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The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

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A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. -- Edward R. Murrow

Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Wednesday
Aug312022

September 1, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "President Biden will travel to Philadelphia on Thursday for a prime-time address in which he will accuse Republicans loyal to ... Donald J. Trump of embracing a form of extremism that is a direct threat to the United States.... A senior White House official said the president would state in direct language how 'MAGA Republicans' have put the nation's institutions at risk and undermined democratic values. The focus on threats to democracy is a return to the issue that Mr. Biden said drove him to run for the presidency, after white supremacists marched through Charlottesville, Va., in 2017."

Alan Feuer & Ken Bessinger of the New York Times: "The top lawyer for the Oath Keepers militia, who was with the group's leader outside the Capitol on Jan. 6., 2021, was charged on Thursday with conspiring to obstruct a joint session of Congress that day as lawmakers met to certify the results of the 2020 election. The lawyer, Kellye SoRelle, was the latest member of the right-wing extremist group to be indicted in connection with the Capitol attack. The indictment, handed up in Federal District Court in Washington, also accused Ms. SoRelle, 43, of tampering with evidence connected to the Justice Department's grand jury investigation of Jan. 6 and illegally entering and remaining in a restricted area of the Capitol grounds."

Emma Brown of the Washington Post: "Virginia 'Ginni' Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, pressed lawmakers to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 victory not only in Arizona, as previously reported, but also in a second battleground state, Wisconsin, according to emails obtained under state public-records law.... The new emails show that Thomas also messaged two Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin: state Sen. Kathy Bernier, then chair of the Senate elections committee, and state Rep. Gary Tauchen. Bernier and Tauchen received the email ... on Nov. 9, virtually the same time the Arizona lawmakers received a verbatim copy of the message from Thomas.... Thomas sent all of the emails via FreeRoots, an online platform that allowed people to send pre-written emails to multiple elected officials."

Annie Karni of the New York Times: "The Senate's Republican campaign chief on Thursday appeared to escalate an ugly quarrel with ... Senator Mitch McConnell, in the latest sign of the G.O.P.'s eroding confidence about winning back the majority in November. Without naming Mr. McConnell, Senator Rick Scott of Florida ... lashed out in a blistering opinion piece in The Washington Examiner at Republicans he said were 'trash-talking' the party's candidates, an apparent reference to comments last month in which Mr. McConnell said that 'candidate quality' could harm the G.O.P.'s chances of retaking the Senate. Mr. Scott called such remarks 'treasonous' and said those who make them should 'pipe down.' 'Unfortunately, many of the very people responsible for losing the Senate last cycle are now trying to stop us from winning the majority this time by trash-talking our Republican candidates,' Mr. Scott wrote. 'It's an amazing act of cowardice, and ultimately, it's treasonous to the conservative cause.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie. Wait, wait! It's an act of treason to suggest that Herschel Walker or Dr. Oz is unqualified to join the Senate?? Well, hang me by my toes.

Sarah Mervosh of the New York Times: "National test results released on Thursday showed in stark terms the pandemic's devastating effects on American schoolchildren, with the performance of 9-year-olds in math and reading dropping to the levels from two decades ago. This year, for the first time since the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests began tracking student achievement in the 1970s, 9-year-olds lost ground in math, and scores in reading fell by the largest margin in more than 30 years. The declines spanned almost all races and income levels and were markedly worse for the lowest-performing students. While top performers in the 90th percentile showed a modest drop -- three points in math -- students in the bottom 10th percentile dropped by 12 points in math, four times the impact." CNN's report is here. MB: On the upside, parents, the kids are now as dumb as you are. Maybe your efforts to help them with their homework will now be useful.

Speaking of Dumb, Education Was Wasted on Tom Cotton. Rebecca Shabad of NBC News: "After Democrat Mary Peltola defeated Sarah Palin in Alaska's special election Wednesday, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., discredited the voting system used by Alaska voters that they chose to implement in their state. Cotton tweeted that Alaska's new ranked-choice voting system 'is a scam to rig elections,' casting doubt on the outcome of the process to fill the seat of late GOP Rep. Don Young. '60% of Alaska voters voted for a Republican, but thanks to a convoluted process and ballot exhaustion -- which disenfranchises voters -- a Democrat "won,'" Cotton said in a separate tweet." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: See, Tom, in theory, ranked-choice voting should have favored Palin in this election. Both she & the third-place candidate Nick Begich are Republicans. Therefore, you would expect that Palin -- rather than a Democratic candidate -- would get most of Begich voters' second-choice votes. But she didn't. Palin lost because a majority of voters didn't want the former half-governor to win this election, not because there was something unfa-a-a-air about the system. Dimwit.

~~~~~~~~~~

** Uh, Wow! Nathaniel Herz of the Washington Post: "Democrat Mary Peltola has won a special election for the U.S. House in Alaska, defeating Republican Sarah Palin and becoming the first ever Alaska Native to win a seat in Congress as well as the first woman to clinch the state's at-large district. Peltola, who's Yup’ik,is a tribal fisheries manager and former state representative who led in initial counts after the Aug. 16 election. But her win wasn't assured until Wednesday, when Alaska officials made decisive second-choice counts using the state's new ranked choice voting system. Republican Nick Begich III, was eliminated, and his supporters' second choice votes were redistributed.... She will serve the remainder of a term left open by the sudden death of GOP Rep. Don Young in March. Young represented Alaska in Congress for 49 years." CNN's report is here.


Marie: For many hours I have been hearing experts on the teevee opine that Tuesday night's court filing by the Justice Department demonstrates that Donald Trump has no defense for his unlawful stealing & hoarding of presidential papers, including many, many classified documents. But I have found one. Remember that joke about the guy stealing wheelbarrows? Well, Trump wasn't stealing U.S. secrets or presidential papers that belong in the National Archives. He was stealing cardboard file transport boxes. And the U.S.A. is not going to arrest a former POTUS* for running off with a few cardboard boxes. Case closed. ~~~

     ~~~ Peterr at emptywheel offers another, much more creative response to Donald's Quandary. If your kids are having trouble understanding the Great White House Heist, Peterr's "That Bratt-I-Am, that Bratt-I-Am, I do not like that Bratt-I-Am" will help. Many thanks to RockyGirl for the link. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: That rug! When I first saw the photo, I thought it must have been taken in the FBI's cheap motel. But I quickly learned the pic is a typical evidence photo that was taken at Mar-a-Lago. And I've since learned the rug is probably expensive ($80-$100/sq.ft.) wall-to-wall custom carpet "made out of a mixture of wool and silk, or a shiny cotton-based substitute." Thanks to a friend for the link to the tweet.

Trump Answer: Of Course I Stole, Hoarded & Hid Classified Docs. "They're Mine!" Marshall Cohen of CNN: "... Donald Trump argued in a court filing Wednesday that the National Archives should have expected to find classified material among the 15 boxes Trump turned over in January from Mar-a-Lago because they were presidential records. The filing acknowledged that classified material was found at Mar-a-Lago, but argued that it should not have been cause for alarm -- and should not have led to the search of Trump's Florida residence earlier this month. Trump's new filing on Wednesday is his platform to formally respond to prosecutors' assertions that members of his legal team engaged in 'obstructive conduct' by concealing documents at his Florida resort and by providing untrue information to investigators about how many classified documents remained on site.... Trump's lawyers argue that under the Presidential Records Act, the Archives should have followed up with a good faith effort to secure recovery of presidential records, rather than referring a criminal probe to the Justice Department." ~~~

     ~~~ Charlie Savage, et al., of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump's legal team on Wednesday aggressively renewed its push for an independent arbiter to review documents the F.B.I. seized in its Aug. 8 search of his Florida residence, telling a federal judge that he had merely possessed 'his own presidential records.'... A hearing is scheduled for Thursday in Federal District Court in West Palm Beach.... The Presidential Records Act of 1978 ... makes clear that the government, not a president or former president, owns White House files generated during his time in office. (If Mr. Trump also had files generated by other agencies and departments, those have never been understood to be owned by presidents.) Mr. Trump's lawyers argued that the Presidential Records Act has no enforcement mechanism, suggesting that the government had no basis to seize the files..., brush[ing] aside the fact that a magistrate judge who issued the search warrant ... had done so not on the basis of the Presidential Records Act, but on other laws against concealing government records."

     ~~~ Here's the legal filing, via CNN.

Alan Feuer & Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump may have thought that he was playing offense when he asked a federal judge last week for an independent review of documents seized from his residence in Florida -- a move that, at best, could delay but not derail an investigation into his handling of the records. But on Tuesday night, the Justice Department used a routine court filing in the matter to initiate a blistering counteroffensive that disclosed new evidence that Mr. Trump and his legal team may have interfered with the inquiry.... It was as if Mr. Trump, seeming not to fully grasp the potential hazards of his modest legal move, cracked open a door, allowing the Justice Department to push past him and seize the initiative....

"Covering [the] final page [of the DOJ's response to Mr. Trump's complaint] was ... an image of five yellow folders marked 'Top Secret,' and a red one labeled 'Secret,' lying on the ground beside a box of magazine covers. The image, which seemed to be a standard evidence photo, was the sort of thing the government collects all the time for use at possible trials. But ... on Wednesday ... Mr. Trump attacked the image. 'Terrible the way the FBI, during the Raid on Mar-a-Lago, threw documents haphazardly all over the floor,' he wrote on his social media platform. He went to say...: '(Perhaps pretending it was me that did it!)'"

Perry Stein, et al., of the Washington Post: "Newly public details from the Justice Department's criminal probe of documents taken to Mar-a-Lago suggest enormous legal peril for two of Donald Trump's attorneys -- and considerable uncertainty for Trump himself, intelligence and legal experts said.... The evidence laid out in the filing, experts said, could build a legal case that Trump attorneys Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb obstructed the government's investigation.... The [DOJ's] filing states that when officials visited Mar-a-Lago in June, Trump's lawyers did not let them search boxes in a storage room where the documents had been kept. Trump's custodian of records, who was not identified by name in the filing but previous reporting has shown is Bobb, signed a sworn statement in June pledging to officials that a'diligent search' for classified materials had been conducted at Mar-a-Lago. Corcoran allegedly told investigators at that time that all classified documents had been returned.... Three people close to Trump ... said Bobb is no longer expected to play a role in Trump's legal defense.... Left unanswered were key questions that could determine Trump's legal fate: Did he direct Corcoran and Bobb to mislead the government, either before or after the FBI raid of his Florida home and club? And, if so, why did he want to keep reams of top-secret classified documents there?" ~~~

     ~~~ Charlie Savage & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Two lawyers for ... Donald J. Trump [-- Evan Corcoran & Christina Bobb --] are likely to become witnesses or targets in the investigation into how he hoarded documents marked as classified at his Florida estate -- and secretly held onto some even after they claimed all sensitive materials had been returned, legal specialists said.... In its filing late Tuesday, the Justice Department noted that ... '... the former president's counsel explicitly prohibited government personnel from opening or looking inside any of the boxes that remained in the storage room....'... [Trump's initial] complaint also claims that after [the DOJ's Jay] Bratt asked to inspect the storage room, investigators were escorted there, and once their inspection was completed, an F.B.I. agent said: 'Thank you. You did not need to show us the storage room, but we appreciate it. Now it all makes sense.'... The prospect that investigators may seek to obtain information from Mr. Corcoran, Ms. Bobb or both would almost certainly meet strenuous resistance from them and from Mr. Trump."

This Does Not Look Too Good. Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Just six days before the Justice Department subpoenaed to recover highly sensitive documents housed at Mar-a-Lago, one of ... Donald Trump's attorneys scoured the estate searching for records in response to a separate legal matter. The attorney, Alina Habba, told a New York State court that on May 5, she conducted a search of Trump's private residence and office at Mar-a-Lago that was so 'diligent' it included 'all desks, drawers, nightstands, dressers, closets, etc.' She was looking for records in response to a subpoena issued by New York Attorney General Letitia James.... The same filing also includes an affidavit from Trump himself, indicating that he 'authorized Alina Habba to search my private residence and personal office located at The Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida for any and all documents responsive to the Subpoena.' Habba indicated she conducted similar searches at Trump's residences and office at his Bedminster estate. The filing submitted to the New York AG's office raises key questions in relation to ... whether Habba ended up handling any of the documents that DOJ later discovered at Trump's club; and, if so, whether she has the clearance to have done so..... After [the] subpoena [in the presidential papers case] was issued, Trump indicated that he responded by ordering staff to conduct a thorough search of the property for documents marked as classified. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Looks as if Habba is about to become another Trump lawyer who finds out the true meaning of MAGA: "Make Attorneys Get Attorneys."

When Fox's Steve Doocy Is the Voice of Reason. Colby Hall of Mediaite: "Steve Doocy asked the question that most reasonable people have following a midnight DOJ filing that revealed stunning details surrounding the search and seizure at Mar-a-Lago.... 'Keep in mind, according to the filing, the agents found three classified documents in Donald Trump's [desk],' Doocy noted with a level of shock. 'What were they doing in the desk?!' [Referring to the photo of classified documents that accompanied the DOJ's filing, Doocy said,] 'And when you look at these particular things right here, at least five yellow folders marked top secret and another secret SCI -- that stands for sensitive compartmentalized information -- these are the biggest secrets in the world!.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: "One does not need ... a therapist's license to conclude that defeated former president Donald Trump's nutty rant insisting that he be made president immediately or the 2020 election be rerun is the sign of an unhinged personality. Under pressure from the increasingly potent espionage investigation, he might be losing his grip. For a change, you don't hear Republicans rushing forth to support his latest insane demand. Trump's posting of QAnon messages and implicit threats (in increasingly unintelligible syntax) suggests that he is losing the ability or desire to control his impulsive outbursts. This is the guy whom millions of Republicans want to nominate for president.... Just how [Republican politicians] expect to rid themselves of someone like Trump is unclear."

Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "John Eastman, the lawyer who developed strategies to block certification of the 2020 election, is 'probably a target' in the criminal investigation into efforts to overturn Donald J. Trump's election loss in Georgia, one of Mr. Eastman's lawyers said on Wednesday. Mr. Eastman spent the morning appearing before an Atlanta special grand jury looking into the matter. The assertion that Mr. Eastman could face indictment in the Georgia case came from Harvey Silverglate, a well-known Boston-area criminal defense lawyer and civil liberties advocate who is representing Mr. Eastman. In a statement, Mr. Silverglate and another of Mr. Eastman's lawyers, Charles Burnham, said they advised Mr. Eastman 'to assert attorney client privilege and the constitutional right to remain silent where appropriate' in Wednesday's grand jury appearance. Mr. Silverglate said that his client had not been identified as a target by Fulton County prosecutors in Atlanta...." An NBC News story is here.

Here's the White House's transcript, as delivered, of President Biden's speech in Pennyslvania Tuesday. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Noah Weiland & Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized the first redesign of coronavirus vaccines since they were rolled out in late 2020, setting up millions of Americans to receive new booster doses targeting Omicron subvariants as soon as next week. The agency cleared two options aimed at the BA.5 variant of Omicron that is now dominant: one made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech for use in people as young as 12, and the other by Moderna, for those 18 and older." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "A bronze plaque commemorating the Ku Klux Klan should be removed from the science centre at West Point, a congressional commission said, even though it falls outside the panel's remit because the racist terror group was formed after the American civil war.... The eight-member panel is tasked with recommending which US military assets should be renamed, to remove associations with Confederates who fought to maintain slavery." MB: The commission originally said it could not recommend removal of the plaque because memorials to post-Civil War organizations were outside its authority.

Beyond the Beltway

Florida Gubernatorial Race. Matt Dixon of the Tampa Bay Times: "Rep. Charlie Crist is resigning from Congress to focus on his bid for Florida governor, a move that was expected after his huge primary victory over Democratic Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried. The seat will remain vacant until the November election." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) MB: Turns out Democrats aren't down by a single member inasmuch as Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola will replace a Republican.

Michigan. Mitch Smith of the New York Times: "A state board in Michigan refused on Wednesday to place an abortion rights referendum on the November ballot because of a dispute over word spacing on the petition, an embarrassing blow to abortion rights supporters who had gathered more than 750,000 signatures. The decision, which came when the Board of State Canvassers deadlocked along party lines, could still be overturned by the courts. But it injected further uncertainty into the fate of abortion in Michigan, a swing state where enforcement of a pre-Roe v. Wade abortion ban has been temporarily blocked by a judge and where many closely watched races are on this year's ballot.... Reproductive Freedom for All, a group supporting the amendment, accused the canvassers of disenfranchising voters and vowed to challenge the decision in court. The two Republicans on the board voted against placing the issue on the ballot, while the two Democratic canvassers supported presenting the question to voters." The AP's report is here.

Way Beyond

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

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Thursday are here: "An International Atomic Energy Agency team is facing delays of up to three hours, held up by Ukrainian forces, on its way to inspect the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, a spokesperson for the agency told The Washington Post. IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi has 'personally negotiated' with Ukrainian authorities to be able to proceed and remains 'determined' that his mission will reach the plant Thursday.... The IAEA team is aware of 'increased military activity' in the area near the plant, Grossi said Thursday before heading to the site from the city of Zaporizhzhia.... 'The Russians are shelling the pre-agreed route of the IAEA mission,' Ukraine's regional governor for Zaporizhzhia, Oleksandr Starukh, said Thursday on Telegram.... The number of Ukrainian refugees who have left the country has hit 7 million, according to the United Nations.... Moscow and its separatist allies in Ukraine have forcibly transferred hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to Russia since the start of the war, according to U.S. officials and human rights investigators. Many are sent through a vast and punitive 'filtration' system that includes detentions, interrogations and mass data collection, reports Claire Parker."

Comments Off
Wednesday
Aug312022

August 31, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Just six days before the Justice Department subpoenaed to recover highly sensitive documents housed at Mar-a-Lago, one of ... Donald Trump's attorneys scoured the estate searching for records in response to a separate legal matter. The attorney, Alina Habba, told a New York State court that on May 5, she conducted a search of Trump's private residence and office at Mar-a-Lago that was so 'diligent' it included 'all desks, drawers, nightstands, dressers, closets, etc.' She was looking for records in response to a subpoena issued by New York Attorney General Letitia James.... The same filing also includes an affidavit from Trump himself, indicating that he 'authorized Alina Habba to search my private residence and personal office located at The Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida for any and all documents responsive to the Subpoena.' Habba indicated she conducted similar searches at Trump s residences and office at his Bedminster estate. The filing submitted to the New York AG s office raises key questions in relation to ... whether Habba ended up handling any of the documents that DOJ later discovered at Trump's club; and, if so, whether she has the clearance to have done so..... After [the] subpoena [in the presidential papers case] was issued, Trump indicated that he responded by ordering staff to conduct a thorough search of the property for documents marked as classified."

Here's the White House's transcription, as delivered, of President Biden's speech in Pennyslvania yesterday.

Noah Weiland & Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized the first redesign of coronavirus vaccines since they were rolled out in late 2020, setting up millions of Americans to receive new booster doses targeting Omicron subvariants as soon as next week. The agency cleared two options aimed at the BA.5 variant of Omicron that is now dominant: one made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech for use in people as young as 12, and the other by Moderna, for those 18 and older."

When Fox's Steve Doocy is the Voice of Reason. Colby Hall of Mediaite: "Steve Doocy asked the question that most reasonable people have following a midnight DOJ filing that revealed stunning details surrounding the search and seizure at Mar-a-Lago.... 'Keep in mind, according to the filing, the agents found three classified documents in Donald Trump's [desk],' Doocy noted with a level of shock. 'What were they doing in the desk?!' [Referring to the photo of classified documents that accompanied the DOJ's filing, Doocy said,] 'And when you look at these particular things right here, at least five yellow folders marked top secret and another secret SCI -- that stands for sensitive compartmentalized information -- these are the biggest secrets in the world!.'"

Florida. Matt Dixon of the Tampa Bay Times: "Rep. Charlie Crist is resigning from Congress to focus on his bid for Florida governor, a move that was expected after his huge primary victory over Democratic Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried. The seat will remain vacant until the November election."

~~~~~~~~~~

Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "President Biden gave a forceful defense of the F.B.I. during a speech in Pennsylvania on Tuesday and called out allies of ... Donald J. Trump for failing to condemn those who attacked law enforcement during the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. During a visit to a key swing state, Mr. Biden took what have been political vulnerabilities for the White House -- policing and rising crime -- and cast them as strengths ahead of the congressional elections in November. 'It's sickening to see the new attacks on the F.B.I.,' Mr. Biden said, referring to some congressional Republicans who have called to 'defund' or even 'destroy' the F.B.I. over its search of Mr. Trump's Mar-a-Lago home on Aug. 8.... 'Let me say this to my MAGA Republican friends in Congress: Don't tell me you support law enforcement if you won't condemn what happened on the 6th,' Mr. Biden said, referring to the Jan. 6 attack. 'For God's sake, whose side are you on?'" ~~~

** Glenn Thrush, et al., of the New York Times: "The Justice Department sought a search warrant for ... Donald J. Trump's residence in Florida after obtaining evidence that highly classified documents were likely moved around and concealed and that Mr. Trump's representatives had falsely claimed all sensitive material had been returned, according to a court filing by the department on Tuesday. The filing, which came in response to Mr. Trump's request for an independent review of materials seized from his home, Mar-a-Lago, paints the clearest picture yet of the department's exhaustive effort to retrieve the documents before taking the extraordinary step of searching a former president's private property on Aug. 8.

"Among the new disclosures in the 36-page filing were that the search yielded three classified documents in desks located inside Mr. Trump's office, with more than 100 documents in 13 boxes or containers with classification markings in the residence, including some at the most restrictive levels. That was twice the number of classified documents the former president s lawyers turned over voluntarily while swearing an oath that they had returned all the material demanded by the government.... Tuesday's filing made clear that prosecutors are now unmistakably focused on the possibility that Mr. Trump and those around him took potentially criminal steps to obstruct their investigation....

"[Trump attorney Christina] Bobb's statement[, dated June 3, 2022,] was attached to the department's filing on Tuesday. In it, the lawyer wrote that 'based upon the information that has been provided to me,' there had been a 'diligent' search and all responsive documents to the subpoena were being returned. But law enforcement officials soon developed evidence that statement was untrue -- and said their investigation cast serious doubt on the sworn statement. The F.B.I. 'uncovered multiple sources of evidence indicating that the response to the May 11 grand jury subpoena was incomplete and that classified documents remained at the premises, notwithstanding the sworn certification made to the government on June 3,' the Justice Department filing said....

"On Tuesday, the Justice Department argued that a special master was 'unnecessary and would significantly harm important governmental interests, including national security interests.' It also argued that the judge lacked jurisdiction over the matter and that Mr. Trump 'lacks standing to seek judicial relief or oversight as to presidential records because those records do not belong to him.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "The filing ... charges that some of the boxes held in a storage room 'were not returned prior to counsel's review' of the material -- suggesting that while the government was demanding all classified material be secured in that storage room, someone was continuing to move or hide papers. When agents conducted their court-ordered search on Aug. 8, they found material so sensitive that 'even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review required additional clearances before they were permitted to review certain documents,' the filing says.... In response to a subpoena, the former president's lawyer turned over 38 classified documents, in addition to 184 others that were discovered in boxes sent to the National Archives earlier in the year, the filing says. Yet when FBI agents searched the Trump property in August, they found more than 100 additional classified papers, which, prosecutors wrote, 'calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter.'...

"The prosecutors paint Trump's lawyer, Evan Corcoran, and custodian of records, Christina Bobb as so uncooperative as to lead agents to suspect the Trump team might be obstructing the investigation. The filing, for instance, says that when FBI agents and Jay Bratt, the chief of the counterintelligence and export control section at the Justice Department, met with Trump's two representatives in early June, 'the former President's counsel explicitly prohibited government personnel from opening or looking inside any of the boxes that remained in the storage room, giving no opportunity for the government to confirm that no documents with classification markings remained.' Yet earlier this month, Bobb told The Washington Post that the lawyers showed the federal officials the boxes, and Bratt and others spent some time looking through the material." Includes facsimile of filing. ~~~

     ~~~ Politico's report, by Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney, is here: "Trump's claims that the items should be returned to him have no merit, [the government contended]. 'Any Presidential records seized pursuant to the search warrant belong to the United States, not to the former President,' [DOJ counterintelligence chief Jay] Bratt argued.... In particular, Bratt urged [Judge] Cannon to reject Trump's claim that any of the documents seized were subject to a claim of executive privilege by him -- and therefore unrecoverable by the current administration. 'The former President cites no case -- and the government is aware of none -- in which executive privilege has been successfully invoked to prohibit the sharing of documents within the Executive Branch,' Bratt wrote.... Intelligence officials are currently reviewing the recovered files to assess risks to national security, and any disruption to that could jeopardize the review, DOJ contends.... Trump is due to respond to the government's filing by Wednesday evening, and Cannon has called for a hearing on the matter Thursday afternoon in West Palm Beach....

"While arguing against a special master, the filing does offer some suggestions for Cannon if she decides to do so anyway. Prosecutors say the special master should only review the seized records for potential attorney-client privileged information and not for other issues. In addition, the Justice Department says that if a special master 'must be permitted to review classified documents,' that person should have a top-level security clearance already to avoid delay." CNN's report is here.

     ~~~ A copy of the DOJ filing submitted late Tuesday is here, via CNN.

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump has hired a high-profile lawyer to help him with the aftermath of the F.B.I. search of his club and home in Florida and the criminal investigation into his handling of sensitive government documents. The lawyer, Christopher M. Kise, is a former solicitor general for the State of Florida who has won four cases before the United States Supreme Court and worked as a transition adviser for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican. Mr. Kise, who is now in private practice, formally joined the team in recent days, according to two of Mr. Trump's associates."

David Badash of the New Civil Rights Movement: "Donald Trump is having a meltdown on his Truth Social platform. The former president ... is lashing out at his opponents, rapidly reposting memes from his supporters celebrating him and attacking President Joe Biden and the Democrats, and promoting falsehoods about the 2020 election, the Jan. 6 insurrection, and vaccines. Trump's meltdown, which includes dozens of posts and reposts per hour, comes amid his baseless demand on Monday to either be named president again or have the nation hold a new election 'immediately.' 'Trump is spending his morning on Truth Social directly posting 4chan and Q messages.... He's doing explicitly what he used to try to shade or use coded language for,' Politico's Kyle Cheney observes...." An interesting read. MB: And I told you he was nuts. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Paul Campos in LG&$: "One of the eternally puzzling things about Donald Trump is the fact that he is an increasingly unhinged demagogue who was president of the United States and could well be again is treated as basically normal, as if this is just one of those things that happens sometime, and therefore doesn't deserve any special attention or comment[.]... The fact that Donald Trump is a deranged narcissistic authoritarian with frankly delusional beliefs about everything..., and is at the same time the leader of one of our two national political parties, has become in some indescribably perverse way completely normalized." ~~~

     ~~~ Steve Benen of MSNBC recounts press reports that have related the numerous times one-time one-term President* Donald Trump has opined that he could be immediately returned to office. Like Paul Campos, Benen says" it seems only fair to ask Republican officeholders and candidates whether they agree with Trump's plea [to immediately reinstate him as president*]." Citing conservative opinionator Charles Cooke, Benen points out that even if Joe Biden did somehow steal the 2020 presidential election, there is no Constitutional mechanism to install the loser in the office like "the second-place horse in a race whose winner was disqualified." ~~~

     ~~~ Steve M. explains why "Trump is either a seditionary or a spoiled five-year-old. Or both, I guess."

Google Rejects Trump's Orwellian Social. Jack Stebbins of CNBC: "Truth Social, the would-be Twitter competitor created by Trump Media and Technology Group, remains unavailable on the Google Play store. Google said the app lacks effective systems for moderating user-generated content, which violates the store's terms of service. 'On Aug. 19, we notified Truth Social of several violations of standard policies in their current app submission and reiterated that having effective systems for moderating user-generated content is a condition of our terms of service for any app to go live on Google Play,' the tech company, which is owned by Alphabet, told CNBC in a statement Tuesday.... The restriction means that Android users, who make up 44% of smartphone users in the U.S., can't download the app." MB: Of course one of the users the app can't moderate is @RealDonaldTrump.

Rachel Weiner & Jeremy Barr of the Washington Post: "Some of the biggest stars on Fox News are being compelled to answer questions about their coverage of the 2020 presidential election as a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit from an election technology company that claims its reputation was ruined by the network's airing of baseless fraud allegations picks up steam. Lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems last week questioned hosts Jeanine Pirro and Tucker Carlson, while Sean Hannity and former Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs are scheduled for depositions Tuesday, according to court filings. They are among the on-air personalities that Dominion says defamed it either by falsely claiming the company conspired to rig the election against Donald Trump or by repeatedly hosting guests who made such claims."

Robert Reich in a Guardian op-ed: "I've been watching the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, for some time. Last Tuesday I tweeted: 'Just wondering if "DeSantis" is now officially a synonym for "fascist".' I was surprised at the outrage my little tweet provoked in rightwing media.... America's mainstream media is by now comfortable talking and writing about 'authoritarianism'. Maybe it should also begin using the term 'fascism', where appropriate.... Authoritarianism implies the absence of democracy, a dictatorship. Fascism also includes hatred of 'them' (people considered different by race or religion, or outside the mainstream, or who were born abroad), control over what people learn and what books they are allowed to read, control over what had been independent government units (school boards, medical boards, universities and so on), control over women and the most intimate and difficult decisions they'll ever make, and demands that the private sector support the regime." See also strong> RAS's comment in today's thread.


Ramon Vargas of the Guardian: "A United Nations expert warned that some US state governments are steadily undermining and eliminating lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse people's civil rights, and he urged the Joe Biden White House to strengthen protective measures for them. Victor Madrigal-Borloz, the diplomatic organization's independent expert on protection against gender- and sexual orientation-based violence and discrimination, said he is deeply alarmed' that prior progress, such as the US supreme court's legalization of gay marriage in 2015, is under threat at both the state and federal levels in America."

Kenneth Chang of the New York Times: "For now, NASA will press ahead with preparations for a second launch attempt on Saturday of its new moon rocket, NASA officials said during a news conference on Tuesday[.] Mission managers have come up with a plan that they hope will work around an engine problem with the rocket encountered during the first launch attempt on Monday. The Space Launch System rocket is the modern equivalent of the Saturn V that took NASA astronauts to the moon during the Apollo program half a century ago, and it is the centerpiece of NASA's Artemis program, which aims to send astronauts back to the moon in the coming years."

Hurubie Meko of the New York Times: "For decades, the students at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York have walked beneath a panel of three bronze plaques mounted at the entrance of Bartlett Hall Science Center that includes an image of a hooded figure and the words 'Ku Klux Klan' written below it, according to findings in a report released by a congressional panel on Monday. The report from the panel, the Naming Commission, which was created by Congress last year and tasked with providing recommendations for the removal or renaming of Defense Department assets that commemorate the Confederacy.... But the commission said that recommending the removal of the plaque fell outside of its scope because the Ku Klux Klan, founded by former Confederate soldiers, emerged after the Civil War. The panel flagged the item for review in its report, and included a picture."

Roni Rabin of the New York Times: "The average life expectancy of Americans fell precipitously in 2020 and 2021, the sharpest two-year decline in nearly 100 years and a stark reminder of the toll exacted on the nation by the continuing coronavirus pandemic. In 2021, the average American could expect to live until the age of 76, federal health researchers reported on Wednesday. The figure represents a loss of almost three years since 2019, when Americans could expect to live, on average, nearly 79 years. The reduction has been particularly steep among Native Americans and Alaska Natives, the National Center for Health Statistics reported."


Noah Weiland of the New York Times: "The Biden administration announced a new plan on Tuesday to send extra doses of monkeypox vaccine to states for use at events or sites that can reach more people of color and others who have lacked access to shots. The program, called an 'equity intervention pilot,' will offer 10,000 vials of vaccine, or as many as 50,000 doses, that can be distributed by local officials to five different venues. Officials said the doses were meant for people who might struggle to find appointments or worry about the stigma of attending public vaccination events."

Beyond the Beltway

Congressional Races. Republicans Try to Hide Their Real Views. Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post: "At least nine Republican congressional candidates have scrubbed or amended references to Trump or abortion from their online profiles in recent months, distancing themselves from divisive subjects that some GOP strategists say are two of the biggest liabilities for the party ahead of the post-Labor Day sprint to Election Day.... The attempts by Republicans in competitive contests to pivot away from abortion and Trump have emboldened Democrats to mount an aggressive offense on those issues, which they see as key to their efforts to outperform once-dim expectations in congressional races."

Cristiano Lima of the Washington Post: "California state lawmakers passed a major children's online safety measure on Tuesday that would require digital platforms to vet whether new products may pose harm to kids and teens before rolling them out and to offer privacy guardrails to younger users by default. Children's safety advocates say the legislation, the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, would make the state a national leader in setting protections for kids and teens online. Its passage is part of a growing push nationwide to hold tech companies like Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat accountable for how their services may affect children's mental health and safety. Its passage is likely to heighten calls for Congress to introduce new guardrails for children's personal information and online activity."

Mississippi. Rick Rojas of the New York Times: "More than 150,000 people in Mississippi's capital were without access to safe drinking water on Tuesday, forcing officials to tackle what they described as the 'massively complicated task' of distributing bottled water and devising a plan to restore service without a firm sense of how long that would take. The water system in Jackson, the state's largest city, has been in crisis for years, hobbled by aging and inadequate infrastructure and, many in the city argue, a failure to devote sufficient resources to fix it. Residents have long contended with disruptions in service and frequent boil-water notices, including one that had already been in effect for more than a month because of cloudiness in water samples. But the situation worsened dramatically this week as officials said that the city's largest water treatment plant was failing, pushed to the brink by torrential rains. Homes and businesses were left with little to no water pressure, schools switched to virtual learning, and hospitals brought in portable restrooms as a vital element of a functioning city suddenly collapsed."

     ~~~ Bryan Pietsch of the Washington Post: "The governor of Mississippi urged residents of Jackson, the state's capital and largest city, not to drink the water there -- if they still had access to it -- warning that running water would soon be unavailable as the city's long-struggling treatment plant failed. Gov. Tate Reeves (R) said during an emergency briefing Monday night that the city would be without 'reliable running water at scale' for the near future.... Until the situation is resolved, residents in the city of 150,000 should not drink the water or use it to cook or brush their teeth unless they boil it first, officials said. Reeves said the situation was 'very different' from a boil-water notice, as the water itself would run out -- leaving residents unable to flush their toilets.... There would not even be enough water to fight fires, Reeves said, adding that the state this weekend started gathering alternative sources of water, including for firefighting. Separate sources of drinking water and non-potable water for flushing toilets would be distributed, he said." (Also linked yesterday.)

Virginia. Hannah Natanson of the Washington Post: "A Virginia judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit brought by two Republicans that sought to limit how bookstores and public school libraries could distribute two books to minors, closing -- at least temporarily -- an unusual commercial strategy in the campaign to protect students from literature conservatives say is not age-appropriate. The two books at the heart of the suit are Maia Kobabe's 'Gender Queer,' a memoir about identifying as nonbinary, and Sarah J. Maas's 'A Court of Mist and Fury,' a fantasy novel that depicts a dark fairy romance. Both have drawn objections for their sexual material. The suit, filed in Virginia Beach Circuit Court by Del. Tim Anderson (R-Virginia Beach) and congressional candidate Tommy Altman, aimed to prevent the Virginia Beach school system and locations of the private bookseller Barnes & Noble from selling the books to children without first obtaining parental consent. In her order dismissing the lawsuit, Judge Pamela Baskervill concluded that part of Virginia's state law dealing with obscenity is unconstitutional."

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al.

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

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Wednesday are here: "Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have arrived in Kyiv, and new attacks on Russian forces in the Kherson region are underway, according to Ukrainian officials."

Putin's War on Gorbachev. Anton Troianovski of the New York Times: "In Ukraine, Mr. Putin is fighting in the shadows of the empire whose end Mr. Gorbachev presided over, having started a war that has killed thousands in the name of restoring Moscow's dominance over what it claims to be Russian lands. But Mr. Putin's battle to reverse Mr. Gorbachev's legacy extends beyond territorial control to the personal and political freedoms that the last Soviet president ushered in -- and that the Kremlin is now fast unraveling." Informative read. ~~~

~~~ David Hoffman of the Washington Post: "Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, who embarked on a path of radical reform that brought about the end of the Cold War, reversed the direction of the nuclear arms race and relaxed Communist Party controls in hopes of rescuing the faltering Soviet state but instead propelled it toward collapse, has died in Moscow. He was 91. His death was announced by Russian news agencies, citing the government hospital where he was being treated, but no further details were immediately available." (Also linked yesterday.) The New York Times obituary is here.

Stanley Reed of the New York Times: "Gazprom, Russia's government-owned energy giant, shut off natural gas flows early Wednesday through Nord Stream 1, the critical pipeline that connects Russia to Germany, raising fresh worries about European energy supplies. Gazprom said the cutoff was temporary and was necessary for maintenance, although the German government and energy executives consider it to be politically motivated. After three days, Gazprom said, the pipeline will restart 'provided that no malfunctions are identified.' It said flows would resume at 20 percent of capacity, the same reduced level it has provided since late July."


Australia. Jennifer Hassan of the Washington Post: "Chris Dawson, an Australian man who became the subject of a popular crime podcast that investigated the 1982 disappearance of his wife, Lynette Dawson, has been found guilty of murdering her, 40 years after her disappearance. Justice Ian Harrison handed down the verdict at the Supreme Court of New South Wales on Tuesday, following a two-month trial that gripped Australia.... Dawson, 74, a former teacher and rugby player, has long maintained his innocence and pleaded not guilty to his wife's murder. He was arrested in 2018 -- the same year millions listened to the podcast 'The Teacher's Pet,' which examined the couple's relationship and the final weeks of 33-year-old Lynette's life."

Iraq. Jane Arraf of the New York Times: "The influential Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr tried on Tuesday to defuse an eruption of violence in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, calling on his followers to stand down after at least 24 people were killed in two days of clashes with security forces. The violence, after three years of relative stability in Baghdad, began on Monday shortly after Mr. Sadr declared on Twitter that he was quitting politics for good. His supporters went out to protest and stormed the heavily protected Green Zone in Baghdad, home to Iraqi government offices, the United Nations and diplomatic missions including the U.S. Embassy. After coming under fire from government security forces, who included members of Iran-backed militias, fighters loyal to Mr. Sadr armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades emerged to take on the security forces." (Also linked yesterday.)

Earth. Chris Mooney of the Washington Post: &"Human-driven climate change has set in motion massive ice losses in Greenland that couldn't be halted even if the world stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, according to a study published Monday. The findings in the journal Nature Climate Change project that it is now inevitable that 3.3 percent of the Greenland ice sheet will melt -- equal to 110 trillion tons of ice, the researchers said. That will trigger nearly a foot of global sea-level rise.... While the study did not specify a time frame for the melting and sea-level rise, the authors suggested much of it can play out between now and the year 2100."

Comments Off
Monday
Aug292022

August 30, 2022

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

David Hoffman of the Washington Post: "Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, who embarked on a path of radical reform that brought about the end of the Cold War, reversed the direction of the nuclear arms race and relaxed Communist Party controls in hopes of rescuing the faltering Soviet state but instead propelled it toward collapse, has died in Moscow. He was 91. His death was announced by Russian news agencies, citing the government hospital where he was being treated, but no further details were immediately available."

David Badash of the New Civil Rights Movement: "Donald Trump is having a meltdown on his Truth Social platform. The former president ... is lashing out at his opponents, rapidly reposting memes from his supporters celebrating him and attacking President Joe Biden and the Democrats, and promoting falsehoods about the 2020 election, the Jan. 6 insurrection, and vaccines. Trump's meltdown, which includes dozens of posts and reposts per hour, comes amid his baseless demand on Monday to either be named president again or have the nation hold a new election 'immediately.' 'Trump is spending his morning on Truth Social directly posting 4chan and Q messages.... He's doing explicitly what he used to try to shade or use coded language for,' Politico's Kyle Cheney observes...." An interesting read. MB: And I told you he was nuts.

Iraq. Jane Arraf of the New York Times: "The influential Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr tried on Tuesday to defuse an eruption of violence in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, calling on his followers to stand down after at least 24 people were killed in two days of clashes with security forces. The violence, after three years of relative stability in Baghdad, began on Monday shortly after Mr. Sadr declared on Twitter that he was quitting politics for good. His supporters went out to protest and stormed the heavily protected Green Zone in Baghdad, home to Iraqi government offices, the United Nations and diplomatic missions including the U.S. Embassy. After coming under fire from government security forces, who included members of Iran-backed militias, fighters loyal to Mr. Sadr armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades emerged to take on the security forces."

Mississippi. Bryan Pietsch of the Washington Post: "The governor of Mississippi urged residents of Jackson, the state's capital and largest city, not to drink the water there -- if they still had access to it -- warning that running water would soon be unavailable as the city's long-struggling treatment plant failed. Gov. Tate Reeves (R) said during an emergency briefing Monday night that the city would be without 'reliable running water at scale' for the near future.... Until the situation is resolved, residents in the city of 150,000 should not drink the water or use it to cook or brush their teeth unless they boil it first, officials said. Reeves said the situation was 'very different' from a boil-water notice, as the water itself would run out -- leaving residents unable to flush their toilets.... There would not even be enough water to fight fires, Reeves said, adding that the state this weekend started gathering alternative sources of water, including for firefighting. Separate sources of drinking water and non-potable water for flushing toilets would be distributed, he said."

~~~~~~~~~~

Mariana Alfaro & Tyler Pager of the Washington Post: "President Biden will deliver a prime-time address Thursday on the fight for democracy in America and 'the continued battle for the soul of the nation,' a White House official said Monday, an address that is likely to confirm his growing rhetorical emphasis on the anti-democratic forces he sees as capturing much of the Republican Party. Speaking at Philadelphia's Independence National Historical Park, the president is expected to highlight his administration's achievements and argue that the country's democratic values will be at stake during the midterm elections.... Thursday's speech is not billed as a political event, and given its character as a prime-time presidential address, Biden may avoid some of his sharper denunciations." An NBC News story is here.

Marie: The most remarkable aspect of the purloined papers is that they are the spoils of a crime that both the National Archives and the Justice Department bent over backwards to persuade Trump to undo. But he persisted. Not only did Trump fail to turn over any documents for a year, his attorney -- almost certainly on his instruction -- later falsely stated he had turned over all classified documents. And, according to a Washington Post report, "... the Archive's work may not yet be done: Some NARA officials believe that there might still be more records missing...." That is, it's quite likely the crime is still ongoing. Yet for all their patience, for all their efforts to save Trump from himself, Republicans and their allies have awarded the agencies with vitriol & threats of violence. Here's one such threat:

Most Republicans, including me, believe when it comes to Trump, there is no law. It's all about getting him.... And I'll say this: If there's a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information after the Clinton debacle ... there'll be riots in the streets. -- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), on Fox "News," Sunday night ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Senator Lindsey Graham's prediction on Sunday that a prosecution of ... Donald J. Trump would lead to 'riots in the streets' added an element of menace to the fraught decisions facing Justice Department officials as they consider next steps in the investigation of Mr. Trump's handling of classified material. Mr. Graham, a South Carolina Republican who moved from a fierce critic of Mr. Trump to a loyal companion, appeared on Fox News, drawing a comparison between the investigation of Mr. Trump and the Justice Department's decision in 2016 not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for using a private server for State Department communications. In 2019, a State Department inquiry into the server concluded, 'There was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information.'... And Mr. Trump amplified Mr. Graham's comments by posting them on his own social network, Truth Social." The Guardian's report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Moreover, Clinton did not email classified docs on her server. As Jeffrey Fields explained in Salon in July 2016, "It is extremely difficult to share a classified document electronically over email. Most government agencies, including the State Department, maintain separate systems precisely to make it all but impossible to electronically pass information between classified and unclassified systems.... When Secretary Clinton began turning over emails as part of an investigation into the Benghazi, Libya attacks, the inspector general (IG) for the intelligence community assessed that information in several of them was classified and should not have been transmitted over an open email system. But the State Department disagreed with the IG's assessment." ~~~

     ~~~ Washington Post Editors: "There is no excuse for this irresponsible rhetoric, which not only invites violence but also defies democratic norms. The comments the South Carolina Republican made on Fox News's 'Sunday Night in America' imply that there is no plausible case against Mr. Trump based on his taking sensitive White House documents to store, unsecured, at Mar-a-Lago.... The Jan. 6 insurrection showed the country how readily some voters will interpret a leader's words as a call to arms -- and then action.... By talking about the possibility of violence without condemning it, Mr. Trump's sympathizers play a game of intimidation: daring Attorney General Merrick Garland to bring a case and face the consequences.... 'I worry about our country,' Mr. Graham said at the end of Sunday's interview. His reckless words and others like them are cause for the greatest concern." ~~~

     ~~~ Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "A retired Air Force lawyer and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Graham said nothing to convey dismay over the prospect of violence; to the contrary, his clear meaning was that outrage would be justified. Marcus addresses the "supposed 'double standard' between Trump and Hillary Clinton" and concludes, "There isn't one." ~~~

     ~~~ Greg Sargent of the Washington Post covers the same themes & points out how ridiculous -- and dangerous -- Graham's position is: "... if law enforcement must reach equivalent prosecution decisions regardless of what the facts dictate, simply because the two cases involve opposing politicians -- that itself makes a mockery of the rule of law. 'The idea that Trump can never be prosecuted for any of his crimes because the FBI concluded Hillary Clinton didn't commit any isn't impartiality at all,' [political theorist Jacob Levy said]." ~~~

     ~~~ Steve M. "Graham is effectively admitting that his fellow Trump-lovers will be the rioters -- yet it still won't be their fault. Graham knows, of course, that much of the mainstream commentariat agrees with him and will blame Democrats if Republicans riot. But if that's what you believe, then you should also believe George Floyd protestors were entitled to burn entire cities to the ground. The cops made them do it, right?" ~~~

     ~~~ Charles Pierce of Esquire: "It's time for Lindsey Graham to take the rest of the year off. Because his relentless sycophancy toward the former president* clearly has poisoned his mind and it is now a danger to the public order.... The only saving grace is that it's Lindsey Graham, so that makes the whole thing completely laughable because Lindsey Graham is the single-most ridiculous person in American public life.... Now, he's sent out to be some sort of half-assed consigliere. These people are worse at being mobsters than they are at being politicians." Firewalled.

Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "FBI agents have already finished their review of possibly privileged documents seized in an Aug. 8 search of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, according to a Justice Department court filing Monday that could undercut the former president's efforts to have a special master appointed to review the files. The 'filter team' used by the Justice Department to sort through the documents and weed out any material that should not be reviewed by criminal investigators has already 'completed its review,' the brief filed by Justice Department prosecutors says.... The new government filing says prosecutors will provide more information later this week. But in the meantime, it notes that even before the judge's weekend ruling, the filter team 'identified a limited set of materials that potentially contain attorney-client privileged information ... and is in the process of following the procedures' of the search warrant to handle any privilege disputes." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Glenn Thrush & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "A deeper 'classification review' of the intelligence implications of Mr. Trump's retention of government documents by the F.B.I. and the director of National Intelligence is continuing, the filing revealed.... On Tuesday, the department is expected to file a detailed inventory of the materials seized. But that list, which will go into greater depth than the nominal description in the search warrant that was unsealed this month, will be filed under court seal.... The judge herself will now have access to the government's own assessment of the materials, and could have the information needed to rule on requests by Mr. Trump's team to exclude individual documents[, thus eliminating the need for a special master]." CNN's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: "Among the information that was seized at Mar-a-Lago was a document about French President Emmanuel Macron. And according to Donald Trump it was about his sex life, Rolling Stone reported on Monday evening. The report cited two sources that Trump has had a 'tawdry' interest in Macron for years and even bragged recently that he knew 'illicit details about the love life' of Macron. 'The former president even claimed that he learned about some of this dirt through "intelligence" he had seen or been briefed on,' these sources told Rolling Stone. It's unknown if any of that was among the documents taken from the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago.... See the full report at Rolling Stone [firewalled]." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This may seem like a relatively benign misuse of U.S. intelligence, and it is, when compared to selling nuclear secrets to Putin. But it's an embarrassment to the U.S. and it can only hurt our relationship with one of our closest allies to once again reveal that we are spying on them. You may recall the kerfuffle that occurred during the Obama administration when reports emerged that the U.S. was eavesdropping on Angela Merkel. The issue also came up against in 2021.

Georgia Judge Delay's Kemp Testimony. Amy Wang & Ann Marimow of the Washington Post: "The judge presiding over the Georgia grand jury investigation into possible election interference by Donald Trump and his allies on Monday denied a motion from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) to quash a subpoena requiring him to testify. However, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert C.I. McBurney also delayed Kemp's appearance before the grand jury until 'some date soon after' Election Day in November. Kemp, who is running for reelection against Democrat Stacey Abrams, has alleged that the investigation is politically motivated. In his six-page order, the judge rejected Kemp's request to toss the subpoena while recognizing the potential impact of the investigation on the upcoming Nov. 8 election." Politico's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Tony Ornato, the senior Secret Service official who served as a top aide in Donald Trump's White House and faced scrutiny from the Jan. 6 select committee earlier this summer, announced his retirement Monday. The agency confirmed Ornato's retirement, which was announced internally earlier in the day. He's the latest high-level official in the Secret Service to announce his departure in recent weeks. Spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said Ornato -- who joined the Secret Service in 1997 -- became eligible for retirement earlier this year and leaves the agency in good standing.... Ornato's departure comes shortly after the director of the Secret Service, James Murray, announced his own intention to retire but put it on hold amid expanding investigations into the agency's conduct in the days surrounding the Capitol attack."

Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "A former D.C. bartender and Proud Boy who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was sentenced to 55 months in federal prison on Monday. Joshua Pruitt, 40, pleaded guilty in June to obstruction of an official proceeding after he was caught on video joining a mob pursuing police officers and smashing a sign inside the U.S. Capitol. Two U.S. Capitol Police officers wrote victim impact statements in his case urging Judge Timothy J. Kelly to give Pruitt a severe sentence in the case. Ultimately, Kelly imposed a sentence that fell a few months short of the five years that prosecutors had requested.... Pruitt said that he apologized for his actions and he was 'not happy that Jan. 6 happened at all,' but said he still held onto his beliefs that Donald Trump actually won the election that he lost to President Joe Biden." Worth clicking on; scroll down the page a bit to see a photo of Pruitt. Would I cross the street if I saw this guy coming toward me? Yes I would. (Also linked yesterday.) The New York Times story is here.

In Other News, Donald Trump Is Still Crazy. Nicole Guadiano of Insider, republished by Yahoo!: "... Donald Trump demanded reinstatement as president or 'a new Election, immediately' after news that Facebook temporarily limited a controversial story about Hunter Biden's laptop in users' news feeds before the 2020 election.... The laptop story had several red flags that raised questions about its authenticity and Facebook limited its reach on the site's news feeds for a few days. In his statement [on Orwellian Social], Trump wrote in all capital letters that the 'FBI BURIED THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY BEFORE THE ELECTION knowing that, if they didn't, "Trump would have easily won the 2020 Presidential Election." This is massive FRAUD & ELECTION INTERFERENCE at a level never seen before in our Country. REMEDY: Declare the rightful winner or, and this would be the minimal solution, declare the 2020 Election irreparably compromised and have a new Election, immediately!'... Federal investigators are weighing possible charges related to Hunter Biden's business activities." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'm sorry. I realize most intelligent observers think Trump's demands are all part of some big master scheme to get the American people to rise up & carry him into the Oval Office. But I think he's nuts.

AND There's This: On Orwellian Social, Trump calls for FBI uprising:

"When are the great Agents, and others, in the FBI going to say 'we aren't going to take it anymore,' no reasonable much as they did when James Comey read off a list of all of Crooked Hillary Clinton's crimes only to say that no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute. The wonderful people of the FB went absolute 'nuts,' so Comey had to backtrack and DO A FAKE INVESTIGATION in order to keep them at bay...." Via Charles Pierce.

Hand Jive. Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story: "According to a report from Rolling Stone..., Donald Trump has been alternately raging at and ridiculing Ron DeSantis (R-FL) as the Florida governor has been rising as his heir apparent. The former president, as well as his family, have been sniping at the Florida Republican by claiming he has been 'stealing' from Trump, by which they mean he has been appropriating Trump's mannerisms when giving speeches as he sets in motion his bid for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.... As one Trump associate told Rolling Stone, 'There was this time, maybe a year ago that I remember him making fun of [DeSantis] for doing similar hand gestures and motions. He called it "stealing" from him and [to paraphrase] described it as a lame impression of Trump.'... Read more here [firewalled]." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Most people would find this purported emulation the sincerest form of flattery. Not Trump. He seems to think he can patent a gesture. Since I've never watched a DeSantis speech & seldom have seen much of a Trump speech, I have no idea if the Trump claim is true. But politicians do study successful politicians' style of speech & mannerisms. I recall reading that Bill Clinton practiced Ronald Reagan's style and even boasted once to Hillary that he had mastered a particular hand gesture that Reagan made. Clinton turned out to be one of the most effective American speakers of the 20th century, so the practice paid off. He is far better than Reagan, IMO, so there's more to it than mimicry.

Aw, GOP Candidates Are Getting Tired of Defending Trump. Meredith McGraw, et al., of Politico: "The investigation into Donald Trump's handling of classified national security records is forcing Republicans into a strained defense during a pre-midterm sprint in which they'd much rather be talking about Joe Biden. After having decried the FBI's search of the ex-president's home, many Trump defenders went silent upon the release on Friday of the probable-cause affidavit that revealed the extent of Trump's efforts to hold onto the top-secret documents." ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE. Mike Lillis of the Hill: "Republicans hoping to seize control of the House in November are already setting their sights on what is, for many of them, a top priority next year: impeaching President Biden. A number of rank-and-file conservatives have already introduced impeachment articles in the current Congress against the president. They accuse Biden of committing 'high crimes' in his approach to a range of issues touching on border enforcement, the coronavirus pandemic and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.” MB: Also, Biden's dog bit a White House staffer.

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Biden administration told the Supreme Court Monday that it should not take up a case about citizenship rights for American Samoa even though advocates say it would give justices a chance to upend a series of century-old precedents that have been roundly denounced as racist. Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar told the Supreme Court in a brief filed Monday that an appeals court had been right to find that Congress should make citizenship decisions about those born in territories, and the case in question, Fitisemanu v. U.S., would make a poor vehicle for reexamining a series of rulings called the Insular Cases. Last term, justices at both ends of the court's ideological spectrum -- Neil M. Gorsuch on the right and Sonia Sotomayor on the left -- criticized the rulings, which employed racist language and imperialist sentiment to find residents of some U.S. territories are not entitled to full constitutional protection, such as birthright citizenship."

Gwen Egan of Boston.com: Former Red Sox pitcher Curt "Schilling is facing Twitter's wrath after posting a critique of [President] Biden's student loan forgiveness plan. This digital anger was incited by Schilling's own business history. 'My body my choice? Your loan my responsibility? This isn't loan forgiveness, it's a generation of lazy unaccountable uneducated children being covered by hard working debt paying Americans,' Schilling wrote. Following that Aug. 24 tweet, repliers, and quote-tweeters were quick to remind Schilling about 38 Studios, his failed computer game venture. The company folded after the state volunteered $75 million in loan guarantees to the budding business." Here's some background, from a 2013 story by Matt Bai in the New York Times. Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. See also his comment below, which is more expansive and to-the-point than the Boston.com article. (Also linked yesterday.)


Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "Jill Biden, the first lady, tested negative for the coronavirus on Monday after a rebound case had forced her back into isolation, according to the White House."

Beyond the Beltway

Arizona Senate Race. Scrub-a-Dub-Dub. Andrew Kaczynski & Em Steck of CNN: "Arizona Republican Senate nominee Blake Masters removed language from his website following his primary win that included the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from ... Donald Trump, along with a section arguing the country would be better off if Trump was still the president. A review of Masters' website by CNN's KFile showed he also removed controversial language saying Democrats were trying to 'import' a new electorate -- language that has drawn fire for mirroring far-right conspiracies that Democrats are trying to weaken the power of native-born Americans of European descent through mass immigration of non-White immigrants.... Masters's new campaign posturing comes as a flurry of Republican candidates nationwide attempt to distance themselves from unpopular or divisive policy positions.... NBC News first reported last week that Masters attempted to tone down his position on abortion by removing from his website his support of a 'federal personhood law' and a several other strict anti-abortion positions while releasing a video in which the Republican nominee took a softer stance on the issue." ~~~

     ~~~ His Team Scrubbed His Website But Not His Mind. Maggie Astor of the New York Times: "Blake Masters, the Republican nominee challenging Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, suggested in a sarcastic Twitter post late Sunday that the nation's economic struggles were connected to increased gender and racial diversity in Federal Reserve leadership. He then dug in on Monday with a video in which he denounced 'the Democrats' diversity obsession' and described Vice President Kamala Harris as a beneficiary of an 'affirmative action regime.' 'Finally a compelling explanation for why our economy is doing so well,' Mr. Masters wrote on Sunday in response to an Associated Press report that found there were, according to the news agency, 'more female, Black and gay officials contributing to the central bank's interest-rate decisions than at any time in its 109-year history.'"

Maryland Gubernatorial Race. Another Man in a Tub. Washington Post Editors: "Maryland state Del. Dan Cox, the Republican gubernatorial nominee, has been an active poster on Gab, one of the internet's better-known and most nauseating cesspools of conspiracy-mongering, florid antisemitism and white supremacist hate speech. What did Mr. Cox post there? We can't say, and Maryland voters have no way of knowing -- because he recently deleted his account, along with more than 1,000 posts on the noxious site. There's already plenty of evidence that Mr. Cox is unfit to lead the state.... He recently termed the FBI's search of ... Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home 'nothing short of communist stasi police state tactics.'"

New Jersey. Juan Carlos Castillo of the Asbury Park Press: "The township [of Lakewood] cut down all of the shade trees that once lined Town Square in a controversial move designed to prevent homeless people from spending time there. Mayor Ray Coles said the decision was made after a recommendation from the Police Department Quality of Life Unit, which the township said was triggered by numerous complaints from residents and township employees about homeless people defecating and urinating in the area." MB: I highly recommend that take down all the bridges into the town, lest homeless people sleep under them. And demand all building owner remove the eaves from their buildings. Oh, and there's an arboretum in town. Probably has some trees. They've gotta go. And so forth. Until the Quality of Life is really great.

California. Ramon Vargas of the Guardian: "Southern California government officials have agreed to pay $480,000 to a woman who went into labor while detained in a local jail and then lost her baby after the guards stopped at a coffee shop while taking her to the hospital. The payment -- designed to settle a federal wrongful death lawsuit pursued by the mother, Sandra Quinones -- was approved at a 23 August meeting of the Orange county board of supervisors, according to the minutes of the panel's session that day.... According to her lawsuit, Quinones was in a jail cell when her water broke on 28 March 2016.... Quinones pressed a button in her cell meant to call for help, but no staffers at the jail responded for two hours, said the lawsuit from Quinones, whom [her attorney] described as homeless and mentally ill. When staffers did get to her, they put her in a jail deputy's patrol car to drive her to Anaheim Global Medical Center rather than in an ambulance. Quinones' complaint alleged that the deputies taking her to the hospital then made a stop at a Starbucks to buy coffee...."

Way Beyond

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: "IAEA inspectors have arrived in Ukraine, a diplomat familiar with the situation told The Washington Post. The group is set to arrive at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant later this week to assess whether weeks of strikes -- which Ukraine and Russia have blamed on each other -- have dangerously damaged the facility. More attacks were reported near the plant.... Russia picked up its first shipment of combat drones from Iran 10 days ago, U.S. officials said, highlighting Moscow's efforts to deepen ties with allies as Western nations continue to freeze it out in response to the war in Ukraine. But the weapons transfer has not gone smoothly, and the drones have experienced technical difficulties in test settings."

John Hudson of the Washington Post: "Ukraine may be outgunned but in the latest sign it is not yet outfoxed, a fleet of decoys resembling advanced U.S. rocket systems has tricked Russian forces into wasting expensive long-range cruise missiles on dummy targets, according to interviews with senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials and photographs of the replicas reviewed by The Washington Post. The Ukrainian decoys are made out of wood but can be indistinguishable from an artillery battery through the lens of Russian drones, which transmit their locations to naval cruise missile carriers in the Black Sea. After a few weeks in the field, the decoys drew at least 10 Kalibr cruise missiles, an initial success that led Ukraine to expand the production of the replicas for broader use...."


Iraq. Qassim Abdul-Zahra & Samya Kullab of the AP: "A hugely influential Shiite cleric announced Monday he would resign from Iraqi politics and his angry followers stormed the government palace in response, sparking fears that violence could erupt in a country already beset by its worst political crisis in years.... At least one demonstrator, a follower of an influential Shiite cleric, was killed in clashes with Iraqi security forces who used tear gas, gunfire and physically shoved back crowds after hundreds stormed the government palace on Monday. Three Iraqi officials confirmed the death in violence that broke out after the cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, announced he would resign from Iraqi politics and his angry followers stormed the government palace in response." (Also linked yesterday.)"

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