February 26, 2023

Toluse Olorunnipa, et al., of the Washington Post: "This account of how a train derailment, one of about 1,000 each year in America, morphed into the latest front in the nation's culture wars is based on interviews with administration officials, lawmakers, rail safety experts, local residents, historians and environmental advocates.... Within hours [of the derailment,] officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Transportation Safety Board and other agencies arrived on-site.... The next day, [President] Biden called Mike DeWine, Ohio's Republican governor, to say the federal government was prepared to provide any additional assistance he might need. For more than a week, DeWine did not call back with such requests, saying the situation was under control.... [Dan] Tierney, [Gov. DeWine's] spokesman, said in an interview the Biden administration has supplied significant help. 'Did the agencies provide the appropriate response, and was the president and White House in touch with the governor frequently? The answers to those are yes,' Tierney said, adding that the EPA has been 'extremely responsive.' That is not the picture painted by some Republicans.... On Feb. 16, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) wrote a letter to Biden asking him to fire [Transportation Secretary Pete] Buttigieg.... Fox News host Tucker Carlson used his show to bring race into the discussion, decrying an alleged lack of urgency by the government for a blue-collar community with few people of color." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Like "But Her Emails!," this is a crisis manufactured by right-wing demagogues. If there are 1,000 derailments a year, Buttigieg and Biden (and whoever else supposed doesn't care about White people) can't show up for every one. They would be going to three a day. And when would they have time to go to the sites of natural disasters? Or mass shootings? Moreover, the crisis itself -- along with all the other derailments & industrial accidents -- are often in whole or in part the result of Republicans' antipathy toward regulating businesses. As for many of those climate-induced crises and mass shootings, these too are in part the result of Republican malfeasance. Think climate-change deniers & Second Amendment enthusiasts. So-called conservatives are the single greatest drag on our national well-being, resisting every response to natural and societal disasters while they're busy creating new ones. The perps' only response is to try to deflect blame to somebody else. ~~~

     ~~~ A related Guardian story, by Ed Pilkington & Nina Lakhani, is here. The Guardian's report is more direct than the Post's in blaming the right wing for the controversy: "Three weeks into the disaster, a new set of headlines has started to billow up from right-wing outlets and commentators. Now the tragedy of East Palestine has morphed into a racialized lament for the 'forgotten' people abandoned by the uncaring 'woke' Biden administration. For 'forgotten', read white. Leading the charge, as is so often the case with such white-America nativist fearmongering, is the Fox News star Tucker Carlson. 'East Palestine is overwhelmingly white, and it's politically conservative,' he said recently. 'That shouldn't be relevant, but it very much is.'... Then Carlson contrasted [the] hardship [of East Palestine white people] with what he called the 'favoured poor' who live in 'favoured cities' such as Detroit and Philadelphia -- a clear euphemism for urban centers, often led by Democratic mayors, with large Black populations.... The idea that the rail disaster should be viewed through a racial lens has spread like a toxin from Fox News, through right-wing news sites and social media, into the political realm. JD Vance, the first-term Republican US senator from Ohio, picked up the clarion call of the 'forgotten' Americans, calling the residents of East Palestine, pointedly, 'our voters'." ~~~

     ~~~ Carey Gillam of the Guardian: "A Guardian analysis of data collected by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and by non-profit groups that track chemical accidents in the US shows that accidental releases -- be they through train derailments, truck crashes, pipeline ruptures or industrial plant leaks and spills -- are happening consistently across the country. By one estimate these incidents are occurring, on average, every two days.... In the first seven weeks of 2023 alone, there were more than 30 incidents recorded by the Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters, roughly one every day and a half. Last year the coalition recorded 188, up from 177 in 2021.... 'What happened in East Palestine, this is a regular occurrence for communities living adjacent to chemical plants,' said [Mathy] Stanislaus[, an EPA administrator during the Obama administration]. 'They live in daily fear of an accident.' In all, roughly 200 million people are at regular risk, with many of them people of color, or otherwise disadvantaged communities, he said."

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "In the hands of Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito and other conservatives on the Supreme Court, the founding fathers are small-minded and provincial, unable to think beyond the narrowest possible interpretation of the words they wrote. Of course, we know this isn't true. A large part of the reason that so many Americans hold the framers in such high esteem is precisely that they were farsighted and creative in response to the challenge of building a new political order. They made egregious errors and terrible mistakes -- one of which almost doomed the Republic -- but they also built a Constitution sturdy enough to survive much longer than they thought the union would."

Thomas Floyd & Michael Cavna of the Washington Post: "Newspapers across the United States have pulled Scott Adams's long-running 'Dilbert' comic strip after the cartoonist called Black Americans a 'hate group' and said White people should 'get the hell away from' them. The Washington Post, the USA Today network of hundreds of newspapers, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Los Angeles Times and other publications announced they would stop publishing 'Dilbert' after Adams's racist rant on YouTube on Wednesday. Asked on Saturday how many newspapers still carried the strip -- a workplace satire he created in 1989 -- Adams told The Post: 'By Monday, around zero.' The once widely celebrated cartoonist ... has been entertaining extreme-right ideologies and conspiracy theories for several years...." An AP story is here.

Beyond the Beltway

Arizona. Yvonne Sanchez & Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: "Arizona's Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, is seeking a review of what her office alleges was 'likely unethical conduct' by the state's former attorney general, Mark Brnovich. A letter sent Friday from the governor's office to the State Bar of Arizona follows the disclosure on Wednesday of records showing that Brnovich, a Republican, withheld findings by his own investigators refuting claims of fraud in the 2020 election and mischaracterized his office's probe of voting in the state's largest county." The Hill's story is here.

Georgia. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times contrasts two Georgia politicians: Jimmy Carter & Marjorie Taylor Greene.... "Carter, a brainiac, is a former nuclear engineer with a soaring I.Q. Greene, a maniac, ranted to Tucker Carlson on Thursday about 'this war against Russia in Ukraine.'"

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al. The Washington Post's live briefing of developments Sunday in Russia's war on Ukraine is here: "Chinese officials were notably silent as most attendees at a gathering of Group of 20 finance ministers in India agreed to a statement strongly condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine. China and Russia refused to sign the document, which meant the two-day summit ended without its usual communique. U.S. officials have told The Washington Post that Beijing is considering providing the Kremlin with artillery shells, a move that could alter the war's trajectory in Moscow's favor.... An American veteran [Andrew Peters] fighting in Ukraine was killed in action on Feb. 16, his family told The Post.... Russian forces are making 'marginal territorial gains' around the front-line cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, in the eastern Donetsk region, according to the latest battleground report by the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank." ~~~

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

News Ledes

New York Times: After "snow, freezing rain and wind gusts of 30 to 40 miles per hour ... hammered the Upper Midwest overnight Wednesday..., [knocking out power lines...,] nearly 400,000 customers in Michigan remained without power as of Saturday evening, according to PowerOutage.us.... Michigan is one of the worst states for power reliability.... Michigan is also among the worst for recovery after an outage, usually taking about six hours on average, the report said."

New York Times: "As steady snowfall continued to present hazards in the mountains of Southern California on Saturday..., intense rains and powerful winds ... pounded Los Angeles and surrounding counties on Friday night and early Saturday produced significant flooding in urban areas, downed trees and threatened to cause mudslides. Multiple water rescues were conducted across counties because of rising waters...."

AP: "All five people aboard a medical transport flight, including a patient, were killed in a plane crash Friday night in a mountainous area [near Stagecoach] in northern Nevada.... Care Flight, which provides ambulance service by plane and helicopter, said the dead included the pilot, a flight nurse, a flight paramedic, a patient and a patient's family member.... The crash occurred amid a winter storm warning issued by the National Weather Service in Reno for large swaths of Nevada, including parts of Lyon County [where the crash occurred]."

February 25, 2023

Marie: If you recall, Reagan-appointed former judge Michael Luttig advised mike pence, at pence's request, about the limited Constitutional powers of the President of the Senate. Luttig's advice is largely what discouraged pence from pulling a Trump and trying to overturn the 2020 election & place himself back in office. Well, it looks as if the humorless Judge Luttig still is not amused: ~~~

~~~ Michael Luttig in a New York Times op-ed: "The former vice president should not want the embarrassing spectacle of the Supreme Court compelling him to appear before a grand jury in Washington just when he's starting his campaign for the presidency.... Injecting campaign-style politics into the criminal investigatory process with his rhetorical characterization of Mr. Smith's subpoena as a 'Biden D.O.J. subpoena,' Mr. Pence is trying to score points with voters.... But Jack Smith's subpoena was neither politically motivated nor designed to strengthen President Biden's political hand in 2024. Thus the jarring dissonance between the subpoena and Mr. Pence's characterization of it. It is Mr. Pence who has chosen to politicize the subpoena, not the D.O.J.... We can expect the federal courts to make short shrift of this 'Hail Mary' claim [that he is protected from questioning by the Congress's 'speech or debate' clause], and Mr. Pence doesn't have a chance in the world of winning his case in any federal court and avoiding testifying before the grand jury.... The only question now is not whether he will have to testify before the grand jury, but how soon." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: We should remember, BTW, that Luttig was among the few who stood up for American democracy in the face of a devastating national crisis. And as much as I mocked Dan Quayle over the years, so was he.

No Deed Goes Unpunished. Jordain Carney of Politico: "House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and former Senate Judiciary chairs Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sent letters on Friday to Robert Bauer & Cristina Rodríguez -- the two former co-chairs of the Supreme Court reform commission that released its final report in December 2021 -- requesting documents and communications.... [President] Biden formally formed the commission in April 2021 with the task of providing an 'analysis of the principal arguments' for and against reforming the Supreme Court, after facing months of pressure to embrace expanding the size of the Supreme Court.... While the final report included endorsements for some more modest ideas, like new codes of ethics and increased court transparency, it steered clear of endorsing topics like expansion and term limits, instead largely weighing the arguments made on both sides."

Margie Has a Dream. Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: You can probably tell, from the substance of Greene's comments, that this 'national divorce' [Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene envisions] is more paranoid fantasy than serious proposal. Even so, it rests on a set of ideas and tropes that are in wide circulation in the public at large.... There's the idea, underneath all this, that states are, or ought to be, the fundamental unit of representation in the American political system.... Although states play an important role in the American political system, they are not the autonomous, nearly independent units of either Representative Greene's imagination or the folk civics that shapes political understanding for tens of millions of Americans.... A 'national divorce' is possible only if the states represent singular political communities. But they don't."

The Media Revolt. Anumita Kaur of the Washington Post: "Scores of news organizations -- including The Washington Post -- on Friday demanded congressional leaders release a trove of surveillance footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that the House speaker provided exclusively to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has downplayed the violence. Attorney Charles Tobin sent a letter [to Speaker Kevin McCarthy] on behalf of CBS News, CNN, Politico, ProPublica, ABC, Axios, Advance, Scripps, the Los Angeles Times and Gannett.... 'Without full public access to the complete historical record, there is concern that an ideologically-based narrative of an already polarizing event will take hold in the public consciousness, with destabilizing risks to the legitimacy of Congress, the Capitol Police, and the various federal investigations and prosecutions of Jan. 6 crimes,' the letter stated.... Carlson has repeatedly cast doubt on official accounts of what happened on Jan. 6 and has claimed it was a 'false flag' operation." The CBS News story is here.

Here's an update to a story linked here yesterday: ~~~

~~~ Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The chief judge of the federal district court in Washington, D.C., secretly rejected Rep. Scott Perry's bid to shield more than 2,000 messages relevant to Justice Department investigators probing efforts by Donald Trump to subvert the 2020 election, according to newly unsealed court filings. U.S. District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell unsealed her extraordinary Dec. 28 decision on Friday evening, determining that the 'powerful public interest' in seeing the previously secret opinion outweighed the need for continued secrecy.... Howell said Perry had taken an 'astonishing view' of his ['speech or debate' clause] immunity that would effectively put members of Congress above the law and free of political consequences for their actions. She ordered him to disclose 2,055 of the documents he sought to withhold -- including all 960 of his contacts with members of the executive branch, which she said are entitled to no constitutional protection at all. Some 161 items, she said, were proper to withhold.... Last month, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to stay Howell's ruling. On Thursday, those judges heard both public and private arguments about the dispute. The stay remains in place as the appeals court considers whether to leave Howell's ruling in place, set it aside or modify it in some way. The judges -- Karen Henderson, Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao -- appeared skeptical of the Justice Department's position and the breadth of Howell's ruling, although they discussed her stance only in broad strokes...." ~~~

     ~~~ Howell's opinion is here. MB: Bush I appointed Henderson; Trump appointed Katsas & Rao.

Jacqueline Sweet of Politico: "George Santos lied to a Seattle judge about working for Goldman Sachs while speaking at a 2017 bail hearing for a 'family friend' who later pleaded guilty to fraud in an ATM skimming scheme, according to an audio recording of the proceeding and court records. 'So what do you do for work?' King County Superior Court Judge Sean O'Donnell asked Santos at the May 15, 2017 arraignment of defendant Gustavo Ribeiro Trelha. 'I am an aspiring politician and I work for Goldman Sachs,' Santos replied. 'You work for Goldman Sachs in New York?' the judge asked. 'Yup,' Santos responded.... A spokesperson for the bank told The New York Times in its original investigation into Santos' background that there was no record of him working there.... In a telephone interview, Trelha said Santos lied about their relationship, too. Trelha, through a translator, said he met Santos in the fall of 2016 on a Facebook group for Brazilians living in Orlando, Fla...." MB: Sweet does not make clear whether or not Santos was under oath when he lied to O'Donnell, but presuming that he was, we can add perjury to his growing list of (alleged!) crimes. ~~~

     ~~~ Update: According to the CBS News story, by Graham Kates, "Santos appears to address the court without being sworn in." Too bad. Perhaps it is a crime to lie to a judge or other official during a formal federal proceeding. Plus, Kates writies, "The newly uncovered recording of his court appearance was also a reminder of how little is known about his connection to a man at the center of a wide-ranging credit card fraud case that involved stealing peoples' ATM card information and delivering it to Brazilian accomplices. Santos has declined to answer questions about the case.... Santos was not charged in the case, nor was he a suspect."

~~~ Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: In an interview with Piers Morgan, Rep. George Santos (R-Liar) "offered some insight into [his] ... strategy for political survival -- and why it may resonate with some in the MAGA crowd. True story: Santos claims he is the victim. His lies are everybody else's fault -- honest! This politics of victimhood, of course, is the essence of Donald Trump (who could, and did, claim it was sunny when it was raining).... Like Trump, Santos claimed to be the victim of a 'witch hunt' by 'desperate journalists' who are 'not interested in covering the facts.'... Yet there was one thing Santos said that rang true to me. 'If the media put the equal amount of efforts and resources,' he said, 'on all 435 members of the House and 100 members of the Senate, I think the American people would have more clarity of who represents them in Congress.'... The vast majority of House members ... never get a proper vetting because the parties can't be bothered and local media has been decimated.... How many others faked their way to high office with bogus claims or have backgrounds and associations that wouldn't hold up to scrutiny in the light of day? Maybe that's why so many of Santos's Republican colleagues refuse to expel this fraud." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Those of you who remember the old Stephen Colbert Show, which aired on Comedy Central, will also recall his "Better Know a District" segments [WashPo link] where Colbert interviewed & mocked MOCs. While the questions were sometimes humorously facetious, they also often revealed what complete dunderheads our representatives were. Local TV media should be so helpful.

Sara Boboltz of the Huffington Post: "Former Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) attributed his decision to retire due to the long-term effects of COVID-19, telling local newspaper Tulsa World that certain symptoms were still affecting him day-to-day. Inhofe voted against multiple coronavirus aid packages meant to help Americans at the height of the pandemic, including the Families First Coronavirus Response Act approved overwhelmingly by 90 senators in March 2020, and the American Rescue Plan in March 2021."

A (Possibly Unintended) Consequence of Right-wing Racism. Erica Werner of the Washington Post: "The massive crush of layoffs washing through the United States tech sector is sparking panic among large numbers of immigrants, who are scrambling to stay employed or risk losing their right to live in this country. These workers, primarily Indian nationals, are in the country on temporary visas designed to help U.S. firms employ an exceptionally skilled and educated workforce. Many have been here for years, in some cases decades. But now that many have been laid off, their visas are set to expire in 60 days. They must leave the country unless they can find a new employer willing to navigate complex immigration rules and pay fees that can mount into thousands of dollars to hire them. The situation is becoming a crisis for families in the Silicon Valley and beyond, while exposing anew lawmakers' inability to fix the nation's immigration system, even on matters where there is broad agreement."

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "... good for John Montenegro Cruz, an Arizona [death-row inmate] convicted in 2005 of murdering a Tucson police officer, and good for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, who joined with the court's three liberals to grant Cruz a new sentencing hearing. But read the facts of Cruz's case, and a less cheery, more chilling, reaction seems called for: How can it be that Cruz's life was spared by only a bare majority? Four other conservatives, in a decision written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, would have stuck with a cramped rules-are-rules mentality to let an obviously unconstitutional death sentence stand." Read on. Justice Elena Kagan called Cruz's predicament "one that 'Kafka would have loved.'" MB: Yeah, Kafka & those Supremes who are all concerned about the lives of fetuses but not of us "born" people. Marcus suggests that those same Supremes lack "undamental humanity." She's got that right. If you are wondering about the ideas an AI right-wing robot would spout, check out Amy & Clarence & & Sam & Neil.

Pam Belluck of the New York Times: "The attorneys general of a dozen Democratic-controlled states sued the Food and Drug Administration on Friday, asking a judge to remove special restrictions that the federal agency has long applied to the first of two drugs used in medication abortion.... [At the same time,] a federal judge in Texas is expected to issue an order soon in a case filed by anti-abortion groups that seeks to overturn the F.D.A.'s approval of the same abortion pill, mifepristone, and have it taken off the market.... The judge, a Trump appointee who is politically conservative and wrote an article that was critical of Roe v. Wade, could issue an order effectively blocking access to mifepristone across the country. Such a ruling would immediately be appealed, but if it ultimately stands, it would have far-reaching implications, affecting states where abortion is legal, not just states where abortion is already restricted. The new lawsuit filed by the 12 states does not address the possible outcomes of the Texas case, but it requests that the judge's ruling in the Washington case include orders that would effectively contravene steps that might be imposed by the Texas judge."

News You Can Use. Christina Jewitt & Emily Anthes of the New York Times: "The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency authorization for the first over-the-counter, at-home combination flu and Covid test on Friday, just two days after the company that makes the test announced that it had filed for bankruptcy protection based, in part, on the agency's lengthy approval timeline. The single-use test works with a self-collected nasal swab and provides a result in about 30 minutes, according to the F.D.A. The test is meant to be used by people 14 and older, or by an adult collecting a sample from someone age 2 or older.... Lucira Health [-- the developer of the test --] did not immediately respond to questions about its manufacturing capacity or how much the test would cost consumers."

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Chris Quinn, Editor, [Cleveland] Plain Dealer: "Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, went on a racist rant this week on his Coffee with Scott Adams online video show, and we will no longer carry his comic strip in The Plain Dealer. This is not a difficult decision.... 'I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people,' he says in the video. He says a lot more in the video, mostly hateful and racist, all viewable on Youtube.... Last year, according to The Daily Beast, 77 newspapers published by Lee Enterprises dropped it after Adams introduced his first Black character, apparently to poke fun at 'woke' culture and the LGBTQ community. We are part of Advance Local, and the leaders in all Advance Local newsrooms independently have made the same decision we did to stop running the strip.... In recent years, The Daily Beast says, Adams had gained attention for publicly embracing ridiculous right-wing conspiracies." MB: I had to sign in via Google to read the editorial.

Presidential Race 2024

Darlene Superville of the AP: "U.S. first lady Jill Biden gave one of the clearest indications yet that President Joe Biden will run for a second term, telling The Associated Press in an exclusive interview [in Nairobi, Kenya,] on Friday that there's 'pretty much' nothing left to do but figure out the time and place for the announcement.... The president himself was asked about his wife's comments just hours later in an interview with ABC News, and laughed when told of her remarks, adding, 'God love her. Look, I meant what I said, I've got other things to finish before I get into a full-blown campaign.'"

Jonathan Allen & Ali Vitali of NBC News: "Former Vice President Mike Pence said Friday that he will make a decision 'by the spring' about whether to seek the presidency and suggested that he would pledge to support the eventual GOP nominee if that's a condition of participating in primary debates. 'If I'm a candidate, I'm sure I'll meet whatever the requirement is for debates,' Pence told NBC News in an exclusive interview. As for his timing, Pence said he has a little while before he has to make a decision. 'We're listening, we're reflecting, we're talking to firms,' Pence said, adding that 'by the spring, our family expects to have a very clear sense of our calling.'" More on pence linked under Ukraine, et al., below.

Beyond the Beltway

Illinois. All the Pretty White People. Matthew Chapman of the Raw Story: "A viral Tiktok video shows a [MB: presumably White] woman calling the police on a Black man for clearing the snow on the sidewalk running near her property, reported The Daily Beast on Friday. 'Gregory McAdory, who uploaded the video to TikTok on Feb. 18, said in an interview with The Daily Beast that he and his friend have a snow removal business in Rockford, Illinois,' reported Brooke Leigh Howard. 'He explained that on Feb. 17 they finished clearing his friend's father's driveway, then moved onto the sidewalk in front of the neighbor's house. That's when the neighbor came out and "bugged" up on them, threatening to call the police, he said. "When the police is called on people of my color, just to be on the safe side, I just say, 'Record,'" McAdory said.'... On the phone call with police, which Rockford officers confirmed was lodged with them at half past noon on February 17, she can be heard saying, 'These two guys are African American, and I don't get along with them.... They are making fun of me. See, they don't have no respect!'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I must say it irritates me when reporters describe an interaction between White people & minorities, & they don't identify the White person as White. We the readers are just supposed to assume that anyone who is a "person" is a "White person." "Other" people, however, are "Black" or "Asian" or "Hispanic." IMO, this does nearly as much to "otherize" people of color as does whatever bigotry the reports presume to highlight.

Montana. Matthew Chapman of the Raw Story: "A man from Kalispell has been arrested and charged with sending graphic death threats to Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), reported the Daily Montanan on Friday. 'Kevin Patrick Smith, 45, pleaded not guilty to an indictment filed on Feb. 22 charging him with two counts of threats to injure and murder a United States senator, the news release said,' said the report.... According to prosecutors, Smith left a series of threatening voice mail messages for Tester, and continued after FBI agents contacted him and warned him to stop. 'There is nothing I want more than to have you stand toe to toe with me.... I rip your head off. You die...,' Smith allegedly said in one message. 'I will never stop.... And I would love to destroy you and rip your (obscenity) head from your shoulders. That is no problem. Call that a threat. Send the FBI. I would love to (obscenity) kill you. I would love to see your FBI at my door. I would love to see something in the news.'"

South Carolina. Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs of the New York Times: "After five weeks of trial, the murder case against Alex Murdaugh narrowed on Friday to the question of what happened in a critical few minutes after the prominent South Carolina lawyer went down to his family's dog kennels where his wife and son were found shot to death later that night. On the second and final day of Mr. Murdaugh's crucial testimony in his own defense, prosecutors aggressively challenged him about those key minutes, showing that his new account of his movements that night -- offered this week after more than 20 months of denying he was at the kennels at all -- is difficult to reconcile with the timeline of the murders. Armed with telephone calls, texts, videos, car navigation data and cellphone step counts, the lead prosecutor, Creighton Waters, showed that Mr. Murdaugh would have had to have left the kennels and returned to the house a short distance away only minutes before the killings -- despite his claims that he had heard no gunshots. [Waters] emphasized that Mr. Murdaugh had not admitted to being at the kennels until the crucial video, shot by his son Paul that night, emerged in court."

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al.

The New York Times' live updates of developments Saturday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefing for Saturday is here: "President Biden ruled out sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine 'for now,' saying the U.S. military deemed other military support more crucial at this stage. Kyiv has ramped up pleas for fighter jets since the United States and European countries pledged to send heavy tanks, but as Ukraine's allies rallied to mark one year of war, Biden told ABC News that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky 'doesn't need F-16s now.'... Zelensky described Feb. 24, 2022 as 'the hardest day of our modern history,' in a news conference marking one year since the Russian invasion....

"Poland delivered four Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine on the first anniversary, officials said, with Ukrainians troops having begun training in Germany.... Russian forces carried out more than a dozen airstrikes targeting Ukraine's east and south, the country's Defense Ministry said Friday on Telegram.... Marches, vigils and other actions against the war were held Friday around the world, including outside Russian embassies in cities such as London and Berlin.... Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) urged the United States and its allies to renew their resolve to help Ukraine, tacitly pushing back against members of his party who have become loudly skeptical of Ukraine's fight as the conflict passes the one-year mark.... The global watchdog for money laundering and terrorism financing has suspended Russia from its membership. It was the first time the Financial Action Task Force has taken such action, according to a statement from the U.S. Treasury Department."

A dictator bent on rebuilding an empire will never erase the people's love of liberty. Brutality will never grind down the will of the free. And Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia. Never. -- President Joe Biden, in a statement ~~~

~~~ Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Biden marked the start of a second year of war in Europe on Friday by announcing billions of dollars in additional military aid for Ukraine, imposing more sanctions on those helping President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and delivering a grim warning about an alliance between Russia and Iran.... Mr. Biden joined the leaders of the other Group of 7 nations -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Britain-- in reaffirming his support for the beleaguered country and condemning Russia's invasion a year ago."

Jonathan Allen & Ali Vitali of NBC News:"Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday rebuked fellow Republicans who have given less-than-robust support for America's defense of Ukraine -- a group that includes potential presidential campaign rivals like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. 'I would say anyone that thinks that Vladimir Putin will stop at Ukraine is wrong,' Pence said in an exclusive interview with NBC News when asked about DeSantis' position on U.S. efforts to help repel Russia in Europe. The interview came moments after a Pence speech at the University of Texas on the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 'While some in my party have taken a somewhat different view, there can be no room in the leadership of the Republican Party for apologists for Putin,' Pence ... said without naming names in his speech. 'There can only be room for champions of freedom.'"

February 24, 2023

Marie: This is another of those days on which the news reminds me that most people are either nitwits or criminals, though some are both nitwits and criminals.

Mark Walker & Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "The crew of a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying toxic chemicals tried to slow the train moments before it derailed in the outskirts of East Palestine this month as an overheating wheel bearing set off an audible alarm on the train, an initial report from federal investigators found.... The crew then saw fire and smoke and reported a possible derailment to the dispatcher. Five of the derailed cars were carrying 115,580 gallons of vinyl chloride, a colorless hazardous gas. The report was released on Thursday as Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, visited East Palestine." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Sam Sweeney & Amanda Maile of ABC News: "Federal investigators on Thursday released a preliminary report into the derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio, earlier this month. Detailing the report at a Washington, D.C., news conference, chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said 'we know what derailed the train' and addressed the town's worried residents. 'I can tell you this much. This was 100% preventable. We call things accidents. There is no accident. Every single event that we investigate is preventable. So, our hearts are with you know that the NTSB has one goal and that is safety. And ensuring that this never happens again,' she said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ The NTSB's preliminary report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Carol Rosenberg of the New York Times: "The U.S. military released two brothers on Thursday who had been held as detainees in the war against terrorism for helping to operate safe houses where suspected operatives of Al Qaeda holed up after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The Pentagon said that Mohammed Ahmed Ghulam Rabbani, 53, and Abdul Rahim Ghulam Rabbani, 55, who were never charged with any crimes during 20 years in U.S. custody, were flown to Pakistan in an arrangement with authorities there. The brothers were captured by Pakistan's security services in Karachi in September 2002. They arrived at Guantánamo Bay in 2004 after being kept at a C.I.A.-run detention site in Afghanistan for about 550 days."

Alan Feuer & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to force former Vice President Mike Pence to testify fully in front of a grand jury investigating ... Donald J. Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, seeking to cut short any attempt by Mr. Trump to use executive privilege to shield Mr. Pence from answering questions, two people familiar with the matter said on Thursday. The request -- amounting to a pre-emptive motion to compel Mr. Pence's testimony -- came before the former vice president had even appeared in front of the grand jury, and before any privilege claims had actually been raised in court.... Last week, people close to Mr. Pence previewed his attempt to fight the grand jury subpoena by saying that the former vice president planned to argue that his role as the president of the Senate meant he was protected from legal scrutiny by the executive branch -- including the Justice Department -- under the Constitution's 'speech or debate' clause. That provision is intended to protect the separation of powers. But the special counsel's motion to compel Mr. Pence's testimony ... did not address ... [those arguments]. Rather, it focused on the issue of executive privilege...." The CBS News story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

(Dimwitted) Trump Aide Uploaded Classified Docs to Her Laptop During Height of Classified Docs Scandal. Hugo Lowell of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's lawyers found a box of White House schedules, including some that were marked classified, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in December because a junior aide to the former president had transported it from another office in Florida after the FBI completed its search of the property, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The former president does not appear to have played a direct role in the mishandling of the box, though he remains under investigation for the possible improper retention of national security documents and obstruction of justice.... The junior aide initially kept the box at a converted guest bungalow at Mar-a-Lago called the 'tennis cottage' after Trump left office, and she soon took it with her to a government-leased office in the Palm Beach area."

So then. DOJ was not satisfied it had retrieved all of the classified files in Trump's possession, so contractors conducted a third search at DOJ's request in early December 2022, during which they found the classified schedules. "A few weeks later, Trump's lawyers started exploring whether they could get a better understanding of the sensitivity of the small number of schedules marked as classified...." At that point, the aide helpfully piped up, :Why, sure, I have copies of all the documents right here on my laptop!: She said she downloaded them because former top Trump aide Molly Michael told her to do so. MB: You can't help but wonder just how dumb these Trump aides are.

Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "A three-judge federal appeals court panel wrestled Thursday with tangled questions about Congress' immunity from criminal inquiries -- and whether it might apply to efforts by Rep. Scott Perry to aid Donald Trump's bid to subvert the 2020 election. Two of the three D.C. Circuit judges hearing the case appeared highly skeptical of the Justice Department's narrow view of the Constitution's 'speech or debate' protection for lawmakers, but it was unclear whether that disagreement would translate into a ruling that denies investigators access to the contents of a cell phone they seized from the Republican congressman in August. The complex dispute has enormous implications for Congress itself and the scope of protection that lawmakers enjoy from the speech or debate clause, which the framers intended to protect members of the House and Senate from coercion or intimidation by the executive branch." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Thursday rejected requests from news organizations to unseal the scope of Donald Trump's legal efforts to prevent top aides from testifying before a grand jury as the Justice Department investigates efforts to overturn the 2020 election. While expected, the ruling by Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell of D.C. upholding grand jury secrecy rules deals a blow to long-standing efforts by journalists and historians to open such proceedings citing public interest in cases of historic importance. Politico and the New York Times had sought to unseal proceedings into what they called 'urgent matters of national significance' concerning Trump's attempt to prevent cooperation with the investigation into efforts to unlawfully interfere with the transfer of power from him to Joe Biden after the 2020 election." Politico's report is here.

Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Thursday ordered that ... Donald Trump and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray can be questioned under oath by attorneys for two former senior FBI employees who allege in separate lawsuits that they were illegally targeted for retribution after the FBI investigated Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election. The decision by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of Washington came in consolidated lawsuits against the FBI and Justice Department by former senior FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who exchanged politically charged text messages criticizing Trump while they were having an affair. Strzok seeks reinstatement and back pay over what he alleges was his unfair termination. Page alleges officials unlawfully released the trove of messages to reporters." Politico's report is here.

Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "Lawyers for ... Donald J. Trump said late Wednesday that details divulged this week by the forewoman of a special grand jury investigating election interference by Mr. Trump and his allies had 'poisoned' the Georgia inquiry. As of Thursday afternoon, however, the two lawyers had not filed any motions in court challenging the inquiry. Nor would they discuss what form such a challenge might take, saying only that they were weighing their options." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Barbara McQuade in an MSNBC opinion piece: "A blabbing grand jury threatens to upend the whole enterprise. At some point, impropriety by a grand jury could be grounds for a claim of violation of the due process rights of the accused. And a successful claim could taint anything that occurred afterward, requiring dismissal of any indictments and a complete do-over, so long as the statute of limitations has not yet run.... The rule in Georgia appears to be somewhat more lax [than federal rules of criminal procedure]. It requires only that grand jurors protect the secrecy of 'deliberations.' What's more, the judge overseeing the investigation did not prohibit members of the special grand jury from talking to the media so long as they did not reveal their deliberations.... But acknowledging that the grand jury had recommended indictments against more than a dozen people sounds awfully close to revealing deliberations." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I wonder where Emily is today. After speaking to every media outlet with a telephone or a camera on Wednesday, there was not a peep out of her Thursday. I'm guessing some official told her to STFU.

Ivana Saric of Axios: "Right-wing extremists committed every ideologically driven mass killing identified in the U.S. in 2022, with an 'unusually high' proportion perpetrated by white supremacists, according to a new report published Thursday. The high number of killings linked to white supremacists was 'primarily due to mass shootings,' the report released by the Anti-Defamation League found.... The report noted that 60% of the deaths stemming from extremist mass killings in 2022 came from two incidents: the racist mass shooting in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York and a mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs.... The number of mass killings linked to extremism in the U.S. in the past decade was at least three times higher than any decade since the 1970s, per the report."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Paul Farhi, et al., of the Washington Post: "The disclosure of emails and texts in which Fox News executives and personalities disparaged the same election conspiracies being floated on their shows has greatly increased the chances that a defamation case against the network will succeed, legal experts say. Dominion Voting Systems included dozens of messages sent internally by Fox co-founder Rupert Murdoch and on-air stars such as Tucker Carlson in a brief made public last week in support of the voting technology company's $1.6 billion lawsuit against the network.... Some employees privately described [the false claims] as 'ludicrous' and 'mind blowingly nuts'-- but Fox kept airing them to keep its audience from changing channels.... Under New York Times v. Sullivan, a 1964 Supreme Court ruling that has guided libel and defamation claims for nearly 60 years, a plaintiff like Dominion must show that a defendant like Fox published false statements with 'actual malice' -- meaning that it was done 'with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.' Based on the messages revealed last week, 'I think that Dominion both will and should prevail,' said Laurence Tribe, a former Harvard law professor." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Lauren Herstik of the New York Times: "Harvey Weinstein, the movie producer whose treatment of women propelled the #MeToo movement in 2017, was sentenced on Thursday to 16 years in prison for committing sex crimes in Los Angeles County. The sentence in Los Angeles adds to the 23 years Mr. Weinstein is serving in New York after his conviction there in 2020. In December, jurors in Los Angeles Superior Court found Mr. Weinstein guilty on three counts: forcible rape, forcible oral copulation and sexual penetration by a foreign object. All three counts were related to one woman, referred to as Jane Doe 1 in court...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Robert Chiarito & Julia Jacobs of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Thursday sentenced R. Kelly to 20 years in prison for child sex crimes, after a jury found that he had produced three videos of himself sexually abusing his 14-year-old goddaughter. In a victory for the defense, the judge ruled that all but one year of the prison sentence would be served at the same time as a previous 30-year sentence that Mr. Kelly received after a jury in Brooklyn convicted him of racketeering and sex trafficking charges." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Presidential Race 2024. Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post: "Apparently no one told Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that if you're going to wade into the deep waters of foreign policy, you should at least know how to dog paddle.... Appearing this week on that GOP-friendly morning show ['Fox and Friends'], DeSantis tried to take a Trumpist 'America First' position about the war -- questioning the level of U.S. military and economic aid President Biden and Congress have given to Ukraine while there are problems that need to be addressed here at home. He ended up sounding weak, ill-informed and incoherent.... While what is left of the Republican establishment praised [President] Biden's bold gesture [and while the President was in a war zone], the ascendant faux-populist wing of the party complained about Biden supposedly ... caring more about Ukraine's borders than he cares about our own.... Perhaps the dumbest thing DeSantis said, though, was to imply that the war was basically no big deal." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: To be fair, all DeSantolini knows is what TuKKKer says, and TuKKKer is a Putin-loving traitor.

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. Jessica Schulberg of the Huffington Post: "Florida on Thursday executed 59-year-old Donald Dillbeck, who was sentenced to death 32 years ago by a non-unanimous jury under a death penalty statute that has since been found unconstitutional.... The timing of his execution appears to be part of a push by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to bring back death sentences by non-unanimous juries. DeSantis, who is expected to run for president, signed Dillbeck's death warrant last month on the same day that he floated changing state law to allow non-unanimous juries to impose death sentences. 'Maybe eight out of 12 have to agree or something,' DeSantis suggested at a Florida Sheriffs Association conference, just before ordering the execution of a man with that exact jury split.... Shortly after DeSantis' jury suggestion, Republican lawmakers filed a set of bills that would replace the unanimous jury requirement with an 8-4 threshold and allow a judge to overrule a jury to impose a death sentence. 'I'm not minimizing what [Dillbeck] did to people,' Florida capital defender Allison Miller told the Tallahassee Democrat, 'but he is most definitely a political pawn.'"

Minnesota. "Archie Bunker Without the Charm." David Moye of the Huffington Post: "A Minnesota state senator is getting criticized after a speech where he claimed the state's Republican Party isn't bigoted ― and included a slur against Polish people in the process. During a hearing about potential legislation that would allow undocumented immigrants to get ID cards and Class D driver's licenses, Sen. Mark Johnson (R), the Senate Minority Leader..., [said] 'We're not calling groups any names.... Doesn't matter what your race, your color, your creed, Norwegian, Polack, Somalian, you name it..., and yet when we bring those concerns up on this floor, tonight we were called white national racists.'..." MB: Can't imagine why.

South Carolina. Ben Brasch & Timothy Bella of the Washington Post: "Alex Murdaugh delivered emotional testimony in a South Carolina court on Thursday, with the disbarred lawyer saying he did not kill two family members as financial pressures mounted and his life unraveled... Murdaugh said in court that he suffered from 'paranoid thinking' when he admittedly lied to authorities ... about his whereabouts the night of the killings. When asked by his defense attorney why he continued to lie to authorities, Murdaugh claimed he had no other choice. 'Oh, what a tangled web we weave,' Murdaugh testified. 'Once I told a lie [that] I told my family, I had to keep lying.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs of the New York Times: "... on Thursday, [Alex] Murdaugh talked for hours. Taking the witness stand in his own murder trial, Mr. Murdaugh acknowledged that he had stolen from his law clients. He conceded that he had pocketed a check he was supposed to hand over to his law firm. And he admitted that he had lied to the police about his whereabouts on the night of the killings. Still, Mr. Murdaugh, who at 54 has spent decades representing clients in courtrooms like the one where he has been on trial for the past four weeks, was adamant that he had never harmed his family.... His most formidable challenge was to explain why he had claimed to be at the family house when a video taken by his son actually showed that he was with his wife, Maggie, 52, and younger son, Paul, 22, at the family dog kennels nearby, minutes before the murder took place. He lied, he said, because he feared that putting himself at the scene in the period before the murders would make the police consider him a suspect." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Uh, yeah. That's why most criminals lie about being at the scene of the crime.

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al. The Anniversary of an Atrocity

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

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefing for Friday is here: "Ukraine on Friday marks one year since Russia launched its punishing invasion, with leaders in Kyiv defiant against Moscow's push to overpower their nation. The full-scale attack, which started in the early hours of Feb. 24, 2022, violently ended decades of relative stability in Europe. Its ripple effects upended energy markets, increased global hunger and reinvigorated the NATO military alliance to face the Russian threat. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, hardened by a year in the trenches, has framed the conflict as a morally charged battle between autocracy and freedom, pledging that Ukrainian forces will fight on with the help of billions of dollars worth of Western arms."

AP: "China called for a cease-fire between Ukraine and Moscow and the opening of peace talks in a 12-point proposal to end the fighting that started one year ago. Beijing claims to have a neutral stance in the war, but China has also said it has a 'no limits friendship' with Russia and has refused to criticize its invasion of Ukraine, or even refer to it as an invasion. It has accused the West of provoking the conflict and 'fanning the flames' by providing Ukraine with defensive arms. The U.S. has also said China may be preparing to provide Russia with military aid, something Beijing says lacks evidence. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin has called the allegation 'nothing more than slander and smears.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Der Spiegel: "... the Russian military is engaged in negotiations with Chinese drone manufacturer Xi'an Bingo Intelligent Aviation Technology over the mass production of kamikaze drones for Russia. The revelations create a new urgency in the debate over possible Chinese military support for Russia. Bingo has reportedly agreed to manufacture and test 100 ZT-180 prototype drones before delivering them to the Russian Defense Ministry by April 2023. Military experts believe the ZT-180 is capable of carrying a 35- to 50 kilogram warhead. Sources believe that the design of the unmanned aerial vehicle could be similar to that of Iran's Shaheed 136 kamikaze drone. The Russian army has deployed hundreds of them in its attacks on Ukraine, where they used the Iranian drones to target residential buildings, power plants and district heating facilities, often resulting in civilian casualties."

News Lede

New York Times: "A prolonged winter storm that led to the death of at least one person and knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of customers in the Upper Midwest was continuing its assault on the region on Thursday, forecasters said. More than 900,000 customers were without power Thursday evening across Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin, according to PowerOutage.us, which compiles data from utilities. More than 815,000 of those outages were in Michigan, where significant ice had accumulated on trees and power lines. Wind gusts between 30 and 40 miles per hour were expected in the state on Thursday night, according to the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids."