Cancel Culture? Jewish Editor Fired for Sharing Onion Article on Gaza

A Jewish editor in chief of a science journal says he was fired from his position after sharing an article on the siege in Gaza from the satirical website The Onion.

Michael Eisen, who edits the Cambridge-based science journal eLife, on Monday shared the news of his dismissal on X (formerly Twitter).

Eisen, who is also a geneticist at the University of California, Berkeley, had shared an Onion article titled “Dying Gazans Criticized for Not Using Last Words to Condemn Hamas.”

“Every sane person on Earth is horrified and traumatized by what Hamas did and wants it to never happen again,” he clarified in a later tweet. “All the more so as a Jew with Israeli family. But I am also horrified by the collective punishment already being meted out on Gazans, and the worse that is about to come.”

To protest Eisen’s firing, fellow editor Lara Urban also announced her resignation on Monday afternoon.

Since the latest round of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict began earlier this month, people who have advocated for Palestinian rights, statehood, or even a cease-fire have been subjected to intense criticism. The U.N. estimates that 1,400 Israelis and nearly 5,100 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been killed.

Donald Trump’s defense team is working overtime to get his D.C. election fraud case thrown out—filing a whopping four motions to dismiss charges.

But the funniest part? In one of the motions filed just before Monday’s midnight deadline, Trump’s attorneys claimed they wanted references to January 6 “stricken from the record.”

His lawyers argue that since the indictment doesn’t technically charge Trump with responsibility for the insurrection, they are “not relevant” to a case deliberating on Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

“They relate to a high-profile issue on which the public has high awareness and strong opinions, making their inclusion prejudicial and inflammatory,” Trump’s team wrote.

To put that another way, Trump’s team wants all references to January 6 removed from Trump’s January 6–related indictment.

In a second motion, Trump filed to dismiss the case outright under the former president’s First Amendment rights, claiming that he did not “defraud the United States,” since he truly believed the election was rigged.

Another late-night filing sought dismissal on statutory grounds, arguing that the “prosecution does not explain how President Trump violated these statutes, beyond simply saying he has while regurgitating the statutory language.”

In a fourth filing, lawyers Todd Blanche, John Lauro, and Gregory Singer also asked for dismissal “on the basis of selective and vindictive prosecution.”

Trump attorneys had long threatened that they would attempt to challenge the conspiracy case, telling Judge Tanya Chutkan outright at a hearing in August that they would do so.

“I can’t wait,” Chutkan said at the time.

Monday’s late-night frenzy is just the latest in the bid to get the proceedings, which constitute the first criminal trial against a former U.S. president, thrown out. In August, lawyers for Trump also demanded that Chutkan recuse herself over comments she had made in previous cases related to the Capitol riots.

The tides have started to turn in the Georgia election interference case—and it appears there will soon be a tsunami of evidence against Team Trump.

On Tuesday, former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis struck a plea deal with Fulton County prosecutors. Ellis has pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings.

Ellis agreed to be sentenced to five years’ probation along with a $5,000 restitution. She will also be required to complete 100 hours of community service and is expected to cooperate and testify against Trump and his 15 remaining co-conspirators as part of her plea deal.

Ellis is the third member of Trump’s legal team to flip on him in the Georgia case, behind Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, who both pleaded guilty on related charges last week. They followed Scott Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman, who was the first person to plead guilty in the criminal conspiracy.

“In the frenetic pace of attempting to raise challenges in several states, including Georgia, I failed to do my due diligence,” Ellis said.

“If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these postelection challenges. I look back on this whole experience with deep remorse.”

Donald Trump blundered the name of one of his international friends during a campaign speech on Monday, mispronouncing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s name as “Viktor Orbán”—prime minister of Hungary.

The gaffe underscored a worrying detail about the 2024 GOP presidential candidate: Clearly, Trump has too many adoring fascists in his Rolodex to keep them straight.

“The whole world is exploding. You know I was very honored—Viktor Orbán, did anyone ever hear of him? He’s probably one of the strongest leaders anywhere in the world. Right? He’s the leader of Turkey,” Trump said to a quiet crowd in Derry, New Hampshire.

In some ways, it’s not too hard to confuse the two. Erdoğan and Orbán both lead authoritarian regimes, they both belong to NATO, and they’re both obsessed with the concept of an “illiberal democracy” that doesn’t protect individual rights or freedoms.

Then again, there are some big differences, like the countries they come from. Orbán, who has been accused of violating the Geneva Conventions regarding the rights of refugees*, was described by the late Senator John McCain as a “neo-fascist dictator.” He’s also curried a certain level of idolatry from the contemporary American right. Meanwhile, Erdoğan has rigged elections, restricted the press, and been described as an “electoral autocrat.” And again, they run completely different countries. You’d think a former president would be able to remember the difference.

*This article has been amended to clarify the Geneva Conventions that Orban is accused of violating.

Not all heroes wear capes. Sometimes, they just make us laugh.

While nine GOP candidates for speaker of the House were unveiling their platforms, Georgia Representative Mike Collins was at it again, cooking up some of the freshest memes from inside the caucus.

“Press releases are out, memes are in,” Collins wrote in a parodistic platform release on Monday.

“Carmines for dinner after every conference,” read another bullet point.

One name-check turned some heads, however. Collins’s deepest jab was directed at conservative pollster and talking point consultant Frank Luntz: that there would be “no more having to listen to Frank Luntz at retreats.”

Since former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was booted from the seat on October 3, Collins has repeatedly found a way to vent his frustrations, and ours, through humor.

The congressman’s gags grew markedly more absurd after Majority Leader Steve Scalise lost his bid for speaker. Since then, Collins has taken the helm of his own Twitter account, grabbing laughs in equal parts to relieve the exhaustion and to snipe at his own blundering peers.

Last Wednesday, in a post anticipating Representative Jim Jordan’s first floor vote, the chief memer shared a video of himself rolling a Magic Eight Ball as its die tumbled around. “Don’t count on it,” the ball predicted.

In an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Collins shared that he writes most of his viral tweets down himself, though it can require a little collaboration with staff.