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

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

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

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

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

Click on photo to enlarge.

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

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

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

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

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

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Thursday
Sep282023

The Conversation -- September 29, 2023

First Flip. And Then There Were 18. Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: “One of the 19 defendants in a Georgia racketeering case against ... Donald J. Trump and his allies pleaded guilty on Friday to five misdemeanor charges, under a deal with prosecutors in which he would receive five years of probation. The guilty plea of Scott Hall, 59, a Georgia bail bondsman, was a significant victory for Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis, who secured an agreement from Mr. Hall to testify against other defendants.... Appearing in a Fulton County courtroom on Friday afternoon, Mr. Hall ... pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor counts of intentional interference with performance of election duties. Under the terms of the deal, Mr. Hall is to pay a $5,000 fine, surrender his firearms carry license, perform 200 hours of community service and write a letter of apology to the people of Georgia. He is not to participate in any activities related to the administration of elections, and he agreed to testify truthfully in all further proceedings in the case.” The NBC News story is here.

Hugo Lowell of the Guardian: "A federal judge on Friday denied a request from Jeffrey Clark, the former Trump justice department official, to transfer from state to federal court his criminal case for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, saying he had failed to prove he had been acting within the scope of his official duties. The ruling from the US district judge Steven Jones, which came a day after Donald Trump decided against making a similar request, means Clark will be tried in Fulton county superior court – with its mainly Democratic jury pool – unless the ruling is overturned by the 11th circuit appeals court." The article cites Judge Jones' reasons for rejecting Clark's specific arguments.

Sahil Kapur & Frank Thorp of NBC News: “Top Republican senators said Friday they won’t try to prevent Democrats from replacing the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on the Judiciary Committee after the vacancy left Democrats without a majority on the key panel. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, a senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, told NBC News that 'there’s no doubt in my mind' Democrats will be able to fill her spot on the panel once there is a successor appointed to her Senate seat. Feinstein’s death means the key panel that processes President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees is now split evenly, 10 to 10, between Democrats and Republicans. A tie vote means a nominee fails to advance out of committee....”

The New York Times is liveblogging developments in the government shutdown fiasco: "Hard-line conservatives on Friday tanked Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s long-shot bid to pass legislation to avert a government shutdown, in an extraordinary display of defiance that made it clear that Congress would almost certainly miss a midnight deadline on Saturday to keep federal funding flowing." ~~~

     ~~~ The Hill's story on the failed legislation is here.

Annie Karni of the New York Times: “Senator Dianne Feinstein, the trailblazing Democratic power broker who served in the Senate for 30 years, died on Thursday night, according to a family member.” Update: The page has been converted to a liveblog of reactions to Sen. Feinstein's death. ~~~

    ~~~ Sen. Feinstein's New York Times obituary is here. NBC News' obituary is here; thanks to Forrest M. for the link. ~~~

     ~~~ President Biden's statement is here.

Seung Min Kim, et al., of the AP: At Tempe, Arizona, Thursday, President “Biden said that 'there is no question that today’s Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA extremists.' He pointed to [Donald] Trump’s recent suggestion that Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who is stepping down from his post on Friday, should be executed for allegedly treasonous betrayal of him. 'Although I don’t believe even a majority of Republicans think that, the silence is deafening,” Biden added. He also noted that Trump has previously questioned those who serve in the U.S. military calling 'service members suckers and losers. Was John [McCain] a sucker?' Biden asked....” More on President Biden's remarks in Arizona linked below.

~~~~~~~~~~

Marie: As we watch the Greatest Clown Show on Earth -- the one where the clowns choose not to fund the federal government, where they run a sham impeachment inquiry (that is not going very smoothly) to placate their Insatiable Ringmaster, as the master faces 91 criminal charges and a civil suit that may strip him of millions of dollars and control of his little real estate empire, as he berates and threatens his enemies real and imagined, and as his presidential* rivals make fools of themselves -- we must always bear in mind that, at its heart, the clown show is deadly serious, as President Biden reminded us yesterday. ~~~

~~~ Peter Baker of the New York Times: “President Biden issued a broad and blistering attack against ... Donald J. Trump on Thursday, accusing his predecessor and would-be successor of inciting violence, seeking unfettered power and plotting to undermine the Constitution if he returns to office in next year’s elections. In his most direct condemnation of his leading Republican challenger in many months, [in a speech in Tempe, Arizona,] Mr. Biden portrayed Mr. Trump as a budding autocrat with no fidelity to the tenets of American democracy and who is motivated by hatred and a desire for retribution. While he usually avoids referring to Mr. Trump by name, Mr. Biden this time held nothing back as he offered a dire warning about the consequences of a new Trump term.... 'Seizing power, concentrating power, attempting to abuse power, purging and packing key institutions, spewing conspiracy theories, spreading lies for profit and power to divide America in every way, inciting violence against those who risk their lives to keep Americans safe, weaponizing against the very soul of who we are as Americans,' Mr. Biden said. 'This MAGA threat is a threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions. It’s also a threat to the character of our nation.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

 

     ~~~ Here is the text of President Biden's speech as delivered, via the White House.

Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: “Robert K. Hur, the special counsel investigating President Biden’s handling of classified documents while serving as vice president, has interviewed many of Mr. Biden’s closest aides and advisers in a quiet inquiry that over the last nine months has reached into the upper levels of the White House and the cabinet, people familiar with the case said. Those who have been questioned about how government documents came to be stored in a think tank office set up for Mr. Biden after his vice presidency and in his Delaware home include officials who worked with him both at the tail end of the Obama administration and now. Among them are Steve Ricchetti, a top White House aide, and Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, the people familiar with the case said. Prosecutors have also spoken to Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, who has been a key Biden foreign policy adviser for decades; Ron Klain, who served as White House chief of staff until earlier this year; and Michael R. Carpenter, the former managing director of the Penn Biden Center....”

The Greatest Clown Show on Earth

Tony Romm of the Washington Post: “The U.S. government started notifying federal workers on Thursday that a shutdown appears imminent, as a Republican-led standoff on Capitol Hill forced the Biden administration to embark on the formal, methodical process of preparing much of Washington to come to a halt. The messages acknowledged the growing risk that millions of employees and military service members may stop receiving pay in just three days, unless lawmakers in Congress can clinch a last-minute — and increasingly unlikely — deal that would extend government funding beyond Saturday.” (Also linked yesterday.)

The Washington Post is liveblogging developments in the looming shutdown: "With a federal government shutdown looming at 12:01 a.m. Sunday, the Republican-controlled House will try to pass a short-term spending measure Friday that would provide funding for 30 days. That’s less time than covered by a bill moving through the Democratic-led Senate, and the House bill contains steep spending cuts that are not in the Senate bill. If the two chambers fail to reach an agreement, the government will shut down...."

Mychael Schnell & Aris Folley of the Hill: "House Republicans late Thursday night approved legislation to fund the Department of Defense for fiscal year 2024, a success for GOP leaders after they decided to strip Ukraine funding from the legislation following two failed procedural votes. The chamber cleared the measure in a 218-210 vote.... The bill also includes a spate of riders that Democrats have slammed as divisive and said could hurt recruitment, such as measures targeting efforts aimed at diversity, equity, and inclusion, and others the party says would be potentially harmful to those in the LGBTQ community." First, Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he would strip Ukraine spending from the bill, then he said that was too difficult so he left it in, then the House Rules Committee stripped the Ukraine funding from the bill, and the stripped bill is what passed Thursday night. MB: I gather the Senate won't approve the bill without Ukraine funding, but it looks as if McCarthy is putting Ukraine funding in a separate bill, and maybe that will pass the House with Democratic support. I really don't know.

Leigh Ann Caldwell & Marianna Sotomayor of the Washington Post: “A contingent of far-right House Republicans are plotting an attempt to remove Kevin McCarthy as House speaker as early as next week, a move that would throw the chamber into further disarray in the middle of a potential government shutdown, according to four people familiar with the effort.... Some members of the far-right faction of the party are coalescing around nominating a member of McCarthy’s leadership team, Rep. Tom Emmer (Minn.), to be the next speaker if they can successfully oust McCarthy.... The members think Emmer is more attuned to their concerns and will better deliver conservative results.... It’s unclear if far-right members will move forward with the plan or if the plotting is simply a warning to McCarthy about the seriousness of their displeasure. But some members have emphasized that removing McCarthy is “inevitable” and “imminent” and they are calculating the right time to try to do it.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: You kinda have to think the Great Ringmaster is behind this potential move or at least does not oppose it.

Jacqueline Alemany & Amy Wang of the Washington Post: “House Republicans are holding their first hearing Thursday as part of an inquiry into whether to impeach President Biden, which House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has said will lay out the basis for a probe that has so far shown no evidence of wrongdoing by the president.... In his opening statement, Comer alleged Biden has for years 'lied to the American people about his knowledge of and participation in his family’s corrupt business schemes.'... Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, hit back in his opening statement.... Raskin concluded his fiery remarks by saying that the inquiry all boils down to a “thoroughly demolished lie” that Rudy Giuliani and [Donald] Trump launched years ago regarding Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine.... [The GOP's own star witness Jonathan] Turley said that he supported an impeachment inquiry but that the current evidence did not warrant articles of impeachment.” The story has been updated. MB: I heard a clip of Raskin's saying, "No smoke. No gun." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: “The first hearing in House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Biden featured their star witnesses testifying that they lacked proof that he committed impeachable offenses, multiple procedural skirmishes the G.O.P. majority nearly lost and, at times, nearly a dozen empty Republican seats. What it did not include was any new information about Mr. Biden’s conduct — or any support for Republicans’ accusations that he had entered into corrupt overseas business deals.... 'I am not here today to even suggest that there was corruption, fraud or any wrongdoing,' said Bruce G. Dubinsky, a forensic accountant [and a GOP witness]. 'In my opinion, more information needs to be gathered and assessed before I would make such an assessment.'... As the hearing ended, [Oversight Committee chair Rep. James] Comer [R-Ky.] said he was authorizing subpoenas for the personal bank records of Hunter Biden and James Biden, the president’s brother, and their affiliated companies. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Like everyone else in the hearing room, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) had trouble finding the crime here. Thanks to RAS for the lead: ~~~

BUT. Paul Campos in LG&$ explains why the whole charade works: "Hey, but if you hold months of hearings and comb through millions of pages of documents, you might find something. And if not something substantive, at least something that casts shadows/raises doubts/inspires many many many NYT stories and op-eds. About shadows and clouds and stuff. The real goal here, besides the standard destructive nihilism toward government in general, is to convince our delicately labeled “low information voters” that impeachments are just partisan witch hunts, because I mean obviously this one is on its face, so Both Sides Do It. Q.E.D."

The Trials of Trump

Olivia Rubin of ABC News: "Attorneys for Donald Trump have notified a Fulton County court that the former president will not seek to have his Georgia election interference case removed to federal court. The move comes three weeks after a judge denied a bid by co-defendant Mark Meadows, Trump's former chief of staff, to have his case moved.... Trump last month notified the court that he may file to remove, which the new filing says was done 'in an abundance of caution.'" MB: Probably not because he realizes an attempt to remove the case to federal court is a lost cause but because he wants the trial to be televised, which is unlikely in his federal trials. Just saying. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update: Harry Litman, appearing on MSNBC, said one reason Trump may have opted to stay in state court is that the state judge is a Republican, while the federal judge overseeing the Georgia RICO cases is an Obama appointee. ~~~

~~~ AND There's This. Ben Protess of the New York Times: “... as [Donald] Trump’s legal problems have expanded, the ad hoc system [of 'helping' witnesses and some fellow (alleged!) criminals] has come under intense strain with the PAC doling out financial lifelines to some aides and allies while shutting the door on others. It is now running short of money, possibly forcing Mr. Trump to decide how long to go on helping others as his own legal fees mount.” ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE. Jonah Bromwich & Ben Protess of the New York Times: “Donald J. Trump’s civil fraud trial over accusations that he inflated the value of his properties by billions of dollars could begin as soon as Monday after a New York appeals court rejected the former president’s attempt to delay it. The appeals court, in a terse two-page order Thursday, effectively turned aside for now a lawsuit Mr. Trump filed against the trial judge, Arthur F. Engoron. The lawsuit had sought to delay the trial, and ultimately throw out many of the accusations against the former president. Thursday’s ruling came two days after Justice Engoron issued an order that struck a major blow to Mr. Trump, finding him liable for having committed fraud by persistently overvaluing his assets and stripping him of control over his New York properties.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Rukmini Callimachi of the New York Times: “A New York judge ... determin[ed] in a ruling that [Donald Trump] had inflated the value of his properties by considerable sums to gain favorable terms on loans and insurance. If the ruling stands, Mr. Trump could lose control over some of his most well-known New York real estate — an outcome the state’s attorney general, Letitia James, sought when she filed a lawsuit last year that accused him of fraud and called for the cancellation of his business certificates for any entities in the state that benefited from deceitful practices.” The article lists the main New York properties that could be transfered to the control of an independent receiver. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Ryan Grenoble of the Huffington Post: "New York Attorney General Letitia James intends to call ... Donald Trump ― and his three oldest kids ― to the stand next week, where prosecutors will press for $250 million in penalties as recompense for decades of financial fraud committed by Trump and the Trump Organization. James’ witness list includes Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump among its 28 names. Other notables include Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, and the Trump Organization’s former CFO Allen Weisselberg."

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “Federal prosecutors on Thursday accused ... Donald J. Trump’s lawyers of trying to employ an arcane law governing the use of classified material to 'intentionally derail' the timing of his trial on charges of mishandling national security documents and obstructing efforts to retrieve them.... In court papers filed to Judge Aileen M. Cannon..., the prosecutors accused Mr. Trump’s legal team of seeking to delay by at least three months a crucial step in how the government intends to prepare the classified documents at the heart of the proceeding for review by the defense. That request for a delay, wrote one of the prosecutors, Jay I. Bratt, 'threatens to upend the entire schedule established by the court' and 'amounts to a motion to continue the May 20, 2024, trial date.'... In their filing, prosecutors said there were at least nine documents that were so sensitive they were not allowed to be stored in the SCIF in Florida and would be made available to Mr. Trump’s lawyers only in Washington.” The Guardian's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Hey, ya know the pictures of all those boxes full of classifed documents and golf shirts that Rep. Crockett held up during the fake impeachment inquiry? At least nine documents Trump stashed in a public Mar-a-Lardo crapper or on a ballroom stage are so super-secret that there's no place in the State of Florida that's secure enough to keep them. Maybe we'll just have to credit Trump with having the genius to hide them in plain sight. OR maybe he's more like a toddler who puts his hands over his eyes and exclaims, "You can't see me!" OR like a thieving, sloppy, mendacious hoarder.

Nadeem Badshah of the Guardian: “Donald Trump is suing a former MI6 officer and the intelligence consultancy he founded, high court records in England show. The former US president ... is bringing a data protection claim against Orbis Business Intelligence and its founder Christopher Steele, who previously ran the secret intelligence service’s Russia desk. According to a court order published on Thursday, a two-day hearing for the legal action is set to start on 16 October.... Steele was the author of the so-called Steele dossier, which included allegations that Trump had been 'compromised' by Russian security service the FSB.”

** Alex Kingsbury of the New York Times: “Though it was lost in the four-year cyclone that was the presidency of Donald Trump, one of his most immoral acts was to pardon soldiers who were accused of committing war crimes by killing unarmed civilians or prisoners. Military leaders, including his own defense secretary and the secretary of the Army objected, saying it would undermine good order and discipline.... According to a new article in The Atlantic, Gen. Mark Milley, upon becoming the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2019, 'found himself in a disconcerting situation: trying, and failing, to teach President Trump the difference between appropriate battlefield aggressiveness on the one hand, and war crimes on the other.' Donald Trump ... is a man unencumbered by any moral compass.... It is no exaggeration to say that Mr. Trump is running for the presidency on a platform of lawlessness, promising to wield the power of the state against his enemies — real or imagined.” Read on. ~~~

** "Fear Factor." Mona Charen of the Bulwark: "On at least 24 occasions, [Donald Trump] has accused critics of treason.... Now Trump has upped the ante by including a reference to the death penalty, which is in fact a punishment available in cases of treason.... Trump knows full well that some of his more rabid followers may interpret this as an invitation to assassination.... The stench of political violence has attached to Trump from the start.... If some critical mass of Republicans had demonstrated the requisite political courage in 2016, it would never have come to this — that in the United States, political and other figures must think about their physical safety before deciding how to speak or vote.... It’s a mistake, in my judgment, to minimize the role that fear now plays in assisting and enabling Trump’s continued dominance.... After January 6th, the Capitol Police estimated that there were more than 10,000 threats of violence or death against members [of Congress].... A survey of mayors found that one in three had considered resigning due to death threats and 70 percent reported knowing of someone who chose not to run for office out of fear for their personal security.... We cannot have a viable political system that relies on extraordinarily brave people...."

Marie: Sorry, forgot this one earlier: ~~~

~~~ Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: “Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser, Jared Kushner, tried to persuade the publisher of the Washington Post to fire its editor over coverage of the Russia investigation, that editor, Marty Baron, writes in a new book.... 'In December 2019, Kushner would lean on [publisher Fred] Ryan to withdraw support for me and our Russia investigation.... “He aims to get me fired,” I told Ryan.'... Kushner, Baron now writes, 'suggested the Post issue an apology and there be a “reckoning of some sort” – as he advised that he himself had made a huge mistake in once standing by a former editor of the New York Observer and one of its stories when he owned the publication.... The Post won a Pulitzer prize (shared with the New York Times) for its coverage of the investigation of Russian election interference in 2016 and links between Trump and Moscow.... [When special counsel Robert Mueller did not indict Trump himself,] Trump claimed exoneration – which Mueller did not offer – and called for prizes awarded for Russia reporting to be rescinded; calls rejected by the Pulitzer board.” (Also linked yesterday.)


Karoun Demirjian of the New York Times: “Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey made a defiant and impassioned speech to his fellow Senate Democrats on Thursday, maintaining his innocence and repeating that he had no intention of stepping down after being indicted on bribery charges, despite calls from many of his colleagues to do so. Mr. Menendez’s obstinate address at a closed-door luncheon in the Capitol followed appeals by more than half of the Senate Democrats, including the head of their campaign arm, for him to resign. It prompted one of his Democratic colleagues, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, to float the idea of forcing him to leave office.... Any senator can file a resolution to expel a member of the body, but two-thirds of the Senate — 67 votes — is required to eject any member.... Thus far, it does not appear there would be enough votes in the Senate to support a measure to oust him.... Senators Chris Coons of Delaware, Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the three Democratic members of the Senate Ethics Committee, voluntarily left the room before Mr. Menendez spoke, according to Mr. Coons.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ One Senator missed the whole lunch: ~~~

Presidential Race 2024

Isaac Arndorf of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump sharpened a stridently nationalist pitch for a general election rematch against President Biden, trading the GOP primary debate stage for a factory floor where he demanded union support for his vision of more aggressive state intervention in industrial policy.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: “Even before the debate officially wrapped up, Trump's campaign issued a statement ... [that] urged the Republican National Committee to 'immediately put an end to any further primary debates' to focus on beating President Biden. Translation: We want a coronation for Trump. In September. Of the year before the election.... [This] certainly align[s] with his various other undemocratic moves and impulses.... Fewer than half of those Trump supporters — and fewer than one-fourth of potential Republican primary voters overall — said they were locked in.... It seems unlikely the GOP will do what he asks yet, but consider it Trump’s opening bid in his latest attempt to cast aside the will of the voters in the service of empowering himself.”

A President* DeSantis Would Sign a 15-Week Federal Abortion Ban. Nicholas Nehamas of the New York Times: “In the chaos of Wednesday night’s noisy Republican presidential debate, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina interrupted Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida to pose a question on abortion that Mr. DeSantis had dodged directly answering for months. Would the Florida governor sign a '15-week limit' on abortion as president, Mr. Scott asked, talking over both Mr. DeSantis and Dana Perino, one of the moderators, in a way that made his full remarks difficult to hear. 'Yes, I will,' Mr. DeSantis replied.... Mr. DeSantis signed a six-week abortion ban in Florida this year, but had not clearly committed to supporting federal legislation restricting the termination of pregnancies.Mr. DeSantis is using abortion to attack ... Donald J. Trump, particularly in socially conservative states like Iowa....”

The Manufactured Attack on LGBTQ+ Rights. Jon Swaine & Beth Reinhard of the Washington Post: “Before this summer’s landmark Supreme Court ruling that a Christian web designer in Colorado had the right to refuse to work on same-sex weddings, the legal advocacy group behind the case had spent nearly a decade laying the groundwork through similar lawsuits filed around the country. Among the wedding vendors represented by the Christian nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom [ADF] were a photographer from Kentucky, videographers from Minnesota and a pair of Arizona artists who created stationery.... But an examination by The Washington Post of court filings, company records and other materials found that two of the three vendors cited in ADF’s September 2021 petition had stopped working on weddings, and the other did not photograph any weddings for two years.... ADF also had a hand in formally establishing companies for some of its clients, The Post found.” Read on. MB: For supposedly pious Christians, these people are remarkably devious, sleazy & bigoted.

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Thursday
Sep282023

The Conversation -- September 28, 2023

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Biden issued a broad and blistering attack against ... Donald J. Trump on Thursday, accusing his predecessor and would-be successor of inciting violence, seeking unfettered power and plotting to undermine the Constitution if he returns to office in next year's elections. In his most direct condemnation of his leading Republican challenger in many months, [in a speech in Tempe, Arizona,] Mr. Biden portrayed Mr. Trump as a budding autocrat with no fidelity to the tenets of American democracy and who is motivated by hatred and a desire for retribution. While he usually avoids referring to Mr. Trump by name, Mr. Biden this time held nothing back as he offered a dire warning about the consequences of a new Trump term.... 'Seizing power, concentrating power, attempting to abuse power, purging and packing key institutions, spewing conspiracy theories, spreading lies for profit and power to divide America in every way, inciting violence against those who risk their lives to keep Americans safe, weaponizing against the very soul of who we are as Americans,' Mr. Biden said. 'This MAGA threat is a threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions. It's also a threat to the character of our nation.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Here are excerpts of President Biden's prepared remarks, via the White House.

Karoun Demirjian of the New York Times: "Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey made a defiant and impassioned speech to his fellow Senate Democrats on Thursday, maintaining his innocence and repeating that he had no intention of stepping down after being indicted on bribery charges, despite calls from many of his colleagues to do so. Mr. Menendez's obstinate address at a closed-door luncheon in the Capitol followed appeals by more than half of the Senate Democrats, including the head of their campaign arm, for him to resign. It prompted one of his Democratic colleagues, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, to float the idea of forcing him to leave office.... Any senator can file a resolution to expel a member of the body, but two-thirds of the Senate -- 67 votes -- is required to eject any member.... Thus far, it does not appear there would be enough votes in the Senate to support a measure to oust him.... Senators Chris Coons of Delaware, Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the three Democratic members of the Senate Ethics Committee, voluntarily left the room before Mr. Menendez spoke, according to Mr. Coons."

Olivia Rubin of ABC News: "Attorneys for Donald Trump have notified a Fulton County court that the former president will not seek to have his Georgia election interference case removed to federal court. The move comes three weeks after a judge denied a bid by co-defendant Mark Meadows, Trump's former chief of staff, to have his case moved.... Trump last month notified the court that he may file to remove, which the new filing says was done 'in an abundance of caution.'" MB: Probably not because he realizes an attempt to remove the case to federal court is a lost cause but because he wants the trial to be televised, which is unlikely in his federal trials. Just saying. ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE. Jonah Bromwich & Ben Protess of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump's civil fraud trial over accusations that he inflated the value of his properties by billions of dollars could begin as soon as Monday after a New York appeals court rejected the former president's attempt to delay it. The appeals court, in a terse two-page order Thursday, effectively turned aside for now a lawsuit Mr. Trump filed against the trial judge, Arthur F. Engoron. The lawsuit had sought to delay the trial, and ultimately throw out many of the accusations against the former president. Thursday's ruling came two days after Justice Engoron issued an order that struck a major blow to Mr. Trump, finding him liable for having committed fraud by persistently overvaluing his assets and stripping him of control over his New York properties." ~~~

~~~ Rukmini Callimachi of the New York Times: "A New York judge ... determin[ed] in a ruling that [Donald Trump] had inflated the value of his properties by considerable sums to gain favorable terms on loans and insurance. If the ruling stands, Mr. Trump could lose control over some of his most well-known New York real estate -- an outcome the state's attorney general, Letitia James, sought when she filed a lawsuit last year that accused him of fraud and called for the cancellation of his business certificates for any entities in the state that benefited from deceitful practices." The article lists the main New York properties that could be transferred to the control of an independent receiver.

Marie: Sorry, forgot this one earlier: ~~~

~~~ Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior White House adviser, Jared Kushner, tried to persuade the publisher of the Washington Post to fire its editor over coverage of the Russia investigation, that editor, Marty Baron, writes in a new book.... 'In December 2019, Kushner would lean on [publisher Fred] Ryan to withdraw support for me and our Russia investigation.... "He aims to get me fired," I told Ryan.'... Kushner, Baron now writes, 'suggested the Post issue an apology and there be a "reckoning of some sort" -- as he advised that he himself had made a huge mistake in once standing by a former editor of the New York Observer and one of its stories when he owned the publication.... The Post won a Pulitzer prize (shared with the New York Times) for its coverage of the investigation of Russian election interference in 2016 and links between Trump and Moscow.... [When special counsel Robert Mueller did not indict Trump himself,] Trump claimed exoneration -- which Mueller did not offer -- and called for prizes awarded for Russia reporting to be rescinded; calls rejected by the Pulitzer board."

Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "The U.S. government started notifying federal workers on Thursday that a shutdown appears imminent, as a Republican-led standoff on Capitol Hill forced the Biden administration to embark on the formal, methodical process of preparing much of Washington to come to a halt. The messages acknowledged the growing risk that millions of employees and military service members may stop receiving pay in just three days, unless lawmakers in Congress can clinch a last-minute -- and increasingly unlikely -- deal that would extend government funding beyond Saturday."

Jacqueline Alemany & Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "House Republicans are holding their first hearing Thursday as part of an inquiry into whether to impeach President Biden, which House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has said will lay out the basis for a probe that has so far shown no evidence of wrongdoing by the president.... In his opening statement, Comer alleged Biden has for years 'lied to the American people about his knowledge of and participation in his family's corrupt business schemes.'... Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, hit back in his opening statement.... Raskin concluded his fiery remarks by saying that the inquiry all boils down to a 'thoroughly demolished lie' that Rudy Giuliani and [Donald] Trump launched years ago regarding Hunter Biden's business dealings in Ukraine.... [The GOP's own star witness Jonathan] Turley said that he supported an impeachment inquiry but that the current evidence did not warrant articles of impeachment." The story has been updated. MB: I heard a clip of Raskin's saying, "No gun. No smoke." ~~~

     ~~~ Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "The first hearing in House Republicans' impeachment inquiry into President Biden featured their star witnesses testifying that they lacked proof that he committed impeachable offenses, multiple procedural skirmishes the G.O.P. majority nearly lost and, at times, nearly a dozen empty Republican seats. What it did not include was any new information about Mr. Biden's conduct -- or any support for Republicans' accusations that he had entered into corrupt overseas business deals.... 'I am not here today to even suggest that there was corruption, fraud or any wrongdoing,' said Bruce G. Dubinsky, a forensic accountant [and a GOP witness]. 'In my opinion, more information needs to be gathered and assessed before I would make such an assessment.'... As the hearing ended, [Oversight Committee chair Rep. James] Comer [R-Ky.] said he was authorizing subpoenas for the personal bank records of Hunter Biden and James Biden, the president's brother, and their affiliated companies.

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors on Thursday accused ... Donald J. Trump's lawyers of trying to employ an arcane law governing the use of classified material to 'intentionally derail' the timing of his trial on charges of mishandling national security documents and obstructing efforts to retrieve them.... In court papers filed to Judge Aileen M. Cannon..., the prosecutors accused Mr. Trump's legal team of seeking to delay by at least three months a crucial step in how the government intends to prepare the classified documents at the heart of the proceeding for review by the defense. That request for a delay, wrote one of the prosecutors, Jay I. Bratt, 'threatens to upend the entire schedule established by the court' and 'amounts to a motion to continue the May 20, 2024, trial date.'... In their filing, prosecutors said there were at least nine documents that were so sensitive they were not allowed to be stored in the SCIF in Florida and would be made available to Mr. Trump's lawyers only in Washington." The Guardian's story is here.

Isaac Arndorf of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump sharpened a stridently nationalist pitch for a general election rematch against President Biden, trading the GOP primary debate stage for a factory floor where he demanded union support for his vision of more aggressive state intervention in industrial policy."

~~~~~~~~~~

Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "With a government shutdown as few as four days away, the Biden administration has started to ration federal disaster aid, delaying the delivery of about $2.8 billion in grants so the money is available in the event of a crisis, according to state and federal officials and budget documents.... The last-minute move has allowed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to shore up its rapidly dwindling budget against the immediate threat of wildfires, hurricanes and other natural disasters as they arise, according to a senior agency official.... Over the past month, FEMA has paused at least $555 million for long-term recovery projects in Florida, including those related to Hurricane Ian last year. It has held back $101 million from Louisiana and another $74 million in California, according to the federal records, which reflect delays through Sept. 18." MB: Thanks, Kevin! Funny how your (probably very short-term) disaster relief comes before everybody else's. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Jacob Bogage, et al., of the Washington Post: "... the White House Office of Management and Budget told federal agencies Wednesday to be prepared to notify their employees of the status of government funding.... Those updates will occur Thursday morning, as part of the government's mandatory contingency process.... House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) rejected [the Senate's stopgap] measure, telling his conference in a closed-door meeting Wednesday morning that he would not put the Senate bill on the floor in its current form." The Hill's story on McCarthy's rejection of the Senate stopgap is here. ~~~

~~~ So House Wastes Time on Toothless Vituperative Measures. Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "The Republican-led House voted on Wednesday to reduce the salary of Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III to $1, as right-wing lawmakers tried to transform a Pentagon spending bill and a series of other funding measures into weapons to take aim at President Biden, his agenda and his top officials. There is little chance that Mr. Austin, the first Black defense secretary, will actually see his pay cut. The military spending bill is all but certain to die in the Senate, where it is expected to meet with bipartisan opposition. Three days before a government shutdown, House Republican leaders spent Wednesday adding the salary cut -- and a slew of other far-right proposals to handcuff the Biden administration -- to spending bills that have little chance of enactment. It was akin to a legislative tantrum driven by the hard right, whose members are helping push Congress toward a spending crisis." A related Politico story is here.

Sarah Fortinsky of the Hill: "House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) appeared unable to answer questions Wednesday when he was pressed repeatedly about how his new 'evidence' in his probe of President Biden proved any actual wrongdoing. In a tense exchange during a press conference purporting to reveal 'new evidence' of Biden's alleged use of political influence to help his son, Hunter, NBC correspondent Ryan Nobles asked Smith how the evidence, dated in August 2017, could prove Biden used any political influence when he was not a public official at the time.... The exchange came as House GOP members are preparing for the first hearing Thursday into the Biden impeachment inquiry. Smith, as head of the Ways and Means Committee, is in charge of one of the three committees spearheading the investigations." MB: Worth reading. Smith's ignorance + bluster is hilarious. Maybe they're having an impeachment inquiry because they want to ask what impeachment is. ~~~

~~~ Taking Care of (Trump's) Business. Stephen Collinson of CNN: "Republicans are about to deliver on the driving purpose of their House majority -- enacting Donald Trump's retribution. Trump's lieutenants will on Thursday formally open an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden that his supporters, smarting from their leader's own double impeachment, have been demanding since the current president took office. The first hearing is taking place with just three days to reach a spending deal to keep the government open. Rather than try to solve the crisis, hardline House Republicans are driving the country toward a shutdown that Trump ordered up on social media, insisting it will damage Biden, his potential general election rival.... Impeachment and a shutdown brinkmanship are separate issues, but they spring from the same causes. Both are bound up in the Republican House majority's devotion to Trump and his manipulation of the party to advance his ends. Trump thinks that Biden, rather than the GOP majority...." ~~~

     ~~~ The Impeachment Show Must Go On. Marie: BTW, the House Administration Committee (controlled by Republicans, of course) has declared that impeachment staff are "essential workers" and therefore will not be furloughed or go unpaid, whereas "non-essential" government workers, like, say, soldiers will not get their paychecks.

Tracey Tully, et al., of the New York Times: "Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to bribery charges, standing before a magistrate judge in Manhattan federal court, his wife, Nadine, seated nearby. About three hours earlier, the Menendezes had held hands as they pushed through a crowd of journalists and entered the courthouse without answering questions. A lone protester shouted 'Resign!' Ms. Menendez, 56, also entered a not-guilty plea for her role in the bribery conspiracy, which prosecutors said involved weapons sales and aid to the government of Egypt." MB: The number of Democratic senators who have called for Menendez to resign stands at 30 as of early Wednesday afternoon, according to on-air reporting. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Ken Dilanian & Frank Thorp of NBC News: "Sen. Robert Menendez ... singlehandedly blocked passage of bipartisan legislation in 2020 that would have strengthened the law regulating foreign influence and lobbying in Washington, Senate records show. The proposed Foreign Agents Disclosure and Registration Enhancement Act grew out of widespread concerns that the current law regulating foreign lobbying had seldom been enforced, and that foreign influence campaigns had successfully infiltrated American politics. Strengthening the law had drawn support from Democrats and Republicans on key committees. In December 2020, after a Republican senator asked for unanimous consent to bring the bill to the Senate floor for a vote, Menendez stood and objected.... The bill had significant support from key Democrats.... Three years later, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, known as FARA, has not been updated." (Also linked yesterday.)

Robert Jimison of the New York Times: "After a brief departure from tradition that was tailored for Senator John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat who pressed to vote and preside in shorts and a hoodie rather than a business suit, the Senate on Wednesday formalized a longstanding -- but previously unofficial -- requirement that members show up to the chamber in business attire. The Senate late Wednesday unanimously approved a resolution that for the first time codified the suit-and-tie uniform. The action came a week and a half after Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat and the majority leader, announced a relaxing of the decades-old dress policy, prompting some senators including Mr. Fetterman to loosen their ties while others clutched their pearls. The new, enforceable standards, put forth by Senators Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, and Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, assert that 'business attire' is required for all members, specifying that men are expected to don a coat, tie and slacks or other long pants." A CBS News story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Marie: This is all stupid, but at least the Senate postponed enacting the frivolous until after it had passed stopgap spending measures to keep the government open, unlike the House which -- when it isn't taking time off -- fritters away valuable time on debating & passing DOA spending bills.

Aliza Chasen of CBS News/"60 Minutes": "Outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley has 'appropriate measures' to ensure his safety, he said this week in his first public response to shocking comments made by ... Donald Trump suggesting that the Army general is a traitor who deserves execution. Trump last week accused Milley of going behind his back to communicate with China during the final months of the Trump administration.... The chairman's spokesperson in 2021 said the general's calls to China were part of his regular communications with defense chiefs worldwide. The spokesperson described the calls as being crucial to reducing tensions between nations, as well as 'avoiding unintended consequences or conflict.... His calls with the Chinese and others in October and January were in keeping with these duties and responsibilities...," the spokesperson said in a written statement at the time. 'All calls from the chairman to his counterparts, including those reported, are staffed, coordinated and communicated with the Department of Defense and the interagency.'"

The Trials of Trump

Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "A federal judge overseeing ... Donald Trump's election interference case in Washington, D.C., had denied his request that she recuse herself from the case due to her prior comments in criminal cases against other Jan. 6 defendants. U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote in her opinion that her comments in other Jan. 6 cases, which Trump's team took issue with, 'reflect the information and arguments presented by the defense in each case.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "In a strongly worded order..., Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of Federal District Court in Washington, rejected claims by Mr. Trump's lawyers that she had shown bias against the former president in statements she made from the bench in two cases related to the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6, 2021. In the order, Judge Chutkan not only chided Mr. Trump's lawyers for putting words in her mouth, but she also asserted that the remarks did not betray any animus or unfairness toward Mr. Trump that would warrant the extraordinary step of removing her from the election interference case.... She also noted that an attempt to disqualify a judge from a case could be 'wrongfully deployed as a form of "judge shopping"' or used as 'a procedural weapon to harass opponents and delay proceedings.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Akhilleus put the ruling more succinctly: "Oh Donald ... message for you from Judge Chutkan ... 🖕"

Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: Donald "Trump could lose his grip on all three [of his New York City flagship] buildings after a state judge on Tuesday ruled that he had persistently committed fraud by inflating the value of his assets. The judge sided with New York's attorney general, Letitia James, who had brought a civil case against the former president. As a punishment, the judge, Arthur F. Engoron, effectively revoked Mr. Trump's licenses to operate those properties -- and potentially an even broader swath of the family business that Mr. Trump built over the last half-century. The ruling left much of his New York operation hanging in the balance. Mr. Trump is expected to appeal and has already sued Justice Engoron himself, who has been a thorn in the side of the Trump lawyers for more than a year.... In a Wednesday hearing, Mr. Trump's lawyers pleaded for clarity, asking Justice Engoron to explain exactly what the effect of his ruling would be."

Alex Henderson of AlterNet, republished by the Raw Story: "... Donald Trump has maintained that he did nothing wrong during his now-infamous early January 2021 phone conversation with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger -- a conservative Republican who has pushed back against Trump's false claims of a stolen election. Publicly, Trump has stuck with his claim that the call was 'perfect' and that he broke no laws when he asked Raffensperger to 'find' him votes. But ... privately..., Adam Rawnsley and Asawin Suebsaeng in an article published by Rolling Stone..., Trump has been furious with Raffensperger for making a recording of their call publicly available. And he wants to see his 'perfect' call excluded from being used as evidence. [He is] 'asking his attorneys to draw up proposals for how to suppress its use in the [Georgia] criminal case against him.... At Trump's urging, some of the former president's legal advisers have prepared arguments to try and suppress the call...,' [Rolling Stone reports]." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Since I can't access the Rolling Stone article, I don't know if the reporters cover this: "Georgia's wiretapping law is a 'one-party consent' law for purposes of making audio recordings of conversations." IOW, only one of the parties to the call must be aware of and consent to the call's being recorded. Same for Washington, D.C. Since Raffensperger was in Georgia and Trump was in D.C. when the call took place, it seems unlikely to me that a judge would disallow the call being played for a jury. Moreover, since Trump was aware that multiple people participated in or listening in on the call, I don't see how he could argue he had an "expectation of privacy."

Presidential Race 2024

Much Ado About Nothing: the Seven Dwarfs Debate. Maeve Reston, et al.,of the Washington Post: "Seven Republican presidential hopefuls, clamoring for attention as their time to overtake ... Donald Trump grows shorter, showed a new level of combativeness as they interrupted, disputed and at times insulted one another on the debate stage Wednesday night.... The debate descended into a shouting match at times, where it was impossible to hear what any one candidate was saying.... The GOP candidates spent far more of their time going after each other than the figure who holds a commanding lead in the polls." South Carolinians Tim Scott & Nikki Haley squabbled over curtains the Obama administration bought in 2016 for the official U.N. ambassador's residence. ~~~

     ~~~ Mike Pence Talks about Sex. Alexandra Ulmer of Reuters: "... former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie used a question about education to mention that Democratic President Joe Biden was 'sleeping with a member of the teachers' union' - a reference to his wife Jill Biden, a teacher. Building on that comment, Trump's former vice president, Mike Pence, said he had to admit that 'I've been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years' - a reference to his own wife, Karen Pence." MB: Okay, so a debate about curtains and men having sex with their wives. Riveting. ~~~

~~~ Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "It's probably time to acknowledge that presidential debates are pointless when the front-runner repeatedly refuses to show up.... The seven candidates on the stage [at the Reagan Presidential Library] talking over each other and repeating shopworn lines from their stump speeches. For most of the night, there was little by way of substantive engagement with each other or -- more important -- any explanation of why any of them would be a better alternative than the former president, who currently leads all of them by more than 40 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls.... The Trump campaign sent out an email blast declaring the debate to be 'boring and inconsequential,' and calling upon the Republican National Committee to 'immediately put an end' to any further ones so the party can train its energy on defeating Biden."

Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: &"Seeking more of the voters who paved his way to the White House in 2016..., Donald J. Trump rallied at a Michigan auto parts factory on Wednesday night, vying for the support of blue-collar workers one day after President Biden appeared on a picket line with striking United Automobile Workers. Mr. Biden on Tuesday affirmed his support for U.A.W. strikers' demands for a 40 percent pay raise. In his appearance at a nonunion factory on Wednesday, Mr. Trump repeatedly asked for the endorsement of the U.A.W. president, Shawn Fain -- calling him 'Shawn' -- but did not back any of the union's contract demands. 'Your head man, Shawn, he's a good man,' Mr. Trump told the crowd, though it was unclear if there were more than a handful of U.A.W. members present. 'But he's got to endorse Trump.'... Mr. Fain has been clear that the U.A.W. would never support Mr. Trump, who pursued many anti-union policies in office.... Mr. Trump was seeking to drive a wedge between rank-and-file workers and their leaders over the issue of electric vehicles, which he repeatedly attacked as an existential threat to American car companies and workers.... 'Get your union leaders to endorse me, and I'll take care of the rest,' Mr. Trump said.'...

"Before the former president took the stage, a few hundred people were seated on the floor of the factory, and at least one man in a red U.A.W T-shirt said he was a union member and voiced support for the strike. Two people holding 'Union Members for Trump' signs said they were not union members.... On Tuesday, as Mr. Biden became the first president of modern times to join a picket line, Mr. Trump issued a statement predicting that 'in three years there will be no autoworker jobs' if Mr. Biden's policies prevail. He hammered that same message in his address on Wednesday, accusing Mr. Biden of 'economic treason.'" MB: It's about time. Trump has been accusing all kinds of real patriots -- like Gen. Mark Milley, President Obama & former FBI Director Jim Comey -- of treason or of committing treasonous acts. I was beginning to think it was damned odd he didn't label President Biden treasonous. A CNN story is here. ~~~

~~~ Alex Gangitano of the Hill: "President Biden's reelection campaign called former President Trump's speech in Michigan 'incoherent' and said that workers aren't buying his attempts to woo them. 'Donald Trump's low-energy, incoherent "speech" at a non-union factory in Michigan was a pathetic, recycled attempt to feign support for working Americans. Americans have seen him try this before and they aren't buying it," Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said."

Marie: Hey, I found a doctor who says Trump is nuts. Okay, a Ph.D. kind of doctor, but still a doctor? No? ~~~

     ~~~ Robert Reich in AlterNet: "Seeking to balance Trump's criminal indictments against Biden's age is the ultimate false equivalence. Biden is old. But so is Trump. They're just three years apart. If Trump wins the presidency next year, he'll be the oldest person ever elected to the White House. But Trump is not facing nearly the same scrutiny for his age as is Biden. Yet Trump should be.... Biden is sane. Trump is nuts -- and his condition seems to be getting worse.... This should be the comparison, rather than the false equivalence of Biden's age with Trump's alleged criminality." MB: This is more-or-less what I wrote in a comment yesterday on the media's coverage of Trump's insane rants. ~~~

     ~~~ Trump Says He Won Every Presidential Race in the 21st Century. Amanda Marcotte of Salon: "To be sure, Trump was never playing with a full deck.... Lately, however, his brain functioning, as impossible as it may be to believe, seems even worse. He appears to believe he's won every presidential election in the last two decades, instead of that one electoral college-based win against Hillary Clinton in 2016. During a campaign stop in South Carolina, Trump spun out a whole story about defeating a famous military leader named 'Bush.' 'When I came here, everyone thought Bush was going to win,' he rambled, saying it was 'because Bush supposedly was a military person.... He got us into the, uh, he got us into the Middle East. How did that work out, right?'... Before bragging about besting two-term winner George W. Bush, Trump gave another speech boasting about his imaginary win against another two-termer, President Barack Obama. 'With Obama, we won an election that everyone said couldn't be won," he prattled on in a speech in Washington, D.C. last week.'" MB: And probably no one can count how many times Trump says he beat Joe Biden in 2020. Some may argue that Trump did not claim to win the 2000 presidential election, but just you wait and he'll soon tell you he beat Al Gore. Besides, technically, 2000 is the last year of the 20th century. ~~~

~~~ WSJ Warns Against Trump "Lunacy." Alex Henderson of AlterNet: "The Wall Street Journal's conservative editorial board aren't full-fledged Never Trumpers and have defended Trump in the past. But in a September 26 editorial, the board cite Trump's rants against [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark] Milley and NBC as prime examples of why he shouldn't receive the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. 'Donald Trump suggested the other day that Gen. Mark Milley, the nation's highest military officer, deserves execution -- as in death,' the WSJ board writes. 'He said NBC should be investigated for treason and that the FBI should raid the homes of Senate Democrats. Then, he accused President Biden of being manipulated by "the Fascists in the White House."' The board warns that these 'unhinged posts' are the type of 'lunacy' Republicans can expect to deal with if they nominate Trump in 2024." ~~~

~~~ Oh, as if you needed any more proof that Trump's voters are delusional ~~~

     ~~~ Alex Griffing of Mediaite: "A new poll released this week by the Deseret News found that former President Donald Trump [is] more identified as a 'person of faith' by Republican voters than any of his 2024 GOP rivals or even Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT).... "Only 23% of Republicans said Biden is a person of faith...,'..." MB: I should check with the Two Corinthians to see if they have any opinions on Trump's faith.


Choe Sang-Hun & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Pvt. Travis T. King, the American soldier who crossed into North Korea on July 18, was released into U.S. custody on Wednesday following weeks of diplomacy mediated by the Swedish government, according to senior U.S. administration officials. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the details of Private King's release as he was in transit to a U.S. military base, said he would be reunited with his family in the United States and given physical and mental health support after being held by the North Koreans for 70 days. His first stop after leaving North Korea was China, where U.S. officials were waiting for him. Private King then was put on a plane and flown to a U.S. military facility, though the officials declined identify it." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Natasha Bertrand, et al., of CNN: "US Army Private Travis King arrived back on United States soil Thursday after being returned to American custody weeks after he crossed into North Korea, a Defense Department official said. King flew in on a US military flight, landing at Kelly Field at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston around 1:30 a.m. ET, the official said."

Miranda Nazzaro of the Hill: "Elon Musk, the owner of X...-Twitter, said Wednesday he has made cuts to X's election integrity team, which seeks to prevent election interference and manipulation on the platform. Responding to reports of the cuts, Musk wrote on X, 'Oh you mean the "Election Integrity" Team that was undermining election integrity? Yeah, they're gone.' It was not immediately clear how many people were slashed from team.... The cuts come less than a month after X said it was expanding its safety and elections team to 'focus on combating manipulation, surfacing inauthentic accounts and closeby monitoring the platform for emerging threats.'" ~~~

~~~ Byron Kaye of Reuters: "Elon Musk's X...-Twitter, disabled a feature that let users report misinformation about elections, a research organisation said on Wednesday, throwing fresh concern about false claims spreading just before major U.S. and Australian votes. After introducing a feature in 2022 for users to report a post they considered misleading about politics, X in the past week removed the 'politics' category from its drop-down menu in every jurisdiction but the European Union, said the researcher Reset.Tech Australia."

Jaclyn Peiser of the Washington Post: "Target said Tuesday that it will close nine stores in urban areas across four states, citing increased violence related to theft and organized retail crime. By Oct. 21, three stores in Portland, Ore., two in Seattle, one in New York and three in the San Francisco-Oakland area will shut down. Retail crime at those locations has reached a level that threatens safety and 'business performance,' Target said.... Shoplifting, organized crime and violence have become significant concerns for regional and national retailers."

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Armenia. The Little Country that Couldn't. Francesca Abel of the Washington Post: "The leader of the self-declared Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh signed a decree Thursday to officially dissolve the breakaway state on Jan. 1, confirming its surrender to Azerbaijan following a failed 32-year quest for independence and international recognition.... A lightening military offensive by Azerbaijan last week forced the self-declared government of Nagorno-Karabakh to capitulate and agree to dismantle its armed forces. The advance of Azerbaijani forces also set off a mass exodus of the mountainous region's ethnic Armenian residents who say they fear genocide and, in any case, are unwilling to live under Azerbaijani rule."

Canada/Poland. Ellen Francis of the Washington Post: "A Polish government minister said this week he had 'taken steps' toward the possible extradition of Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Ukrainian veteran of a Waffen-SS unit who drew applause during the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Canada's Parliament. Anthony Rota, the speaker of the House of Commons, invited Hunka, a constituent in his Ontario legislative district, to the joint session of Parliament last week.... But Jewish groups later said Hunka had served with the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division, a unit of the Waffen-SS made up of ethnic Ukrainians.... Rota apologized for inviting Hunka to the event ... before announcing his resignation.... Poland's ambassador to Canada said a government minister launched a preliminary bid to establish whether Hunka is responsible for crimes committed in Poland as a basis for extraditing him."

News Ledes

New York Times: "A NASA astronaut safely returned to Earth on Wednesday after spending 371 days in space, a record in spaceflight for American astronauts. Frank Rubio of NASA and his crewmates, the Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, made a safe, parachute-assisted landing southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, at 7:17 a.m. Eastern time.... Mr. Rubio had expected to be gone only six months when he first embarked on his journey on the Russian Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan last September. His return was upended in December, after mission control found a coolant leak in the Soyuz spacecraft. The leak could have created dangerously hot temperatures for the crew on their return to Earth, so a different spacecraft had to be sent to the space station, delaying Mr. Rubio's return."

Maryland. CNN: "A convicted felon suspected of killing tech executive Pava LaPere in Baltimore this week has been arrested, ending a dayslong manhunt across the city, police said early Thursday. Jason Dean Billingsley was wanted on first-degree murder and other charges in connection with the death of LaPere, the 26-year-old CEO of Baltimore-based startup EcoMap Technologies, according to the >Baltimore Police Department."

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Tuesday
Sep262023

The Conversation -- September 27, 2023

Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "A federal judge overseeing ... Donald Trump's election interference case in Washington, D.C., had denied his request that she recuse herself from the case due to her prior comments in criminal cases against other Jan. 6 defendants. U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote in her opinion that her comments in other Jan. 6 cases, which Trump's team took issue with, 'reflect the information and arguments presented by the defense in each case.'"

Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "With a government shutdown as few as four days away, the Biden administration has started to ration federal disaster aid, delaying the delivery of about $2.8 billion in grants so the money is available in the event of a crisis, according to state and federal officials and budget documents.... The last-minute move has allowed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to shore up its rapidly dwindling budget against the immediate threat of wildfires, hurricanes and other natural disasters as they arise, according to a senior agency official.... Over the past month, FEMA has paused at least $555 million for long-term recovery projects in Florida, including those related to Hurricane Ian last year. It has held back $101 million from Louisiana and another $74 million in California, according to the federal records, which reflect delays through Sept. 18." MB: Thanks, Kevin! Funny how your (probably very short-term) disaster relief comes before everybody else's.

Tracey Tully, et al., of the New York Times: "Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to bribery charges, standing before a magistrate judge in Manhattan federal court, his wife, Nadine, seated nearby. About three hours earlier, the Menendezes had held hands as they pushed through a crowd of journalists and entered the courthouse without answering questions. A lone protester shouted 'Resign!' Ms. Menendez, 56, also entered a not-guilty plea for her role in the bribery conspiracy, which prosecutors said involved weapons sales and aid to the government of Egypt." MB: The number of Democratic senators who have called for Menendez to resign stands at 30 as of early Wednesday afternoon, according to on-air reporting. ~~~

~~~ Ken Dilanian & Frank Thorp of NBC News: "Sen. Robert Menendez ... singlehandedly blocked passage of bipartisan legislation in 2020 that would have strengthened the law regulating foreign influence and lobbying in Washington, Senate records show. The proposed Foreign Agents Disclosure and Registration Enhancement Act grew out of widespread concerns that the current law regulating foreign lobbying had seldom been enforced, and that foreign influence campaigns had successfully infiltrated American politics. Strengthening the law had drawn support from Democrats and Republicans on key committees. In December 2020, after a Republican senator asked for unanimous consent to bring the bill to the Senate floor for a vote, Menendez stood and objected.... The bill had significant support from key Democrats.... Three years later, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, known as FARA, has not been updated."

Choe Sang-Hun & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Pvt. Travis T. King, the American soldier who crossed into North Korea on July 18, was released into U.S. custody on Wednesday following weeks of diplomacy mediated by the Swedish government, according to senior U.S. administration officials. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the details of Private King's release as he was in transit to a U.S. military base, said he would be reunited with his family in the United States and given physical and mental health support after being held by the North Koreans for 70 days. His first stop after leaving North Korea was China, where U.S. officials were waiting for him. Private King then was put on a plane and flown to a U.S. military facility, though the officials declined identify it."

~~~~~~~~~~

     ~~~ Lauren Egan of Politico: "President Joe Biden on Tuesday became the first sitting president to walk a picket line with striking workers, vividly demonstrating his commitment to labor and its central role in his reelection campaign. The president, donning a blue hat with a United Auto Workers symbol, used a bull horn to speak to the crowd of union members dressed in red. He was flanked by United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain. 'The unions built the middle class. That's a fact. Let's keep going,' the president told the crowd. 'You deserve what you've earned and you've earned a hell of a lot more than you're getting paid now.' Biden's choice to show solidarity with striking auto workers at a time of great promise and peril for the labor movement represented a tectonic shift for an office historically known for breaking strikes, not supporting them." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: BTW, I heard on the teevee yesterday that Donald Trump will appear at a non-union shop today (as counter-programming to the GOP presidential* debate) and that his appearance there was arranged by an anti-labor organization. Nice. Trump is probably the most anti-labor president* since Ronald Reagan fired more than 11,000 air traffic controllers in 1981. That, at least, was an illegal strike, unlike the lawful UAW strike.

~~~ Uh, Forced Labor Is Not a Good Look During a Union Strike. Evan Halper of the Washington Post: "Ford Motor Co. is pausing plans to build a $3.5 billion electric vehicle battery plant in Marshall, Mich., as the company faces financial pressure from striking autoworkers and political pressure from lawmakers demanding it sever its ties to a Chinese firm collaborating on the plant. The automaker unveiled plans to build the plant in February, promising it would employ about 2,500 workers to make batteries for new and existing electric vehicles. Ford announced at the time that it would use technology from the Chinese firm Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited, or CATL, the larges battery maker in the world. But since unveiling those blueprints, Ford has become a focus of congressional investigators, who accuse CATL of doing business with mining firms in the Xinjiang region of China. Rampant forced labor in Xinjiang moved the United States to enact a law last year prohibiting import of any materials from there unless it can be proven they were not made with forced labor."

Steve Lohr of the New York Times: "The Biden administration plans to bring back open internet rules that were enacted during the Obama administration and then repealed by the Trump administration. In a speech on Tuesday, Jessica Rosenworcel, chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission, declared that the repeal in 2017 put the F.C.C. 'on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of the law, and the wrong side of the public.' The earlier open internet rules, known as net neutrality, prohibited broadband internet suppliers -- telecommunications and cable companies -- from blocking or slowing online services. It also banned the broadband companies from charging some content providers higher prices for priority treatment, or 'fast lanes' on the internet."

David McCabe of the New York Times: "The Federal Trade Commission and 17 states accused Amazon on Tuesday of illegally protecting a monopoly over swaths of online retail by squeezing merchants and favoring its own services, in the government's most significant challenge to the power of the e-commerce giant and one that could alter the way Americans shop online for everything from toilet paper to electronics. In a highly anticipated lawsuit, the F.T.C. and state attorneys general from New York and other states said that Amazon had stopped merchants on its platform from offering lower prices elsewhere and forced them to ship products with its logistics service if they wanted to be offered as part of its Prime subscription bundle. Those practices led to higher prices and a worse shopping experience for consumers, the agency and states said." NPR's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Michelle Lee & Ellen Francis of the Washington Post: "North Korea announced Wednesday that it has decided to deport Travis King, a U.S. soldier who crossed into the country in July, after determining he entered illegally.State media did not specify when or how King would be released.... The United States, which has no formal diplomatic relations with North Korea, has worked with Sweden to help secure King's return. Sweden has an embassy in Pyongyang, but its diplomats have not returned to North Korea since they were ordered to leave during the coronavirus pandemic."

Carl Hulse & Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "Senate Republicans and Democrats reached agreement on Tuesday on a stopgap spending plan that would head off a government shutdown on Sunday while providing billions in disaster relief and aid to Ukraine.... The legislation cleared its first procedural obstacle Tuesday night on a bipartisan vote of 77 to 19. It would keep government funding flowing through Nov. 17 to allow more time for negotiations over yearlong spending bills.... Senate leaders hoped to pass it by the end of the week and send it to the House in time to avert a shutdown now set to begin at midnight Saturday. But there was no guarantee that Speaker Kevin McCarthy would bring the legislation to the House floor for a vote, since some far-right Republicans have said they would try to remove him from his post if he did." ~~~

~~~ Jeff Stein, et al., of the Washington Post: "With days left before the government shuts down, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has embraced steep reductions to the U.S. safety net in an attempt to appease far-right Republican demands for lower spending. If McCarthy can win over conservatives and pass legislation funding the government, Republicans hope to have greater leverage in negotiations with the Democratic-controlled Senate and White House. But far-right votes have remained elusive, leading McCarthy to propose ever larger and still evolving spending cuts.... Hard-right lawmakers have warned that if McCarthy relies on Democratic votes to pass any fiscal bill, they would move swiftly to force him from the speakership.... But even if those bills were approved by the Senate, which they will not be, much of the government would still shut down because federal operations are funded by 12 different bills." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "Here's what you need to know about a government shutdown, and how it could affect you." (Also linked yesterday.)

Tracey Tully of the New York Times: "Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey is expected to appear in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday morning to be arraigned on federal bribery charges for the second time in eight years. Mr. Menendez, a Democrat, is accused of using his political clout to assist the government of Egypt and three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars, bars of gold bullion and a Mercedes-Benz convertible. Nadine Menendez, 56, the senator's wife of three years, is also expected to be arraigned, alongside her husband, in the federal court after being charged with participating in the yearslong bribery scheme."

Christopher Maag of the New York Times: "Senator Cory Booker called on Senator Robert Menendez, his fellow New Jersey Democrat, to resign Tuesday morning, ending days of silence after Mr. Menendez was indicted on bribery charges. As New Jersey's junior senator, Mr. Booker often has described Mr. Menendez, the senior senator, as a friend, ally and mentor. His decision to condemn Mr. Menendez, and to join the growing chorus of state and federal officials calling on him to step down, demonstrates the deepening crisis facing a senator who until last week had occupied one of the most powerful and secure positions in American politics.... A flood of Democrats, particularly those facing re-election next year in politically competitive states, issued statements calling on Mr. Menendez to step aside." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Early Tuesday afternoon, MSNBC reported that 14 U.S. senators had called for Menendez to resign. Update: Annie Karni of the New York Times reports on the "stampede of Senate Democrats" who are urging Bribe-Me Bob to relinquish his lucrative Senate seat. (Also linked yesterday.) Update 2: MSNBC reported on-air Tuesday night that 24 Democratic senators now have called for Menendez to resign. ~~~

~~~ Michael Luciano of Mediaite: Kevin McCarthy said Menendez should resign, uh, until CNN's Manu Raju reminded him that George Santos too had been indicted on federal criminal charges.

There were people running into the burning building to save the virtue of the Senate over a dress code, but when it comes to a stash of gold bars and 'wads of cash all over the house,' they're silent. It's confusing. -- Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) ~~~

~~~ Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "... here we are, four days after the Department of Justice gave us all a look at [Sen. Robert] Menendez's [D-N.J.] cash-stuffed jacket and one-kilo gold bars, and a united front of condemnation has yet to materialize.... [Menendez'] refusal to resign is a problem for Democrats both substantively and politically.... His continued tenure in the Senate is an embarrassment to the institution and to the Democratic Party, an embarrassment that will only grow more acute as his prosecution proceeds..., which is why the right-wing senator Tom Cotton [R] of Arkansas declared that Menendez should stay put. And while Menendez's indictment demonstrates the absurdity of Donald Trump's ranting that the Justice Department is rigged against Republicans, it also makes it harder for Democrats to keep the spotlight on Trump's baroque corruption.... The Senate's top Democratic leaders are so far standing behind him, with [Leader Chuck] Schumer (N.Y.) calling him a 'dedicated public servant' who 'is always fighting hard for the people of New Jersey.'"

Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "Wael Hana, an Egyptian American businessman who prosecutors say was the linchpin of a corrupt scheme that funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, was arrested at Kennedy International Airport Tuesday morning after he voluntarily flew to the United States from Egypt to face federal charges in Manhattan, his lawyer said. Mr. Hana pleaded not guilty late Tuesday afternoon before a federal magistrate judge, who ordered him released on a $5 million personal recognizance bond and strict conditions, including the surrender of his passport and the wearing of a GPS monitoring device."

All the Ex-President*'s Trials

** Biggest Loser, Biggest Liar Loses Big on Big Lies. Jonah Bromwich & Ben Protess of the New York Times: "The New York attorney general won a major victory in her civil case against Donald J. Trump on Tuesday when a New York judge determined that the former president fraudulently inflated the value of his assets to obtain favorable loans and insurance deals. The decision by Justice Arthur F. Engoron precedes a [MB: bench] trial that is scheduled to begin Monday, and will considerably smooth Attorney General Letitia James's path forward as she seeks a penalty of about $250 million. Justice Engoron's decision narrows the issues that will be heard, effectively deciding that the trial was not necessary to find that Mr. Trump was liable and that the core of Ms. James's case was valid. It represents a major blow to Mr. Trump.... In his order, Justice Engoron wrote scathingly about Mr. Trump's defenses, saying that the former president and the other defendants, including his two adult sons and his company, ignored reality when it suited their business needs.... The judge also levied sanctions on Mr. Trump's lawyers for making arguments that he previously rejected.... [The lawsuit] to sever the Trump family from leading the Trump Organization." The AP's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Maggie Haberman & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "... a ruling on Tuesday by a New York State judge that [Donald] Trump had committed fraud by inflating the value of his real estate holdings went to the heart of the identity that made him a national figure and launched his political career. By effectively branding him a cheat, the decision in the civil proceeding by Justice Arthur F. Engoron undermined Mr. Trump's relentlessly promoted narrative of himself as a master of the business world, the persona that he used to enmesh himself in the fabric of popular culture and that eventually gave him the stature and resources to reach the White House.... [Justice Arthur Engoron's] finding imperils both Mr. Trump's public image and his business empire. The former president now faces not only the prospect of having to pay $250 million in damages, but he could also lose properties like Trump Tower that are inextricably linked to his brand. Mr. Trump's lawyer in the case, Christopher M. Kise, called the ruling 'outrageous' and said the decision would be appealed." ~~~

~~~ Charlie Nash of Mediaite: "... Donald Trump lashed out in an all-caps rant on Tuesday after a New York judge ruled he had committed fraud. It's worth reading Trump's screed, which includes an all-caps paragraph, claiming, among other things, "I AM WORTH MUCH MORE THAN THE NUMBERS SHOWN ON MY FINANCIAL STATEMENTS." He also says, "THE COMPANY HAS HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN CASH, AND VERY LITTLE DEBT." MB: Unless he's had a real bonanza in the past couple of years and used it to pay down his debt, his claim about having "very little debt" is a colossal lie. According to an October 2021 Forbes story, Trump's company then had an estimated $1.3 billion in debt. ~~~

     ~~~ BTW, the NYT story by Haberman & Feuer linked above describes Trump's response to Justice Engoron's ruling like so: "Mr. Trump, in a lengthy post on his social media site, called the statements in the ruling about fraud 'ridiculous and untrue,' and said the decision was a political attack against him in the midst of the presidential campaign." Hardly does it justice.

Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Donald Trump's lawyers said Monday that a gag order proposed by prosecutors would unconstitutionally silence him during key months of the 2024 presidential campaign, urging a federal judge in Washington, D.C. to reject the proposed limits. In a 25-page filing that mirrored some of Trump's own heated political rhetoric, Trump's attorneys said the former president's attacks on potential witnesses, special counsel Jack Smith and even U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan herself are protected by the First Amendment and were not actual threats or incitement of attacks.... Trump has spent the days since prosecutors' gag order proposal went public assailing Smith for making the request. And over the weekend he unleashed a lengthy attack on Mark Milley, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is also a potential witness in both of Trump's pending federal criminal trials." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Of Milley, Trump wrote on his Twitter-clone site, "This guy turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States.... This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!'" Mark Esper, who was Trump's Secretary of Defense when Milley made one of those calls to China, said Monday he had directed Milley to make the call after he himself made a similar call to Chinese officials. Esper called Trump's remarks about Milley "intolerable." (Also linked yesterday.)

There Might Be a Reason Trump Went to That Gun Store. Tori Otten of the New Republic, republished by Yahoo! News: "During a campaign trip to South Carolina, Donald Trump took some time to visit the gun store that sold weapons to the racist Jacksonville, Florida, mass shooter.... The Jacksonville shooter shouldn't have been able to buy the guns in the first place. He was held in Florida state custody in 2017 for mental health issues, disqualifying him from owning a gun under a statute called the Baker Act.... Palmetto State Armory has openly embraced far-right ideology. In 2020, it began marketing its products using imagery and language associated with the 'boogaloo,' slang for racist violence and even a call for full-on race war. It has also come to mean war to topple the government.... You could argue that [Trump's] campaign stop is a kind of tacit statement. He put the spotlight on Palmetto State Armory, praised its inventory, and tried to offer it business...."

Marie: A story by Brett Meiselas of Meidas Touch linked in yesterday's Comments is titled, "Trump Chanted 'Hang Mike Pence' with the Crowd as He Watched on TV." But that title is highly misleading. Meiselas bases his unsupported assertion on an excerpt from Cassidy Hutchinson's newly-released book. According to the excerpt, on the afternoon of January 6, 2021, while the insurrection was in full swing, Hutchinson stood just outside the Oval Office dining room, where Donald Trump was watching the insurrection unfold on TV. The TV was blaring, Hutchinson wrote, and she strained to hear the conversation that was going on inside the dining room. "What is he [Trump] saying? I can't make it out. I hear him say 'hang' repeatedly. Hang? Hang? What's that about?" A few minutes later, when she returned to her office, she learned the insurrectionists "are calling for the vice president to be hanged." While we might speculate Trump was chanting "Hang Mike Pence" along with the mob, Hutchinson never claimed he did so. When a partisan makes an explosive claim, it's essential to evaluate the basis for the claim. In this case, there is no basis.

Adam Nichols of the Raw Story: "Donald Trump's co-defendant Ken Chesebro argued Tuesday that giving the former president 'less than two months' of legal advice doesn't constitute racketeering.... Under Georgia law, for a scheme to be considered racketeering, it needs to have continued for a substantial amount of time.... 'Mr. Chesebro's total involvement in the matter lasted approximately six weeks,' lawyer Scott Grubman wrote." MB: Okay then. Forthwith, criminals must take their time in plotting unlawful schemes. And no bringing in a new gangster at the last minute.

Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "A conspiracy theorist convicted of felony Capitol riot charges told a federal judge at his sentencing Tuesday that he wanted to 'protect the Capitol' by 'arresting the traitors' on Jan. 6 before he was sentenced to more than four years in prison. Ed Badalian, of California, said at his sentencing Tuesday that he was 'frustrated' that officers protecting the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, 'did not join us in arresting the traitors,' referring to members of Congress who did not overturn the 2020 presidential election in Donald Trump's behalf." MB: "These are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand."


Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused Alabama's request to reinstate a congressional map drawn by Republican lawmakers that had only one majority-Black district, paving the way for a new map to be put in place before the 2024 election. Alabama's request to keep its map was the second time in under a year that it had asked the Supreme Court to affirm a limited role of race in establishing voting districts for federal elections in what amounted to a defiant repudiation of lower-court rulings. In the latest twist in the case, the lower court had found that the state had brazenly flouted its directive to create a second majority-Black district or something 'close to it.' The court's order gave no reasons, which is often the case when the justices decide on emergency applications. There were no public dissents. The ruling clears the way for a special master and court-appointed cartographer to create a new map. The special master in the case submitted three proposed maps on Monday, the deadline set by the three-judge federal district court. All three proposals included a second district where Black voters would have the opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice, according to a report filed by the special master." CNN's report is here. Thanks to Ken W. for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This strikes me as pretty amazing, inasmuch as the original decision was 5-4, and Alabama GOP legislators said they had "intelligence" that O'Kavanaugh would flip his vote and support them in a hearing on their latest unconstitutional map.

Graham Kates of CBS News: "Hunter Biden sued Rudy Giuliani and his former attorney Tuesday, claiming they hacked and manipulated data on an external hard drive associated with his laptop. Giuliani and the attorney, Robert Costello, have frequently acknowledged accessing the hard drive's data. The lawsuit accuses them of having 'dedicated an extraordinary amount of time and energy toward looking for, hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over data that they were given that was taken or stolen.'" Thanks to RAS for the link. (Also linked yesterday.)

Brooks Barnes of the New York Times: "After 148 days on strike, television and movie writers will begin returning to work on Wednesday. The Writers Guild of America, which represents 11,500 screenwriters, said on Tuesday that three internal boards had voted unanimously to end the strike and send a tentative contract with entertainment companies to members for ratification. The vote will start on Monday and end on Oct. 9. Members are expected to approve the three-year deal.... While not receiving everything it asked for, the union achieved major gains.... [But] much of Hollywood will stay at a standstill: Tens of thousands of actors remain on strike, and no talks between the actors' union, SAG-AFTRA, and the studios have been scheduled."

Presidential Race 2024. Darlene Superville of the AP:"The United Farm Workers on Tuesday announced its endorsement of President Joe Biden for reelection, saying that the Democrat has proven throughout his life to be an 'authentic champion' for workers and their families, regardless of race or national origin. The farm workers' union was co-founded by Cesar Chavez, the late grandfather of Julie Chavez Rodriguez, who[m] Biden named as his 2024 campaign manager. Her father, Arturo Rodriquez, is a past UFW president."

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Canada. Sammy Westfall & Amanda Coletta of the Washington Post: "The speaker of Canada's House of Commons [-- Anthony Rota --] resigned Tuesday amid mounting pressure from lawmakers across the political spectrum after he honored a Ukrainian veteran who fought in a Nazi unit during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's address to Parliament last week." MB: This was an extremely embarrassing international incident, but Rota's suggestion that he didn't know the old guy was a former Nazi seems credible on its face. However, it appears Canadians are more civilized and sensitive than we are, because even the leaders of our liberal-ish party think Bribe-Me Bob is a "dedicated public servant" who deserves to keep his title as the Honorable Gentleman from New Jersey.

Libya. Vivian Yee of the New York Times: "For years, the two aging dams [that broke during a flood two weeks ago] loomed in the mountains above the Libyan city of Derna, riddled with cracks and fissures, threatening the thousands of people living in the valley below. A Turkish company, Arsel Construction, was eventually hired by the Libyan government to upgrade the dams and build a new one. The work, Arsel said on its website at the time, was completed in 2012. By then, the government had paid millions of dollars to the Turkish contractor for preliminary work, according to a government assessment dated 2011. But Arsel left Libya in the turmoil of the 2011 popular revolt against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the country's longtime dictator. Neither dam was ever repaired, the assessment said, and no third dam ever materialized.... Why the dams went unfixed despite repeated warnings is key to understanding the muddy disaster that wrecked a storied city and traumatized a country. It also goes to the heart of the dysfunction and corruption that have consumed Libya ever since rebels overthrew Colonel el-Qaddafi."

News Ledes

Maryland. Washington Post: "After the CEO of a Baltimore tech start-up was found dead in her apartment with signs of blunt-force trauma to her head, police announced Tuesday that there's a citywide manhunt for a suspect who is considered armed and 'extremely dangerous.' Pava LaPere, 26, who founded EcoMap Technologies and was on this year's Forbes 30 Under 30 list for social impact, was found dead about 11:30 a.m. Monday, according to Baltimore police. Officers had responded to a missing-person call made shortly beforehand, and discovered that LaPere had suffered severe injuries to her head."

Virginia. News4 Washington, D.C.: "Authorities arrested a man who they say was minutes away from carrying out a mass shooting at a church in Northern Virginia on Sunday morning. Rui Jiang, 35, was taken into custody with a loaded gun and extra ammo at Park Valley Church in Haymarket. Authorities said he was on a mission to kill. 'This was a thwarted diabolical plot to kill churchgoers in Haymarket, Virginia .. and local law enforcement stopped it," Chief Kevin Davis of the Fairfax County Police Department said. '... The congregation was making their way into the church. He was in the vestibule of the church about to enter,' Davis said. 'So, minutes or seconds away.' Investigators said they were able to stop the potential massacre thanks to someone who saw troubling posts on Instagram and called police. Several posts showed Jiang pointing a firearm at pictures of churches, authorities said." ~~~

     ~~~ From the Washington Post story: "'I believe God had a hand on us,' the Rev. Barry White, the church's senior pastor, said Tuesday." MB: No, Barry, that wasn't god; it was Fairfax County police and an alert citizen.

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