RIP LOUIS GOSSETT JR.: First Black Actor To Win Oscar For Best Supporting Role Dead At 87
JOHN PODHORETZ: Joseph I. Lieberman, 1942-2024.
As a man in his private life and his everyday relationships, he defined the word “mensch.” As a Jew, he spent his life as a devoted follower of the obligations of Orthodoxy. As a public servant in Connecticut and Washington, he was never anything less than a man who served his state and served his country faithfully, rigorously, honestly, and with true honor.
It was one of the great blessings of my life that I got to know him over the past 20 years—to break bread with him, and celebrate the marriage of his daughter with him, and celebrate the birth of grandchildren with him, and honor him (for we do actually intend it as an honor) as one of COMMENTARY’s roastees. It is a mark of his amused and amusing character that he appeared at a COMMENTARY roast to pay tribute to the opposite number who had prevailed in that 2000 contest, Dick Cheney—and that Cheney returned the favor with comparable graciousness and high good humor when we roasted Joe two years later.
Indeed, the Lieberman-Cheney debate in 2000 was one of the last genuinely civil exchanges on the highest planes of American politics. And the memory of it stings—because we have spent the last quarter century doing what we can to rid Washington of exactly the kind of civility and respect Joe Lieberman extended across ideological and partisan boundaries.
Indeed, his career proved an early example of the nightmarish direction in which American politics was heading when, in 2006, he was targeted by leftists in his own party for defeat—even though he was the sitting senator from the state of Connecticut, only six years removed from his vice presidential candidacy, and only three years removed from his own bid for the presidency in 2004.
For the sin of supporting a war to remove a monstrous tyrant, and for the even more egregious sin of embracing George W. Bush at the State of the Union in 2005, Democratic voters in Connecticut voted for a primary rival, Ned Lamont, in his stead. To give you a sense of the emotional capaciousness of the man, just a week after he had lost his primary, Joe gave his daughter Rebecca away in marriage to my very, very dear friend Jacob Wisse. Notwithstanding the difficult circumstances he found himself in, Joe glowed with joy the entire weekend, so devoted was he to Rebecca (also one of my closest friends) and so aware of the value of a marriage that has thrived and has since produced two beloved granddaughters.
“I am so thrilled today,” he said in his toast at the wedding, “that I would love to give you all an earmark.”
He told me—I had not spent any time talking to him until this moment—that he felt confident things would be all right. He had decided to run as an “independent Democrat” in the November election. And indeed, he beat Lamont by 10 points because the entirety of the state of Connecticut understood and wished to pay tribute to Joe’s great and surpassing value. He served out that term, retired after 28 years in the Senate, and moved to New York, where he worked as a lawyer and continued to provide sage counsel on the most important matters facing America and the Jewish people.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Elon Musk reveals plan for next Starship mission.
The SpaceX boss said the next Starship launch, which is expected to take place in early May, will focus on bringing the craft back to Earth safely from orbit for the first time.
On Wednesday, SpaceX completed a second static fire test of its latest Starship rocket at its Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
“Getting ready for Flight 4 of Starship,” Mr Musk posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday.
“Goal of this mission is for Starship to get through max reentry heating with all systems functioning.”
Russian network that ‘paid European politicians’ busted, authorities claim.
Investigators claimed it used the popular Voice of Europe website as a vehicle to pay politicians.
The Czech Republic and Poland said the network aimed to influence European elections.
Voice of Europe did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.
Czech media, citing the countries [sic] intelligence agency BIS, reported that politicians from Germany, France, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Hungary were paid by Voice of Europe in order to influence upcoming elections for the European Parliament.
The German newspaper, Der Spiegel, said the money was either handed over in cash in covert meetings in Prague or through cryptocurrency exchanges.
Pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk is alleged by the Czech Republic to be behind the network.
And there’s this from 2020:
Over the past year, Telizhenko has repeatedly aired his claims about corruption in the Biden family while appearing on Giuliani’s YouTube channel and podcast. The claims are drawn from Telizhenko’s past work as a diplomat in the Ukrainian embassy in Washington, his employment with a DC lobbying firm and his stint in the office of the prosecutor general of Ukraine. While serving in these positions, Telizhenko claims to have witnessed signs of corruption and conflicts of interests involving the Biden family and other Obama Administration officials.
With help from Giuliani, these claims also found their way to the U.S. Senate, where Johnson and his staff have had repeated contacts with Telizhenko for over a year. The Wisconsin Senator first met with Telizhenko in July 2019, a month before Johnson teamed up with Senator Grassley to investigate allegations of corruption against the Biden family.
As that probe got underway in the U.S. Senate, Russian allies in Ukraine made repeated efforts to lend credibility to these claims of corruption against Biden. Some of these efforts involved Medvedchuk, a personal friend of the Russian President.
Hopefully, Kissinger’s formula doesn’t apply here and they can all lose.