July 14, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Clay Risen of the New York Times: "Ivana Trump, the glamorous Czech-American businesswoman whose high-profile marriage to Donald J. Trump in the 1980s established them as one of New York's quintessential power couples of that era, died on Thursday at her home in Manhattan. She was 73.... The New York City police are investigating whether Ms. Trump fell down the stairs at her home on Manhattan's Upper East Side, just off Fifth Avenue near Central Park, according to two law enforcement officials.... One of the officials said there was no sign of forced entry at the home, and the death appeared to be accidental"

Rebecca Beitsch & Mike Lillis of the Hill: "The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol scrambled to add new testimony from White House counsel Pat Cipollone to its latest hearing on Tuesday, and in the process bumped aside evidence about former President Trump's ties to violent extremist groups.... Left unmentioned, for instance, was a Jan. 5 request from Trump to have chief of staff Mark Meadows contact two informal advisors, Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, who both used extremist groups as security details. The panel also excluded any mention of the so-called war room at the Willard Hotel near the White House, where leading Trump allies -- including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani -- had huddled to devise strategy ahead of Jan. 6. At least one member of an extremist group, the 1st Amendment Praetorian, was reportedly among them."

Kevin Breuninger of CNBC: "The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot said its next hearing will focus on how ... Donald Trump's failure to quell the violent mob for several hours showed a 'supreme dereliction of duty.' The committee's eighth public hearing, expected to air in prime time July 21, marks its last scheduled presentation of evidence implicating Trump in a multi-pronged conspiracy to overturn his 2020 election loss that culminated in the deadly invasion. The final hearing will highlight the more-than-three-hour gap between Trump's departure from a rally that preceded the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, and his eventual call for the mob to go home, committee members said. The lawmakers 'plan to go through that 187 minutes,' said Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., in an ABC News interview Wednesday afternoon." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Republican members of Congress regularly blame others -- often Nancy Pelosi -- for not adequately securing the Capitol on January 6. I hope the committee makes it abundantly clear that Donald Trump purposely engineered the low level of security at the Capitol (by keeping secret his plans to storm the building) when the mob first attacked and the failure of the National Guard or federal agencies to assist the police as the mob breached the building.

Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "A judge once again on Thursday refused to delay Steve Bannon's trial for contempt of Congress, which is set to get underway on Monday.... Bannon's lawyers had once again argued that there was too much pre-trial publicity about the case.... 'We're still going to be at trial on Monday,' [Judge Carl] Nichols said." ~~~

~~~ Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post: "U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols of Washington, a Trump appointee, appears ready, willing and able to come down hard on Bannon's flouting of a congressional subpoena last year.... The Great Manipulator could even serve some jail time if convicted -- as much as two years or, perhaps more likely, as little as 30 days.... My animus for Bannon comes partly from the way he has helped to turn the public against the reality-based press and the way he has tried to bury truth under an avalanche of lies and misdirection.... Days before Jan. 6, 2021, Bannon used his podcast to summon deluded and criminal mobs to the gathering storm at the U.S. Capitol with a drumbeat of election lies: 'It all comes down to, are we going to affirm the massive landslide of Donald J. Trump? Or are we going to turn over our constitutional republic ... to the forces of darkness?'... Of all the Trump-era villains -- and, let's face it, they are legion ... Stephen K. Bannon surely is one of the worst."

Michael Scherer & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: Donald Trump "is now eyeing a September announcement [of his presidential candidacy], according to two Trump advisers.... His team has instructed others to have an online apparatus ready for a campaign should he announce soon, two people familiar with the matter said. He also has begun meeting with top donors to talk about the 2024 race...." Some Republicans are worried an early announcement from Trump will upset their 2022 plans. MB: They have only themselves to blame. Senate Republicans could have convicted Trump in his second impeachment and voted him ineligible to run for office. Ever. As for me, I urge media outlets to ignore Trump's run as much as possible.

Igor Bobic of the Huffington Post: "Democratic legislation that would protect the right to travel freely from state to state to seek abortion care was blocked in the Senate on Thursday by Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.). Lankford, who supports instituting a national ban on abortion, dismissed it as unnecessary.... The Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act, introduced by Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) earlier this week, would clarify the right to cross state lines to obtain reproductive health care services. It would also empower the U.S. attorney general and affected individuals to bring civil lawsuits against anyone who attempts to restrict that right.... 'This is a form of gaslighting to keep insisting that American women will be able to get care when we know that anti-choice legislators and groups are working to stop them from doing so,' [Cortez Masto] said on Thursday." ~~~

~~~ Like, for instance, when a 10-year-old pregnant child crossed stated lines from Ohio to Indiana to get an abortion, Indiana went after her physician. ~~~

~~~ Myah Ward of Politico: "Indiana's Republican attorney general said on Wednesday that his office planned to investigate the Indiana doctor who helped a 10-year-old rape victim who crossed state lines to have an abortion. Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Indianapolis, has told multiple outlets that she provided care to the 10-year-old after a child abuse doctor in Ohio contacted her. 'We're gathering the evidence as we speak, and we're going to fight this to the end, including looking at her licensure if she failed to report. And in Indiana it's a crime ... to intentionally not report,' state Attorney General Todd Rokita said on Fox News on Wednesday night." MB: The bastards never let up. And it's surprising how many of them, like Rokita, physically resemble ugly, fat, pink pigs with dull, beady eyes. Related stories linked below.

South Carolina. Nicholas Bogel-Burroughts of the New York Times: "Alex Murdaugh, the fourth-generation lawyer whose family has long held power and influence in a rural swath of South Carolina, was charged on Thursday with killing his wife and one of his sons at the family's secluded hunting estate in a mysterious murder that remained unsolved for more than a year.... The killings immediately put scrutiny on the Murdaugh family and the deaths of several people associated with them. The police began to re-examine the 2015 death of Stephen Smith, a 19-year-old man who was found along a road about 10 miles from the Murdaugh's home and who was thought to have been hit by a truck, as well as the death of Gloria Satterfield in 2018, a housekeeper who worked for the Murdaugh family who died after falling on their house's front steps. At the time of his death, Paul Murdaugh had been facing charges of drunkenly crashing a boat carrying several of his friends, killing a 19-year-old passenger, Mallory Beach." Read on, it you're not familiar with this Southern gothic melodrama, which looks suspiciously like a Netflix mini-series.

Texas. A Field Trip to Ted's House -- Without the Children. Steffi Cao of BuzzFeed News: "A fleet of 52 yellow school buses formed a mile-long procession to Sen. Ted Cruz's house in Houston on Thursday morning -- 4,368 empty seats to honor the number of children killed by gun violence since 2020. The first bus carried items from school shooting victims.... Named 'The NRA Children's Museum,' this project is the latest by artist Manuel Oliver, father of Joaquin [who was killed by the Parkland shooter].... On Monday, [Manuel Oliver] interrupted President Joe Biden during a Rose Garden speech, calling on the White House to open an office specifically for gun violence.... Oliver hand-delivered a letter from his late son to Cruz's house on Thursday, who has received a total of $749,000 from the pro-gun group. The note, which was written by a 12-year-old Joaquin, spoke to gun owners about his thoughts on gun control in the country. When the buses arrived, a security guard came out and accepted the letter. Oliver did not receive an immediate response from Cruz. The procession left shortly after due to encircling police presence."

Ukraine, et al. The Washington Post's live updates of developments Thursday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here.

Sri Lanka. A Day Late & Millions of Dollars Short. Niha Masih & Hafeel Farisz of the Washington Post: "Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigned Thursday from his sudden exile in Singapore, a day after fleeing the country he led for nearly three years. Forced out by a civilian uprising over the island nation's economic collapse, the 73-year-old Rajapaksa had left Sri Lanka before dawn Wednesday to escape public fury over an economy in free fall. He kept his country on tenterhooks even as he was on the run, first flying to Maldives and then missing his self-declared deadline for stepping down. The delay helped him escape while he still enjoyed presidential immunity, but his maneuver sparked fresh protests in which one person died. His ouster now sets off a full leadership struggle." This is an update of a story linked earlier today.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The New York Times is liveblogging developments Thursday in President Biden's visit to the Middle East.

Aamer Madhani, et al., of the AP: "President Joe Biden said Thursday that the United States is 'not going to wait forever' for Iran to rejoin a dormant nuclear deal, a day after saying he'd be willing to use force as a last resort against Tehran if necessary. Biden made the comments at a news conference after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid following one-on-one talks in which they discussed Iran's rapidly progressing nuclear program.... Resurrecting the nuclear deal brokered by Barack Obama's administration and abandoned by Donald Trump in 2018 was a key priority for Biden as he entered office. But administration officials have become increasingly pessimistic about the chances of Iran returning to compliance."

Peter Baker, et al., of the New York Times: "A year and a half after Donald J. Trump left the White House, Israeli leaders welcomed [President Biden] with a rapturous embrace, as if to prove that their love affair with the former president would not stand in the way of a close relationship with the new president. As for Mr. Biden, he seemed just as determined to prove that he took a back seat to no one in supporting Israel.... Mr. Biden ... rarely gets such unvarnished praise or loving hugs back in America, where his poll numbers have plummeted and even most Democrats do not want him to run for another term.... Mr. Biden indicated he wanted to restore traditional Democratic support for Israel even as he hoped to resume the American role of honest broker with the Palestinians. In an interview with Israeli television, he rejected Democrats who have denounced Israel as an apartheid state.... For the first day of his 10th visit to Israel, Mr. Biden chose two symbolic statements by receiving a briefing on Israel's latest defense against rocket attacks and visiting the country's iconic Yad Vashem memorial for Holocaust victims.... The mutual show of bonhomie, however, papered over fundamental differences, most notably on Iran and the Palestinians."

Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "The Justice Department has asked the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol for evidence it has accumulated about the scheme by ... Donald J. Trump and his allies to put forward false slates of pro-Trump electors in battleground states won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020.Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, disclosed the request to reporters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.... Mr. Thompson said the committee was working with federal prosecutors to allow them to review the transcripts of interviews the panel has done with people who served as so-called alternate electors for Mr. Trump. Mr. Thompson said the Justice Department's investigation into 'fraudulent electors' was the only specific topic the agency had broached with the committee. A Justice Department official said the agency maintained its position that it was requesting copies of all transcripts of witness interviews." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This sure makes it seem that DOJ is doing nothing about Trump's other schemes to overturn the 2020 election. Former prominent DOJ prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, during an appearance on MSNBC, did say that some DOJ staff contacted him about his recent New York Times op-ed in which he urged the Department to take a multi-pronged approach to its investigations into Trump's schemes. Weissmann said he couldn't reveal what discussions he had or with whom. ~~~

~~~ Richard Wolffe of the Guardian: "Here we are, 18 months after his presidency, staring at clear evidence that Trump led a criminal conspiracy to interfere with the 2020 election and the constitutional duties of Congress. He intentionally incited a violent mob that he knew was armed to mount an attempted coup on Capitol Hill. He knew from his own lawyers' opposition to his many crackpot schemes that he was breaking the law. But the US justice department has apparently only just begun to grapple with the debate over whether they can even investigate the former president. You have to wonder: if Trump did shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, would all those prosecutors still be struggling with the question of whether they could or should indict him?... There is just one principle more important than the attorney general's high-minded approach to the sanctity of prosecutorial power. It's called defending democracy. If he doesn't want to uphold the laws that protect the republic, he should step aside and let someone else do the job."

Ryan Nobles, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump tried to call a member of the White House support staff who was talking to the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, two sources familiar with the matter tell CNN. The support staffer was not someone who routinely communicated with the former President and was concerned about the contact, according to the sources, and informed their attorney. The call was made after former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified publicly to the committee. The White House staffer was in a position to corroborate part of what Hutchinson had said under oath, according to the sources.... The initial revelation about Trump's phone call was made in a dramatic moment at the end of this week's hearing by committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney.... A source familiar with the panel's investigation added that the committee has spoken to the person Trump tried to call, but not as part of a deposition." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Trump surely knows that it's against the law to try to intimidate a witness. But following the law has never been of much interest to Trump. So apparently he thought it was fine to lean on, say, the guy who -- with Hutchinson -- cleaned up the ketchup Trump threw at the wall or some other staffer whose name he had never bothered to learn.

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Mother Jones is out with a new Bannon tape from Oct. 31, 2020, [also linked here yesterday] in which [Steve] Bannon talks in detail -- presciently, it turns out -- about how ... Donald Trump would claim victory on election night regardless of where the vote count stood.... In an interview with Showtime's 'The Circus' released in early October -- about a month before these other comments -- Bannon predicted that there would be such uncertainty that Congress would be forced to decide the election.... [Days before the election], Axios's Jonathan Swan reported that Trump had told advisers that he would declare victory if it looked like he was ahead at the time -- even if the outcome wasn't final.... Bannon's theorizing didn't come out of nowhere.... On [Bannon's September 25, 2020,] show, a former Trump White House official [Bill McGinley] had talked about just such a scenario. The following day, Trump himself talked about the advantage he could have if it ever went to Congress, by virtue of there being more GOP-controlled congressional delegations than Democratic ones.... ~~~

~~~ "In total, Bannon predicted Trump's premature victory declaration, which came true. He predicted that all hell would break loose on Jan. 6, which came true. He predicted that uncertainty about election results spurred by a bunch of lawsuits would force Congress to decide the election, which wound up essentially being Trump's plan. And he suggested that unrest was perhaps desirable and/or could be of some utility in all of this, which evidence suggests Trump might well have agreed with on Jan. 6." ~~~

~~~ Marie: Trump is not a stupid as many of his remarks would suggest. He didn't know anything about public policy or how to run a vast federal bureaucracy because he didn't care about governance. When it came to looking out for his own interests, Trump was pretty good at grasping the details.

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: Trump-appointed judges keep ruling against Trump and his acolytes in cases related to Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

Michael Kunzelman of the AP: "A Maryland man who used a lacrosse stick attached to a Confederate battle flag to shove a police officer during the U.S. Capitol riot was sentenced on Wednesday to five months in prison, according to a Justice Department spokesman. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper also sentenced David Alan Blair, to 18 months of supervised release after his prison term and ordered him to pay $2,000 in restitution, said William Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office for the District of Columbia."

Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "The Biden administration warned the nation's 60,000 retail pharmacies on Wednesday that they risk violating federal civil rights law if they refuse to fill prescriptions for pills that can induce abortion -- the second time this week that it has used its executive authority to set up showdowns with states where abortion is now illegal. In four pages of guidance, the federal Department of Health and Human Services ticked off a series of conditions -- including miscarriage, stomach ulcers and ectopic pregnancy -- that are commonly treated with drugs that can induce abortion. It warned that failing to dispense such pills 'may be discriminating' on the basis of sex or disability. The guidance came two days after Xavier Becerra, President Biden's health secretary, instructed hospitals that even in states where abortion is now illegal, federal law requires doctors to perform abortions for pregnant women who show up in their emergency departments if they believe it is 'the stabilizing treatment necessary' to resolve an emergency medical condition."

Scott Wilson of the Washington Post: "Democratic-controlled cities within Republican states have launched improvisational efforts to preserve abortion services, even as officials acknowledge they will probably fall short of protecting doctors and patients sufficiently to serve as a substitute for a constitutional right to the procedure.... Dozens of big-city prosecutors, mostly in the South and Midwest, have said they will not file charges against medical workers who conduct abortions or their patients.... Last week, the [New Orleans] city council ... passed a resolution instructing the police department not to pursue cases against abortion providers or patients.... Taken together, the steps do not amount to an affirmative right, but they could make the penalties for abortion more hypothetical than Republicans running the prosecutors' states would prefer as they invoke bans on the procedure.... The net result is widespread confusion...."

Ava Sasani of the New York Times: "An Ohio man has been arrested and charged with the rape of a 10-year-old girl, whose travel across state lines to receive an abortion captured national attention. Gerson Fuentes, 27, was arraigned on Wednesday in Franklin County Municipal Court in Columbus, where he was charged with the rape of a child under 13 years old, a felony that can carry a lifetime prison sentence. He was being held on $2 million bond.... The case of the young victim became a focus of the abortion debate after the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion enshrined in Roe v. Wade.... The girl's story, which first appeared in The Indianapolis Star, was immediately seized on by abortion rights advocates as the tragic but expected consequence of severe abortion restrictions....

~~~ "Before this week's arrest, some conservatives, including Ohio's top prosecutor, cast doubt on the story.... In an editorial published before news of the arrest, The Wall Street Journal called the case 'an unlikely story from a biased source that neatly fits the progressive narrative but can't be confirmed.' The Journal later added an editor's note acknowledging the arrest.... 'It's always shocking to me that people are surprised to hear about these stories,' Dr. [Caitlin] Bernard, [the OB/GYN who first told The Star about the case,] said in an interview with The New York Times. 'The fact that anyone would question such a story is a testament to how out of touch lawmakers and politicians are with reality.'" ~~~

~~~ An AP story is here. A Law & Crime story, which provides details of the arrest, including a copy of the complaint, is here. Scott Lemieux, in LG&$, details some of the right wing's "skepticism." ~~~

~~~ AND this almost goes without saying, but we'll say it anyway: ~~~

     ~~~ Michael Luciano of Mediaite: "On Wednesday, Tucker Carlson criticized President Joe Biden for relaying the true story about a 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio even though Carlson himself had inaccurately proclaimed, 'The story was not true.'... On Tuesday's show, Carlson said that 'politicians are lying about this.'... 'Where is the rapist?' he asked.... [After the suspect was arrested,] Carlson made no mention of his [false] claim the night before. Instead, he attacked Biden for supposedly failing to vet the story.... 'Nobody seemed interested at all in learning who this person was,' Carlson added. 'And maybe there was a reason for that.' The host revealed the [alleged] rapist is a 27-year-old undocumented immigrant." MB: The post is a little confusing as to what Tucker said when. But inasmuch as TuKKKer's intent is always to obfuscate, that seems fair enough. ~~~

~~~ ** Judd Legum of Popular Information reports on the right-wing smear campaign against Dr. Caitlan Bernard, who performed the abortion, & Indy Star veteran reporter Shari Rudavsky, who was the lead writer to break the story of the 10-year-old victim. "There was never any reason to doubt the accuracy of this story."

Casey Parks of the Washington Post: "Nearly a year after the Department of Veterans Affairs promised to restore benefits to some former members of the military who were forced out for being gay, a nonprofit legal group that represents veterans says VA has refused to explain what its new guidance entails -- or whether it was implemented. The National Veterans Legal Services Program (NVLSP) filed a complaint in federal court late last month, alleging that VA has not responded to requests to release what the department called 'newly-issued guidance.'... Because many of those were booted from the military with 'less than honorable' or 'other than honorable' discharges, thousands of people ousted under [President Clinton's] 'don't ask, don't tell' do not have benefits, including access to health care, home loans and educational support through VA." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I do not understand why the VA, no matter the presidential administration, always does such a crappy job. Every president & president* talks about how much we owe our wonderful self-sacrificing military, all the while the VA is ignoring or downright mistreating our wonderful veterans. Are they not as wonderful once they have completed their service to the country?

Ed Shanahan of the New York Times: "A former Central Intelligence Agency software engineer was convicted by a federal jury on Wednesday of causing the largest theft of classified information in the agency's history. The former C.I.A. employee, Joshua Schulte, was arrested after the 2017 disclosure by WikiLeaks of a trove of confidential documents detailing the agency's secret methods for penetrating the computer networks of foreign governments and terrorists. The verdict came two years after a previous jury failed to agree on eight of the 10 charges he faced then.... [Mr. Schulte] was convicted on Wednesday on nine counts, which included illegally gathering national defense information and illegally transmitting that information."

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here.

Carolyn Johnson of the Washington Post: "U.S. regulators Wednesday authorized the nation's fourth coronavirus vaccine, a shot developed by Novavax, a Maryland biotechnology company that has been a straggler in the vaccine race. For a relatively small niche of people who want to be vaccinated, but can't or won't take existing vaccines, Wednesday's decision by the Food and Drug Administration has been impatiently awaited. Some people are allergic to an ingredient in messenger RNA vaccines or simply prefer the more traditional technology at the core of Novavax's shot, which is the United States' first protein-based vaccine." A Guardian report is here.

Georgia. Alex Traub of the New York Times: "The former mayor of Stonecrest, Ga., a small city outside Atlanta, was sentenced on Wednesday to four years and nine months in prison for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal money intended to help his city cope with the pandemic, the authorities said. The former mayor, Jason Lary, who pleaded guilty in United States District Court in Atlanta in January to wire fraud, stealing federal money and conspiracy, used the money he took to pay off his mortgage on his lakeside home and outstanding tax liabilities, prosecutors said. In addition to the prison time, he was ordered by Judge Thomas Thrash of U.S. District Court to pay nearly $120,000 in restitution and serve three years of supervised release."

Way Beyond the Beltway

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 for Thursday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here.

Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has launched a global campaign to defund Russia's war chest. This week, she was in Japan promoting her plan "to create a new global price cap on Russian oil.... After visiting Japan, Yellen flew on Wednesday to Indonesia for meetings of finance ministers from the Group of 20 industrialized nations, where she will attempt to rally a much broader swath of countries to pledge to buy Russian oil only at a discount rate. If successful, her campaign could deliver a major blow to Russia's war effort and help prevent the United States and the rest of the world from plunging into economic recession."

Karina Tsui of the Washington Post: "Russia has deported 900,000 to 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens from Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine in a systemic 'filtration' operation, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Wednesday, in a loud condemnation of Moscow and affirmation of claims that Ukrainian officials have levied for weeks. Many of those 'forcibly deported,' including 260,000 children, some separated from their families, have wound up in isolated regions in Russia's far east, Blinken said. 'Reports indicate' that Russian forces have taken thousands of children from orphanages in Ukraine and placed them up for adoption in Russia, according to the statement." MB: Assuming this is true or substantially true, it's a vast humanitarian catastrophe.

Will Oremus of the Washington Post: "In the frantic first weeks of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. tech companies that control the world's largest information hubs sprang into action. Responding to pressure from Western governments, social media apps like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube banned or throttled Russian state media accounts, beefed up their fact-checking operations, curtailed ad sales in Russia and opened direct lines to Ukrainian officials, inviting them to flag Russian disinformation and propaganda to be taken down. As the war grinds toward its sixth month, however, Russian propaganda techniques have evolved -- and the tech firms haven't kept up. Ukrainian officials who have flagged thousands of tweets, YouTube videos and other social media posts as Russian propaganda or anti-Ukrainian hate speech say the companies have grown less responsive to their requests to remove such content. New research shared with The Washington Post by a Europe-based nonprofit initiative confirms that many of those requests seem to be going unheeded...." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This is hardly surprising. These companies are essentially unregulated, so there's nothing except public opinion -- or boycotts -- to curb their behavior. As long as Congress does nothing to establish a regulatory framework to harness these 21st century versions of robber barons, they will keep on keepin' on.

Sri Lanka. Niha Masih & Hafeel Farisz of the Washington Post: "Sri Lankan protesters withdrew on Thursday from three major government buildings they had occupied, just a day after violent clashes with security forces, and even as President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was yet to resign." A Guardian story is here.

U.K. Amanda Bryant of the Guardian: American actor "Kevin Spacey has pleaded not guilty to charges of sexual assault dating back 17 years in a hearing at the Old Bailey. The 62-year-old actor appeared in court one of the London court on Thursday to plead not guilty to four charges of sexual assault and one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent."

July 13, 2022

Late Morning Update:

Here's the New York Times' liveblog of President Biden's trip to the Middle East.

Marie: President Biden is going to Saudi Arabia to aid U.S. interests. Trump has invited Saudi Arabia to his place(s) because greed: ~~~

~~~ Marc Caputo of NBC News, republished by CNBC: "Later this month, Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey hosts its first tournament for the new LIV Golf series, funded by Saudi Arabia, which is upending the sport's establishment with a $2 billion investment and contracts with top players that reportedly reach $150 million or more. The series closes in October with a $50 million purse at Trump's signature Florida course, Trump National Doral Miami, promising an infusion of unknown millions into Trump's golf empire, which began to noticeably struggle after he began his run for president in 2016. The huge Saudi sums could not only benefit Trump financially as he mulls a comeback bid in 2024, but they also pose a mortal threat to the PGA Tour...."

Ellen of Crooks & Liars reports that the bromance between Trump & Musk is so over. And, like many a break-up, they're having a very public spat about it. For some strange reason, they're calling each other liars. Sad!

Aaron Gregg, et al., of the Washington Post: "For the first time in two decades, the U.S. dollar is equal to the euro in value as Europe grapples with growing recession fears and the fallout from Russia's war in Ukraine. The euro matching or dipping below the dollar presents a mostly psychological milestone, some experts say, but central banks and policymakers across the European bloc are likely to face pressure to address depreciation concerns. The two currencies reached parity Wednesday morning, according to Bloomberg, after the euro abruptly lost value following worrisome U.S. inflation data. The euro has been losing ground against the dollar since the start of the year.... The stronger dollar is good news for Americans considering a European vacation or buying goods abroad. Conversely, traveling and spending in U.S. dollars have now become pricier for those who earn wages in euros."

~~~~~~~~~

Marie: Sorry for the delay in posting. My Internet service was out for hours yesterday (& at 3:30 am ET it's still going up & down), after which my power went out in the middle of the morning (2:30 am ET), after which I discovered the Googles aren't working, after which I found other pages wouldn't load.

Luke Broadwater & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump attempted to make the Jan. 6, 2021, march on the Capitol appear spontaneous even as he and his team intentionally assembled and galvanized a violence-prone mob to disrupt certification of his electoral defeat, the House committee investigating the attack showed on Tuesday. 'POTUS is going to have us march there/the Capitol,' Kylie Jane Kremer, an organizer of the 'Save America' rally on Jan. 6, wrote in a Jan. 4 text shown by the panel on Tuesday as it detailed Mr. Trump's efforts to gather his backers in Washington for a final, last-ditch effort to overturn his loss. Ms. Kremer added that Mr. Trump was 'going to just call for it "unexpectedly."' Mr. Trump weighed announcing the move, according to documents obtained from the National Archives, which provided the investigators with a draft tweet that said: 'I will be making a Big Speech at 10AM on January 6th at the Ellipse (South of the White House). Please arrive early, massive crowds expected. March to the Capitol after. Stop the Steal!!' The tweet was never sent." Emphasis added. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's main report is here. The Guardian's report is here. The AP's report is here. ~~~

~~~ Kyle Cheney & Nicholas Wu of Politico: "The Jan. 6 select committee's Tuesday hearing, ostensibly focused on extremism, drove clearly toward a subtle goal: Stripping away doubt that Donald Trump was anything but a full participant in a plot to subvert the 2020 election. The former president wasn't duped into disbelieving his own loss by fringe lawyers and advisers, select committee members argued. Rather, he assembled that squad of enablers, overrode his more sober-minded staff and forged the path that led to the chaos engulfing the Capitol, they contended...." ~~~

     ~~~ You can watch the hearing here, on a committee Webpage.

Marie: After yesterday's hearing, Akhilleus heard an NPR commentator claim the committee didn't find direct evidence that Trump plotted the insurrection, and I heard a similar claim from a former prosecutor on CNN. I've got news for them (and for Merrick the Reluctant): (1) juries regularly convict criminals on way less compelling circumstantial evidence than the committee revealed; (2) as Andrew Weissmann wrote in a NYT op-ed, also linked yesterday, this is why DOJ should broaden the scope of its investigation to include the entire array of Trump's plots to overturn the election. From these naysayers' points of view, prosecutors would never bring a case against a murder who pleads not-guilty unless they find a notarized confession in the murderer's sock drawer, find the murder weapon on the murderer & his hairs & fibers all over the body, and he helps them find the body of someone else he killed in the same manner the previous year. I wrote a few days ago that it appeared the committee did not have a notarized confession from Donald Trump. And they don't. But the circumstantial evidence and the number of convincing witnesses is overwhelming. He did it, and as long as he thought it was working, he refused to stop it.

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Even by the standards of the Trump White House..., the Dec. 18, 2020, meeting became known as an 'unhinged' event -- and an inflection point in Mr. Trump's desperate efforts to remain in power after he had lost the election.... The meeting lasted for more than six hours, past midnight, and devolved into shouting that could be heard outside the room. Participants hurled insults and nearly came to blows. Some people left in tears.... [In attendance were conspiracy theorist/lawyer] Sidney Powell...; Michael T. Flynn...; and Patrick Byrne, the former chief executive of Overstock.com. On the other side were Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel; [White House lawyer Eric] Herschmann; and Derek Lyons, the White House staff secretary. The arguing began soon after Ms. Powell and her two companions were let into the White House by a junior aide and wandered to the Oval Office without an appointment. [A concerned staffer alerted Mr. Cipollone of the meeting, and he made a beeline for the Oval.]... After the meeting had started, Rudolph W. Giuliani ... was called in by the White House advisers.... Eventually the meeting migrated to the Roosevelt Room and the Cabinet Room, where Mr. Giuliani found himself alone at one point.... Ms. Powell believed that she had been appointed special counsel, something that Mr. Trump declared he wanted, including that she should have a security clearance, which other aides opposed. She testified that others said that even if that happened, they would ignore her. She said she would have 'fired' them on the spot for such insubordination."

Michael Schmidt of the New York Times outlines four takeways from the hearing, including Liz Cheney's cliffhanger, delivered at the end of the hearing. Here's a tidbit: "The committee also cited a deposition by the White House photographer, Shealah Craighead, who was present at an Oval Office gathering on the evening of Jan. 5, when Mr. Trump and some of his aides could hear a crowd of his supporters who were gathered nearby. Ms. Craighead testified that Mr. Trump was saying, 'We should go up to the Capitol. What's the best route to the Capitol?'"

"Not an Impressionable Child." Amber Philips of the Washington Post has five takesways here. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) noted that Trump's defenders lately had sought a new way of excusing his actions: "'The strategy is to blame people his advisers called 'the crazies' for what Donald Trump did,' Cheney said Tuesday. 'This, of course, is nonsense. President Trump is a 76-year-old man. He is not an impressionable child. Just like everyone else in our country, he is responsible for his own actions and his own choices.... Donald Trump cannot escape responsibility by arguing he is willfully blind.'... On Dec. 19 [MB: at 1:42 am], hours after [the UNHINGED] meeting [MB: which ended after midnight (see Haberman, linked above], Trump tweeted what the committee has argued was a call to arms to his supporters to overturn his election loss: 'Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!' In the hours after that tweet, one pro-Trump group, Women for America First, requested to move their rally permit from Inauguration Day, on Jan. 22, to Jan. 6, the committee showed. The next day, [Rep. Jamie] Raskin [D-Md.] said, Ali Alexander, the leader of the Stop the Steal organization and organizer of its Jan. 6 rally, registered wildprotest.com. Trump supporters including Alex Jones [said] Jan. 6 [would be] a 'historic day.' And numerous others chimed in with violent threats: 'Jan. 6, kick that [f---ing] door open.' 'It "will be wild" means we need volunteers for the firing squad."

Ben Jacobs of Vox highlights six takeaways.

Rep. Jamie Raskin's closing remarks Tuesday: some lessons (and a tearjerker): ~~~

Cheney's Cliffhanger. Isaac Arnsdorf & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "Sometime in the past two weeks, [Rep. Liz] Cheney said [at then end of Tuesday's hearing, Donald] Trump tried to call someone whom she identified as a witness who has not yet appeared in the committee;s hearings. The person didn't take the call and instead alerted their lawyer, who in turn told the committee. The committee reported the call to the Justice Department, Cheney said, suggesting the possibility of a crime.... The revelation was extraordinary because the call allegedly came from Trump himself, rather than an intermediary, and followed a warning at the committee's previous hearing on June 28 about messages to one of the committee's witnesses.... It is a crime to pressure someone to lie to government investigators."

The Collaborators. Andrew Solender of Axios: "Ten Republican members of Congress attended a Dec. 21 White House meeting focused on efforts to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to help overturn the 2020 election, according to the Jan. 6 committee.... House visitor logs reveal 10 members were physically in attendance": Brian Babin (Texas), Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Paul Gosar (Ariz.), Andy Harris (Md.), Jody Hice (Ga.), Jim Jordan (Ohio), Scott Perry (Pa.), Now-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.). "Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson ... noted that 'they dialed in a few Members over the course of that meeting.' She mentioned two members -- Reps. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) and Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.).... A note on Trump's private schedule for the day about a 2:00 pm [read] "private meeting with Republican members of Congress" in the Oval Office. Pence, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and ... Rudy Giuliani were all in attendance, according to [Rep. Stephanie] Murphy [D-Fla.]."

Ankush Khardori interviews Andrew Weissmann for Politico Magazine on Weissmann's views on the DOJ's apparent reluctance to investigate & charge Donald Trump and other notables with crimes related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Weissmann's op-ed in Monday's New York Times "sharply criticized the Justice Department's investigation into the siege of the U.S. Capitol. It was an essay that captured the frustrations of some legal observers and former Justice Department prosecutors, but it drew immediate attention because it came from one of the most prominent and well-respected prosecutors in the country."

Trump, Crazier Than Team Crazy. Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post: "It was Donald Trump, and Donald Trump alone, who summoned and loosed the mob that sacked the Capitol, threatened Congress and the vice president and imperiled our democracy. That is the powerful message that emerged from Tuesday's televised hearing of the Jan. 6 select committee. And these hearings make clear just how dangerous it would be for the former president to be elected again. Amazingly enough, this wasn't the plan advanced by Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, Michael Flynn and the rest of Trump's 'Team Crazy' advisers. The page from the authoritarian playbook they chose was sedate by comparison...." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Given the available evidence, as of now, it is not possible to consider that early-morning December 19 tweet as nothing more than a momentary burst of insanity by an old man drunk on power. He kept up that drunk-on-power thing right through January 6, 2021, and beyond. He pre-planned, mostly in secret, the violent attack on the Capitol, and according to Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony, he planned to join the attack, right up until the last minute when his Secret Service detail wouldn't let him go. (Their attempt to get mike pence out of the Capitol complex looks like a consolation prize for refusing to let Trump put the noose around pence's neck.) And once the attack had started, and Trump's "army" was brutally attacking Capitol & D.C. police, Trump insisted it continue.

It's Mighty Easy to Compromise a Republican. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "As the dust was settling on the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on the evening of Jan. 6, [former Trump campaign manager Brad] Parscale ...called the situation 'a sitting president calling for civil war' and added, 'This week I feel guilty for helping him win.'... Here was a guy who helped elevate Trump to the presidency reckoning with what he had wrought -- and blaming Trump directly for pursuing no less than civil war. Exactly a month later, though, Brad Parscale ... decided it was time for this same former president to return to office. On Feb. 6, Parscale urged Trump to run again.... Since then, Parscale's business has accepted $150,000 in payments from Trump's political operation."

If Biden is winning, Trump is going to do some crazy shit. -- Steve Bannon, October 31, 2020 ~~~

~~~ ** Trump Planned the Big Lie Before the Election. Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: Donald "Trump's plan to falsely declare victory while tens of millions of votes were still being counted was public knowledge even before the election. Axios reported on the scheme at the time. [Steve] Bannon himself discussed the idea on November 3 -- Election Day -- on his War Room podcast. Weeks earlier, Bannon had interviewed a former Trump administration official who outlined how Trump would use allegations of fraud to dispute an electoral defeat and would seek to have Congress declare him the winner. Last month, the congressional committee investigating January 6 detailed how Rudy Giuliani convinced Trump to go ahead with a victory declaration after 2 a.m. on November 4, over the objections of campaign staff. 'Frankly, we did win this election,' Trump insisted in that infamous news conference. [A] nearly hour-long [leaked] audio obtained by Mother Jones is new evidence that Trump's late-night diatribe ... followed a preexisting plan to lie to Americans about the election results in a bid to hold onto power. The new recording stands out for the striking candor and detail with which Bannon described a scheme to use lies to subvert democracy. Bannon also predicted that Trump's false declaration of victory would lead to widespread political violence, along with 'crazy' efforts by Trump to stay in office."

MEANWHILE, A Picnic on the Lawn. Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "For a few moments on Tuesday, before the thunder rolled and the clouds threatened to open, President Biden was shirt-sleeves deep in the sort of political camaraderie he placed at the center of his run for the White House: on the South Lawn, surrounded by barbecue and children and a few Republicans, extolling the virtues of learning to love people with whom you disagree.... At a time of mounting political division, the president threw a picnic for members of Congress and their families, inviting every Republican and Democrat in the House and Senate. He used it to renew his plea for a more personalized, civilized political discourse, reviving a tradition interrupted in recent years and seeking to recapture some of what the first lady, Jill Biden, called the 'magic' of the White House grounds to bring people together across the aisle."

David Sanger & Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Biden left Washington for a four-day trip to the Middle East on Tuesday to try to slow down an accelerating Iranian nuclear program, speed up the flow of oil to American pumps and reshape the relationship with Saudi Arabia without seeming to embrace a crown prince the C.I.A. believes was behind the killing of a prominent dissident who lived in the United States. All three efforts are fraught with political dangers for a president who knows the region well, but returns for the first time in six years with far less leverage than he would like to shape events. His 18-month long negotiation to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear deal has ground to a stop.... And while no explicit deal is expected to be announced on raising Saudi oil production ... that is likely to come in a month or two, officials say.... The trip is also partly about stemming China's inroads into the region." The AP report is here.

Dennis Overbye, et al., of the New York Times: "On Tuesday the James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful space observatory yet built, offered a spectacular slide show of our previously invisible nascent cosmos.... ... The new pictures were rolled out during an hourlong ceremony at the Goddard Space Flight Center.... [The images present] both a new vision of the universe and a view of the universe as it once appeared new.... 'We're looking for the first things to come out of the Big Bang,' said John Mather, senior project scientist for the telescope.... To look outward into space is to peer into the past. Light travels at a constant 186,000 miles per second, or close to six trillion miles per year, through the vacuum of space. To observe a star 10 light-years away is to see it as it existed 10 years ago, when the light left its surface. The farther away a star or galaxy lies, the older it is, making every telescope a kind of time machine." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie (Updated): You can see the images on this Webb Telescope gallery page., which includes a facility that allows you to zoom in. Thanks to Robert for sending me the link (which I could not find earlier today). The Times article linked above also contains the images. The Washington Post (firewalled) has images here, with explanations.

Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "When the Social Security Administration's inspector general investigated allegations earlier this year that one of the agency's senior leaders was routinely impaired on the job, six witnesses painted an alarming picture. Theresa Gruber, a deputy commissioner overseeing around 9,000 employees and a $1.2 billion budget in the hearings and appeals operation, displayed 'significant anomalies' at work over the course of at least a year, including slurred speech in which she 'appeared intoxicated,' leaving meetings without notice, slouching in her chair and aggressive behavior, witnesses told investigators. But five months after acting Social Security commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi was presented with the internal report, which The Washington Post obtained, Gruber remains on the job.... Gruber, 53, is also diabetic, the report notes, a condition that, when poorly treated, can cause irritability, disorientation or slurred speech.... One high-ranking official interviewed by The Post described a 'rudderless' department under Gruber, who sometimes does not communicate with her staff for days at a time, the official said."

Marianne Levine of Politico: "The Senate approved Steven Dettelbach's nomination Tuesday to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, making him only the second Senate-confirmed director in the gun regulatory agency's history. In a 48-46 vote, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Rob Portman of Ohio joined Democrats in supporting the former U.S. attorney."

Kate Conger & Lauren Hirsch of the New York Times: "Twitter sued Elon Musk on Tuesday to force the billionaire to complete his $44 billion acquisition of the company, setting the stage for a prolonged legal battle over the fate of the social media service." CNN's report is here.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here.

Beyond the Beltway

Louisiana. Kate Zernike of the New York Times: "Abortions became legal again in Louisiana on Tuesday after a Baton Rouge judge granted a temporary restraining order blocking the state's abortion bans from being enforced. The judge's decision was the latest in a series of legal maneuvers that have jolted the legal status of abortions in the state, leaving women and providers scrambling to adapt. One of the few remaining abortion clinics in the state said it would resume providing the procedure." MB: Woe be the Louisiana teenager whose life has been upended by an unexpected pregnancy & is trying to figure out where she can get an abortion.

South Carolina. Southern Gothic, Ctd. Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs of the New York Times: "A long-running mystery over who killed the wife and son of Alex Murdaugh, an heir to a powerful legal dynasty in South Carolina, could be headed for a resolution this week as the police indicated they planned to indict Mr. Murdaugh in the murders, one of his lawyers said on Tuesday. Mr. Murdaugh had already been facing an array of charges of fraud and theft that resulted in his arrest in September 2021 and a wave of subsequent indictments. But no one had been formally accused in the deaths of Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and Paul Murdaugh, 22, who were fatally shot at the family's rural hunting estate in Islandton, about 65 miles west of Charleston."

Texas. Acacia Coronado & Paul Weber of the AP: "A new wave of anger swept through Uvalde on Tuesday over surveillance footage of police officers in body armor milling in the hallway of Robb Elementary School while a gunman carried out a massacre inside a fourth-grade classroom where 19 children and two teachers were killed. The video published Tuesday by the Austin American-Statesman [firewalled] is a disturbing 80-minute recording of what has been known for weeks now about one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history: that heavily armed police officers, some armed with rifles and bulletproof shields, massed in the hallway and waited more than an hour before going inside and stopping the May 24 slayings. But the footage, which until now had not surfaced publicly, anguished Uvalde residents anew and redoubled calls in the small South Texas city for accountability and explanations that have been incomplete -- and sometimes inaccurate -- in the seven weeks since the shooting." ~~~

     ~~~ KVUE has the video here, in pieces, with explanations. ~~~

     ~~~ Scott Lemieux in LG&$: "If you can stomach it -- and I really, really don't blame you if you can't -- watching the law enforcement officials do nothing about an active school shooter is even more horrifying than reading about it[.]"

Way Beyond

Sri Lanka. The New York Times is liveblogging developments in the country's crisis. Here's one: others had said that the president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, would resign on Wednesday. BUT: "President Gotabaya Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka fled the country on Wednesday after months of demonstrations demanding that he leave office culminated with protesters storming his official residence. Mr. Rajapaksa left on an Air Force plane to the Maldives at about 2 a.m. local time, said Colonel Nalin Herath, a spokesman for Sri Lanka's defense ministry.... Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, the speaker of the Parliament, said in a phone interview that he still had not received the president's letter of resignation, which would make the end of his presidency official." An AP report is here.

Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Wednesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Wednesday are here: "Military delegations from Ukraine and Russia are meeting in Turkey on Wednesday along with United Nations diplomats to discuss restarting grain shipments from Ukraine's blockaded Black Sea ports, the Turkish defense minister said.... On the battlefield, Ukrainian officials said they deployed advanced U.S. rocket launchers to strike a Russian ammunition depot in the Russian-occupied southern region of Kherson.... The euro and the U.S. dollar are exchanging at a nearly 1-to-1 rate for the first time in nearly two decades, partly due to global disruptions set off by the Russian invasion of Ukraine."

News Ledes

CNBC: "Shoppers paid sharply higher prices for a variety of goods in June as inflation kept its hold on a slowing U.S. economy, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. The consumer price index, a broad measure of everyday goods and services related to the cost of living, soared 9.1% from a year ago, above the 8.8% Dow Jones estimate. That marked another month of the fastest pace for inflation going back to December 1981." ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times is running a liveblog on inflation news.

July 12, 2022

Late Morning Update:

The New York Times' liveblog of Tuesday's January 6 committee is here.

The New York Times' liveblog of NASA's release of images from the James Webb space telescope is here. It includes a livefeed of commentary by NASA engineers.

~~~~~~~~~~

Billions and Billions. Dennis Overbye, et al., of the New York Times: "In a brief event at the White House on Monday evening, President Biden unveiled an image that NASA and astronomers hailed as the deepest view yet into our universe's past. The image, taken by the James Webb Space Telescope -- the largest space telescope ever built -- showed a distant patch of sky in which fledgling galaxies were burning their way into visibility just 600 million years after the Big Bang. 'This is the oldest documented light in the history of the universe from 13 billion -- let me say that again, 13 billion -- years ago,' Mr. Biden said. The president ... praised NASA for its work that enabled the telescope and the imagery it will produce. Mr. Biden's announcement served as a teaser for the telescope's big cosmic slide show coming on Tuesday morning, when scientists reveal what the Webb has been looking at for the past six months. You can sign up here for a reminder on your personal digital calendar to catch the first glimpse of them." ~~~

     ~~~ BTW, here's where the phrase "billions and billions" really comes from. Fuzzy picture and sexism, but that's how TV was in 1980.

Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "President Biden welcomed hundreds of survivors and family members of victims of mass shootings to the White House on Monday to promote newly enacted bipartisan gun legislation, an event that showcased both the president's desire to push for even more restrictive gun control measures and the political limitations that have held him back. In a sign of the fraught nature of the debate, Mr. Biden's remarks were interrupted early on by a protester, whose words were inaudible to the White House camera feed and to reporters covering the event in person, but who appeared to be arguing that the president and Congress should take more forceful action on the issue.... 'Sit down and hear what I have to say,' Mr. Biden said. The man continued for a moment, then was led away by an administration official." The protester was Manuel Oliver, whose son Joaquin was killed by the Parkland shooter. Mr. Oliver had previously met with President Biden. The Guardian's story is here.

Will Weissert of the AP: "President Joe Biden is meeting with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Tuesday for discussions the White House says will showcase the underlying strength of a relationship that of late has been more notable for the leaders' disagreements on issues including energy and Ukraine policy."

Zeke Miller of the AP: "The Biden administration on Monday told hospitals that they 'must' provide abortion services if the life of the mother is at risk, saying federal law on emergency treatment guidelines preempts state laws in jurisdictions that now ban the procedure without any exceptions following the Supreme Court's decision to end a constitutional right to abortion. The Department of Health and Human Services cited requirements on medical facilities in the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA. The law requires medical facilities to determine whether a person seeking treatment may be in labor or whether they face an emergency health situation -- or one that could develop into an emergency -- and to provide treatment."

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times argues that Joe Biden is too old to be president again. She makes some good points. Near the end of her column, Goldberg writes, "If Vice President Kamala Harris's approval ratings remain underwater, Democrats have a number of charismatic governors and senators they can turn to." I'd like to know who those charismatic leaders might be. No one jumps out at me as being very presidenty.

Jacqueline Alemany & Hannah Allam of the Washington Post: "The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection plans to hold its seventh public hearing on Tuesday, with an expected focus on the ways in which ... Donald Trump and his allies summoned far-right militant groups to Washington as he grew increasingly desperate to hold on to power. The hearing is likely to drill down on the period after states cast their electoral college votes on Dec. 14, 2020, action that confirmed Joe Biden's victory. Trump, the committee is expected to argue, then shifted his focus to using the date of the congressional counting of the votes, Jan. 6, 2021, to block a peaceful transfer of power.... The committee will also highlight the ties between violent extremist groups and Trump associates -- connections lawmakers on the committee have already hinted at during previous hearings.... One of the live witnesses scheduled to appear on Tuesday is Jason Van Tatenhove, who served as national spokesman for the Oath Keepers and as a close aide to Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes from around 2014 to 2018...." ~~~

     ~~~ Scott Wong of NBC News: "Another witness expected to testify ... is Stephen Ayres of Ohio, who posted the former president's tweet encouraging supporters to go to Washington on Jan. 6 before he stormed the Capitol. Ayres pleaded guilty last month to disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building, but he has not been sentenced. ABC News has more on Ayres here. ~~~

     ~~~ ** Marie: The hearing, originally scheduled for Tuesday morning, has been moved back to begin at 1:00 pm ET.

Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "In the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes tried to get the organization's general counsel, Kellye SoRelle, to put him in touch with the White House, she told NBC News.In addition to her work with the Oath Keepers, SoRelle was a volunteer for Lawyers for Trump during the 2020 election and was in contact with many of the people fighting a doomed legal battle to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election.... As SoRelle tells it..., she never put [Rhodes] in touch with key figures, putting a firewall between her work with the Oath Keepers and her work to overturn the election results. Nonetheless, she was on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol (although didn't enter the building) on Jan. 6. And on the night before the attack, she was present in a parking garage as Rhodes met with Enrique Tarrio, the head of the Proud Boys.... SoRelle has already spoken extensively with the Jan. 6 committee, and given her overlapping roles, it's likely that testimony will come up at the panel's next public hearing Tuesday...."

** Andrew Weissmann in a New York Times op-ed: "Before the [January 6 committee] hearings, federal agents and prosecutors were performing a classic 'bottom up' criminal investigation of the Jan. 6 rioters.... But that ... approach sees the attack on the Capitol as a single event -- an isolated riot, separate from other efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the election.... The evidence gathered in the hearings describes a multiprong conspiracy -- what prosecutors term a hub and spoke conspiracy -- in which the Ellipse speech by President Trump and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol were just one 'spoke' of a grander scheme.... [That] 'spoke' ... should be seen and investigated simultaneously with the other 'spokes': orchestrating fake electors in key states, pressuring state officials like those in Georgia to find new votes, plotting to behead the leadership of the Justice Department to promote a lackey who would further the conspiracy by announcing a spurious investigation into election fraud, and pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to violate the law." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: It's troubling that Weissmann has to point out the obvious to the DOJ, but he cites some evidence that suggests he's right to worry DOJ lawyers can't see the forest for the trees. For instance, "Department prosecutors were reportedly surprised by the testimony of [Cassidy] Hutchinson." If DOJ were doing its job, the department should know way more, not less, than a Congressional committee.

Judge Laughs Bannon Out of Court. Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Monday refused to delay Stephen K. Bannon's trial next week after the Justice Department called an offer by the former Trump aide to testify before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection a 'last-ditch attempt to avoid accountability' on charges of criminal contempt of Congress. 'I see no reason for extending this case any longer,' U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols said after a hearing in which he rejected a host of Bannon's defenses -- including claims that Bannon thought his appearance was covered by executive privilege. The judge narrowed Bannon's defenses at trial mainly to whether he understood the deadlines for answering the House's demands to appear and to produce documents.... In an overnight filing, U.S. prosecutors urged Nichols to keep Bannon's trial on track for July 18 and to withhold from jurors Bannon's 'sudden wish to testify,' which they called an 11th-hour ploy to airbrush away the conduct that spurred his prosecution.... When Bannon attorney David I. Schoen ... [asked], 'What's the point of going to trial if there are no defenses?' Nichols simply answered, 'Agreed.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Politico's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This is pretty hilarious. Nichols is a Trump appointee. He left Bannon with pretty much no defense except, "I don't know how to read a calendar." Or maybe with that Steve Martin chestnut, "I forgot." Good luck with that, Steve-o. I guess you could throw yourself on the mercy of the court, but this judge seems short on mercy. For you, anyhow.

WSB-TV Atlanta: “A Fulton County judge ordered U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to testify before a special grand jury in Fulton County next month.... Graham said he would fight the subpoena. On Monday, the judge declared Graham a 'necessary witness' to the investigation. This is another step in a long legal process of getting Graham down from Washington to testify." I wonder if Lindsey has noticed that South Carolina & Georgia are contiguous. Lindsey could visit his constituents in the lovely city of Aiken, S.C., say, & drive to Atlanta in less than 3 hours. Even faster, I'll bet, if he hopped a plane.

Bad News. Oriana Gonzalez of Axios: "Former President Trump and his adult children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., are scheduled to testify under oath on July 15 as part of a probe by the New York attorney general into his finances, a court filing revealed Wednesday.... The former president and his children are slated to appear for testimony starting July 15 until the next week, unless a New York appeals court intervenes, according to the court documents." ~~~

     ~~~ Badder News. Bob Brigham of the Raw Story: "Trump was scheduled to be in Greensboro[, North Carolina for a scheduled event] the same day.... Tickets for the event were being sold for up to $3,955." Trump had to cancel the Carolina event.

Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "Top lawmakers are preparing to question IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig privately in the coming days over reports that the tax agency may have targeted two of ... Donald Trump's political enemies with extensive and rare audits. The moves by the Capitol's key tax-focused panels -- the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee -- come amid growing concerns that the IRS improperly subjected James B. Comey, the former director of the FBI, and Andrew McCabe, his top deputy, to unusual scrutiny after they led investigations into Trump and his 2016 campaign." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Speaking of Showing No Mercy, Good for the Buttigiegs. María Paúl of the Washington Post: "Two days after Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh fled abortion rights protesters at a Morton's steakhouse in D.C., Chasten Buttigieg -- husband of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg -- tweeted..., 'Sounds like he just wanted some privacy to make his own dining decisions.'... The tweet drew criticism from some conservatives, including former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who decried what he called an endorsement of 'the use of mob intimidation tactics' as 'wildly irresponsible.' But Pete Buttigieg defended his husband's remarks.... 'Any public figure should always, always be free from violence, intimidation and harassment but should never be free from criticism or people exercising their First Amendment rights,' Buttigieg said in a 'Fox News Sunday' appearance. He added that officials 'should expect' public protests -- especially after 'an important right that the majority of Americans support was taken away.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: That's a rich criticism coming from Stephen Miller, who developed cruel anti-immigration policies (like separating immigrant children from their parents) -- the purpose of which was to intimidate potential immigrants -- and whose degenerate boss suggested officers could just shoot protesters in the legs.

Michael Kazin, an historian, argues in a New York Times op-ed that Americans will rebel against the Supreme Court's Dobbs ruling and against states than adopt abortion bans: "Today, if the history of Prohibition is any guide, the public will quickly turn hostile when activists with decent motives elect officials (or appoint judges) who carry out indecent and unenforceable assaults on individual freedom. In the end, most Americans will rebel against authorities who decree what they can do with their own bodies."

Rafael Baer of the Guardian: "The success of liberal democracy -- the best model yet devised for organising people into prosperous and free societies -- depends on a balance between the wealth-generating impetus of the market and the obligations politics must impose on business for the greater good.... The Marxist project to eliminate capitalism entirely degenerated into tyranny and bankruptcy wherever it was tried in the 20th century.... The post-cold war triumphalist moment for the west coincided with the digital revolution, producing a culture of arrogance and political complacency around the new-tech economy.... The result was a cultish veneration of the internet startup as a new kind of business to which old rules did not apply, and whose purpose was improving humanity as well as making money. The Uber files are a snapshot of a particular moment -- the peak of political credulity and negligence around the growing power of tech companies. But the basic rules of the new digital economy turned out to be not so different from the old analogue ones."

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. David Kurtz of TPM: "[Monday]'s little Fox News gem was a segment on what a huge bummer it is to visit Thomas Jefferson's Monticello these days, what with all the focus on slavery and what not at what was built as a slave plantation. A bow-tied, bespectacled guest for the segment was billed hilariously in one chyron as a 'recent Monticello visitor.' Turns out there's a little more to the story." Tucker claims to be a founding member of the League of the South, "a racist and secessionist forerunner of the current brand of white nationalism.... Tucker's star turn on today's Fox segment came just a few days after he served as a named source for a New York Post story headlined 'Monticello is going woke -- and trashing Thomas Jefferson's legacy in the process.'"

Kaitlan Collins, et al., of CNN: "US health officials are urgently working on a plan to allow second Covid-19 boosters for all adults, a senior White House official confirmed to CNN on Monday. The US Food and Drug Administration is making it a high priority, the official said. Second boosters have been authorized for adults 50 and older, as well as some people with weakened immune systems, since late March. But younger adults are eligible for only one booster shot, which was authorized in November. Federal agencies are looking to move quickly on authorizing a second booster for all adults, the source said."

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Monday are here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) 

Beyond the Beltway

We don't control the air. Our good air decided to float over to China's bad air. So when China gets our good air, their bad air has got to move. So it moves over to our good air space. Then, now, we've got we to clean that back up. -- Hershel Walker, explaining climate change to Georgia Republicans ~~~

Georgia Senate Race. Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post: "It's not yet clear who will be the weirdest and most unfit Republican Senate candidate in November. But my early pick is Herschel Walker in Georgia.... The flashing red lights and blaring sirens are not just about the former football star's myriad lies and stunning hypocrisy. That kind of stuff doesn't necessarily trouble GOP voters in the least, given their continued devotion to Donald Trump, who counts Walker as a longtime friend. It's Walker's combination of utter ignorance and total confidence, which challenges even that of the former president.... While Walker wanders along the campaign trail, Walker's Democratic rival, incumbent Sen. Raphael G. Warnock, has concentrated on emphasizing what he has accomplished for Georgians in his brief time in office. Despite the choice between crazed and competent, polls show Walker and Warnock in a statistical tie." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: A very helpful read if you need to exercise your neck, because you'll be shaking your head from side to side. That said, I continue to believe that Walker must be suffering from head injuries from his days playing football, so if he weren't running for the Senate, I would be feeling truly sorry for him.

Pennsylvania. James Bikales of the Washington Post: "The small Pennsylvania town that hired the former police officer who killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014 did not conduct a background check required by law before making last week's hire, according to the state attorney general's office. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D) wrote to Tioga, Pa., Borough President Steve Hazlett on Friday to inform him that the town had violated the state's Act 57 in hiring Timothy Loehmann without running his name through a database that flags past disciplinary action.... Shapiro wrote ... that state records show Tioga ... never ran Loehmann's name through the database.... Hazlett and his wife, MaryBess Hazlett, who also served on the borough council, submitted their resignation letters Friday, according to the Williamsport Sun-Gazette.... Amid protests against the hiring, residents have also pointed out that Hazlett appears to have made a post on Facebook in 2015 mocking Rice's death."

Way Beyond

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

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Tuesday are here: "Iran plans to provide Russia with 'up to several hundred' drones to be used in the war in Ukraine, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday. The move indicates Moscow is running out of precision weapons.... The death toll continues to rise after Russian strikes in eastern and northern Ukraine. At least 34 people were killed in Chasiv Yar, a city in the eastern Donetsk region, after a Russian missile hit a residential complex over the weekend. Three others were also killed Monday in Kharkiv after Russian airstrikes damaged a shopping center and residences."

Italy. Idiots Abroad. Angela Giaffrida of the Guardian: "An American tourist sustained minor injuries after he fell into the crater of Mount Vesuvius as he scrambled to retrieve his phone. The 23-year-old and his family reached the 1,281m-high (4,202ft) summit of the volcano towering over the southern Italian city of Naples after bypassing a visitor turnstile and proceeding along an out-of-bounds path. The man was taking a selfie, according to local press reports, when his phone slipped out of his hand and into the mouth of the volcano. He then descended into the crater in an attempt to get his phone back, only to fall several metres after losing his balance.... The tourist and his three relatives face charges after being reported by police for the invasion of public land. The group, which reportedly ventured to the volcano without any tickets, took a path that was clearly signposted as being forbidden due to being extremely dangerous." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh yeah? The sign was probably in Italian. You think Americans can read Italian or even understand international signs?... And you wonder why American tourists are not beloved around the world.

Sri Lanka. Hannah Ellis-Petersen of the Guardian: "The Sri Lankan president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has made a failed attempt to flee the country after airport staff stood in his way and forced him to beat a humiliating retreat. Rajapaksa, who is due to officially resign on Wednesday after months of demonstrations calling for him to step down, was reportedly trying to escape to Dubai on Monday night. However, officials said immigration staff refused to let the president come to the VIP area of the airport to stamp his passport and he would not go through the ordinary queues for fear of being mobbed by the public. As a result, Rajapaksa reportedly missed four flights to the United Arab Emirates, and he and his wife had to return to a nearby military base."

U.K. Aubrey Allegretti of the Guardian: "Britain's new prime minister will be announced on 5 September, it has been announced, as the starting gun was fired on a Tory leadership race that will see the hopefuls whittled down to two by Thursday." MB: It would seem they could get rid of Boris sooner than that.