than I could manage … by that point, it was too late to have a new public face of that company,” he said.
Bullshit. I’ve never seen a bigger media whore than him.
Authorities in Louisiana have charged a Pentecostal pastor with sexually molesting a teenage girl who was a member of his church.
Milton O Martin III, 56, faces one charge each of felony carnal knowledge of a juvenile – colloquially referred to as statutory rape – and of indecent behavior with a minor, records obtained by the Guardian show.
A grand jury in the New Orleans-area community of St Bernard parish indicted Martin on Tuesday, about seven months after he had been arrested in connection with the allegations and had made bail.
@CSK: I went back to find the reference. And at first it appeared I hadn’t seen it in the article.
Card’s body was found in the woods near the town of Lisbon by a recycling center from which he had recently been fired, CNN reported, citing a law enforcement source.
I thought maybe I had read it in a tweet, but reading further I found it:
The location where Card was found with a self-administered gun shot wound, behind a dumpster, had been searched a day earlier.
So definitely an editorial mistake. In the woods or behind a dumpster? In a lifetime of wandering in the woods, I’ve never come across a dumpster.
More than 200,000 children are estimated to have been sexually abused in Spain by the Roman Catholic clergy since 1940, according to an independent commission.
The report did not give a specific figure but it said that in a poll of more than 8,000 adults, 0.6% said they had been sexual abused by members of the clergy when they were children. This figure equates to about 200,000 of Spain’s adult population of about 39 million.
The proportion increased to 1.13% – equating to more than 400,000 people – when including abuse by lay members of the church, Spain’s national ombudsman, Ángel Gabilondo, said at a news conference called to present the findings of the report.
@OzarkHillbilly: Lol. Well if a dumpster is said to be facing a certain direction, then almost anything on the other side could be considered “behind” it.
@OzarkHillbilly: @Franklin:
I believe in quantum theory bodies are equally likely to be inside as behind the dumpster and we can’t know until the dumpster is dived. This is what Stephen Hawking was working on when he died.
@OzarkHillbilly: In my mind, I am picturing a recycling center located in a cleared area in the woods, with maybe a gravel road/driveway leading to it. It has a dumpster left outside the chain link fence, perhaps.
I’m discovering the hard way that my Dad had a habit of squirreling money away in banks all over the damn place. And he didn’t leave any record of where, or tell my Mom. She’s largely incoherent at this point and wouldn’t remember, anyways. I just have to wait for statements or quarterly reports to come in the mail, because my Mom’s filing system so far this year was mostly “throw it in any available box”, and he just went on a “moving money around” spree right before he died, so a lot of those statements haven’t come yet. I can see where the money USED to be, but don’t know where it WENT!
@CSK: The fact that they keep changing where they say the body was found males me wonder if they’re struggling to find a plausible explanation of why they didn’t find it earlier. Cynicism is an unfortunate trait.
Around 45 minutes ago a speeding car hit a light pole about 1/8 of a mile from where I live. The vehicle is overturned and there are a bunch of police and fire department personnel around as a result. Looks like it was a one vehicle accident and nobody hurt or killed but the person(s) in the car.
Before discovering what had happened, our power went on and off for a short time. A short time later we heard the siren of a fire truck.
Dear Wife and I were planning to go to BJ’s but with the parking lot partly blocked, we’re staying home. No problem.
@OzarkHillbilly: And there’s no fast way to see what they have where, on our (consumer) end. I’m just gonna have to walk into each bank with his death certificate and see if he has money there.
Massive defensive effort by the ‘Boks, and the All Blacks were sort of pushed off balance.
Epic match, if a bit scrappy.
I now implore you all to watch Invictus
If you do, you may understand the meaning of rugby to South Africans. 🙂
And that’s not anywhere near what it means to New Zealanders.
See the Kiwi haka: they mean it.
Almost as much as the Welsh do. 🙂
@Jax: I can imagine that to be frustrating, with some uncertainty over whether you’ll really find it all. BUT, in case you don’t know, you will eventually be able to search for it as unclaimed property. Financial institutions have to report accounts that appear to be abandoned after so much time (might depend on which state you’re in).
Good luck, I feel for you. Honestly, dealing with the logistics around someone’s death simply compounds the pain. I am forever thankful that my parents had their affairs in order, because I saw what they went through when their own siblings died.
@Franklin: Yeah. I will have a detailed list of where my accounts are, ready for my heirs. I know that much. And this “living trust” thing, where they’ve been married for 50 years and they are the beneficiaries to each other, but my Mom can now barely tell me hello or sign her actual signature to anything….that’s a whole different level of what the fuck. She never expected to outlive Dad. And both of the executors are now dead or in a nursing home with dementia.
Ron DeSantis’s claim he sent military equipment to Israel unravels
Say it ain’t so! Ron DeSantis would never lie about something so easily corroborated!
What a not ready for prime time clown.
Yeah, he just made a few mistakes.
Sure, just a babe in the woods.
That might actually be true. It might also be true that when he started FTX he had no intention to rip people off. But once the gravy train started rolling… What’s a $40M Bahamas penthouse suite here, $100m in political contributions there…
Bullshit. I’ve never seen a bigger media whore than him.
Still not a Drag Queen.
Maine shooter Robert Card has been found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
@CSK: In a very apt location: Behind a dumpster. All the cops had to do was pick him up and toss him in.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I heard it was the recycling center where Card once worked. Same difference, I suppose.
@CSK: I went back to find the reference. And at first it appeared I hadn’t seen it in the article.
I thought maybe I had read it in a tweet, but reading further I found it:
So definitely an editorial mistake. In the woods or behind a dumpster? In a lifetime of wandering in the woods, I’ve never come across a dumpster.
Not a drag queen in the bunch:
@OzarkHillbilly: Lol. Well if a dumpster is said to be facing a certain direction, then almost anything on the other side could be considered “behind” it.
@Franklin: Hmmmm… In that case I think it safe to say most all bodies are found behind a dumpster.
@OzarkHillbilly: @Franklin:
I believe in quantum theory bodies are equally likely to be inside as behind the dumpster and we can’t know until the dumpster is dived. This is what Stephen Hawking was working on when he died.
@OzarkHillbilly: In my mind, I am picturing a recycling center located in a cleared area in the woods, with maybe a gravel road/driveway leading to it. It has a dumpster left outside the chain link fence, perhaps.
I’m discovering the hard way that my Dad had a habit of squirreling money away in banks all over the damn place. And he didn’t leave any record of where, or tell my Mom. She’s largely incoherent at this point and wouldn’t remember, anyways. I just have to wait for statements or quarterly reports to come in the mail, because my Mom’s filing system so far this year was mostly “throw it in any available box”, and he just went on a “moving money around” spree right before he died, so a lot of those statements haven’t come yet. I can see where the money USED to be, but don’t know where it WENT!
Why does Trump call everyone who opposes him crazy? Jack Smith is deranged. Arthur Engoron is crazed. Nancy Pelosi is crazy.
Mike Pence has dropped out of the 2024 race.
@CSK: Projection.
@gVOR10:
Is he sufficiently self-aware to project?
@CSK:..
Mike who?
@OzarkHillbilly:
The latest is that Card’s body was found in an unlocked trailer in the overflow lot of the recycling center.
@CSK: The fact that they keep changing where they say the body was found males me wonder if they’re struggling to find a plausible explanation of why they didn’t find it earlier. Cynicism is an unfortunate trait.
@just nutha:
Yeah, I know. This is about the third location for the corpse.
@Jax: My brother was doing the same in the year or 2 before his suicide. It left his wife in a bit of a pickle.
@CSK: I like the dumpster better. Seems more fitting.
@just nutha: I got suspicious when they said,
“The location where Card was found with a self-administered gun shot wound, behind a dumpster, had been searched a day earlier.”
Geee….
eta: I have been on a couple of searches, it is surprisingly easy to miss a person
Around 45 minutes ago a speeding car hit a light pole about 1/8 of a mile from where I live. The vehicle is overturned and there are a bunch of police and fire department personnel around as a result. Looks like it was a one vehicle accident and nobody hurt or killed but the person(s) in the car.
Before discovering what had happened, our power went on and off for a short time. A short time later we heard the siren of a fire truck.
Dear Wife and I were planning to go to BJ’s but with the parking lot partly blocked, we’re staying home. No problem.
@CSK: I thought it was in the trunk of a police cruiser all along, myself.
@OzarkHillbilly: And there’s no fast way to see what they have where, on our (consumer) end. I’m just gonna have to walk into each bank with his death certificate and see if he has money there.
Well, so much for my predictive powers:
New Zealand 11-12 South Africa
South Africa win the Rugby World Cup again!
Massive defensive effort by the ‘Boks, and the All Blacks were sort of pushed off balance.
Epic match, if a bit scrappy.
I now implore you all to watch Invictus
If you do, you may understand the meaning of rugby to South Africans. 🙂
And that’s not anywhere near what it means to New Zealanders.
See the Kiwi haka: they mean it.
Almost as much as the Welsh do. 🙂
A more detailed look at the Horizon Air incident last week, at Fear of Landing.
@Jax: I can imagine that to be frustrating, with some uncertainty over whether you’ll really find it all. BUT, in case you don’t know, you will eventually be able to search for it as unclaimed property. Financial institutions have to report accounts that appear to be abandoned after so much time (might depend on which state you’re in).
Good luck, I feel for you. Honestly, dealing with the logistics around someone’s death simply compounds the pain. I am forever thankful that my parents had their affairs in order, because I saw what they went through when their own siblings died.
@Franklin: Yeah. I will have a detailed list of where my accounts are, ready for my heirs. I know that much. And this “living trust” thing, where they’ve been married for 50 years and they are the beneficiaries to each other, but my Mom can now barely tell me hello or sign her actual signature to anything….that’s a whole different level of what the fuck. She never expected to outlive Dad. And both of the executors are now dead or in a nursing home with dementia.