December 13, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Ben Lefebvre of Politico: "U.S. scientists have scored a breakthrough in fusion technology, showing for the first time that humans can wield the technology in a controlled reaction that combines atoms to create a net increase in energy, a major breakthrough that could eventually lead to a new source of clean, inexpensive power, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Tuesday. 'It's the first time it's ever been done at a laboratory. Simply put, this is one of the most impressive scientific feats in the 21st century,' Granholm said in a capacity-filled auditorium at the Department of Energy's headquarters in Washington."

Annie Grayer, et al., of CNN: "Rep. Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection, told reporters the committee will hold its final public meeting on Monday and that the panel's full report will come out December 21. Thompson ... said the committee will approve the panel's final report on December 19 and make announcements about criminal referrals to the Justice Department, but the public will not see the final report until two days later."

Jacqueline Alemany & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "The House Oversight Committee sent a letter to the National Archives on Tuesday requesting a review to determine whether ... Donald Trump has retained any additional presidential records at his storage facility in Florida.The request from the committee's chairwoman, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), follows a report from The Washington Post that at least two items marked classified were found by an outside team hired by Trump to search a storage unit, along with at least two of his properties, after his legal team was pressed by a federal judge to attest that it had fully complied with a May grand jury subpoena to turn over all materials bearing classified markings." MB P.S.: If y'all can't find the key to the padlock on the West Palm Beach U-Stor Unit #45, use boltcutters like the Russian spies do. And if you'll send us copies of all the secret docs you find, you know, please send them certified.

Other People's Money. Ken Sweet of the AP: "The U.S. government charged Samuel Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, with a host of financial crimes on Tuesday, alleging he intentionally deceived customers and investors to enrich himself and others, while playing a central role in the company's multibillion-dollar collapse. Federal prosecutors say that beginning in 2019 Bankman-Fried devised 'a scheme and artifice to defraud' FTX's customers and investors. He diverted their money to cover expenses, debts and risky trades at his crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research, and to make lavish real estate purchases and large political donations, prosecutors said in a 13-page indictment." A CNBC story is here. MB: Sounds more like a Bernie Madoff scandal than a Winklevoss Twins hoohah.

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Kyle Cheney & Nicholas Wu of Politico: "The Jan. 6 select committee's final report will begin with a voluminous executive summary describing ... Donald Trump's culpability for his extensive and baseless effort to subvert the 2020 election, according to people briefed on its contents. Drafts of the report, which the people briefed say have been circulating among committee members for weeks, include thousands of footnotes drawn from the panel's interviews and research over the past 16 months into Trump's activities in the frenzied final weeks that preceded Jan. 6, 2021.... The committee members are expected to formally approve the report at a Dec. 21 public meeting of the panel described by Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).... The final report, according to those briefed on it, will have eight chapters that align closely with the evidence the panel unveiled during its public hearings in June and July[.]... The report itself may not be limited to an executive summary and the eight chapters and is also expected to include appendices that capture more aspects of the committee's investigation." ~~~

~~~ Marie: My understanding is that the committee's report & appendices will be available online, at no cost (the material is government property; it belongs to you), perhaps beginning next Wednesday. The summary report, possibly with appendices, also will be sold in hardcopy in format, which will probably take some weeks to have in hand. If you want a head start on all of this, TPM has reviewed Mark Meadows' texts: ~~~

~~~ Hunter Walker in TPM: "TPM has obtained the 2,319 text messages that Mark Meadows ... turned over to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. Today, we are publishing The Meadows Texts, a series based on an in-depth analysis of these extraordinary -- and disturbing -- communications.... They show the senior-most official in the Trump White House communicating with members of Congress, state-level politicians, and far-right activists as they work feverishly to overturn Trump's loss in the 2020 election.... They show Meadows and other high-level Trump allies reveling in wild conspiracy theories, violent rhetoric, and crackpot legal strategies for refusing to certify Joe Biden's victory." Includes links to related stories.

Meet Your Friendly Bureaucrat. Brett Wilkins of Common Dreams: "Hundreds of Oath Keepers said they are or were employed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, a report published Monday found.... In a joint investigation with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) found that more than 300 people on a leaked Oath Keepers membership list described themselves as current or former employees of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agencies including the Border Patrol, Coast Guard, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Secret Service. Experts voiced alarm over far-right extremists -- who according to DHS pose the greatest domestic terrorism threat -- working at a federal agency responsible for combating extremism."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday refused to block a California law banning flavored tobacco, clearing the way for the ban to take effect next week. As is the court's practice when it rules on emergency applications, its brief order gave no reasons. There were no noted dissents. R.J. Reynolds, the maker of Newport menthol cigarettes, had asked the justices to intervene before next Wednesday, when the law is set to go into effect. The company, joined by several smaller ones, argued that a federal law, the Tobacco Control Act of 2009, allows states to regulate tobacco products but prohibits banning them." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

David Yaffe-Bellany, et al., of the New York Times: "Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was arrested in the Bahamas on Monday after U.S. prosecutors filed criminal charges.... Mr. Bankman-Fried, 30, was scheduled to testify in Congress on Tuesday about the collapse of FTX, which was one of the most powerful firms in the emerging crypto industry until it imploded virtually overnight last month after a run on deposits exposed an $8 billion hole in its accounts. Prosecutors for the Southern District of New York confirmed that Mr. Bankman-Fried had been charged and said an indictment would be unsealed on Tuesday. Separately, the Securities and Exchange Commission said in a statement that it had authorized charges 'relating to Mr. Bankman-Fried's violations of our securities laws.' The criminal charges against Mr. Bankman-Fried included wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy and money laundering...." The AP report is here.~~~

     ~~~ Family Business. David Yaffe-Bellany, et al., of the New York Times: The parents of Sam Bankman-Fried -- Joseph Bankman & Barbara Fried, both Stanford U. professors -- "are under scrutiny for their connections to a business that collapsed amid accusations of fraud and misuse of customer funds.... The couple's careers have been upended.... Mr. Bankman was a paid FTX employee who traveled frequently to the Bahamas, where the exchange was based. Ms. Fried did not work for the company, but her son was among the donors in a political advocacy network that she orchestrated."

Cat Zakrzewski, et al., of the Washington Post: "Twitter on Monday night abruptly dissolved its Trust and Safety Council, the latest sign that Elon Musk is unraveling years of work and institutions created to make the social network safer and more civil.... Dozens of civil rights leaders, academics and advocates from around the world had volunteered their time for years to help improve safety on the platform.... The Committee to Protect Journalists, a non-profit that promotes press freedom around the world, decried the dissolution of the council.... The group's president, Jodie Ginsburg, said in a statement, 'Today's decision to dissolve the Trust and Safety Council is cause for grave concern, particularly as it is coupled with increasingly hostile statements by Twitter owner Elon Musk about journalists and the media.'" The AP report is here. ~~~

~~~ Joseph Menn of the Washington Post: "Elon Musk escalated his battle of words with previous managers of Twitter into risky new territory over the weekend, allying himself with far-right crusaders against a purported epidemic of child sex abuse and implying that the company's former head of trust and safety had a permissive view of sexual activity by minors. Musk told more than 30,000 listeners in a live Twitter Spaces audio session Friday night that he recently discovered that child sex abuse material was a severe problem on Twitter and that fighting it would be his top priority. In follow-up tweets Saturday, he misrepresented a section of a graduate dissertation from recently departed safety chief Yoel Roth. 'Looks like Yoel is arguing in favor of children being able to access adult Internet services in his PhD thesis,' he wrote.... Several internet safety experts said that Musk's comments put Roth at grave risk.... In imputing nefarious motives to Twitter's former managers and saying a crime had been committed, Musk adopted techniques used by the QAnon conspiracy movement, which falsely claims that Democrats and elites are running child sex abuse networks." ~~~

~~~ Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "... info-warring, at bottom, is what characterizes Musk's transformation into the world's richest right-wing troll. Tons of pixels have been wasted on efforts to pin down Musk's true beliefs, but whatever they are, we can say right now that he's consciously exploiting fundamental features of the right-wing information ecosystem.... Liberal outrage is a sign of an attack's effectiveness. There is probably no good or easy answer here. But one thing is clear: Outrage and shaming aren't nearly enough." ~~~

~~~ Matt Novak of Gizmodo: "Elon Musk, the billionaire who wants nothing more in life than to be adored by legions of fans, was loudly booed by a crowd in San Francisco on Sunday night after he was invited onstage by comedian Dave Chappelle.... The crowd erupted into a mixture of cheers and boos, before the boos clearly won out, according to footage posted on Twitter. [Update, 6:40 a.m. ET: The footage appears to have been deleted from Twitter for some reason, but you can still watch it below.]... 'All these people who are booing, and I'm just pointing out the obvious, you have terrible seats,' Chappelle said, apparently trying to save Musk's dignity by calling the people who are booing poor." Novak follows the Chappelle/Musk performance -- and audience reaction -- from there. Neither got a lot better.

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. Zac Anderson of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune: "Urged on by prominent far right figures such as Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn, ultra conservative GOP activists are seeking to take over county parties across Florida during leadership elections this month. Some have failed, such as the recent effort to install a Flynn acolyte as county party chair in Sarasota County. Some already have been successful. Candidates backed by far-right businessman Alfie Oakes, who was at the U.S. Capitol when it was overrun by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, took over the Collier County GOP.... Many of the activists seeking control of local parties have bee motivated by Trump's stolen election claims and his battles with the GOP establishment." Thanks to Bobby Lee for the link.

Way Beyond

Matina Stevis-Gridneff & Monika Pronczuk of the New York Times: "As the Belgian authorities broadened their investigation into allegations that European Parliament lawmakers and others may have taken bribes from Qatar, the assembly's president warned on Monday that illegal lobbying posed a major threat to the institution. 'European democracy is under attack,' the president, Roberta Metsola, said in an emotional speech to fellow lawmakers.' Days after raiding residences and official offices and seizing evidence that included hundreds of thousands of euros in cash, the Belgian police on Monday launched new searches at European Parliament offices." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Jennifer Rankin & Helena Smith of the Guardian: "The European parliament has voted to strip a Greek MEP implicated in a bribery and corruption scandal of her role as one of the body's vice-presidents. MEPs voted by 625 votes to one against, with two abstentions, to remove Eva Kaili as one of the parliament's 14 vice-presidents, following a decision in favour of the move by the assembly's senior leaders.... Kaili is one of four people charged, although she has not been officially named. She has been remanded in custody and will be brought before a judge on Wednesday.... Police seized computers, mobile phones and €600,000 ... in cash at one home, as well as €150,000 in a flat belonging to an MEP and 'several hundred thousand euros' from a Brussels hotel room, according to the public prosecutor.... MEPs have postponed a vote on granting Qatari citizens visa-free travel rights to the EU that was scheduled to have taken place this week. ​'We must ensure that this process has not been influenced by corruption,' said the German Green MEP Erik Marquardt...."

Ukraine, et al.

The New York Times' live updates of developments Tuesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Washington Post's live briefings for Tuesday are here. The Guardian's live updates are here. The Guardian's summary report is here.

Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times: "... after a series of military setbacks in his war in Ukraine, with Russia's casualties mounting and its economy faltering under sanctions, [Vladimir] Putin has decided to skip [his annual marathon December press conference].... Often stretching to four hours or more, the December news conference has been one of the few times during the year when reporters outside the Kremlin pool, including foreign correspondents, get the chance to directly question Mr. Putin -- if they are called on. But the Kremlin has also asked reporters ahead of time what they might be inclined to ask Mr. Putin. The ranks of journalists in Russia who are not subservient to the government are thinner than at any time since the fall of the Soviet Union, and this year the government criminalized criticism of the war or the military.... Even so, it would have been possible for either a Russian or an international reporter to detail some of the setbacks in Ukraine and to ask Mr. Putin embarrassing questions about them -- live on national television." An AP report is here.

Boris & Natasha Do Europe. Erika Solomon & Henrik Pryser Libell of the New York Times: "As the war in Ukraine bogs down and Moscow's isolation increases, European nations have grown wary that a desperate Kremlin is exploiting their open societies to deepen attempts at spying, sabotage and infiltration -- possibly to send a message, or to probe how far it could go if needed in a broader conflict with the West.... Three Russians recently [have been] arrested in Europe on suspicion of being 'illegals' -- spies who embed in a local society for long-term espionage or recruitment.... Other suspicious incidents have popped up across Europe.... Norway ... may have more reasons to worry than most. Now that Western sanctions have all but cut off Russian fossil fuels to Europe, Norway is the biggest oil and gas supplier to the continent."

News Lede

CNBC: "Prices rose less than expected in November, the latest sign that the runaway inflation that has been gripping the economy is beginning to loosen up. The consumer price index, which measures a wide basket of goods and services, rose just 0.1% from the previous month, and increased 7.1% from a year ago, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting a 0.3% monthly increase and a 7.3% 12-month rate. The increase from a year ago, while well above the Federal Reserve's 2% target for a healthy inflation level, was tied for the lowest since November 2021."

December 12, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday refused to block a California law banning flavored tobacco, clearing the way for the ban to take effect next week. As is the court's practice when it rules on emergency applications, its brief order gave no reasons. There were no noted dissents. R.J. Reynolds, the maker of Newport menthol cigarettes, had asked the justices to intervene before next Wednesday, when the law is set to go into effect. The company, joined by several smaller ones, argued that a federal law, the Tobacco Control Act of 2009, allows states to regulate tobacco products but prohibits banning them."

Matina Stevis-Gridneff & Monika Pronczuk of the New York Times: "As the Belgian authorities broadened their investigation into allegations that European Parliament lawmakers and others may have taken bribes from Qatar, the assembly's president warned on Monday that illegal lobbying posed a major threat to the institution. 'European democracy is under attack,' the president, Roberta Metsola, said in an emotional speech to fellow lawmakers.' Days after raiding residences and official offices and seizing evidence that included hundreds of thousands of euros in cash, the Belgian police on Monday launched new searches at European Parliament offices."

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Evan Halper & Pranshu Verma of the Washington Post: "The Department of Energy plans to announce Tuesday that scientists have been able for the first time to produce a fusion reaction that creates a net energy gain -- a major milestone in the decades-long, multibillion dollar quest to develop a technology that provides unlimited, cheap, clean power. The aim of fusion research is to replicate the nuclear reaction through which energy is created on the sun. It is a 'holy grail' of carbon-free power that scientists have been chasing since the 1950s. It is still at least a decade -- maybe decades -- away from commercial use, but the latest development is likely to be touted by the Biden administration as an affirmation of a massive investment by the government over the years."

"Splashdown!" Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "Fifty years to the day after astronauts last walked on the moon, Nasa&'s uncrewed Orion capsule splashed down in the Pacific on Sunday at the end of a mission that should clear the way for a possible lunar landing of astronauts by 2025. The US space agency rejoiced in a near-perfect re-entry of the capsule which splashed down to the west of Mexico's Baja California near Guadalupe Island. Though it carried no astronauts, the spacecraft did contain three test dummies wired with vibration sensors and radiation monitors to divine how humans would have fared."

Katelyn Polantz, et al., of CNN: "Newly-appointed special counsel Jack Smith is moving fast on a pair of criminal probes around Donald Trump that in recent months have focused on the former president's state of mind after the 2020 election, including what he knew about plans to impede the transfer of power, people familiar with the matter tell CNN. Though he remains in Europe recovering from a biking accident, Smith has made a series of high-profile moves since he was put in charge last month, including asking a federal judge to hold Trump in contempt for failing to comply with a subpoena ordering him to turn over records marked classified. Since Thanksgiving, Smith has brought a number of close Trump associates before a grand jury in Washington, including two former White House lawyers, three of Trump's closest aides, and his former speechwriter Stephen Miller. He has also issued a flurry of subpoenas, including to election officials in battleground states where Trump tried to overturn his loss in 2020."

Welcome to the 2022 Republican Terrorist Party

... if Steve Bannon and I had organized [the January 6 attack on the Capitol], we would have won. Not to mention, it would've been armed. -- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), to the New York Young Republicans Club, Saturday

We want to cross the Rubicon. We want total war. We must be prepared to do battle in every arena. In the media. In the courtroom. At the ballot box. And in the streets. This is the only language the left understands. The language of pure and unadulterated power. -- NYYRC President Gavin Wax, Saturday

Okay, here a Fox "News" headline: "Kevin McCarthy pledges subpoenas for 51 intel agents in wake of Hunter Biden 'Twitter Files' revelations." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Akhilleus was wondering in yesterday's thread how it was that My Kevin was so intent on passing out dozens of subpoenaes when he and his friends were unwilling to answer the subpoenas of the committee investigating an attack on our Capitol, a/k/a My Kevin's workplace.

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post shares some ideas for reforming the Supreme Court. The reforms have popular support. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Brittany Shammas, et al., of the Washington Post: "A Libyan man accused of making a bomb that killed hundreds of people aboard an American passenger plane over Lockerbie, Scotland, almost 34 years ago is in U.S. custody, officials said Sunday. A spokesman for the Justice Department said Abu Agila Masud is expected to make his first court appearance in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.... The former Libyan intelligence operative is accused of making the explosive device that destroyed a Pan Am jet on Dec. 21, 1988, killing all 259 people on board the Boeing 747 and 11 others on the ground. The Justice Department charged Masud in 2020 with helping make the bomb. In announcing the charges on the 32nd anniversary of the attack, then-Attorney General William P. Barr said that the operation was ordered by the leadership of Libyan intelligence and that Moammar Gaddafi, Libya's leader from 1969 to 2011, had personally thanked Masud for his work. It was unclear how authorities took Masud into custody." The AP's report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Musk Goes Full Winger Loon. Julia Mueller of the Hill: "'My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,' [Elon] Musk said on Twitter [on Sunday]. He later shared a meme edited to show Fauci telling Biden, 'Just one more lockdown, my king.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: On top of the anti-vax thang, Musk also seems to be making fun of nonbinary people. So he's not just loony; he's mean. BTW, I have always disliked the way "they" and "them" have traditionally been misapplied to a single person. So I also dislike "they" & "them" when these pronouns are intentionally applied to a single person. Nonetheless, I do see the pressing need for a nonbinary set of English-language pronouns. So it occurs to me that "thou, thee, thy & thine" would work well. These are already real words that are singular. Okay, second-person singular, but we can adapt: "When I saw Morgan at the grocery store, thou was buying potatoes. I pointed out to thee that the fingerlings were on sale as I recall fingerlings were thy favorites and thine only choice to serve with roast beef."

Beyond the Beltway

Arizona. The Great Wall of Ducey ... Is (a) Hilarious (b) an Eyesore (c) Illegal (d) All of the Above. Melissa del Bosque of the Guardian: "A makeshift new barrier built with shipping containers is being illegally erected along part of the US-Mexico border by Arizona's Republican governor -- before he has to hand over the keys of his office to his Democratic successor in January. Doug Ducey is driving a project that is placing double-stacked old shipping containers through several miles of national forest, attempting to fill gaps in Donald Trump's intermittent border fencing. The rusting hulks, topped with razor wire and with bits of metal jammed into gaps, stretch for more than three miles through Coronado national forest land, south of Tucson, and the governor has announced plans to extend that up to 10 miles, at a cost of $95m.... The US Bureau of Reclamation and the Cocopah tribal nation said that Ducey was violating federal law by placing the containers on federal and tribal land there."

California. Soumya Karlamangla & Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "Karen Bass was sworn in as the first female mayor of Los Angeles on Sunday and vowed to build consensus among elected leaders as Angelenos contend with racial tensions, surging homelessness and a new rise in coronavirus cases. Vice President Kamala Harris swore in Ms. Bass in a ceremony that celebrated her historic win but also underscored the obstacles she will face. Ms. Bass said that her first act as mayor on Monday would be to declare a state of emergency on homelessness." CNN's story is here.

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Monday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Monday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Monday are here: "President Biden underlined the United States' ongoing support for Ukraine during a weekend call with President Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as efforts to strengthen Kyiv's air defenses against tactical strikes by Russia on civilian infrastructure. Biden vowed during the call to hold Russia accountable for war crimes and atrocities, and impose 'costs on Russia for its aggression,' according to an official White House readout. He welcomed Zelensky's stated openness to a 'just peace.'... Western military experts say Russia is firing larger batches of missiles against Ukraine, which risks depleting Kyiv's stockpiles of interceptor missiles.... Moscow is unlikely to make significant advances in the next few months, Britain's Ministry of Defense said in its Monday update."

December 11, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post shares some ideas for reforming the Supreme Court. The reforms have popular support.

Okay, here a Fox "News" headline: "Kevin McCarthy pledges subpoenas for 51 intel agents in wake of Hunter Biden 'Twitter Files' revelations."

Brittany Shammas, et al., of the Washington Post: "A Libyan man accused of making a bomb that killed hundreds of people aboard an American passenger plane over Lockerbie, Scotland, almost 34 years ago is in U.S. custody, officials said Sunday. A spokesman for the Justice Department said Abu Agila Masud is expected to make his first court appearance in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.... The former Libyan intelligence operative is accused of making the explosive device that destroyed a Pan Am jet on Dec. 21, 1988, killing all 259 people on board the Boeing 747 and 11 others on the ground. The Justice Department charged Masud in 2020 with helping make the bomb. In announcing the charges on the 32nd anniversary of the attack, then-Attorney General William P. Barr said that the operation was ordered by the leadership of Libyan intelligence and that Moammar Gaddafi, Libya's leader from 1969 to 2011, had personally thanked Masud for his work. It was unclear how authorities took Masud into custody." The AP's report is here.

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Hunter Biden Dick Pix Edition, Etc.

Dan Friedman of Mother Jones searches the provenance of the Hunter Biden dick pix, and you will be shocked, shocked to find out that Steve Bannon & his friend the Chinese mogul Guo Wengui are behind the distribution of the photos & videos, which they paired with invented allegations that Hunter engaged in child sex abuse & that both Hunter & Joe Biden had paid blackmail. (There's a Rudy Giuliani cameo, too.) Friedman tells us a little more about Guo, who publicly criticizes Chinese communism, but has been accused of being an agent of the Chinese government. In his meeting with Guo backers on October 31, 2020, "Bannon acknowledged passing the material to Guo's backers and then praised their lies, which he laughingly described as 'editorial creativity over the pictures.'" ~~~

~~~ Recently, Elon Musk provided Matt Taibbi with internal communications between Twitter & outsiders, including the Biden 2020 presidential campaign. When Taibbi revealed that -- at the Biden campaign's request -- Twitter had taken down pictures & a video that a follower of Guo had posted, Musk himself was shocked, shocked: "If this isn't a violation of the Constitution's First Amendment, what is?'" he asked. As Friedman notes, there's no First Amendment violation here, something Musk later claimed he knew all along. Then, there's this: "Even now, under Musk, Twitter says that 'sharing explicit sexual images or videos of someone online without their consent is a severe violation' of its rules. Twitter also continues to bar 'coordinated harmful activity,' which it defines as 'individuals associated with a group, movement, or campaign ... engaged in some form of coordination' that will 'cause harm to others.'... The effort by Guo and his backers to propagate explicit images and lies to hurt the Bidens was very much the kind of disinformation campaign that social media companies have good reason, even a responsibility, to combat."

Scott Lemieux in LG&$ republishes a portion of a New York article by Eric Levitz on Elon Musk's vaunted "Twitter Files": "The Twitter Files provide limited evidence that the social-media platform's former management sometimes enforced its terms of service in inconsistent and politically biased ways. The project offers overwhelming evidence that Twitter's current management is using the platform to promote tendentious, partisan narratives and conservative misinformation. In that sense, [Matt] Taibbi and [right-wing journalist Bari] Weiss have performed revelatory journalism." And as Lemieux writes, "What the TWITTER FILES do not contain is any reason for anybody to care about the dumbest pseudo-scandal ever"; i.e., the Hunter Biden laptop hoohah. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: There's a tragedy here: Musk & Taibbi are never going to figure out that at best, they are naifs, and more realistically, they are ignorant hacks. This is a personal tragedy for Musk & Taibbi, but people who used Twitter are collateral damage. Musk doesn't get this, either. One of the worst traits of the biggest jerks is that they'll never know they're the biggest jerks.

Matt Viser & Michael Scherer of the Washington Post: "An array of groups is preparing to defend [Hunter Biden] against an expected GOP onslaught, but they lack a unifying strategy.... For the White House, the overriding message is that Hunter Biden is clearly a private citizen and an inappropriate target for Congress to investigate, and that Republicans are more concerned with pursuing conspiracies than solving the country's problems."

Apparently there's a "Twitter Files, Part II," and Bari Weiss wrote it. Blake Montgomery of the Gizmodo reviews Weiss's report, which claims Twitter picked on right-wing users more than left-wing users. According to Montgomery, Weiss provides evidence of some wingers Twitter moderated but fails to show any evidence that Twitter was more rigorous with the right than with the left. IOW, just stupid stuff. ~~~

~~~ Shirin Ghaffary of Vox is equally unimpressed with Weiss's analysis, noting that her accusations lack context: "We don't have a full explanation, for example, of why Twitter limited the reach of these accounts -- i.e., whether they were violating the platform's rules on hate speech, health misinformation, or violent content. Without this information, we don't know whether these rules were applied fairly or not." A former Twitter employee noted that Weiss complained about one account Twitter had limited, but the employee noted that "The account has been blamed for harassment of children's hospitals, including bomb threats."

Abigail Hauslohner of the Washington Post: "Four American veterans of the Afghanistan War drove 7,600 miles across the U.S. "in five weeks with the hope that, if they could rally the support of local veterans groups and other constituents, [Republican] senators still uncommitted might also embrace their sense of urgency [to resettle Afghan refugees brought here after the war].... Their journey was fueled by notions of military honor, loyalty and obligation. Out on the road, though, they found no guarantees that such convictions still resonate in a postwar America. Often, they encountered -- both from the public and lawmakers' staff -- an uncomfortable reality in which the moral code that united so many amid the withdrawal had given way to an indifference toward those at risk of abandonment all over again."

Atten-Shun! Mike Baker, et al., of the New York Times: "J.R.O.T.C. programs, taught by military veterans at some 3,500 high schools across the country, are supposed to be elective, and the Pentagon has said that requiring students to take them goes against its guidelines. But The New York Times found that thousands of public school students were being funneled into the classes without ever having chosen them, either as an explicit requirement or by being automatically enrolled.... Dozens of schools have made the program mandatory or steered more than 75 percent of students in a single grade into the classes.... A vast majority of the schools with those high enrollment numbers were attended by a large proportion of nonwhite students and those from low-income households, The Times found.... Parents in some cities say their children are being forced to put on military uniforms, obey a chain of command and recite patriotic declarations in classes they never wanted to take." ~~~

~~~Mike Baker & Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs of the New York Times: "A majority of public school textbooks receive extensive professional and government vetting, undergoing revision, rejection and public debate. But the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps, in courses taught at thousands of high schools around the country, uses textbooks that have bypassed those standard public reviews.... A New York Times review of thousands of pages of the program's textbooks found that some of the books also included outdated gender messages, a conservative shading of political issues and accounts of historical events that falsify or downplay the failings of the U.S. government."

Christina Jewitt of the New York Times: "Juul Labs has agreed to pay $1.7 billion to settle more than 5,000 lawsuits by school districts, local governments and individuals who claimed that its e-cigarettes were more addictive than advertised, according to people with knowledge of the deal. The amount for the deal, which involves a consolidation of cases centered in Northern California, is more than three times the sum reported for other Juul settlements in other state and local cases thus far."

Beyond the Beltway

California. Shawn Hubler & Soumya Karlamangla of the New York Times: "Come Monday evening, Kevin de León will be the lone Los Angeles politician still in his job among the four leaders who discussed local politics in racist terms on a recording that has roiled the nation's second most populous city since October, when it surfaced online.... When he unexpectedly attempted to return to the council dais after an absence of weeks, demonstrators shouted and screamed, three colleagues walked out in protest, and the council recessed until Mr. de León left the chambers.... On Friday evening, as a food and toy giveaway wrapped up in his district, Mr. de León, wearing a Santa hat, got into a skirmish with a well-known local activist who has called for months for the councilman's resignation.... The upheaval underscored the ongoing challenges as Karen Bass prepares to be sworn in on Sunday as the first female mayor of Los Angeles and five new City Council members get ready to begin work next week. They will confront a city exhausted by mounting homelessness, crime, costs of living and ethnic divisions."

Way Beyond

Germany. If There Is One! Erika Solomon & Katrin Bennhold of the New York Times on Prince Heinrich XIII of Reuss, the right-wing terrorist whom his co-conspirators planned to make head of a new German Reich after they toppled the current government (which they think is fake) & assassinated the chancellor. ~~~

     ~~~ Philip Olterman of the Guardian has more on the extremist plot.

Ukraine, et al. Patrick picks the Quote of the Week:

You can't trust anyone. You can only trust me. -- Vladimir (Epimenides) Putin

~~~ The New York Times' live updates of developments Sunday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Sunday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Sunday are here: "Ukrainian and Moscow-backed officials both reported deadly strikes in the occupied city of Melitopol on Saturday evening, saying that a recreational center was struck and that there were deaths and injuries.... Russian forces have used a significantly higher number of Iranian-made drones to attack critical infrastructure targets in southern Ukraine in recent days than in previous weeks, the Institute for the Study of War think tank said. The Ukrainian air force on Saturday reported that Russia had conducted 15 attacks with Shahed-136 and 131 drones in the southern Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odessa regions. Ukrainian forces shot down 10 of the drones, according to [President] Zelensky.... Germany on Saturday said it has provided $21 million worth of generators to Ukraine, some of which will go to Odessa to help keep power on as Russian-backed troops target Ukraine's electricity infrastructure.... ~~~

"The brother of Paul Whelan, the Marine turned corporate security executive who is serving a 16-year sentence in a Russian prison over espionage charges, hit back at ... Donald Trump for suggesting that the deal made to free Griner was 'stupid' and 'unpatriotic.' David Whelan told Fox News that Trump's remarks were 'disappointing' for a former president. 'I think that what President Biden did was to take care of an American who was in peril and bring home the American that he could bring home,' he said."

News Lede

New York Times: "When George Johnson, an Englishman known as Johnny, died on Wednesday night in a care home in the Bristol area of southwest England, he was remembered as the last surviving airman of the Dambuster raid [on Germany's industrial heartland]. He was 101."