I know that’s a big headline that promises a lot. But I think it’s true. David has a good rundown of the events in the Morning Memo. But I want to do my best to set them out on a larger canvas that goes back to the “Hunter Biden laptop” and really all the way back to 2015, a continuing Russian information operation that has been ongoing for almost a decade.
And on top of that, Hunter Biden’s lawyers are now claiming, as part of their effort to force new disclosures by Weiss’s office, that it was new or newly specific accusations from Smirnov which scuttled the plea deal which blew up as it was being agreed to in a federal court room. That point about the plea deal remains an accusation and obviously an interested one from Biden’s attorneys. But given what we’ve learned over the last week from the prosecution side — the folks who were repeatedly duped and took actions on the basis of disinformation directly from Russian intelligence — it seems to me highly likely that it’s true.
...Are we really supposed to believe that these Russian operations, which kicked off in 2015 and continued into 2017, were going full force through 2018 and 2019 with Rudy Giuliani and continue right up until today somehow played no role in the unbelievable story of Hunter Biden’s laptop? Of course they did.
...This entire thing has been based on Russian plants and intelligence operations from the start. Every bit of it. It’s been obvious. And yet, well … they’re all dupes. Somehow almost a decade after this whole thing started we’re shocked to see, wow, Weiss’s office was being led around by another cat’s paw of the Russian intelligence services. We’re shocked. But why are we shocked? Every last person among the serious people of the nation’s capital and the sprawling thing called elite received opinion has egg on their face. And it’s not even clear they fully realize it yet.
It's winter break for our little guy, and he needed an infusion of actual winter, so we're spending the week snow-tubing and ice-skating in Quebec. So this week’s OND will be a little shorter than usual... go ahead, talk amongst yourselves :)
This is an open thread where everyone is welcome, especially night owls and early birds, to share and discuss the happenings of the day. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade immediately diminished the quality of health care provided to pregnant patients in states that ban abortion. Suddenly, obstetricians could no longer adhere to basic standards of care, and were instead forced by law to provide inferior—and often life-threatening—medical treatment to patients. Friday’s shock decision from the Alabama Supreme Court declaring that embryos are legally “people” will have a similarly devastating impact on the standard of care afforded to women struggling with infertility. The decision takes dead aim at IVF as it’s currently practiced, subjecting providers to ruinous damages (at best) and criminal prosecution (at worst). IVF clinics simply cannot operate under the draconian new constraints imposed by the court unless they adopt new, experimental techniques that are vastly more onerous and painful for patients. Judges are once again playing doctor, to the extreme detriment of women trying to build families.
Friday’s ruling involves an Alabama law called the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, though its implications stretch far beyond this one statute. The act allows the parent of a deceased child to collect punitive damages against a party who causes “the death of a minor child” through negligence. Here, the plaintiffs—who already conceived several children through IVF—accused a fertility center of violating the act by failing to secure their unused embryos. They alleged that a patient accessed the embryos without authorization, dropping and “killing” them. The plaintiffs claimed that the fertility center is liable under the act because their embryos qualified as “children.”
The Supreme Court on Tuesday squashed an appeal from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and her two Republican colleagues attempting to overturn their fines for repeatedly opting not to wear face masks on the House floor during the COVID-19 pandemic. The justices left no comment accompanying their decision to decline the appeal from Greene, who was joined in the case by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ralph Norman (R-SC).
Their decision allows a lower court ruling to stand, which tossed the Congresspeople’s constitutional challenge and ruled that courts lack jurisdiction to review the mask policy. According to the Associated Press, lawyers for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) agreed with the lower court ruling and urged the court to reject the appeal. The lawyers did make it clear, however, that the entire Republican leadership voted against the mask mandate. According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Greene racked up a total of more than $100,000 in fines.
Members of House Republican leadership expressed frustration at Speaker Mike Johnson after a GOP leadership retreat over the weekend, organized to outline plans for keeping the majority, quickly turned into a religious service.
"I'm not at church," an anonymous attendee said in response to Johnson leading the group in prayers and Christian sermonizing. According to two people in the room the sermon was not well received, with one Rep. calling the session "horrible."
Johnson was reportedly railing against government, saying that without God in their lives people will turn to the government for guidance. The sermon lasted for a full third of the meeting according to the anonymous members
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The crew of the Overnight News Digest consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, jeremybloom, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Rise above the swamp, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) eeff, Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw