The post Why Do Cats Stare at Nothing? 5 Surprising Reasons by Nicole Cosgrove appeared first on Catster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Catster.com. Click to Skip Ahead Reasons Cats Stare at Nothing What To Do Experienced cat owners know that no matter how much we bond with and learn about our pets, there will always be at least a few behaviors that leave us scratching our heads. Cats have all kinds of quirks ranging from entertaining to frustrating to just plain creepy, and if your cat is the type to stare at nothing, you know how eerie it can be. Cats don’t sense an unseen spirit when they gaze into the distance, but they usually perceive something we don’t notice. If this is a common occurrence in your home, we’ll explain five reasons cats stare at nothing and when it should be cause for concern. The 5 Reasons Cats Stare at Nothing 1. They See, Smell, or Hear Something Nearby Most of the time, a cat seemingly staring at nothing is indeed alert to something we simply don’t notice. As a natural predator, cats have highly tuned senses to pick up minor movements and faint traces of prey to aid them while hunting. Cats Have Sharper Senses Cats have remarkable hearing. They pick up frequencies up to 64,000 Hz (versus our 20,000 Hz maximum) and catch noises from further away than humans can, capturing sounds we could never hear. Meanwhile, a superior nose allows cats to register smells up to 14 times better. With their sharp eyesight, which some believe can process UV light, we can see they have several ways of sensing stimuli that pass right under our noses. When cats stare intensely at nothing, their keen senses may reveal something as minor as an insect, a leaky pipe in the wall, or a flash of light. If you catch your cat looking intently in a random direction, watch their ear pinnae. As they stare, their ears will orient in the direction of your cat’s gaze to help them localize the sound source, telling you they heard something you didn’t. Image Credit: NTP_RASTA, Shutterstock 2. Cognitive Dysfunction Cognitive dysfunction is a common occurrence as cats age. Most cats experience some form of cognitive decline over 11 years old, with memory, awareness, learning ability, and sensory perception potentially failing gradually. As cats experience confusion that comes with mental decline, they may stare blankly at walls or off into space, often showing additional signs such as: Aimless wandering into unfamiliar areas Getting lost in familiar places Becoming stuck around furniture and other obstacles Inappropriate elimination Disinterest in play or interactions Decreased activity, eating, and grooming Increased agitation and restlessness More vocalizing at night Your vet can evaluate your pet to rule out other underlying causes of these behaviors. If they find your cat suffers from age-related cognitive decline, they may offer anti-anxiety medications and provide at-home tips to accommodate your pet’s changing needs and slow the effects. 3. Focal Seizures Affecting roughly 1%–2% of the cat population, seizures occur when abnormal electrical activity in the brain causes various physical effects, notably convulsions and twitching. Epilepsy is the repeated occurrence of seizures at least 24 hours apart. Unlike generalized seizures that occur when both brain hemispheres are affected, a focal seizure refers to unusual activity in a particular region. Restricted or involuntary movements are often limited to one area, such as the face, with visible signs varying depending on which part of the brain is affected. Altered mentation may happen during a focal seizure, causing cats to stare blankly at nothing. Additional signs may include: Excessive salivation or swallowing Facial twitches Lip smacking Dilated pupils Obsessive running Cats may also snap their mouths in a behavior called fly-biting, with some swatting at the air or becoming aggressive. In rare instances, episodes can progress to generalized seizures. Image Credit: Ling_Chen, Shutterstock 4. Petit Mal Seizures Petit mal seizures, or absence seizures, are rare forms of generalized seizures typically only showing minor, non-motor signs. Cats may not go into convulsions but instead act disoriented, unresponsive, and unaware of their surroundings, often staring into space for several seconds. 5. Hyperesthesia Feline hyperesthesia syndrome (FHS), also called rolling skin disease or twitchy cat disease, is a condition that causes extreme sensitivity in a cat’s skin, primarily on the back. It’s most common in younger cats and those of certain Oriental breeds, including Abyssinian, Burmese, Persian, and Siamese. Cats with FHS become more agitated when petted or touched and exhibit unique behaviors and signs, including: Intent staring, often at the tail Compulsive grooming and body scratching Aggression toward others Tail-chasing Biting at the tail Pupil dilation FHS may be related to seizures in some instances, though it can also be a behavioral issue. As with seizures, FHS has numerous potential causes, ranging from toxins to parasitic infections. Veterinarians can perform comprehensive exams to rule out medical causes of FHS. They may issue medications, create unique diet plans, and provide guidance on environmental enrichment and new routines to ease your cat’s nerves. Image Credit: Comanche, Pixabay What To Do If Your Cat Stares at Nothing Cats are prone to staring at what seems like nothing, and it’s rarely cause for concern. They’re simply engaging their drive for predation or self-preservation, noticing an odd noise and orienting towards it to determine if they should pursue, retreat, or do nothing. The behavior can be problematic if your cat’s staring is stressful or accompanies signs of seizures, FHS, or cognitive decline. While some causes, like sporadic focal seizures, may not need treatment, frequent staring and additional signs of health problems should warrant a vet visit. Stressful stimuli may also catch your cat’s attention. Investigate the source of their staring to determine if it’s an isolated behavior, especially if your cat stares at the same place at predictable points during the day. They may notice outdoor movements, changes in light, or sharp sounds that make them anxious. Sometimes, something as easy as closing the curtains is enough to give them relief. Conclusion With their heightened senses and unique ways of thinking, cats almost seem to live in another world entirely. While we might think they’re staring at nothing, we likely aren’t appreciating the minute disturbances that put them on the alert. Health issues may be at play in rare instances, but more often than not, this behavior is just one of the many fun quirks that make life with pets so magical. Sources Veterinary Medicine Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine Journal of Neuroscience ASPCA Cornell University Featured Image Credit: Jilin Su, Shutterstock The post Why Do Cats Stare at Nothing? 5 Surprising Reasons by Nicole Cosgrove appeared first on Catster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Catster.com.

Column The Greatest Bigfoot Story Ever Told: Sasquatch Sunset It’s not like anything you might expect… By Judith Tarr | Published on June 10, 2024 Credit: Bleecker Street Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Bleecker Street Sasquatch Sunset was released in theaters just as I was finishing the Bigfoot chapter of the Bestiary. Now that I’ve come to the end of the next chapter, the film has kindly made itself available for streaming. It’s not a film that necessarily needs to be seen on the big screen. Most of its effects are subtle; parts make more sense on a rewatch. It’s not like anything you might expect. The closest thing to it that I’ve seen is the weird oldie, Quest for Fire. The trailer leans on the hot Squatchy sex, and there’s a fair bit of that, and a fair bit of Sasquatches doing what comes naturally. But the film goes off in directions that aren’t always the obvious ones. There’s no dialogue, but there’s plenty of communication. The four Sasquatches—a big male labeled the Alpha in the subtitles, a smaller male, a female, and a male child—grunt, hoot, whoop, howl, bark, and growl. They talk to each other with their whole bodies. The actors’ makeup and masks allow an amazing range of facial expressions, and the actors make full use of it. The story is simple. It’s a year in the life of a Sasquatch family, from spring to winter to spring again. They eat, forage, travel through the forest (specifically, Humboldt Park in California), interact with other animals, get drunk and stoned, and occasionally play. The Alpha and the female have sex as often as she will let him, which isn’t nearly as often as he’d like. They have a culture. They build shelters of leaves and branches. They send signals through the forest, pounding with sticks on tree trunks. And they bury their dead, with grave gifts and ritual gestures. The beta male is a mathematician. Numbers fascinate him. He can count to three, but when he gets to four, he can’t quite make the connection. He perceives the world in base three. They have a language. They converse with grunts and clicks and chitters, along with the more dramatic hoots and howls. The stick-pounding is a form of distance communication. Between each round of rhythmic pounding, they stop and listen. They’re calling to other Sasquatches. But none ever answers. Their wilderness at first seems pristine, but gradually we realize that they’re moving around the edges of the human landscape. They find a tree marked with a red X by loggers, and not long after that, they cross a paved road. They react to it with shock and fear, but then with aggression. They dance and caper and hoot, and piss and shit on it. That’s how they conquer it. I expected a logging truck to come roaring down the road and flatten them. But the film is more subtle than that. A red-Xed log floating in a shallow river rolls over at just the wrong time. Humans cut down the tree, but it’s gravity and not machinery that proves fatal. They never actually meet humans. Even when they come across a camp full of tents and food and furniture and clothes and toys and a boom box that plays “Love to Hate You” by Erasure, the humans who pitched the camp are nowhere to be seen. The music affects the Sasquatches strangely; at first they seem captivated, but stunned fascination blows up into rage, and they trash the camp. The song, which was released in 1991, points to the period in which the film is set. The boom box plays cassette tapes. The frisbee that literally throws the female into labor is of the time, too. I think we’re supposed to understand that this is a time now decades past, and humans are in the process of taking over the wilderness. By the end of the film, the family wanders through a logged-over landscape, around the edge of a forest fire, and down into the town of Willow Creek, ending at the Sasquatch Museum. That’s it. That’s all there is to be said. The family has gained a new baby but lost both of its adult males. There’s no sign of any other Sasquatches. This is their sunset. They’re gone now, thirty years later. They’ve receded into legend and folklore and tacky museum exhibits. And yet it’s not humans who drive the Sasquatch into extinction. It’s their own complex of mistakes and failures. Both adult males make stupid and fatal choices. The Alpha gets high on mushrooms, tries to breed the female and gets sent packing, and zeroes in on a board with a hole in it. That violates an essential tenet of the Sasquatch code; the others drive him off. He heads straight for a mountain lion’s lair and tries to breed the lion. That ends exactly as you would expect. And then of course the beta male goes log-rolling and gets rolled. The female and the child aren’t strong enough to save him. They have to watch him die, then bury him. And then go on, because that’s what they do. This is a film that rewards rewatching. It touches on familiar tropes—the mock nature documentary, the hero’s journey, the cryptid adventure. The original family observes the time-honored Hollywood Ratio: three males, one female. One dominant male, one beta geek, The Girl, the Kid. But then it turns the trope inside out. The males don’t actually dominate. The family travels together, without anyone obviously in charge. The Alpha gets to mate with the female, but if she’s not in the mood, he doesn’t get any. The beta gets to watch, but doesn’t try to horn in; when the Alpha is gone, he makes a move, but she says an emphatic No Way. If any of them is in charge, she’s probably it. She doesn’t lead; she allows, or not. Mostly she sighs and endures—mating, suckling the child, giving birth, keeping the baby alive and fed. She’s the one who carries the future of the species, but she needs the males to do their part. And they fail. An actually functional population would switch the gender ratio. One male, multiple females. The fact the species is down to a single female tells us as much as we need to know about its prospects of survival. It’s a tragedy, and a cautionary tale. Humans are destroying the natural world, but the natural world does its fair share of weeding out the population, too. Make smart life choices, the film tells us. Be kind to your fellow animals. Coexist with them, but don’t get up in their faces. If you meet a predator, use your smarts. Throw her a bone, or your baby’s fresh placenta. If you’re lucky, she’ll take the offering and leave you and your children alone. Even that may not save your species. But at least you tried. In a bit of weird synchronicity, the film stars Riley Keough as the female. She’s known in another context as Elvis Presley’s granddaughter, and her song, “Creatures of Nature,” constitutes the Obligatory Closing Credits Pop Song. She’s been in the news lately for suing to stop the foreclosure of Graceland. Which in its way is as much of a sad farewell to a legend as Sasquatch Sunset.[end-mark] The post The Greatest Bigfoot Story Ever Told: <i>Sasquatch Sunset</i> appeared first on Reactor.

Netanyahu Urges Benny Gantz to Remain in Israel's War Cabinet

Iceland’s whaling industry is about to face an important decision that could decide its future.On Tuesday June 11, the country's Food Minister Bjarkey Olsen Gunnarsdóttir will announce whether or not it will re-issue a license for Hvalur hf, the only Icelandic whaling company left in business, according to Icelandic broadcasting network RÚV.If they decide not to award a new five-year hunting permit to Hvalur hf, many suspect it may effectively spell the end to the centuries-old whaling industry that’s become deeply controversial in recent times. Former Food Minister Svandís Svavarsdóttir has previously suggested it would be very unlikely that the licenses will be renewed, stating: "the current fishing permits expire in 2023. As things remain, there will be no hunting permits for whales from 2024."In June 2023, Icelandic authorities stopped the year’s whaling season one day before it was supposed to start by suspending the hunting of fin whales until the end of summer. The snap decision came after a major report published by the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority suggested whaling often results in the animals suffering long, agonizing deaths, and may break the country's animal welfare laws.Things became more complicated in January 2024 when the Parliamentary Ombudsman said the sudden suspension of the whaling licenses did not have a “clear enough basis in law”. Seemingly encouraged by the news, Hvalur hf applied to renew its whaling license ahead of the season starting in June. Now, it's crunch time for the government – and there’s no clear indication of which way they will fall.                          IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.Iceland has a long and complicated relationship with whaling. In 1986, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) agreed to enact a global moratorium on all commercial whaling. Iceland withdrew from the agreement in 1992, before rejoining in 2002 with a reservation to the moratorium. Since the IWC holds no formal power and membership is voluntary, Iceland – as well as other countries, like Norway and Japan – were able to flout the ban and continued whaling in spite of international backlash. Public opinion has shifted in recent years, though. A recent survey found that 51 percent of Icelanders were opposed to the hunt, while 29 percent were in favor. People over-60 were most in favor and those aged 18 to 29 were most against it.Although it might seem like the world is moving away from whale hunting, a precedent has been set by another major whaling nation.In May 2024, the Government of Japan announced that whalers will now be allowed to hunt fin whales, bringing the number of commercial whaling species in the country to four, along with minke whales, Bryde’s whales, and sei whales. To show that they mean business, Japan also unveiled a brand-new whaling factory ship, worth somewhere to the tune of $48 million.

In a world first, scientists have literally opened a window into the human brain. They inserted a transparent panel into the skull of a patient and were able to collect high-resolution imaging data through it while the patient was awake and performing tasks, the first time such a feat has been achieved.The patient who volunteered for this pioneering study was 39-year-old Jared Hager, who suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) during a skateboarding accident in 2019. As is quite common in such cases, part of Hager’s skull had to be surgically removed to give space for the brain tissue to swell as it healed. Because of delays during the COVID-19 pandemic, Hager was unable to have a prosthesis installed to repair the skull for over two years – definitely not ideal, but if you’re of the “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade” school of thought, clearly a good opportunity to try out some experimental brain imaging.While awaiting surgery, Hager volunteered for a research project run by Charles Liu, a professor at the Keck School of Medicine and director of the USC Neurorestoration Center, in collaboration with colleague Jonathan Russin and a team at Caltech. When the time came for Hager’s prosthesis surgery, he again teamed up with the scientists, who by this time were investigating a novel technique called functional ultrasound imaging (fUSI).Compared with something like an MRI scan, ultrasound is cheaper, more portable, and more comfortable for the patient. You also have to lie very still in an MRI machine, whereas with ultrasound you can collect data while people are taking part in normal activities.  Patients with TBI often develop neurological issues, including dementia, so it is hoped that fUSI could be a way of monitoring this. “If we can extract functional information through a patient’s skull implant, that could allow us to provide treatment more safely and proactively,” Liu explained in a statement. The snag is that fUSI doesn’t work through a conventional skull prosthesis. That’s where this idea of a transparent window came in. Made of polymethyl methacrylate – a bit like plexiglass – it served the dual purpose of repairing Hager’s skull while also allowing brain imaging data to be collected. The whole piece of plastic was 4 millimeters thick, with a 2-millimeter-thick section to give the ultrasound transducer access to the brain’s parietal and motor cortices.“This area of the brain, which is important for forming intentions and carrying out motor actions, has already been thoroughly studied via other methods in our lab,” explained Professor Richard Andersen, part of the team at Caltech, in another statement. The team had already done some modeling, as well as experiments on rats, to try out different types of implants and to hone the fUSI parameters in order to get optimal results. Primate data had proven the technique could provide useful information. Now, it was time to try it on a human. Before and after the surgery, Hager was asked to solve a “connect-the-dots” puzzle on a computer and to play some tunes on his guitar while the ultrasound was performed. The key question was whether fUSI would still be accurate and precise when done through a clear plastic window.“The fidelity of course decreased, but importantly, our research showed that it’s still high enough to be useful. And unlike other brain-computer interface platforms, which require electrodes to be implanted in the brain, this has far less barriers to adoption,” Liu said. Not only does having a window installed in your brain allow for nifty experiments like this, it might actually be better for patients in the long run, as Russin explained: “One of the big problems when we do these surgeries is that a blood clot can form underneath the implant, but having a clear window gives us an easy way to monitor that.”If more people were to be offered this alternative prosthesis, it could allow scientists to gather useful data about TBI outcomes on a broader scale. Clinical trials would be needed before the technology could be rolled out more widely, and more studies are needed to build on the data gathered from Hager. “Jared is an amazing guy,” Liu enthused. “His contributions have really helped us explore new frontiers that we hope can ultimately help many other patients.” This work has already begun, with attention turning to other experimental technologies like laser spectroscopy. “What our findings [show] is that we can extract useful functional information with this method,” said Liu. “The next step is: What specific functional information do we want, and what can we use it for?”The study is published in Science Translational Medicine.

Planetary scientists have discovered something truly unexpected happening above Mars’s highest peaks. The volcanos from the Tharsis region there show traces of frost, but it's not frozen carbon dioxide like elsewhere on Mars. This frost is actually water ice.  Mars has a thin atmosphere made of mostly carbon dioxide, and these extinct volcanos rise through a large chunk of it. The biggest is Olympus Mons, which is a shield volcano 600 kilometers (370 miles) in diameter, about the size of the entire state of Arizona. Depending on how you measure its altitude, it sits at around 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) high, between 2.5 and three times Earth’s highest mountain, Mt. Everest (which we have all been pronouncing wrong).The other volcanoes, Arsia Mons, Pavonis Mons, and Ascraeus Mons, all sit between 14 and 18 kilometers in height. The volcanos’ caldera are caved in creating a place for frost to condense, a unique microclimate that allows the condensation of water ice even at the low latitude of the volcanos. The altitude was not expected to play a role in allowing for frost to form since the Martian atmosphere is so thin.“We thought it was impossible for frost to form around Mars’s equator, as the mix of sunshine and thin atmosphere keeps temperatures relatively high at both surface and mountaintop – unlike what we see on Earth, where you might expect to see frosty peaks,” lead author Adomas Valantinas, who made the discovery as a PhD student at University of Bern and is now a postdoctoral researcher at Brown University, said in a statement sent to IFLScience. “Its existence here is exciting, and hints that there are exceptional processes at play that are allowing frost to form.”High res image by CaSSIS showing the bluish frost on the caldera floor and northern rim of Olympus Mons. The image is around 4.5 km per pixel and 40 km wide.Image credit: Adomas ValantinasFor several years, researchers have studied a water ice cloud forming from Arsia Mons during the Martian spring. Now, it appears that there more water events happening there. The volcanos seem to focalize the little moisture present in the Martian atmosphere into an area at the top where the conditions are just right for the ice to condense.“Winds travel up the slopes of the mountains, bringing relatively moist air from near the surface up to higher altitudes, where it condenses and settles as frost,” added co-author Nicolas Thomas, Principal Investigator of Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) on Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), the crucial instrument to this discovery.  “We actually see this happening on Earth and other parts of Mars, with the same phenomenon causing the seasonal martian Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud. The frost we see atop Mars’s volcanos appears to settle in the shadowed regions of the calderas especially, where temperatures are colder.”      3D model of Arsia Mons' caldera and the frost deposits in blue. These volcanoes are not just the tallest one in the whole Solar System but they are also extremely well studied. So why was this not seen before?“There are a few reasons: firstly, we need an orbit that lets us observe a location in the early morning. While ESA’s two Mars orbiters – Mars Express and TGO  – have such orbits and can observe at all times of day, many from other agencies are instead synchronised to the Sun and can only observe in the afternoon,” explained Valantinas. “Secondly, frost deposition is linked to colder martian seasons, making the window for spotting it even narrower. In short, we have to know where and when to look for ephemeral frost. We happened to be looking for it near the equator for some other research, but didn't expect to see it on Mars’s volcano tops!”This disocvery adds some important knowledge to what we we know and expect about water on Mars, and will be important in the future exploration of both robots and humans.The study is published in Nature Geoscience.

Fresh off the back of “don’t body slam an orca” we’re back with another article about leaving wildlife alone. A rise in wildlife rescue centers taking in dyed birds from gender reveal parties and other events leads us to yet another sentence we can’t believe we have to type: DON’T DYE BIRDS.On March 28, the Leicestershire Wildlife Hospital in England admitted a pigeon that had been dyed pink – most likely for a gender reveal party, the hospital explained on social media. Among the challenges this pigeon faced, such as being a more obvious target for predators including domestic cats, the toxins from the dye can affect breathing and eating behaviors. "This pigeon sadly didn’t make it, he was incredibly malnourished, dehydrated and had significant wounds caused by [a] cat," wrote the hospital. "This pigeon sadly didn’t make it, he was incredibly malnourished, dehydrated and had significant wounds".Image courtesy of Leicestershire Wildlife HospitalA second pigeon was taken to Pudz Animal Sanctuary in South Killingholme, England after being dyed pink. "It's just for a few minutes of entertainment, then the bird has to live with that for the rest of its life". Sanctuary founder Shena Fairless told the BBC. The pigeon, which has been named Polly, is fortunately settling in well at the sanctuary and seems to be recovering. Across the pond in February 2023, a pigeon named Flamingo after the pink hue its feathers had been turned also passed away after it was rescued in New York City. The Wild Bird Fund wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “Despite our best efforts to reduce the fumes coming off the dye, while keeping him calm and stable, he died in the night. We believe his death was caused by inhaling the toxins.”                IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.“Dove releases sound romantic, but take away the decorations and Instagram photos, and they are the equivalent of dumping your helpless pets on the side of the road. This is no way to celebrate anything.”According to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), cases like those of Polly and Flamingo are becoming more widespread, especially in the UK. A spokesperson for the charity told the Mirror, “intentionally painting a pigeon's feathers is unacceptable as it could cause health problems, impair their ability to fly and make them more vulnerable to predators. In addition, dye and paints can be toxic to birds and other animals, and they would be likely to try to clean any such substance from their coat or feathers which could result in them swallowing it. From time to time, we do hear anecdotally about incidents involving animals being affected in this way - and sadly we fear social media trends could be fuelling this."Over in Brazil in 2022, a couple dyed an entire waterfall blue for a gender reveal, potentially contaminating an entire town's water supply, while other gender reveals have caused wildfires and even earthquakes. Maybe just wait until the birth instead?

Friday's PBS NewsHour featured a discussion with congressional reporter Lisa Desjardins on what Donald Trump is looking for in a vice-presidential running mate (“loyalty….including whether the 2020 election had fraud in it or not”). But it took a turn into PBS’s new pro-Biden campaign angle, protecting American “democracy” from Trump’s potential veep selections. PBS put together a supercut of four potential Trump picks being pestered by liberal media reporters, showing those Republicans (horrors!) suggesting that the 2020 election had been tilted toward Biden (evidence that includes Big Tech’s censorship of the sordid story of Hunter Biden’s laptop and various election-law shenanigans in Pennsylvania in 2020).  LISA DESJARDINS: And this, in a way -- while this whole thing is speculation, this, in a way, is why we're focusing on this right now, because this isn't just fawning. We know this has very great significance for the future, especially if Trump is reelected. And if you pay attention to what some of these candidates for vice president are saying, they're talking about their loyalty to Trump in ways different with themselves in the past on very important issues, including whether the 2020 election had fraud in it or not. Desjardins engaged in a bait-and-switch, setting up a conversation about American democracy but actually focusing on the much narrower questions of Republicans accepting a Biden win that hasn't occurred yet, and also whether Donald Trump will get a fair shake in the 2024 rematch, considering the ongoing attempts by Democrats to kneecap him via lawfare. DESJARDINS: So I want to take us through something unusual, a series of sound bites when some of these candidates were asked about what they think about our democracy and specifically about this coming election, whether they think that it will be secure or, and also the past election. Sen. J.D. VANCE (R-OH): I think that Donald Trump will be the victory [sic]. And if it's a free and fair election, Dana, I think every Republican will enthusiastically accept the results. And, again, I think those results will show that Donald Trump has been elected president. KRISTEN WELKER, Moderator, Meet the Press: Will you accept the election results of 2024, no matter what happens, Senator? Sen. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): No matter what happens? No, if it's an unfair election, I think it's going to be contested by either inside. WELKER: No matter who wins. Senator, no matter who wins. RUBIO: Well, why don't you -- I think you're asking the wrong person. The Democrats are the ones that have opposed every Republican victory since 2000, every single one. JONATHAN KARL, Moderator, This Week: He still hasn't accepted the results of the election. Sen. TOM COTTON (R-AR): Jon, he says, and I agree, that the election was not fair, that it was rigged in many ways, with Democratic states and cities changing election law and election practices up to the last minute. KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN Host: Had you been vice president on January 6, 2021, what would you have done? Rep. ELISE STEFANIK (R-NY): I stood up for the Constitution. I believe it was… COLLINS: No, what would you have done if you were vice president? STEFANIK: I would not have done what Mike Pence did. I don't think that was the right approach. DESJARDINS: As they're being vetted behind the scenes, these are very important public signals that they are sending to Trump that we need to watch. Notice that most of the Republicans pushed back on those leading, loaded questions from the press with how Democrats loosened election laws in 2020 and how Democrats can be "election deniers." These pro-Biden anchors don't ask Democrats about that. This has been a repeated drumbeat from PBS, that the potential Republican veep picks are demonstrating "damaging denialism."  PS: Desjardins weirdly claimed it was abnormal to seek a staunchly loyal vice president, and turned to St. Louis University law professor Joel Goldstein to warn: "And yet, if you have a process that really encourages people to be obsequious, it really undercuts that important purpose of the vice presidency as it's developed and evolved." Do they really think Kamala Harris doesn't appear obsequious in public?  This segment was brought to you in part by Cunard.

"There is an old trial lawyers saying: 'When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. When the law is on your side, pound the law. When neither is on you side, pound the table.'”  -- Patrick Buchanan, 1975 When it comes to making the case for Hunter Biden, Mika Brzezinski has managed to devise an alternative to pounding the table when the facts and the law are against you. On today's Morning Joe, Mika repeatedly got choked up when discussing the trials and tribulations of Hunter, and the Biden family at large. And to be clear: the case against Hunter Biden is about as open-and-shut as can be. There is overwhelming evidence to support the indictment, which the Department of Justice described this way [emphasis added]: "Hunter Biden purchased a Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver from a federally licensed firearms dealer on Oct. 12, 2018. When purchasing a firearm, a prospective purchaser must fill out a Firearm Transaction Record, ATF Form 4473, and certify that all of his or her answers on the form are true and correct. As alleged in count one of the indictment, Hunter Biden knowingly made a false written statement on the Form 4473, intended and likely to deceive the dealer he purchased the firearm from, when he certified that he was not an unlawful user of, or addicted to, any stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance. In fact, he knew that statement was false, according to the indictment." The defense argument, as put forth by lead defense counsel Abbe Lowell, amounts to asserting that, well, yeah, Hunter was a user of, and addicted to, illegal drugs at the time he submitted his application. But in his drug-addled mind, he thought he was clean. Good luck with that -- although who knows what verdict a jury from the Big Guy's home state of Delaware might render. Mika was emotional throughout, but in the video, you'll see her get especially choked up at 00:06, 00:59, and 02:41. Mika touted an article by Molly Jong-Fast on how Republicans are playing a "dangerous game" by discussing Hunter Biden, that "shaming the family" is a political loser. She said of addiction: “The disease that Hunter Biden has is the same disease that I have. It’s the same disease that, you know, almost 20 percent of the country has.” Note: Mika repeatedly tried to twang the heartstrings. She twice mentioned that Hunter is Biden's last "remaining son." She mentioned that Joe had lost a wife and a baby in a car accident, and that son Beau had died of a brain tumor. But whereas she claimed that Americans think Biden is a "nice guy," she failed to mention that, for decades, Biden falsely claimed that his wife and daughter had been killed by a drunk driver.  Biden has also falsely claimed, as even the leftist Daily Beast has acknowledged, that Beau died in Iraq. And as for Biden being the loving father of Hunter, for years, Joe helped Hunter make piles of cash that he squandered on crack and hookers. Voters or jurors could see him (broad brush) as an enabler, not a stern dad. And it can be imagined that Joe enabled Hunter in part because the Big Guy was getting his "10 percent," or a piece of the grift. Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 6/10/24 7:00 am EDT MIKA BRZEZINSKI: So, Molly, Trumpers and Republicans actually holding office [voice breaks] in Congress, they love this story. They love going after Hunter. They actually screamed at him nasty things when he walked into a hearing room, acting like eighth graders. I mean, really badly, poorly behaved eighth graders. And that they love to sort of go after Hunter and equivocate with this versus Donald Trump's trial. Your latest opinion piece is really interesting to me because I saw this the last time around with Joe Biden. People don't like it when you go after his remaining son. They like Joe Biden overall. They think he's a nice guy. And going after the remaining son didn't seem to fare well for those trying to do it. But you write this, "Republicans [sniffles, clears throat] going after Hunter Biden for his addiction are playing a dangerous game." And in  it, you write in part this, "FoxNews' The Five co-host Jeanine Pirro reportedly complained about 'eight jurors who have someone in their family who's had a drug or alcohol addiction problem or someone who died from alcohol or addiction. So they picked a jury who is sympathetic. And herein lies the problem with the ongoing Republican attack on Biden: Seating jurors who have experiences with addiction to various degrees does not make a jury sympathetic. It makes it informed. Addiction is a disease. People who struggle with addiction are sick, not bad.' . . .  I'm curious, Jon Meacham, the position that President Biden is in here. And by the way, I know that you have worked with him at times. JON MEACHAM: Yeah. MIKA: But personally, I want to talk to you personally about this. Because Americans know that he lost a baby and his wife decades ago in a car accident. Americans know that he lost his son, Beau, to a brain tumor. Americans know the family has struggled. He still steps up and serves. I'm just curious, how is this fervent desire to hurt Hunter -- and I'm not talking about in court. He's got to go to court. He's got to show up, and he's got to face the music.  I'm talking about the people going crazy about Hunter. Whether it is Jeanine Pirro or Republicans in Congress or the Trump campaign, how does this [gets choked up] hurt Joe Biden, except for personally? MEACHAM: Oh, I think it's simply a personal -- not simply. I think it's a personal cost. Politically, I don't think anyone -- MIKA: Yeah. MEACHAM: I mean, the tone, and I appreciate the tone in which you asked the question and Molly speaking. I hate beginning a sentence about this topic with politically, comma, but I'll do it quickly -- MIKA: Right. MEACHAM: -- because it transcends that. Politically, no, I don't think so.Anyone who -- MIKA: I don't think so either. MEACHAM: Yeah, anyone who's going to vote against President Biden because of his son's struggles is not what I would call a swing voter, right?

On October 7, Hamas terrorists butchered over 1,000 Israeli civilians and took hundreds more hostage. Since then, Hamas has refused to release the remaining hostages, and reports have begun to mount about the number of hostages who have been found dead during the course of Israel's military operation in Gaza. Over the weekend, the Israeli Defense Forces mounted the largest hostage rescue operation since the start of the war. The raid took place in a crowded area full of civilians because Hamas chose to hide the hostages there. By all accounts, when Israeli forces began their operation, Hamas returned fire from civilian buildings with heavy weaponry, including RPGs. To the extent that civilians died during the rescue, most reasonable people would conclude that the fault for this lies with the group that took hostages, hid them among its own civilians, and then used those civilians as human shields against the hostage rescuers. Not, however, the usual cadre of current and former MSNBC personalities who serve as de facto mouthpieces for Hamas. Immediately the coordinated campaign began to suggest both that Israel was at fault for these civilian deaths and also that the death toll was much higher than it likely was. The campaign began by uncritically repeating the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry's death toll, which claims over 200 civilian deaths. Liberal writer and Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali typified the response: — (@) MSNBC host Ayman Mohyeldin continued the refrain of Hamas talking points: — (@) Former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan was likewise horrified that civilians were killed during a hostage rescue — horrified at the people who rescued the hostages, of course, rather than the people who took the hostages. — (@) It is worth noting that even the Associated Press, which continues to uncritically report casualty figures from Hamas' "Gaza Health Ministry," was forced to concede in a recent report that death totals reported by Hamas are "at odds with underlying data." The outlet further noted that Hamas has systematically overestimated the number of women and children killed, which is often used as a proxy for estimating civilian deaths: "In February, ministry officials said 75% of the dead were women and children – a level that was never confirmed in the detailed reports. And as recently as March, the ministry’s daily reports claimed that 72% of the dead were women and children, even as underlying data clearly showed the percentage was well below that." The IDF estimates fewer than 100 total casualties in the raid. It is impossible to know for certain right now which figure is correct, but the side that has not spent this war systematically inflating civilian casualties for political gain ought perhaps to be entitled to the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the head count of this raid. Overall, Hamas' efforts to redirect public opinion, as attempted by Ali, Hasan, and Mohyeldin above, have perhaps unsurprisingly not been persuasive with the American people, who by most estimates still side with Israel in the conflict by about a 2:1 margin.