May 20, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Emma Brown of the Washington Post: "Virginia 'Ginni' Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, pressed Arizona lawmakers after the 2020 election to set aside Joe Biden's popular-vote victory and choose 'a clean slate of Electors,' according to emails obtained by The Washington Post. The emails, sent by Ginni Thomas to a pair of lawmakers on Nov. 9, 2020, argued that legislators needed to intervene because the vote had been marred by fraud.... She told the lawmakers the responsibility to choose electors was 'yours and yours alone' and said they have 'power to fight back against fraud.'... In sending the emails, Thomas played a role in the extraordinary scheme to keep Trump in office by substituting the will of legislatures for the will of voters.... Thomas's name also appears on an email to the two representatives on Dec. 13, the day before members of the electoral college met to cast their votes and seal Biden's victory. 'Before you choose your state's Electors ... consider what will happen to the nation we all love if you don't stand up and lead,' the email said."

Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "... inflated fees [for Americans who received Social Security benefits in error] were set in motion during the Trump administration, when attorneys in charge of a little-known anti-fraud program run by the inspector general's office levied unprecedented fines against ... more than 100 ... beneficiaries without due process, according to interviews, documents and sworn testimony before an administrative law judge. In doing so, they disregarded regulations and deviated from how the program had recovered money since its inception in 1995, failing to take into account someone's financial state, their age, their intentions and level of remorse, among other factors.... Unlike in the past, the chief counsel also directed staff attorneys to charge those affected as much as twice the money they had received in error, on top of the fines, interviews and court testimony show.... Fines as high as hundreds of thousands of dollars were imposed on poor, disabled and elderly people, many of whom had no hope of ever being able to pay."

     ~~~ Marie: Pictured with the story is a grinning Aryan lady, the Trump appointee who ran the program. Thanks to Ken W. for the link. See especially his commentary in today's thread.

Michigan. Amanda Terkel & Igor Bobic of the Huffington Post: Jackie Eubanks, "Donald Trump's pick for a Michigan state Senate seat is promising to ban all birth control if she gets the chance. 'I guess we have to ask ourselves, would that ever come to a vote in the Michigan state legislature? And if it should, I would have to side with it should not be legal,' Republican Jacky Eubanks said in a recent interview.... I think it gives people the false sense of security that they can have consequence-free sex, and that's not true and that's not correct. Sex ought to be between one man and one woman in the confines of marriage.'"

Pennsylvania. Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post: "Two decades before he was Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor, Doug Mastriano warned in a master's thesis that the United States was vulnerable to a left-wing 'Hitlerian Putsch' that would begin with the dismantling of the U.S. military and end with the destruction of the country's democracy. The thesis, written in 2001 when Mastriano was a major at the Air Force's Air Command and Staff College, is highly unusual for its doomsaying and often fearful point of view, and its prediction that only the U.S. military could save the country from the depredations of the country's morally debauched civilian leaders.... The document displays a disgust for anyone who doesn't hold his view that homosexuality is a form of 'aberrant sexual conduct' and presages the worldview that has led Mastriano to blame rampant fraud for Donald Trump's 2020 defeat and to join a crowd headed toward the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021."

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Aamer Madhani & Josh Boak of the AP: "President Joe Biden on Friday opened his trip to Asia by touring a South Korean computer chip factory that will be the model for another plant in Texas, offering it as a way to deepen ties with the Indo Pacific and fuel technological innovation and foster vibrant democracies. 'So much of the future of the world is going to be written here, in the Indo Pacific, over the next several decades,' Biden said. 'This is the moment, in my view, to invest in one another to deepen our business ties, to bring our people even closer together.'"

Cleve Wootson, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Biden touched down in South Korea on Friday in the first visit to Asia of his presidency.... Biden's first remarks here will nod to a top domestic priority for the administration, calling for final passage of a sweeping bill in Congress meant to boost U.S. competitiveness against China that House and Senate negotiators are scrambling to finalize.... Accompanied by newly inaugurated South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, Biden will also tour a Samsung facility that will serve as a model for a plant the company is building in Texas -- a sample of the president's 'foreign policy for the middle class' ethos that has guided his administration.... Biden's visit will be the first head-of-state meeting for Yoon, a first-time politician with no foreign policy experience.... [The] visit kicks off amid signs that North Korea is preparing to conduct a nuclear test or a long-range ballistic missile test as early as this week...."

Peter Baker & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "President Biden embarked Thursday on his first diplomatic mission to Asia since taking office, hoping to demonstrate that the United States remained focused on countering China, even as his administration stage-managed a war against Russia in Europe. With his original strategy of pivoting foreign policy attention to Asia effectively blown up by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Biden has now shifted to the argument that there can be no trade-off between Europe and Asia and that only the United States can bring together the democracies of the East and West to stand up to autocracy and aggression in both spheres."

More Secret Service Agents Behaving Badly. Josh Margolin of ABC News: "Two Secret Service employees -- an agent and an armed physical security specialist -- in South Korea to prepare for President Joe Biden's impending arrival are being sent home after an alleged alcohol-fueled incident that ended with a report being filed with local police, according to two sources briefed on the situation. The personnel were assigned to help prepare for the presidential visit when they went out for dinner and then stopped at several bars, the sources told ABC News. As the evening progressed, the two Secret Service staffers became apparently intoxicated and the agent wound up in a heated argument with a cab driver, according to the sources."

David Sanger of the New York Times: "President Biden vowed on Thursday to speed Finland and Sweden to NATO membership, seeking to redraw the map of Europe to the West's advantage less than three months after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia began his invasion of Ukraine. In a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden with President Sauli Niinisto of Finland and Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson of Sweden, Mr. Biden said he was immediately submitting to the Senate the treaty language needed to make the two countries the newest members of the alliance. Formal accession to the alliance will require the approval of the other 29 member nations as well.

"... Turkey -- which under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has had a sometimes close and sometimes contentious relationship with Moscow -- has expressed objections that could slow the process and require negotiations to address its concerns.... Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met his Turkish counterpart in New York on Wednesday, and Finnish officials said they were in talks with Turkey as well. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden's national security adviser, expressed confidence that 'Turkey's concerns can be addressed' and that Finland and Sweden would ultimately be able to join the alliance. But Mr. Erdogan is famously unpredictable, and he could easily take advantage of his leverage as a potential spoiler to press for his own demands, including a lifting of sanctions on his country for its purchase of Russian-made antiaircraft systems."

Tyler Pager of the Washington Post: "Pentagon spokesman John Kirby will move to the White House in a senior communications role, according to two people familiar with the personnel move. Kirby's move to the White House comes after Karine Jean-Pierre took over as White House press secretary from Jen Psaki, who left the administration last week. Kirby met with President Biden at the White House the day after he offered the press secretary job to Jean-Pierre. Kirby's exact title and role remain unclear." ~~~

~~~ Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times profiles Karine Jean-Pierre: "Karine Jean-Pierre began her debut briefing as President Biden's press secretary on Monday by acknowledging the unusual nature of her presence behind the White House lectern. 'I am a Black, gay, immigrant woman, the first of all three of those to hold this position,' she said. Left unsaid were the other ways in which her path to becoming the president's chief spokeswoman sharply diverged from that of her predecessors."

Tara Bahrampour of the Washington Post: "The 2020 Census undercounted people in six states and overcounted them in eight states, according to a post-count survey released Thursday by the Census Bureau.The results, along with other analyses by the bureau and outside researchers..., cannot legally be used to reapportion seats in the House of Representatives, which are calculated based on decennial census data. The bureau found that ... found that Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Illinois and Mississippi probably have more people than the census counted. It also found that Hawaii, New York, Minnesota, Utah, Massachusetts, Delaware, Rhode Island and Ohio probably have fewer people than the census counted.... Post-enumeration survey findings released earlier this year showed the 2020 Census missed counting Hispanics, Blacks and other typically undercounted minority groups and overcounted Whites and Asians at a higher rate than in 2010. The undercount for Hispanics more than tripled." An NPR report is here.

Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "The Senate voted Thursday to deliver more than $40 billion in new military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, sending the measure to President Biden after a week-long delay sparked by a lone senator's objection. The vote was 86 to 11, with all opposition to the package coming from Republicans." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Related stories linked under "Way Beyond the Beltway" below.

Eugene Scott & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "House GOP leaders were among the 192 Republicans who voted against providing $28 million in aid to the Food and Drug Administration to address the shortage of baby formula -- within days of criticizing President Biden for not doing enough on the issue. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Whip Steve Scalise (La.) and Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) voted late Wednesday against the measure to provide new FDA funding, which the House approved on a largely party-line vote of 231 to 192. Twelve Republicans broke ranks and joined with Democrats in backing the money. On a separate bill, the House voted Wednesday overwhelmingly to ease the burden on low-income parents by allowing the federal Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Program -- a major national purchaser of formula -- to source it from more foreign suppliers. The vote was 414 to 9 with all the opposition coming from Republicans. The Senate approved the legislation Thursday by voice vote. It now heads to Biden, who will sign it into law." Related story linked below under "Oklahoma." (Also linked yesterday.)

MEANWHILE. Amanda Marcotte of Salon: "It was only one half-hour into Wednesday's congressional hearing on abortion access when it became clear that the Republican contributions to the day would be loonier than a QAnon message board. 'In places like Washington D.C.,' fetuses are 'burned to power the light's of the city's homes and streets,' claimed Catherine Glenn Foster, who had, just minutes before, sworn not to lie under oath. The GOP-summoned witness let loose the wild and utterly false accusation that municipal electrical companies are powered by incinerated fetuses. 'The next time you turn on the light, think of the incinerators,' she said, apparently repeating a misleading talking point from the same anti-choice activists caught stashing fetuses at home.... [Foster] is a Georgetown law school graduate who is paid $190,000 a year to be the president of Americans United for Life, one of the largest anti-abortion non-profits in the country.... The GOP contributions to the hearing were a blizzard of bullshit, meant to totally white out the efforts by Democrats and reproductive rights activists to remind the public of the great human cost that results from banning abortion."

Emily Birnbaum & Marianne Levine of Politico: "Republican senators laid into a Google executive at the Capitol Wednesday over allegations that the company's filters target GOP emails as spam. It quickly turned confrontational. The Senate Republican Steering Committee, the policy arm of the Senate GOP, had invited Google's chief legal officer, Kent Walker, to discuss a recent study that found the company has disproportionately filtered Republican lawmakers' emails into hidden spam folders compared to emails from Democratic lawmakers. Walker said there is no bias in how Google deals with spam. The group lunch grew unusually tense, according to three people familiar with the meeting, granted anonymity to discuss private matters. 'The lunch was spirited,' said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), one of the more vocal attendees. 'Google deflected, refused to provide any data, repeatedly refused to answer direct questions.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Gee, Ted, do you think the spam drop might be caused by the fact that you wingers write way more fake crap than Democrats do? I'll bet if you all quit lying -- as if you had the capacity to tell the truth -- you'd find that your spammed quotient went way down.

Kyle Cheney & Nicholas Wu of Politico: "Congressional investigators have obtained a batch of official White House photographs, including images taken on Jan. 6, 2021, according to two sources familiar with the evidence. The previously unreported cache, which arrived via the National Archives, may provide the committee with real-time visual evidence of ... Donald Trump's actions and movements as a mob of his supporters battered their way into the Capitol and threatened the transfer of power to Joe Biden. At least some of the photos were taken by official White House photographer Shealah Craighead, the sources indicated.... Asked whether the panel had spoken to Craighead as a direct witness, [committee chair] Bennie Thompson said, 'Not yet.'" MB: Hope there's a time-stamped snap of Trump's stubby fingers trying to make a call on a $10 burner phone. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Nicholas Wu & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "The Jan. 6 select committee says it has reviewed evidence that reveals a Republican lawmaker, Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, gave a tour through the Capitol complex the day before a pro-Trump mob attacked. 'We believe you have information regarding a tour you led through parts of the Capitol complex on January 5, 2021,' Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) wrote to Loudermilk.... The committee noted that Republicans on the House Administration Committee, who had previously reviewed security footage from that day, had publicly claimed that there were 'no tours, no large groups, no one with MAGA hats on.' The GOP comments called into question allegations made by three dozen Democrats in the days after Jan. 6 that they observed suspicious, 'unusually large' groups, perhaps led by Republican lawmakers or staffers, walking through the Capitol complex in the days preceding the attack.... The select committee noted that Loudermilk is a member of the House Administration Committee. And they said their review of the evidence 'directly contradicts that denial.'" The New York Times story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ The committee's letter to Loudermilk, via the committee, is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Consigliere Fingers the Capo. Kyle Cheney of Politico: "John Eastman, the attorney who architected Donald Trump's last-ditch legal strategy to overturn the 2020 election, revealed Friday that he routinely communicated with Trump either directly or via 'six conduits' during the chaotic weeks that preceded the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. In a late-night court filing urging a federal judge to maintain the confidentiality of his work for Trump, Eastman provided the clearest insight yet into the blizzard of communications between Trump, his top aides, his campaign lawyers and the army of outside attorneys who were working to help reverse the outcome in a handful of states won by Joe Biden. The filing also describes the direct role of Trump himself in developing strategy, detailing 'two hand-written notes from former President Trump about information that he thought might be useful for the anticipated litigation.' Those notes are among the documents Eastman is seeking to shield via attorney-client privilege."

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "While little is known about what was said on the chat, the membership list of Friends of Stone, provided to The New York Times by one of its participants, offers a kind of road map to [Roger] Stone's associations, showing their scope and nature in the critical period after the 2020 election. During that time, Mr. Stone was involved with a strikingly wide array of people who participated in efforts to challenge the vote count and keep Mr. Trump in the White House.... As prosecutors deepen their inquiry into the storming of Capitol, the list suggests that Mr. Stone had the means to be in private contact with key players in the events of Jan. 6 -- political organizers, far-right extremists and influential media figures who subsequently played down the attack.... Members of the group were among those who took part in a conference call on Dec. 30, 2020, when a social media expert who formerly worked for Mr. Stone urged his listeners to 'descend on the Capitol' one week later, promising that Joseph R. Biden Jr. 'will never be in that White House.'"

Jamie Gangel & Evan Perez of CNN: "Former Attorney General William Barr has 'tentatively agreed to give sworn testimony behind closed doors' to the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection, according to two sources familiar with the negotiations. Barr has already talked informally to the committee, including at a meeting at his home last fall with committee lawyers and committee Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming, according to sources familiar with the matter. The meeting lasted approximately two hours, and it focused on interactions between Barr and ... Donald Trump before and after the election, according to one of the sources. The committee also inquired about Barr informing Trump there was no widespread election fraud."

How Not to Spend Winter Break. Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "A far-right Republican leader at UCLA with white supremacist ties pleaded guilty Thursday after admitting to sitting in Vice President Mike Pence's chair in the Senate during the Jan. 6 Capitol breach. Christian Secor, a member of America First Bruins, admitted to obstructing an official proceeding -- namely Congress's certification of the election of Joe Biden -- in a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors."

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A former top official at the FBI told a federal jury on Thursday that he was '100 percent confident' that Michael Sussmann, a prominent cybersecurity lawyer, said he wasn't acting on behalf of any of his clients when he gave the FBI information weeks before the 2016 presidential election about an alleged data link between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank. The daylong testimony from former FBI General Counsel James Baker in federal court in Washington backed the central claim of the narrow false-statement case special counsel John Durham brought against Sussmann last year: that he lied to Baker by hiding the involvement of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee in promoting the alleged link." The New York Times report is here.

Mitchell Clark of the Verge: "SpaceX reportedly paid a flight attendant $250,000 to ensure she didn't speak out or sue the company after Elon Musk allegedly exposed himself and propositioned her for sex, according to a report from Business Insider." Oh, read on.

Christian Davenport of the Washington Post: "Boeing's Starliner spacecraft finally reached orbit Thursday on its way to docking with the International Space Station, completing a major step after two previous failed attempts that became part of the company's many woes and a symbol of its fall from grace. But the accomplishment was marred when at a postlaunch briefing, Boeing revealed that two of the four thrusters that were to put the spacecraft into the correct orbit failed."

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "The United States has officially surpassed one million known deaths from Covid-19, according to a New York Times database.... [This is] the world's highest known total."

Katie Shepherd of the Washington Post: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Thursday that children ages 5 to 11 get a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to boost their immunity as cases and hospitalizations tick upward in many pockets of the United States. CDC director Rochelle Walensky greenlit the recommendation Thursday evening, and she also encouraged parents of children in that age group who have not yet been vaccinated to get their first shot soon." Free to nonsubscribers.

Beyond the Beltway

Georgia Senate Race. Marc Caputo, et al., of NBC News: "Former Sen. David Perdue's once-spirited primary challenge to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp appears to be sputtering in the homestretch ahead of Tuesday's vote. Even the man who recruited Perdue to run against Kemp -- ... Donald Trump -- seems to have given his campaign up for dead, said three Republicans who have spoken to Trump. They say Trump has groused about what he believes is a lackluster campaign effort from Perdue. Trump isn't planning to make any more personal appearances in Georgia in Perdue's behalf, having sunk enough of his own political capital in a race that looks like a lost cause, said a fourth source...."

Michigan. Cynthia McFadden, et al., of NBC News: "Jocelyn Benson, Michigan's top election official, faced an onslaught of threats after the 2020 presidential election for refusing to overturn results that showed Joe Biden had won the state.... She says she also received an especially disturbing piece of information: ... Donald Trump suggested in a White House meeting that she should be arrested for treason and executed.... 'It certainly amplified the heightened sense of anxiety, stress and uncertainty of that time -- which I still feel in many ways -- because it showed there was no bottom to how far he (Trump) and his supporters were willing to stoop to overturn or discredit a legitimate election,' [Benson said in an interview with NBC News.]"

Minnesota. Minnesota Public Radio: "The chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota apologized Thursday for an image that was projected at the party's state convention of George Soros manipulating the strings of puppets with the faces of two prominent Jewish Democrats. Republican Party Chair David Hann said in a statement that after speaking to staff at the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, the party understands concerns that the imagery perpetuated an antisemitic trope.... The image was contained in a video shown by secretary of state candidate Kim Crockett. The faces on the puppets were DFL elections attorney Marc Elias and Secretary of State Steve Simon. Soros is also Jewish."

New York. Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the second-highest-ranking Black lawmaker in Congress, has launched an aggressive effort to discredit a proposed congressional map that would divide historically Black neighborhoods in New York, likening its configurations to Jim Crow tactics. Mr. Jeffries is spending tens of thousands of dollars on digital advertising as part of a scorched-earth campaign to try to stop New York's courts from making the new map final without changes later this week. As construed, the map would split Bedford-Stuyvesant in central Brooklyn into two districts and Co-Op City in the Bronx into three, for example, while placing Black incumbents in the same districts -- changes that Mr. Jeffries argues violate the State Constitution.... Mr. Jeffries may be laying the groundwork for an eventual legal challenge, but his more immediate aim was to pressure Jonathan R. Cervas, New York's court-appointed special master, to change congressional and State Senate maps that he first proposed on Monday before he presents final plans to a state court judge for approval on Friday."

New York. Jesse McKinley & Lola Fadulu of the New York Times: "The accused gunman in Saturday's massacre at a supermarket in Buffalo appeared in court on Thursday morning.... The felony hearing, in Erie County court, was adjourned by a judge until June 9, largely a procedural step.... [The suspect] has pleaded not guilty, and appeared briefly in the courtroom, wearing an orange jumpsuit, amid heavy security. He faces life in prison if convicted, and continues to be held without bail, [Erie County D.A. John] Flynn said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Ed Shanahan of the New York Times: "An emergency services dispatcher in Buffalo could be fired after being accused by a supermarket employee of hanging up on a 911 call during a racist shooting rampage at the store last week. The dispatcher, who has not been publicly identified, was placed on administrative leave on Monday after an internal investigation and faces a disciplinary hearing on May 30, at which 'termination will be sought,' Peter Anderson, a spokesman for the Erie County executive, said on Wednesday.... [Latisha] Rogers told The Buffalo News that she had called 911 while hiding from the gunman, whispering on the phone in hopes of eluding his notice. The dispatcher, she said, had admonished her. 'She was yelling at me, saying, "Why are you whispering? You don't have to whisper,"' Ms. Rogers told The News, 'and I was telling her, "Ma'am, he's still in the store. He's shooting. I'm scared for my life. I don't want him to hear me. Can you please send help?" She got mad at me, hung up in my face.' Ms. Rogers, 33, told The News she then called her boyfriend and told him to call 911." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Oklahoma, the State That Hates Women & Infants. Kate Zernike of the New York Times: "The Oklahoma Legislature gave final approval on Thursday to a bill that prohibits nearly all abortions starting at fertilization, which would make it the nation's strictest abortion law. The bill subjects abortion providers and anyone who 'aids or abets' an abortion to civil suits from private individuals. It would take effect immediately if signed by Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican who has pledged to make his state the most anti-abortion in the nation." An NPR report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) A Mother Jones report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Good thing Stitt said "anti-abortion," not "pro-life." Because it seems that in Oklahoma, life ends at birth: "'There can be nothing higher or more critical than the defense of innocent, unborn life,' State Representative Jim Olsen, a Republican, said on Thursday on the floor of the Oklahoma House....' AND/BUT. While state legislators busied themselves condemning women and even children to carrying unwanted pregnancies to term, their friends in Washington were trying to make sure those neonates died nearly as soon as they saw the light. All five of Oklahoma's Members of the House, all Republicans, voted against funding the FDA to address the baby formula shortage. You are monsters.

Oklahoma. Livia Albeck-Ripka of the New York Times: "The three known remaining survivors of the 1921 massacre that saw a white mob kill hundreds of Black residents in Tulsa, Okla., have received a $1 million donation from a philanthropic group frustrated that the justice system has yet to compensate them. Hughes Van Ellis, 101, Viola Fletcher, 108, and Lessie Benningfield Randle, 107, all survived the rampage, in which a mob burned more than 1,250 homes and erased years of Black success in Greenwood. Once a booming district known as Black Wall Street, Greenwood was made up of some 40 blocks of restaurants, hotels and theaters owned and run by Black entrepreneurs.... 'These families that were clearly wronged never really got any sense of reimbursement,' said Ed Mitzen, an entrepreneur and the co-founder of the organization Business for Good, who on Wednesday in Tulsa presented the survivors with a check to be split equally among them."

Pennsylvania Senate Race. Corrupt, Whining Liar Still Corrupt, Whining & Lying. Colby Itkowitz & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump escalated his baseless assault on Pennsylvania's elections Thursday even as other Republicans declined to embrace his stance and election officials cautioned that his rhetoric could further erode confidence in the democratic system. For the second day, Trump again questioned the legitimacy of mail-in ballots in the stat's too-close-to-call Republican Senate primary race as the former president's preferred candidate saw his narrow lead dwindle. A recount is basically assured as Mehmet Oz, who Trump endorsed, now leads David McCormick by just 1,080 votes with thousands of mail-in ballots left to count out of the million-plus that were cast.... 'That's not the least bit surprising given his history and what we know about Donald Trump,' [Sen. Pat] Toomey [(R-Pa.) who is retiring,] said of Trump's comments. 'It's much to Mehmet Oz's credit that he hasn't adopted that rhetoric and seems to be adhering to what used to be the conventional view that all the legal ballots should be counted.'"

South Carolina. Eduardo Medina of the New York Times: "A former sheriff's deputy in South Carolina who drove a jail van into floodwaters while transporting two women to a mental health center in 2018, causing them to drown in a cage in the back as the water rose, was convicted on Thursday and sentenced to 18 years in prison. A Marion County jury found Stephen Flood, a former deputy of the Horry County Sheriff's Office, guilty of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless homicide in the deaths of Nicolette Green, 43, and Wendy Newton, 45."

Way Beyond

Ukraine, etc.

The New York Times' live updates of developments Friday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "After Russia's near-total conquest of the southern city of Mariupol this week, Russian officials appeared to be laying the groundwork for annexing swaths of southeast Ukraine. They have already made changes in some areas, introducing the ruble currency, installing proxy politicians and cutting the population off from Ukrainian broadcasts. But in a sign that the Kremlin is recognizing its struggles elsewhere, it suspended at least two commanders whom it blamed for not capturing the northeast city of Kharkiv and for the sinking of the Russian flagship in the Black Sea, Britain's defense intelligence agency said in a report Thursday." ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' summary of events Thursday is here. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Friday are here: "Ukrainian troops in the country's eastern region are fighting a Russian assault that President Volodymyr Zelensky described as 'hell.' 'Donbas is completely destroyed,' he said in a nightly address, accusing Russian forces of bombing the city of Severodonetsk." ~~~

     ~~~ The Guardian's live updates for Friday are here. A Guardian summary report is here.

Yousur Al-Hlou, et al., of the New York Times: "In two videos, Russian paratroopers march [men] at gunpoint along a street in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv. Some of the Ukrainian captives are hunched over, holding the belts of those in front of them. Others have their hands over their heads. 'Walk to the right, bitch,' one of the soldiers orders them. The videos, filmed on March 4 by a security camera and a witness in a nearby house and obtained by The New York Times, are the clearest evidence yet that the men were in the custody of Russian troops minutes before being executed. 'Hostages are lying there, against the fence,' the person filming one of the videos says. He counts: 'One, two, three, for sure, four, five, six ...' In total, nine people are being held. The men are forced to the ground.... The video ends. But eight witnesses recounted to The Times ... [that] soldiers took the men behind a nearby office building.... There were gunshots. The captives didn't return. A drone video filmed a day later ... showed the dead bodies lying on the ground by the side of the office building...."

Steve Hendrix & Claire Parker of the Washington Post: "A Russian soldier asked the widow of a slain Ukrainian civilian for 'forgiveness' in a dramatic Kyiv court session Thursday, as the trial of two other Russian soldiers began in central Ukraine. Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin, the first Russian soldier to face a war crimes trial in Ukraine, pleaded guilty Wednesday to killing an unarmed 62-year-old civilian in the country's Sumy region. He is facing a life sentence. Prosecutors contend that Shishimarin, 21, who appeared gaunt, violated Ukrainian laws on war crimes when he fired multiple rounds from his Kalashnikov rifle at Oleksandr Shelipov, who was pushing his bicycle near the village of Chupakhivka in late February.... 'Ensign Kafurov ordered the shooting,' Shishimarin said in court, according to reports in Ukrainian media. 'I refused. Then another soldier ordered me to shoot in a threatening tone, arguing that [Shelipov] would betray us. I fired a short burst.'... Acting on orders does not absolve individual soldiers of responsibility for war crimes, according to experts."

Germany. Amy Cheng of the Washington Post: "Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder is facing pressure from his own party, as well as from the European Union, to resign from his board position with Russian state energy giant Rosneft. On Thursday, Schröder was stripped of his office and staff, according to a spokesman for Germany's Green Party. The announcement came one day after representatives from three German political parties said in a statement that the parliament's budget committee was putting in place a new regulation linking the benefits to which former chancellors are entitled to whether they have any official duties. In the same week, a draft resolution put forth by the four largest parties in the European Parliament, the legislative body of the E.U., 'strongly demands' that Schröder resign from Rosneft."

Israel. Shira Rubin of the Washington Post: "A Palestinian Israeli lawmaker on Thursday announced her resignation from Israel's ruling coalition, citing the government's support of Jewish right-wing groups and the recent killing of a prominent Palestinian American journalist. The lawmaker, Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi, was the second Knesset member to quit Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's ruling coalition in the past two months, raising the prospect of new elections as the government struggles to keep power amid a surge in Israeli-Palestinian violence."

News Lede

AP: "Two people are dead and another eight wounded following a shooting near a fast food restaurant in Chicago that sent bystanders scattering, authorities said. The shooting happened about 10:40 p.m. Thursday near a McDonald's on the city's Near North Side, a few blocks from the city's Magnificent Mile shopping district. One person was taken into custody and a weapon was recovered, police said in statement."

May 19, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "The Senate voted Thursday to deliver more than $40 billion in new military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, sending the measure to President Biden after a week-long delay sparked by a lone senator's objection. The vote was 86 to 11, with all opposition to the package coming from Republicans."

Eugene Scott & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "House GOP leaders were among the 192 Republicans who voted against providing $28 million in aid to the Food and Drug Administration to address the shortage of baby formula -- within days of criticizing President Biden for not doing enough on the issue. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Whip Steve Scalise (La.) and Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) voted late Wednesday against the measure to provide new FDA funding, which the House approved on a largely party-line vote of 231 to 192. Twelve Republicans broke ranks and joined with Democrats in backing the money. On a separate bill, the House voted Wednesday overwhelmingly to ease the burden on low-income parents by allowing the federal Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Program -- a major national purchaser of formula -- to source it from more foreign suppliers. The vote was 414 to 9 with all the opposition coming from Republicans. The Senate approved the legislation Thursday by voice vote. It now heads to Biden, who will sign it into law."

Kyle Cheney & Nicholas Wu of Politico: "Congressional investigators have obtained a batch of official White House photographs, including images taken on Jan. 6, 2021, according to two sources familiar with the evidence. The previously unreported cache, which arrived via the National Archives, may provide the committee with real-time visual evidence of ... Donald Trump's actions and movements as a mob of his supporters battered their way into the Capitol and threatened the transfer of power to Joe Biden. At least some of the photos were taken by official White House photographer Shealah Craighead, the sources indicated.... Asked whether the panel had spoken to Craighead as a direct witness, [committee chair] Bennie Thompson said, 'Not yet.'" MB: Hope there's a time-stamped snap of Trump's short, fat fingers trying to make a call on a $10 burner phone.

Nicholas Wu & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "The Jan. 6 select committee says it has reviewed evidence that reveals a Republican lawmaker, Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, gave a tour through the Capitol complex the day before a pro-Trump mob attacked. 'We believe you have information regarding a tour you led through parts of the Capitol complex on January 5, 2021,' Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) wrote to Loudermilk.... The committee noted that Republicans on the House Administration Committee, who had previously reviewed security footage from that day, had publicly claimed that there were 'no tours, no large groups, no one with MAGA hats on.' The GOP comments called into question allegations made by three dozen Democrats in the days after Jan. 6 that they observed suspicious, 'unusually large' groups, perhaps led by Republican lawmakers or staffers, walking through the Capitol complex in the days preceding the attack.... The select committee noted that Loudermilk is a member of the House Administration Committee. And they said their review of the evidence 'directly contradicts that denial.'" The New York Times story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ The committee's letter to Loudermilk, via the committee, is here.

Jesse McKinley & Lola Fadulu of the New York Times: "The accused gunman in Saturday's massacre at a supermarket in Buffalo appeared in court on Thursday morning.... The felony hearing, in Erie County court, was adjourned by a judge until June 9, largely a procedural step.... [The suspect] has pleaded not guilty, and appeared briefly in the courtroom, wearing an orange jumpsuit, amid heavy security. He faces life in prison if convicted, and continues to be held without bail, [Erie County D.A. John] Flynn said."

Ed Shanahan of the New York Times: "An emergency services dispatcher in Buffalo could be fired after being accused by a supermarket employee of hanging up on a 911 call during a racist shooting rampage at the store last week. The dispatcher, who has not been publicly identified, was placed on administrative leave on Monday after an internal investigation and faces a disciplinary hearing on May 30, at which 'termination will be sought,' Peter Anderson, a spokesman for the Erie County executive, said on Wednesday.... [Latisha] told The Buffalo News that she had called 911 while hiding from the gunman, whispering on the phone in hopes of eluding his notice. The dispatcher, she said, had admonished her. 'She was yelling at me, saying, "Why are you whispering? You don't have to whisper,"' Ms. Rogers told The News, 'and I was telling her, "Ma'am, he's still in the store. He's shooting. I'm scared for my life. I don't want him to hear me. Can you please send help?" She got mad at me, hung up in my face.' Ms. Rogers, 33, told The News she then called her boyfriend and told him to call 911."

Oklahoma. Kate Zernike of the New York Times: "The Oklahoma Legislature gave final approval on Thursday to a bill that prohibits nearly all abortions starting at fertilization, which would make it the nation's strictest abortion law. The bill subjects abortion providers and anyone who 'aids or abets' an abortion to civil suits from private individuals. It would take effect immediately if signed by Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican who has pledged to make his state the most anti-abortion in the nation." An NPR report is here.

~~~~~~~~~~

** Reid Epstein of the New York Times: "Republican voters in this week's primary races demonstrated a willingness to nominate candidates who parrot Donald J. Trump's election lies and who appear intent on exerting extraordinary political control over voting systems. The results make clear that the November midterms may well affect the fate of free and fair elections in the country.... The strong showings on Tuesday by election deniers, who have counterparts running competitively in primaries across the country over the coming months, were an early signal of the threat posed by the Trump-inspired movement." Emphasis added. Epstein cites some of the anti-democracy 2022 candidates who will do anything to gain or retain GOP control. MB: The overriding question for me is: will their Democratic opponents have the guts to hammer home what dangerous traitors these Republicans are? The jury is out.

An AP analysis of Tuesday's elections results, by Jill Colvin & Nicholas Riccardi, is here.

Blake Hounshell of the New York Times: Pennsylvania "Republican voters’ choice of Doug Mastriano in the governor's race is giving the G.O.P. fits. Conversations with Republican strategists, donors and lobbyists in and outside of Pennsylvania in recent days reveal a party seething with anxiety, dissension and score-settling over Mastriano's nomination. In the run-up to Tuesday night, Republicans openly used words and phrases like 'suicide mission,' 'disaster' and 'voyage of the Titanic' to convey just what a catastrophe they believed his candidacy will be for their party. An adviser to several Republican governors, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said there was wide displeasure with the outcome, calling him unelectable." MB: Notice that all these mostly unnamed Republicans are in knots about is Mastriano's electability; they don't care a whit about the his extremist, anti-democratic, anti-woman beliefs.

     ~~~ Marie: He lost the primary by only two points.

Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump on Wednesday moved to baselessly discredit the too-close-to-call Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania, urging his endorsed candidate, Mehmet Oz, to 'declare victory' over opponent David McCormick before all the votes are counted in a contest with far-reaching implications. State election officials continued tallying ballots, including thousands submitted by mail, with Oz leading McCormick by just one-tenth of a percentage point -- well within the threshold for an automatic recount. There was no evidence of any wrongdoing in the process, which is a normal part of every election. Trump's comments ... echoed his conduct after the 2020 election, but this time he was lashing out in an intraparty competition. In 2020, he falsely claimed victory in Pennsylvania and sought to stop mail-in ballots from being recounted."

"Trumpism Has Metastasized." E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post: "What matters most about Tuesday's Republican primaries is not the scoresheet of how well candidates endorsed by ... Donald Trump did. What counts is how far to the right the GOP's electorate has veered.... [Doug] Mastriano is the fringe of the fringe. He is an ardent 2020 election denier -- 'insurrectionist,' my Post colleague Greg Sargent argues, is not too strong a word -- who attended Trump's rally that preceded the Jan. 6 riot, organized buses to take Pennsylvanians to it and wanted the state legislature to overturn the popular vote for electors committed to Joe Biden. He spoke at a QAnon event last month, at which conspiracy theorists presented him with a ceremonial weapon they called the 'sword of David.'... In a state where the governor appoints the secretary of state who oversees elections. Mastriano said he would 'reset' the state's voters rolls so everyone would 'have to re-register.'"

Peter Jamison of the Washington Post: "Among American politicians, [Alabama Governor George] Wallace would become, according to historian Dan T. Carter, 'the most influential loser' of the 20th century. His enduring relevance, Carter said, lies in his discovery of the 'underground stream' of modern American politics. Wallace tapped a current of grievance and barely muffled racism that would later propel the rise of another combative populist: Donald Trump.... Both Wallace and Trump lamented what they described as America's vilification of the police. Both complained to audiences incessantly about their news coverage. Both insisted that they were not bigots and boasted of large bases of Black support that didn't actually exist. Both threatened to make U.S. allies in Western Europe 'respect' and repay the United States for billions in defense spending. And both were famous for the violent energy of their political rallies, which were frequently marked by clashes between protesters and the candidates' supporters." MB: I'm not sure about Wallace, but I can say without hesitation that Trump is a completely fake "populist."

Aamer Madhani & Josh Boak of the AP: "President Joe Biden departs on a six-day trip to South Korea and Japan aiming to build rapport with the two nations' leaders while also sending an unmistakable message to China: Russia's faltering invasion of Ukraine should give Beijing pause about its own saber-rattling in the Pacific. Biden departs Thursday and is set to meet newly elected South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Their talks will touch on trade, increasing resilience in the global supply chain, growing concerns about North Korea's nuclear program and the explosive spread of COVID-19 in that country. While in Japan, Biden will also meet with fellow leaders of the Indo-Pacific strategic alliance known as the Quad, a group that includes Australia, India and Japan."

Annie Karni & Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "President Biden took urgent action on Wednesday to address the nationwide baby formula shortage, invoking the Defense Production Act to increase production and creating 'Operation Fly Formula' to deploy Defense Department planes and speed formula shipments into the United States from overseas.... The White House announced its plan only hours before the House took action of its own, approving an emergency infusion of $28 million for the Food and Drug Administration and a bill to loosen restrictions on what kind of formula can be purchased through the federal food aid program for women and babies.... In recent days, lawmakers have announced plans to haul administration and industry officials to Capitol Hill for testimony, demanded answers from Mr. Biden's team on how the shortage was allowed to develop, and launched investigations into the crisis and Abbott Nutrition, the company that recalled several of its formula products after at least two infants died." The NBC News report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Washington Post Editors: "This is a uniquely American crisis.... The United States relies primarily on three companies == Abbott, Gerber and Reckitt -- to supply the vast majority of baby formula for the nation..., and imports of baby formula are almost nonexistent.... The simple solution, from the outset, would have been to import more formula from abroad, from places such as the European Union, Britain, Canada, Australia and Japan. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Monday that it was streamlining its review process so that foreign manufacturers could begin shipping more formula into the United States. That should have happened weeks ago.... The nation needs a full and rational accounting of this mess and the troubling questions about why it took so long for the FDA to look into the Abbott plant after a whistleblower came forward in October.... The trade deal the Trump administration struck with Canada and Mexico that made it even harder to import formula from Canada has had unintended consequences." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Isn't this also a problem because the U.S. is so comfortable with monopolies? If this were a baked bean monopoly, it wouldn't matter much except to people accustomed to eating a full English breakfast. But it's baby formula, for Pete's sake, the only food that nourishes millions of American babies. Parents cannot just switch infants to zwieback and applesauce. Or baked beans.

Katie Benner of the New York Times: "Justice Department employees pressed the Biden administration on Wednesday to grant federal employees time off if they or their family members need to travel out of state to obtain abortions.... The letter was sent to the White House's budget office and Gender Policy Council as well as the Office of Personnel Management.... As of now, about 150,000 federal employees in Texas and Mississippi have little access to abortion, and an additional 227,000 federal employees in 11 other states could immediately lose access to the procedure if the Supreme Court overturns Roe, the group said.... Granting leave could open the federal government up to lawsuits that claim the benefit violates the Hyde Amendment. Under the provision, federal funds cannot be used to pay for abortions, except in special circumstances...."

Someone who calls himself "The Critical Mind" responds in the Huffington Post to Sen. Tim Scott's (R-S.C.) explanation -- delivered in a Washington Post op-ed -- as to why abortion rights do not help Black women. MB: I had scanned Scott's opinion early yesterday and considered it such garbage I didn't even consider linking it as an example of right-wing garbage. The crux of Scott's philosophy of depriving American women of a Constitutional right is that abortion rights allow women to escape the grueling struggles his mother survived rearing two children on the income of a nurse's aid. When Scott gets through celebrating the limits of his mother's options, he goes on to denegrate Janet Yellen, a Jewish woman at the other end of the educational spectrum and one who has translated that education into spectacular accomplishments. Scott completely misinterprets and mischaracterizes Yellen's testimony before a Senate committee by pretending that all she cares about is money: the usual bigotry about Jews. "The Critical Mind" guy does quite a good job of tearing down Scott's stupid, cruel arguments, but not good enough to lessen my ire at Scott's arrogant mansplaining aimed at dismissing the value of a Black woman and a Jewish woman. Thanks to Ken W. for the link.

Disinformation Board Defeated by ... Right-wing Disinformation. Taylor Lorenz of the Washington Post: "On ... April 27, the Department of Homeland Security announced the creation of the first Disinformation Governance Board with the stated goal to 'coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security.' The Biden administration tapped Nina Jankowicz, a well-known figure in the field of fighting disinformation and extremism, as the board's executive director.... Jankowicz ... became a primary target on the right-wing Internet. She has been subject to an unrelenting barrage of harassment and abuse while unchecked misrepresentations of her work continue to go viral. Now, just three weeks after its announcement, the Disinformation Governance Board is being 'paused,' according to multiple employees at DHS.... On Wednesday morning, Jankowicz officially resigned from her role within the department.... ~~~

~~~ "Jankowicz';s experience is a prime example of how the right-wing Internet apparatus operates, where far-right influencers attempt to identify a target, present a narrative and then repeat mischaracterizations across social media and websites with the aim of discrediting and attacking anyone who seeks to challenge them. It also shows what happens when institutions, when confronted with these attacks, don't respond effectively." Read on. MB BTW: I have no doubt the attackers magnified their fake criticisms of Jankowicz because she is a woman, and an attractive young woman at that. Right-wing World is the province of incels & fat old farts who despise both women -- and men who have normal relationships with women.

Felicia Sonmez, et al., of the Washington Post: "The House on Wednesday passed legislation that would create domestic terrorism offices across three federal agencies, spurred by alarm over the rise in incidents of homegrown violent extremism in recent years. Rep. Bradley Schneider (D-Ill.) pushed for a vote on the bill, known as the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, in the wake of Saturday's mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo.... The measure was approved on a 222-to-203 vote. One Republican, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), joined all Democrats present in voting 'yes.' The legislation's future remains uncertain in the Senate, where ... a unanimous vote on similar legislation was blocked by Republicans two years ago."

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "A group formed in the hopes of disbarring lawyers who worked on cases in which ... Donald J. Trump tried to subvert the results of the 2020 election filed a complaint with the Texas bar association on Wednesday against Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, for his efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power. The complaint against Mr. Cruz, filed by a group called the 65 Project, focuses on baseless assertions by Mr. Cruz about widespread voting fraud in the weeks between Election Day in 2020 and Jan. 6, 2021, as well as his participation in lawsuits protesting the results in Pennsylvania.... [The complainants assert] that Mr. Cruz moved beyond simply working within the confines of Congress. 'He chose to take on the role of lawyer and agreed to represent Mr. Trump and Pennsylvania Republicans in litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court,' the complaint said, citing his role in two cases, neither of which succeeded. 'In doing so, Mr. Cruz moved beyond his position as a United States senator and sought to use more than his Twitter account and media appearances to support Mr. Trump's anti-democratic mission.'"

Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "Army Col. Yevgeny Vindman, who along with his twin brother raised alarm about ... Donald Trump's actions toward Ukraine, precipitating the first of two impeachments, suffered a 'swift' reduction in responsibilities advising the White House and probably was punished for speaking out, according to the findings of an investigation released Wednesday. The Defense Department inspector general's office determined it is 'more likely than not' that Vindman, an Army officer who in 2019 was assigned to the National Security Council, 'was the subject of unfavorable personnel actions and that these were in reprisal for his protected communications' with superiors.... The inspector general's office recommended no action be taken in Vindman's case, noting that Army officials promoted him to his current rank last year and removed an unfavorable performance review that Trump administration officials had issued. Vindman and his brother, Alexander Vindman, were among those dismissed from their jobs by national security adviser Robert O'Brien in February 2020 shortly after Trump's first impeachment trial ended with a Senate acquittal." CNN's report is here.

Putin Didn't Think Trump Had "a Very Good Brain." Bob Brigham of the Raw Story: "... Vladimir Putin grew frustrated with Donald Trump's inability to understand foreign policy issues, his former top National Security Council advisor on the country said.... Business Insider reports, 'One of the reasons Putin invaded Ukraine with President Joe Biden in the White House is because he expected the US to "sue for peace" and thought it would be better to deal with Biden than trying to negotiate with someone like Trump, who the Russian leader had "to explain everything to all the time,"' said [Fiona] Hill.... 'You could see that he got frustrated many times with President Trump because he had to keep explaining things, and Putin doesn't like to do that.'" The Insider story is firewalled.

Will Oremus of the Washington Post: "At a time when Elon Musk and others are decrying Big Tech censorship, the Buffalo shooting video reminds us why content moderation matters.... This past weekend, Twitter and other major platforms were once again scrambling to take down posts and videos that were legal under the First Amendment but violated their policies. In this case, the videos showed a gunman, allegedly an 18-year-old white supremacist, slaughtering 10 people in a grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo. And the posts included the suspect's racist screed, for which he seems to have intended the massacre to serve as an advertisement.... Musk's past statements would seem to imply that, if he were in charge, Twitter would have let the videos and manifesto circulate, at least in the United States. After all, hate speech and depictions of graphic violence are not against the law here.... ~~~

~~~ [The Buffalo massacre] "was planned online, influenced by ideas that spread online, live-streamed online and motivated in part by the gunman's apparent belief that his words and deeds would ultimately be shared by millions online.... A growing number of conservatives ... see a liberal bias in both the rules that the tech companies have set out and in how they enforce them.... They're upset by those that seem to have a political dimension, such as policies against misinformation and hate speech." MB: That, obviously, is because the majority of misinformation and hate speech, especially of a type that promotes or provokes violence, comes from the right. I'm not suggesting there are no leftist revolutionaries; I'm saying there are fewer of them.

Andrew Das of the New York Times: "... landmark contracts with the U.S. Soccer Federation ... will guarantee, for the first time, that soccer players representing the United States men's and women's national teams will receive the same pay when competing in international matches and competitions. In addition..., the deals include a provision, believed to be the first of its kind, through which the teams will pool the unequal prize money payments U.S. Soccer receives from FIFA, world soccer's governing body, for their participation in the quadrennial World Cup. Starting with the 2022 men's tournament and the 2023 Women's World Cup, that money will be shared equally among the members of both teams." Read on.

Sarah Min & Jesse Pound of CNBC: "The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted its biggest loss since 2020 on Wednesday after another major retailer warned of rising cost pressures, confirming investors' worst fears over rising inflation and rekindling the brutal 2022 sell-off. The Dow shed 1,164.52 points, or 3.57%, to 31,490.07, the average's biggest decline since June 2020. It was the lowest close for the Dow since March 2021. Markets returned to heavy selling after two back-to-back quarterly reports from Target and Walmart stoked investor fears of rising inflation taking a bite out of corporate profits and consumer demand."

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

Yasmeen Abutaleb of the Washington Post: "Top Biden administration officials warned Wednesday that one-third of Americans live in communities experiencing rising levels of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations and urged them to resume taking personal protection measures, including wearing masks.... Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, strongly encouraged those living in [high-risk] communities ... to consider wearing masks in indoor public spaces and taking other steps to protect themselves.... Wednesday's warnings from Walensky and two other officials -- Ashish Jha, White House coronavirus coordinator, and Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden's chief medical adviser -- came on the same day the United States surpassed the grim milestone of 1 million covid-19 deaths, a toll that even the starkest predictions at the start of the pandemic in 2020 did not anticipate." The article is free to nonsubscribers.

Beyond the Beltway

Colorado. One Person, One Vote? Fageddaboudit. Kyle Clark of KUSA-TV Denver: Greg Lopez, the GOP candidate for governor, said he will propose "... doing away with the popular vote for statewide elected officials and doing an electoral college vote for statewide elected officials." Instead, he would introduce an intra-state electoral college system that, Clark reports, "would give far more voting power to Coloradans in rural, conservative counties and dilute the voting power of Coloradans in more populous urban and suburban areas. Even as turnout numbers vary over time, the sheer number of rural conservative counties would create a built-in advantage for Republicans." MB: Republicans are relentless in their schemes to dilute and disallow Democratic votes.

Georgia. Where White Supremacy Was an Economic Disaster. Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: In 1912, the white people of Forsyth County, Georgia, violently expelled all the Black people from the county. "For much of the 20th century, they would guard Forsyth's borders as [the city of Atlanta] encroached, through violence, intimidation and a menacing understanding in Greater Atlanta that this county was to remain for whites only.... The county's whites-only century was one of stagnation and isolation. Only after the sprawl of Greater Atlanta eventually overwhelmed Forsyth's defenses in the late 1990s and 2000s did this county boom."

Kansas. Michael Wines of the New York Times: "The Kansas Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed the state to adopt a new congressional map that a lower court had ruled unconstitutional, handing a victory to Republicans and very likely costing the state's Democrats their only seat in Congress. The map, enacted by the Republican-controlled State Legislature over a veto by the governor, splits metropolitan Kansas City along both racial and partisan lines, the lower court had ruled last month, in an effort to break Democrats' hold on the Third Congressional District.... The Supreme Court's two-page ruling overturning the lower court decision explained neither the reasoning behind the verdict nor how the seven justices had voted. It said a full opinion would be issued later, but the ruling means that the Republican map boundaries will be used in elections in November."

Minnesota. Brad Parks & Eric Levenson of CNN: "Former Minneapolis Police officer Thomas Lane pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter Wednesday related to his role in the killing of George Floyd in May 2020, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement.... Lane, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng faced state charges of aiding and abetting murder and aiding and abetting manslaughter for their actions -- or lack thereof -- as their colleague Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into the neck and back of Floyd, who was handcuffed and lying on his stomach, for over nine minutes. During the arrest, Lane held down Floyd's legs, Kueng held down Floyd's torso, and Thao stood nearby and kept a crowd of upset bystanders back." (Also linked yesterday.)

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al.

The New York Times' live updates of developments Thursday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "As hundreds more Ukrainian fighters in Mariupol surrendered to Russia on Thursday, Moscow was also seeking to project control over southeastern Ukraine, where a high-ranking official declared that seized parts of the region would 'take a worthy place in our Russian family.' The visit this week by a deputy Russian prime minister, Marat Khusnullin, to the occupied city of Melitopol suggested that the Kremlin is trying to lay the groundwork for annexing the region -- even without having announced such plans outright. The Ukrainian military has warned that Russia is fortifying its defensive positions in southern Ukraine, even as its forces have retreated in the northeast and failed to gain ground in the eastern Donbas region, despite ferocious bombardment.... The Russian Defense Ministry said that more than 700 Ukrainian fighters from the Azov battalion had surrendered over the past 24 hours at the steel plant in Mariupol. A total of 1,730 fighters have surrendered so far, Moscow said.... Sweden's defense minister said the Pentagon had pledged several interim security measures to shore up the defenses of Sweden and Finland while NATO considers their requests to join the alliance." ~~~

     ~~~ Here's a New York Times summary of developments Wednesday: "Russia seized on the mass surrender of Ukrainian troops at a Mariupol steel plant as a propaganda gift on Wednesday, moving to falsely label them as terrorists and create a parallel narrative to Ukraine's portrayal of Russian soldiers as heinous war criminals.... Images of the surrendering Ukrainians were publicized by the Russians just as a Russian soldier pleaded guilty in a Ukrainian courtroom to fatally shooting an unarmed civilian, in a widely followed case.... Russian commentators celebrated the fall of the steel plant and, in particular, the capture of members of the Azov battalion, a Ukrainian regiment with roots as a far-right group, which Mr. Putin has exploited to fictitiously portray the invasion as a battle to rid Ukraine of Nazis. The Russian Supreme Court said it would hold a hearing next week on whether to declare the Azov group a 'terrorist organization,' which could give Moscow cover to deprive the prisoners of rights." ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Thursday are here: "President Biden is set to host the leaders of Finland and Sweden at the White House on Thursday to discuss their applications to join NATO, as well as Russia's war in Ukraine.... The International Committee of the Red Cross said it logged the details of hundreds of Ukrainian prisoners of war to 'track those who have been captured' after their negotiated surrender from the Azovstal plant in Mariupol this week. Moscow and Kyiv have given different accounts of how many fighters evacuated their last holdout.... Russian forces are making 'incremental progress' in the southern Kherson region toward the Black Sea, while in the northeast, Ukrainian troops have in some cases pushed them 'back to as close as three to four kilometers from the border,' a senior U.S. defense official said." ~~~

     ~~~ The Guardian's live updates for Thursday are here. The Guardian has a summary of developments here.

Emily Rauhala, et al., of the Washington Post: "Turkey blocked the start of Finland's and Sweden's accession talks to NATO on Wednesday shortly after the Nordic nations submitted their applications, a signal of what could be a bumpy process to expand the alliance and reshape Europe's post-Cold War security architecture. Turkey's resistance deprived Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg of the consensus he needed to move forward with the membership process.... At a meeting of NATO ambassadors, Turkey said it still needed to work through some issues related to Finland and Sweden joining the alliance, according to two officials familiar with the discussion.... Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has objected to Sweden's granting of asylum to members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, and he has indicated that he will seek other concessions if he is to allow the expansion to go forward.... Russia's Foreign Ministry tweeted Wednesday that 'Russia will have to take retaliatory measures,' with 'their essence, including military and technical aspects,' to be determined...."

AP: "The Senate confirmed Bridget Brink late Wednesday as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, filling the post as officials plan to return American diplomats to Kyiv.... The veteran foreign service officer, who has spent most of her career in the shadow of the former Soviet Union, was nominated to the position last month by President Joe Biden. She was confirmed unanimously by the Senate without a formal roll call vote. American diplomats evacuated Kyiv when the war began three months ago, but the U.S. reopened the embassy Wednesday.... The ambassador's post has been vacant since ... Donald Trump abruptly forced out Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch in 2019."

China. Nectar Gan & CNN Beijing Bureau: "Black box data recovered from a China Eastern flight that crashed in March suggests someone in the cockpit intentionally downed the plane, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a preliminary assessment from United States officials. The Boeing 737-800 was flying from Kunming to Guangzhou when it nosedived from 29,000 feet mid air into the mountains, killing all 132 passengers and crew on board. It was China's deadliest air disaster in decades. Information extracted from the plane's damaged flight-data recorder shows human input orders to the controls sent the plane into its deadly dive, according to the Journal, citing people familiar with the probe." (Also linked yesterday.)

May 18, 2022

Late Morning Update:

Minnesota. Brad Parks & Eric Levenson of CNN: "Former Minneapolis Police officer Thomas Lane pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter Wednesday related to his role in the killing of George Floyd in May 2020, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement.... Lane, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng faced state charges of aiding and abetting murder and aiding and abetting manslaughter for their actions -- or lack thereof -- as their colleague Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into the neck and back of Floyd, who was handcuffed and lying on his stomach, for over nine minutes. During the arrest, Lane held down Floyd's legs, Kueng held down Floyd's torso, and Thao stood nearby and kept a crowd of upset bystanders back."

China. Nectar Gan & CNN Beijing Bureau: "Black box data recovered from a China Eastern flight that crashed in March suggests someone in the cockpit intentionally downed the plane, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a preliminary assessment from United States officials. The Boeing 737-800 was flying from Kunming to Guangzhou when it nosedived from 29,000 feet mid air into the mountains, killing all 132 passengers and crew on board. It was China's deadliest air disaster in decades. Information extracted from the plane's damaged flight-data recorder shows human input orders to the controls sent the plane into its deadly dive, according to the Journal, citing people familiar with the probe."

~~~~~~~~~~

Marie: Sorry for not covering the play-by-play in Tuesday's primary races as it happened, but I could not get excited about these jamokes. Whoever ends up winning, the top picks will be Rand Paul, the traitor, the Nazi and the the white supremacist. Even the Democratic races lack sizzle.

The New York Times' live updates Tuesday are here: In Pennsylvania, "Doug Mastriano, a far-right state senator, won the Republican nomination for governor, and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman will be Democrats' candidate in one of the fall's most important Senate races. In North Carolina, Madison Cawthorn fell to defeat in his House race.... Mr. Mastriano's victory sets up a fall clash with Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who was unopposed in the Democratic primary, a matchup with vast potential consequences both for state-level issues like abortion rights and for election certification in the 2024 presidential race.... The Democratic primaries came to an unusual finish, with both leading candidates absent from the trail. Mr. Shapiro, 48, tested positive for the coronavirus and was isolating at home while Mr. Fetterman, 52, suffered a stroke on Friday and his campaign announced he had a procedure on Tuesday 'to implant a pacemaker with a defibrillator.' Both Democrats cast emergency absentee ballots.... Mr. Mastriano, who has been subpoenaed by the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot, made his own failed effort to subpoena voting machines to 'audit' the 2020 election. Last month he spoke at a conference organized by QAnon conspiracy theorists."

Here's a predictable headline in the Washington Post's live updates of election results: "Cawthorn underperformed in precincts with more educated voters."

What happened here is simple and straightforward: terrorism.... Violence inflicted in the service of hate and a vicious thirst for power that defines one group of people being inherently inferior to any other group. A hate that through the media and politics, the Internet, has radicalized angry, alienated, lost, and isolated individuals into falsely believing that they will be replaced -- that's the word, 'replaced' -- by the 'other' -- by people who don't look like them and who are therefore, in a perverse ideology that they possess and being fed, lesser beings. I and all of you reject the lie. I call on all Americans to reject the lie. And I condemn those who spread the lie for power, political gain, and for profit. -- President Biden, Buffalo, New York, Tuesday ~~~

~~~ Chris Megerian of the AP: "President Joe Biden on Tuesday condemned the poison of white supremacy and said the nation must 'reject the lie' of the racist 'replacement theory' espoused by the shooter who murdered 10 black Americans in Buffalo. Speaking to victims' families, local officials and first responders, Biden said America's diversity is its strength and the nation must not be be distorted by a 'hateful minority.'... Biden spoke after he and first lady Jill Biden paid their respects Tuesday at a makeshift memorial of blossoms, candles and messages of condolence outside the Tops supermarket...." The Washington Post's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Here's a transcript of the speech, via the White House, as delivered. It was quite a good speech, and a tearjerker at times.

Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, urged Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch and the network's top executives in a letter on Tuesday to 'immediately cease the reckless amplification of the so-called "Great Replacement" theory on your network's broadcasts' in the wake of a deadly racist rampage in Buffalo. The letter, which followed remarks Mr. Schumer gave on the Senate floor Monday, may signal a new effort by Democrats and others to raise pressure on the cable network and its top-rated host and moneymaker, Tucker Carlson.... 'For years, these types of beliefs have existed at the fringes of American life,' Mr. Schumer wrote in his letter, which was also copied to Mr. Carlson personally. 'However, this pernicious theory, which has no basis in fact, has been injected into the mainstream thanks in large part to a dangerous level of amplification by your network and its anchors.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ A copy of the letter, via the New York Times, is here. As Garrett Haake pointed out on MSNBC, Schumer's letter is effectively confirmation that the Senate itself will do nothing to deter gun violence because there are not 60 votes for even the most innocuous gun control legislation. (Also linked yesterday.)

The New York Times is liveblogging events in Buffalo, N.Y., Tuesday, including President Biden and Dr. Jill Biden's visit. President Biden is scheduled to deliver public remarks at 1:00 pm ET. (Also linked yesterday.)

Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "Replacement theory used to be a fringe doctrine, but these days, in at best thinly disguised form, it is attracting significant mainstream support within the G.O.P. And this mainstream acceptance helps it spread. As The Times has documented, Tucker Carlson's Fox News show has amplified the doctrine more than 400 times. And lest you dismiss Carlson as a mere media figure, remember David Frum's dictum: 'Republicans originally thought Fox worked for us. Then we discovered that we work for Fox.'" Krugman misses the days when voodoo economics, "a crank economic doctrine -- the claim that tax cuts pay for themselves -- became in effect the official Republican party line." Despite the fact that voodoo economics never inspired any acts of terrorism, he reckons "that the embrace of crank economics presaged the general moral collapse of the Republican establishment ...[and] opened the door for paranoia and conspiracy theorists of all kinds -- and the consequences have been deadly." (Also linked yesterday.)

Olivia Beavers & Jordain Carney of Politico: "Rep. Elise Stefanik's GOP colleagues are largely defending the New Yorker over an incendiary immigration ad that sparked Democratic charges she was nodding to a racist conspiracy theory." MB: They say she once had a Black friend, or something.

Guns ᴙ Us. Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "The United States is in the middle of a great gun-buying boom that shows no sign of letting up as the annual number of firearms manufactured has nearly tripled since 2000 and spiked sharply in the past three years, according to the first comprehensive federal tally of gun commerce in two decades. The report, released by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on Tuesday ... painted a vivid statistical portrait of a nation arming itself to the teeth. Buyers capitalized on the loosening of gun restrictions by the Supreme Court, Congress and Republican-controlled state legislatures. The data documented a drastic shift in consumer demand among gun owners that has had profound commercial, cultural and political implications: Starting in 2009, Glock-type semiautomatic handguns, purchased for personal protection, began to outsell rifles, which have been typically used in hunting."

Rip Van Garland Awakens. Glenn Thrush & Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "The Justice Department has asked the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack for transcripts of interviews it is conducting, which have included discussions with associates of ... Donald J. Trump, according to people with knowledge of the situation. The move, coming as Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appears to be ramping up the pace of his painstaking investigation into the Capitol riot, is the clearest sign yet of a wide-ranging inquiry at the Justice Department. The House committee has interviewed more than 1,000 people so far, and the transcripts could be used as evidence in potential criminal cases, to pursue new leads or as a baseline text for new interviews conducted by federal law enforcement officials.... On April 20, Kenneth A. Polite Jr., the assistant attorney general for the criminal division, and Matthew M. Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, wrote to Timothy J. Heaphy, the lead investigator for the House panel, advising him that some committee interviews 'may contain information relevant to a criminal investigation we are conducting.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Devlin Barrett & Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post: "Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), the chair of the committee, told reporters Tuesday that the Justice Department -- and some state and local investigators -- requested that the committee share copies of interviews conducted by House lawmakers and investigators. 'My understanding is they want to have access to our work product, and we told them, "No, we're not giving that to anybody,"' Thompson said. The committee may allow investigators to review records in the committee's office, he said." An AP report is here.

Because every word he says is a lie, including 'and' and 'the.' -- paraphrase, borrowed from Mary McCarthy ~~~

~~~ Hugo Lowell of the Guardian: "The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol is not expecting to call Donald Trump to testify about potentially unlawful schemes to stop the certification of Joe Biden's election win, its chairman said on Tuesday. The panel has been weighing for months whether to seek voluntary cooperation or subpoena the former president in its wide-ranging inquiry in an effort to obtain his insight into unlawful schemes to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee, told reporters on Capitol Hill that it was 'not our expectation' to demand testimony from Trump."

Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "On Jan. 6, 2021..., a top Trump appointee at the U.S. State Department met with two activists who had been key to spreading the false narrative that the presidential election had been stolen. The meeting came as Trump's allies were pressing theories that election machines had been hacked by foreign powers and were angling for Trump to employ the vast powers of the national security establishment to seize voting machines or even rerun the election.Robert A. Destro, a law professor at Catholic University of America then serving as an assistant secretary of state, confirmed to The Washington Post he met with the two men -- Colorado podcaster Joe Oltmann and Michigan lawyer Matthew DePerno -- in the midst of the tumultuous day. The two men have previously claimed to have huddled on Jan. 6 with State Department leaders, who Oltmann has said were sympathetic to the claims that a 'coup' was underway to steal the presidency from Trump. They have not identified with whom they met. Destro's acknowledgment is the first independent confirmation that they successfully gained the high-level audience.... Oltmann and DePerno played important behind-the-scenes roles in crafting the baseless allegations that the election was stolen from Trump...." (Also linked yesterday.) A CNN report is here.

The New York Times' live updates of developments Wednesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "Finnish and Swedish envoys delivered letters expressing their nations' interest in joining NATO to Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels. Mr. Stoltenberg has said that NATO will seek to admit both nations in a fast-track process.... If both are admitted, it will be NATO's most significant expansion in nearly two decades.... The triumphant mood in the Nordic states was shadowed, however, by signals that Turkey, a NATO member, might seek to block their accession.... The International Criminal Court has sent a team of 42 investigators, forensic experts and support personnel, its largest-ever field deployment, to assist with I.C.C. investigations in Ukraine, according to the court's prosecutor." Here's the Times' summary of developments Tuesday. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Wednesday are here: "Russia's Defense Ministry claimed that another group of 694 Ukrainian fighters in the strategic port city of Mariupol left the Azovstal steel plant in the last day as part of a negotiated surrender. The Washington Post could not immediately verify Russia's account that a total of 959 fighters, including 80 seriously wounded, have now left the plant, and it was unclear how many remain.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address that the 'evacuation mission continues.' Ukraine said it is seeking a swap for the fighters taken to Russian-held territory -- yet some key Russian officials are signaling they won't support such an exchange."

Neil MacFarquhar & Anushka Patil of the New York Times: "A military analyst on one of Russian state television's most popular networks left his fellow panelists in stunned silence on Monday when he said that the conflict in Ukraine was deteriorating for Russia, giving the kind of honest assessment that is virtually banished from the official airwaves. 'The situation for us will clearly get worse,' Mikhail M. Khodaryonok, a retired colonel and a conservative columnist on military affairs, said during the '60 Minutes' talk-show program on the Rossiya network.... 'We are in total geopolitical isolation and the whole world is against us, even if we don't want to admit it,' said Mr. Khodaryonok, noting that Russia's 'resources, military-political and military-technical, are limited.'... Mr. Khodaryonok noted that Ukraine seemed to have momentum."

Julian Barnes of the New York Times: "An intelligence subcommittee hear[d] testimony from two Pentagon officials on observations [of 'unexplained aerial sightings'] by military pilots and others. Pentagon officials testifying at a House subcommittee hearing on Tuesday showed a previously classified video of an unidentified aerial phenomena, a fleeting color video of a reflective spherical object speeding past a military fighter jet.... 'We have detected no emanations within the U.A.P. task force that is, that would suggest it's anything nonterrestrial in origin,' [the deputy director of naval intelligence Scott] Bray said, referring to unidentified aerial phenomena." The AP's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "A House Intelligence subcommittee summoned military experts Tuesday to provide the first testimony in half a century about the existence of UFOs, and in the process, lawmakers helped answer the question that has fascinated humankind: Is there intelligent life down here?... Lawmakers, once finished, kept the hearing going because [Elise] Stefanik [R-N.Y.], a committee member, was allegedly 'en route' to question the witnesses. But she never showed up. Was it an alien abduction? And, if so, where can we send the thank-you note?" MB: Not surprisingly, a fun read. I always enjoy it when Milbank reports on a committee hearing.

Eric Schmitt & Dave Philipps of the New York Times: "A Pentagon investigation into a U.S. airstrike in Syria in 2019 that killed dozens of people, including women and children, found that the military's initial review of the attack was mishandled at multiple levels of command and replete with reporting delays and information gaps. But the inquiry also determined that most of the people killed in the strike, which was carried out by a shadowy Special Operations unit called Task Force 9, were probably Islamic State fighters, according to three officials familiar with the findings, and that military officials did not violate the laws of war or deliberately conceal casualties. The findings did not call for any disciplinary action.... [Secretary of Defense Lloyd] Austin appointed Gen. Michael X. Garrett, the four-star head of the Army's Forces Command, to lead the inquiry in November after an investigation by The New York Times described allegations that top officers and civilian officials had sought to hide casualties from the airstrike." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So Austin ordered an inquiry as a result of a Times investigation, and the Times now reports in its lede that the inquiry found that the initial military report of the incident was deeply flawed. Now here's the headline on the WashPo's report: "Pentagon inquiry rejects claims U.S. covered up civilian deaths in Syria." The Washington Post's lede: "The findings of a U.S. military investigation reject allegations that commanders covered up the killing of civilians in Syria, officials said Tuesday, even as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned that a lack of transparency in such cases risks undermining public trust that the Pentagon will hold itself accountable for fatal mistakes." Emphasis added. You'd almost think you were reading about two different inquiries with two different results.

Susannah George of the Washington Post: "Paranoia riddled the most senior levels of the Afghan government, and chaos overwhelmed the country's security forces in the days and months leading up to their collapse, according to a U.S. government watchdog report released Wednesday, one of the first since the Taliban takeover in August. The latest assessment by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, examined the roots of the Afghan military's demise at the end of America's longest war. Many of the findings confirm previous reporting by The Washington Post and other outlets on Taliban-brokered surrender deals, but also shed new light on the intrigue and suspicion that consumed the Afghan leadership in its final days. As Taliban forces closed in on Kabul, then-president Ashraf Ghani feared his own military would turn against him and suspected the United States was plotting to remove him from power, the report reveals, quoting former Afghan and U.S. officials. Ghani also dismissed many of his senior security officials and key commanders on the ground, believing they were disloyal, moves that further undermined the morale of Afghan security forces, confused the war effort and culminated in the country's fall, the report concluded."

Niraj Chokshi of the New York Times: "The Justice Department sued the former casino mogul Stephen Wynn on Tuesday, saying he had made repeated requests on behalf of the Chinese government to Donald J. Trump when he was president and seeking to force Mr. Wynn to register as a foreign agent. In 2017, Mr. Wynn pushed Mr. Trump to deport a Chinese businessman who had sought asylum in the United States, according to the lawsuit. At the time, Mr. Wynn was the finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, a role he had been handpicked for by Mr. Trump.... The Chinese businessman is not named in the suit, but he matches the description of Guo Wengui, a billionaire real estate magnate and an outspoken critic of Chinese government self-dealing who formed an alliance with Stephen K. Bannon.... The effort to have him returned to China was ultimately unsuccessful, according to the lawsuit. The suit also paints Mr. Wynn as furthering his own interests in Macau, a region of China known for its casinos that was critical for Mr. Wynn's business." Wynn refused to register as a foreign agent, according to the suit. A Politico report is here. ~~~

~~~ David Kirkpatrick & Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: "Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a businessman and longtime friend who acted as an informal adviser to ... Donald J. Trump, sought money from the United Arab Emirates in early 2017 for an investment fund that would seek both to boost Mr. Trump's agenda and to benefit from his policies, federal prosecutors said in a court filing on Tuesday. Prosecutors cited the effort in a superseding indictment in a case in which they charged Mr. Barrack last July with acting as an unregistered agent for the United Arab Emirates, conspiring with the Emiratis to influence the Trump campaign and the White House, and lying to investigators." A CNBC report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: We know Trump's friends are shady, sleazy bastids, but truth is, we don't know the half of it.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here: "The White House will hold a coronavirus briefing on Wednesday after a six-week hiatus, as caseloads and hospitalizations climb around the country and the Biden administration signaled that it would extend its declaration of Covid-19 as a public health emergency. The briefing -- scheduled for 10:45 a.m. Eastern -- will be the first formal on-camera session led by President Biden's new coronavirus response coordinator, Dr. Ashish K. Jha."

Carolyn Johnson & Laura McGinley of the Washington Post: "Federal regulators authorized a coronavirus booster shot Tuesday for school-age children, making a third shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine available to 5-to-11-year-olds as cases rise nationally. The Food and Drug Administration cleared the booster for use at least five months after children are fully vaccinated with the two-shot primary series.... Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are scheduled to meet Thursday and are expected to recommend the booster, which was shown in laboratory tests to strengthen children's immune defenses -- particularly against the omicron variant." An NBC News report is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Beyond the Beltway

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. -- First Amendment, U.S. Constitution *

* Does not apply in Florida. ~~~

Florida. DeSantis, et al., Think of Another First Amendment Right to Abrogate. Lindsey Bever of the Washington Post: "Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill Monday to outlaw protests outside private residences -- a move opponents say violates First Amendment rights." ~~~

~~~ Update. Turns Out DeSantis Did Not Forget the Press. Matthew Chapman of the Raw Story: "On Tuesday, the Orlando Sentinel reported that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) considered pushing legislation that would have rolled back a critical First Amendment protection for journalists -- with an eye toward getting the Supreme Court to undo a landmark ruling that limited when reporters can be sued by public officials.... [DeSantis never filed the draft bill he considered.] According to the report, the ultimate goal of the legislation was to get the Supreme Court to overturn [the 1964 decision, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan,], allowing states to enact their own standards for when reporters can be sued for libel.... Prior to the Sullivan ruling, Southern states in particular used libel laws to terrorize and harass journalists attempting to cover the injustices of Jim Crow laws." The Sentinel story is here. It is firewalled.

Georgia. Matthew Brown & Amy Gardner of the Washington Post: "The Georgia State Elections Board on Tuesday dismissed three allegations of ballot fraud brought by a conservative activist who falsely accused residents of the Atlanta area of illegally turning in other people's ballots in the 2020 election. The cases have gained attention across conservative social media following the release this month of '2000 Mules,' a movie promoted by right-wing activist Dinesh D'Souza that alleges that thousands such individuals participated in a vast criminal conspiracy to collect and return tens of thousands of ballots in 2020. The board's action Tuesday cast doubt on the premise of the movie, which claims to use cellphone tracking data along with video surveillance of individuals depositing ballots in drop boxes to make its case."

Michigan. Luke Vander Ploeg of the New York Times: "A Michigan judge has pre-emptively blocked enforcement of a 1931 law that would ban abortions in almost all cases if the Supreme Court takes an expected step to overturn the constitutional right to abortion. Chief Judge Elizabeth Gleicher of the State Court of Claims issued an injunction on Tuesday as a part of a lawsuit brought by Planned Parenthood of Michigan that argues that the nearly century-old law violates the State Constitution.... The complaint was made against Attorney General Dana Nessel, who has said she would not enforce the 1931 law even if Roe were overturned. However, she is up for re-election in November, and those who support abortion rights are concerned that future leaders could enforce a criminal ban."

Wisconsin. Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "Three Democratic voters in Wisconsin, including two who served as electors for President Biden in 2020, filed suit Tuesday against 10 supporters of Donald Trump in the state, arguing the group engaged in a civil conspiracy to violate state and federal law when they declared themselves presidential electors in 2020 even though Biden won the state's popular vote. The group also sued two lawyers who worked with Trump's campaign and advised Trump's electors to meet in states Biden had won and declare themselves properly elected."