February 6, 2023

Afternoon Update:

MSNBC reported on-air that according to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, the reason the Trump administration didn't know about Chinese balloons floating all over the place is that they weren't bothering to look for them. When Biden became president, he ordered the national security apparatus to get a handle on foreign government surveillance of the U.S.

About that Pet Charity. Michael Gold & Grace Ashford of the New York Times: George "Santos ran a pet charity that he claimed saved 2,500 animals. But several people questioned the way he handled funds that were raised to benefit the pets.... Few public records exist to corroborate [Mr. Santos' claims], and Friends of Pets United's operations appear to have centered on a Facebook group that is now defunct. Only traces of the organization remain on public social media posts and GoFundMe campaigns, and Mr. Santos's campaign biography no longer mentions it.... Several people said Mr. Santos assured them he was operating a registered nonprofit, but no records exist to confirm that.... They said the group rescued far fewer pets than the more than 2,500 animals that Mr. Santos claimed it saved. The group was not registered as a rescue organization in New York State, and there was no record that it was authorized to take dogs from New York City shelters. And several people took issue with how Mr. Santos handled his group's funds, saying they never received the thousands of dollars he raised on their behalf, often through GoFundMe." GoFundMe eventually kicked Mr. Santos off the site.

Rachel Weiner & Jasmine Hilton of the Washington Post: "A neo-Nazi leader recently released from prison has been arrested again and accused of plotting an attack on the Maryland power grid with a woman he met while incarcerated.Brandon Russell, 27, and Sarah Clendaniel, 34, are expected to make their first appearance Monday in Baltimore and Florida federal courts on a charge of conspiring to destroy an energy facility, which carries up to 20 years in prison.... According to prosecutors, their plan was to attack with gunfire five substations that serve the Baltimore area. The charges come after similar attacks on the power grid in North Carolina and Oregon that remain unsolved...." An ABC News story is here.

Eric Hananoki of Media Matters: "Eric Trump has been touring with antisemitic conspiracy theorist Scott McKay, who claims that many Jewish people are working 'under the cover of this religion called Judaism' to carry out a massive and evil conspiracy. In McKay's telling, these fraudulent Jewish people have perpetrated 9/11; set up banking systems 'in exchange for the child blood sacrifices'; and engineered presidential assassinations, among many other crimes. McKay has also praised Hitler as a like-minded ally. In his narrative, Jewish people supposedly 'created' and 'built' Hitler to profit from war, but 'Hitler broke away' from his Jewish creators and their evil banks by trying to create 'a banking system for the people and the free world.... Hitler was actually fighting the same people that we're trying to take down today,' McKay claimed last year.... McKay, who is also a QAnon conspiracy theorist, has begun to gain more prominence because of his featured speaking role on the ReAwaken America tour, which was founded by Clay Clark and Michael Flynn.... In addition to McKay, its 'featured speakers' include Charlie Kirk, Kash Patel, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Peter Navarro, Mike Lindell, and Alex Jones.... Donald Trump Jr. has also spoken on the tour."

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Helene Cooper & Edward Wong of the New York Times: "Navy divers were searching for debris from the Chinese spy balloon that a U.S. fighter jet shot down off the coast of South Carolina, defense officials said on Sunday.... The recovery effort, which is expected to take days, began not long after debris from the balloon hit the water on Saturday, a defense official said. He added that a Navy ship had arrived on the scene, and that other Navy and Coast Guard ships, which had been put on alert, had also been dispatched. The shooting down of the balloon, occurring at the end of a remarkable week of high-stakes international drama playing out in the open skies and behind closed doors, introduced a new phase in the increasingly tempestuous relationship between the United States and China...." ~~~

~~~ Dan Lamothe & Azi Paybarah of the Washington Post: "The Defense Department has notified Congress of several previous incursions of U.S. airspace by Chinese surveillance balloons, with earlier sightings near Texas, Florida, Hawaii and Guam, U.S. officials said Sunday, as Republicans criticized the Biden administration for allowing a suspected surveillance balloon to track across much of the United States over the last week. Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said in an interview that defense officials identified the locations in a discussion with lawmakers and staff on Saturday.... The defense officials said that several of those events occurred during the Trump administration, Waltz said. Officials had also said that during a news briefing with reporters on Saturday.... The administration official briefing [the members of Congress] said the other incidents had mostly been along or off the coast of the United States.... A senior administration official ... said Sunday that the previous occurrences were discovered after the Trump administration left office." A related CNN story is here. ~~~

~~~ Christian Shepherd of the Washington Post: "Chinese authorities have confirmed that an 'unmanned aircraft' currently flying over Latin America also originated in China, even as Beijing stepped up its protests against the U.S. military decision to shoot down another suspected spy balloon that traversed mainland United States last week. At a regular news briefing on Monday, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning said that the second balloon came also from China but claimed that it was used for civilian flight tests. 'Due to the impact of weather and limited self-steering ability, this aircraft seriously deviated from its scheduled course,' Mao said.... Separately on Monday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng lodged 'solemn representations' with the United States Embassy in Beijing over the use of an F-22 Raptor to shoot down the balloon that had slowly drifted across U.S. continental airspace over multiple days." ~~~

     ~~~ Emily Fujiyama of the AP: "'... the United States turned a deaf ear and insisted on indiscriminate use of force against the civilian airship that was about to leave the United States airspace, obviously overreacted and seriously violated the spirit of international law and international practice,' Xie [Feng] said."

A Booby Prize for Congressional Republicans. Hugo Lowell of the Guardian: "US officials have offered to provide a closed-door briefing to congressional leaders about their review of about 300 classified-marked documents retrieved from Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort last year, sources familiar with the matter said. The precise nature of the briefing remains unclear. The offer from the justice department and the Office of the Director for National Intelligence (ODNI) was described as unofficial on Sunday and no date had yet been set, though the briefing could come as soon as this week.... Republicans in Congress have seized on the presence of marked documents at [President] Biden's home in Delaware and a private office space in Washington, and have sought briefings as a means to pressure the president and draw inaccurate parallels with the Trump case." ~~~

     ~~~ Update. According to this AP report, by Nomaan Merchant and others, "U.S. officials have offered to brief congressional leaders on their investigation into the classified documents found at ... Donald Trump's Florida residence as well as President Joe Biden's "MB: What a disappointment. I was wanting Republican MOCs to have to sit through hours of a Trump vetting: "This one describes how to get around U.S. sub radar: Now, this one contains the nuclear codes; and so forth. Instead, they'll also get to listen to what Biden retained: Here's the recipe for Xi's favorite chicken potstickers."

Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "Ted Cruz has introduced a bill to limit US senators to two terms in office, thereby removing from Washington what he calls 'permanently entrenched politicians … totally unaccountable to the American people' On Sunday, however, he said he saw no problem with running for a third term himself. 'I've never said I'm going to unilaterally comply,' the Texas senator said.... Congressional term limits are a popular policy offering on the American right."

The Pandemic, Ctd. Ali Swenson & Angelo Fichera of the AP: There is "a growing list of hundreds of children, teens, athletes and celebrities whose unexpected deaths and injuries have been incorrectly blamed on COVID-19 shots. Using the hashtag #diedsuddenly, online conspiracy theorists have flooded social media with news reports, obituaries and GoFundMe pages in recent months, leaving grieving families to wrestle with the lies.... The campaign causes harm beyond just the internet, epidemiologist Dr. Katelyn Jetelina said. 'The real danger is that it ultimately leads to real world actions such as not vaccinating,' said Jetelina...."

Beyond the Beltway

North Carolina. GOP Justices Tee Up Voter Suppression All Over Again. Michael Wines of the New York Times: "An extraordinary pair of orders by North Carolina's Republican-controlled Supreme Court is highlighting how the partisan tug of war has pervaded the state's courts and, by extension, the nation's. On Friday, the court moved to rehear two major voting rights cases that it had previously decided, one striking down a gerrymandered map of State Senate districts and another nullifying new voter identification requirements. Such rehearings by the court are exceedingly rare. In fact, North Carolina's Supreme Court ordered as many rehearings on Friday as it has in the past three decades. What also made the rehearings exceptional was that the cases had been decided less than two months ago -- by a court that, at the time, contained four Democratic and three Republican justices. The court that voted to rehear the cases has a 5-to-2 Republican majority, courtesy of the party's sweep of state Supreme Court races in November. And the potential beneficiary of those reviews is the Republican leadership of the state General Assembly, which had both drawn the political map and enacted the voter ID law that the court struck down in December." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: They may each hold the title of "justice," but we're about to find out if "thug" and "racist" are more apt titles.

Way Beyond

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

News Ledes

Ohio. AP: "Officials monitoring the smoldering, tangled wreckage of a train derailment in northeastern Ohio urgently warned hundreds of nearby residents who had declined to evacuate to do so Sunday night, saying a rail car was at risk of a potential explosion that could launch deadly shrapnel as far as a mile. They warned of 'the potential of a catastrophic tanker failure' after a 'drastic temperature change' was observed in that rail car, according to a statement from Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine's office that said teams were working to prevent an explosion at the scene in East Palestine. It did not specify what was in that car or whether it was among those that had been carrying hazardous materials."

Turkey. New York Times: "Millions of people in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Israel were jolted from their beds early Monday after a deadly earthquake hit the region, collapsing buildings and raising the specter of a humanitarian crisis. More than 1,200 deaths were reported in Turkey and Syria, and the toll was expected to increase. The epicenter of the earthquake was near the city of Gaziantep in south central Turkey. Some survivors there fled their homes in the rain and took shelter in cars as the temperature hovered near freezing and the extent of the destruction became apparent."This is a liveblog. ~~~

     ~~~ CNN's live updates are here.

February 5, 2023

Helene Cooper & Edward Wong of the New York Times: "The United States shot down a Chinese spy balloon on Saturday that had spent the last week traversing the country, an explosive end to a drama that put a diplomatic crisis between the world's two great powers onto television screens in real time. The balloon, which spent five days traveling in a diagonal southeast route from Idaho to the Carolinas, had moved off the coast by midday Saturday and was shot down within moments of its arrival over the Atlantic Ocean.... That ... came at 2:39 p.m., Pentagon officials said, some six miles off the coast of South Carolina. The Federal Aviation Administration had paused departures and arrivals at airports in Wilmington, N.C., and in Myrtle Beach and Charleston in South Carolina. One of two F-22 fighter jets from Langley Air Force Base fired a Sidewinder air-to-air missile, downing the balloon, which was flying at an altitude of 60,000 to 65,000 feet.... The Pentagon said that Navy and Coast Guard personnel would conduct a recovery effort to retrieve the debris of the balloon, which had landed in relatively shallow water.... The Chinese foreign ministry declared its 'strong discontent and protest' about the United States' downing of the balloon."

     ~~~ For more details, see yesterday's NYT liveblog, linked here yesterday afternoon. CNN's report is here. ~~~

~~~ Matt Novak in Forbes: "Conservative commentators have insisted President Joe Biden should've ordered the balloon be shot down earlier and that a foreign balloon flying over U.S. territory never would've happened under ... Donald Trump.... 'I can nearly guarantee you that that balloon would not still be flying if we were still there,' Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of State under Trump, told Sean Hannity on Friday.... But it did happen under Trump, according to several new reports.... 'One top national security official from the administration of ... Donald Trump said none of the Chinese spy balloons were near sensitive sites or had payloads as large as this one appears to carry,' Bloomberg reported.... 'Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said Chinese surveillance balloons have been sighted on numerous occasions over the past five years in different parts of the Pacific, including near sensitive U.S. military installations in Hawaii,' the Associated Press reported on Saturday." ~~~

~~~ David Ignatius of the Washington Post spoke to "an authoritative Pentagon official" to get what he characterizes as the inside scoop on how the U.S. shot down the balloon. "The pod apparently fell into the Atlantic largely intact, the official said, and it should provide a useful opportunity to examine and reverse-engineer Chinese intelligence and communications systems.... By waiting until the balloon was over U.S. territorial waters, the Biden administration was able to maximize the likelihood that the pod could be recovered while minimizing the risk that Americans would be injured by falling debris.... As a military operation, the shoot-down was relatively simple." ~~~

~~~ Christian Shepherd of the Washington Post: "China accused the United States of an 'overreaction' when it used a fighter jet to shoot down a suspected surveillance balloon off the South Carolina coast, as nationalist Chinese commentators blamed runaway political pressure in Washington for escalating the incident." MB: China is likely wrong about the means of taking down the balloon, but the commentators are just as likely right about "runaway political pressure." Republicans are still whining about President Biden's handling of the spy balloon, still arguing the U.S. should have shot it down over land. But, IMO, Biden was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. Had anyone been killed by falling debris, House impeachment hearing would have begun tomorrow. Had a few pines trees or a wolf come down in a national park, the GOP would have become instant environmentalists, accusing Biden of desecrating our forests & wildlife; hearings to follow.

Grace Ashford & Michael Gold of the New York Times: "A prospective congressional aide has accused Representative George Santos of ethics violations and sexual harassment, according to a letter the man sent to the House Committee on Ethics and posted to Twitter on Friday. The man, Derek Myers, briefly worked in Mr. Santos's office before his job offer was rescinded earlier this week, according to the letter. Mr. Myers said in the letter that he was alone with Mr. Santos in his office on Jan. 25 when the congressman asked him whether he had a profile on Grindr, a popular gay dating app. Then, he said, Mr. Santos invited him to karaoke and touched his groin, assuring him that his husband was out of town. Mr. Myers's account could not be corroborated...."

Katie Glueck of the New York Times: "Upending decades of political tradition, the Democratic National Committee on Saturday approved a sweeping overhaul of the Democratic primary process, a critical step in President Biden's effort to transform the way the party picks its presidential nominees.... Amid forceful calls for a calendar that better reflects the racial diversity of the Democratic Party and the country -- and after Iowa's 2020 meltdown led to a major delay in results -- Democrats voted to endorse a proposal that starts the 2024 Democratic presidential primary circuit on Feb. 3 in South Carolina, the state that resuscitated Mr. Biden's once-flailing candidacy. New Hampshire and Nevada are scheduled to follow on Feb. 6, Georgia on Feb. 13 and then Michigan on Feb. 27.... Resistance to the proposal has been especially fierce in New Hampshire, where officials have vowed to hold the first primary anyway, whatever the consequences. New Hampshire, a small state where voters are accustomed to cornering candidates in diners and intimate town hall settings, has long held the first primary as a matter of state law." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Michael Rosenwald of the Washington Post: "Following World War II, thousands of Nazi collaborators masquerading as war refugees immigrated to the United States with new identities. They worked as farmers or butchers or assembly-line workers. Some had fenced-in backyards. Allan A. Ryan hunted them down. Mr. Ryan, who died Jan. 26 at 77, ran the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, a unit designated to find and expel anyone in the United States who had assisted the Nazis. During his tenure from 1980 to 1983, Mr. Ryan and his team followed leads around the world.... The presence of collaborators in the United States was ignored for years, Mr. Ryan maintained, because of antisemitism and general apathy toward the plight of Jews during the war.... But in the 1970s, children of Holocaust survivors became politically and socially active, helping move the country toward more public acknowledgment of Nazi atrocities. A new generation of lawmakers became concerned that Nazi collaborators were hiding in plain sight.... In 1979, they pushed the Justice Department to establish the new unit."

2024 Presidential Race. Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post: "The network of donors and activist groups led by conservative billionaire Charles Koch will oppose Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination, mounting a direct challenge to the former president's campaign to win back the White House. 'The best thing for the country would be to have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter,' Emily Seidel, chief executive of the network's flagship group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), wrote in a memo released publicly on Sunday.... The move marks the most notable example to date of an overt and coordinated effort from within conservative circles to stop Trump from winning the GOP nomination for a third straight presidential election." The New York Times story, by Maggie Haberman & others, is here.

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. Sara Boboltz of the Huffington Post: "Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration moved on Friday to strip an Orlando performing arts center of its liquor license in retaliation for hosting a holiday-themed drag show in December. A 27-page complaint filed by the state's Department of Business and Professional Regulation alleged that the Orlando Philharmonic Plaza Foundation 'knowingly welcomed' attendees under age 18 to watch 'A Drag Queen Christmas' against Florida law. The move comes as DeSantis, a hard-right Republican, continues to wage war on drag performers and smear members of the LGBTQ community with accusations of child abuse as he eyes a run for the White House. The civil complaint acknowledged that a sign at the venue, called The Plaza Live, warned adults about bringing minors with them but claimed that it 'was barely visible.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: It's about time for presidential* rivals Ron & Donald to weigh in on Rudy's performance here (and Donald's):

~~~ Joseph Contreras of the Guardian: "... Florida's rightwing Republican governor, Ron DeSantis -- and likely would-be presidential candidate for 2024 -- has launched a relentless campaign of attack on higher education in the state, seeking to appeal to his party's Trumpist base by positing that the state's colleges and universities are a bastion of liberal extremism that needs to be reformed. Last week DeSantis unveiled plans for a sweeping overhaul of Florida's state university system.... In one fell swoop that was breathtaking in its scope, dog-whistle racism and naked ambition, DeSantis began with the abolition of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, which had been mandated by a mostly Republican-appointed board of governors in the second half of 2020 when he was midway through his second year as governor.... DeSantis proposed a full-scale assault on the longstanding faculty tenure system by empowering university boards of trustees and presidents to review tenured faculty members 'at any time'.... The governor also wants to require schools to give priority to 'graduating students with degrees that lead to high-wage jobs, not degrees designed to further a political agenda'."

Way Beyond

Pakistan. Alan Cowell & Stephen Kinzer of the New York Times: "Pervez Musharraf, the onetime military ruler of a nuclear-armed Pakistan who promised critical support for Washington's campaign against Al Qaeda after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but faced growing resistance at home in a land seething with anti-Western passions, died Sunday. He was 79."

Ukraine, et al. The Washington Post's live briefing of developments Sunday in Russia's war on Ukraine is here. The Guardian's live updates for Sunday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here.

News Lede

Washington Post: "A fire continued to burn Saturday in Northeastern Ohio, after the derailment of a train carrying hazardous chemicals forced officials to order more than 1,500 residents to evacuate their homes. Twenty hours after the Friday night crash, the presence of the chemicals made it too risky for emergency responders to get close enough to put out the fire, local and federal officials said. Fifty cars derailed, 20 of which contained hazardous materials. Some cars contained vinyl chloride, a carcinogen, but federal officials said they couldn’t say whether vinyl chloride was on fire."

February 4, 2023

Afternoon Update:

Marie: Oh, Lordy, I might be the Oracle of Concord. This morning I wrote in a comment, "The military may be waiting to take China's balloon down after it reaches the Atlantic and in a manner they hope will allow them to retrieve it." And now I hear President Biden on the teevee saying that on Wednesday he ordered the Pentagon to shoot down the Chinese balloon as soon as it was safe to do so. MSNBC is reporting that the U.S. military shot down the balloon over U.S. airspace in the Atlantic and is now attempting to collect the debris. I'll get up a real story when one is available. Ah, here we go: ~~~

~~~ Peter Alexander of NBC News: "The U.S. downed the Chinese surveillance balloon off the Carolina coast on Saturday and will attempt to recover its debris, according to a U.S. official. Asked by a reporter if the U.S. will shoot down the balloon as he deplaned Air Force Once, President Joe Biden said earlier Saturday, 'We're gonna take care of it.' Residents in North Carolina and South Carolina reported seeing the spy balloon Saturday, and the Federal Aviation Administration paused departures and arrivals at three local airports due to 'a national security effort.'" MB: Eat your hearts out, Republicans. Oh, wait, you don't have hearts. ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times is liveblogging developments. Helene Cooper: "Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said that President Biden had told the Pentagon on Wednesday that the balloon could be brought down as soon as 'the mission could be accomplished without undue risk to American lives under the balloon's path.'" Zolan Kanno-Youngs: "President Biden told reporters on Saturday that the Pentagon did not want to injure anyone on the ground when shooting down the balloon. 'They decided that the best time to do that was when it got over water within our 12-mile limit,' he said. 'They successfully took it down and I want to compliment our aviators that did it.'"... Charlie Savage: "Republicans praised the military for shooting down the Chinese balloon while still criticizing President Biden for waiting so long to do it."... Helene Cooper: "A senior military official told reporters at the Pentagon that one of two F-22 fighter jets from Langley Air Force Base downed the balloon with a single missile at 2:39 p.m. about six miles off the South Carolina coast.... U.S. Navy and Coast Guard personnel will conduct a recovery effort to retrieve the debris of the Chinese spy balloon, which landed in 47 feet of water off the South Carolina coast, a senior Defense Department official said. He characterised the spot the balloon sank into the sea as 'relatively shallow water,' which, he said, would make its recovery easier." ~~~

Katie Glueck of the New York Times: "Upending decades of political tradition, the Democratic National Committee on Saturday approved a sweeping overhaul of the Democratic primary process, a critical step in President Biden's effort to transform the way the party picks its presidential nominees.... Amid forceful calls for a calendar that better reflects the racial diversity of the Democratic Party and the country -- and after Iowa's 2020 meltdown led to a major delay in results -- Democrats voted to endorse a proposal that starts the 2024 Democratic presidential primary circuit on Feb. 3 in South Carolina, the state that resuscitated Mr. Biden's once-flailing candidacy. New Hampshire and Nevada are scheduled to follow on Feb. 6, Georgia on Feb. 13 and then Michigan on Feb. 27.... Resistance to the proposal has been especially fierce in New Hampshire, where officials have vowed to hold the first primary anyway, whatever the consequences. New Hampshire, a small state where voters are accustomed to cornering candidates in diners and intimate town hall settings, has long held the first primary as a matter of state law."

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Zolan Kanno-Youngs & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Biden on Friday seized on what he called 'strikingly good news' about the economy, hailing the addition of a half-million jobs and capping a week of presidential swagger about the direction of the country.... Mr. Biden traveled around the country this week, pointing to the real-world impact of legislation he championed to spend billions of dollars on the nation's crumbling infrastructure and unabashedly taking credit for what he is betting will be a lasting turnaround as the Covid-19 pandemic wanes. In Philadelphia, Mr. Biden boasted about the new bridges that will be built and rusty lead pipes that will be replaced because of his efforts. And he praised the country's businesses for creating 12 million jobs since he took office." The reporters go on to outline some downsides of the President's rosy outlook. ~~~

~~ On Friday, President Biden spoke about the January jobs report:

Edward Wong & Chris Buckley of the New York Times: "Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on Friday postponed a trip to Beijing after a Chinese high-altitude balloon, described as a 'intelligence-gathering' airship by the Pentagon and a stray civilian device by China, was detected floating over the United States this week. The postponement was confirmed by State Department officials, citing the balloon.... On Friday morning Mr. Blinken told China's top foreign policy official, Wang Yi, that the balloon's course was a violation of sovereignty and 'unacceptable,' according to a State Department official. There is no new date for Mr. Blinken's trip to Beijing, the official added. Beijing had sought to defuse tensions with Washington on Friday over the balloon, expressing its regret over the incident, and saying the balloon was for civilian research and had 'deviated far from its planned course.'" (Also linked yesterday.) A CBS News story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Alexander Ward of Politico: "News outlets in Costa Rica reported Thursday that a similar-looking aircraft hovered above the country's western coast.... In a statement first given to Politico on Friday night, the Pentagon confirmed that the spherical flying object was another Chinese spy balloon. 'We are seeing reports of a balloon transiting Latin America. We now assess it is another Chinese surveillance balloon,' chief Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said. It remains unclear why China sent such vehicles above the United States and Costa Rica at the same time, especially since Beijing has space-based satellites that can surveil the same territory with more reliability." (Oh, it's not so unclear to James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee; see linked story below.)

Libby Cathey of ABC News: "... a growing number of Republicans called on the administration to take more action.... Montana GOP Rep. Ryan Zinke, who served as interior secretary under ... Donald Trump, called for the balloon to be shot down, with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., saying Trump would have done so already. But government officials have said they are concerned doing so would pose a risk to civilians below.... Arkansas GOP Sen. Tom Cotton tweeted for Biden to 'stop coddling and appeasing the Chinese communists.'... House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, meanwhile, has called for the congressional 'Gang of Eight' top members to be briefed. Such a meeting would bring together the top House and Senate leaders and the heads of the intelligence committees in each chamber.... Staff to the so-called 'Gang of Eight' received a classified briefing on the balloon by the administration Thursday afternoon, according to multiple congressional officials."

"The Chinese Foreign Ministry said earlier Friday that the balloon is civilian in nature and used for scientific research, 'mainly meteorological.' 'The airship is from China,' the foreign ministry said. 'Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course. The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace due to force majeure." ~~~

~~~ Akhilleus often informs us about brilliant policy proposals by the country's best political intellectuals. Once again last night, he alerted us to an easy solution to a national security threat: ~~~

     ~~~ David Moye of the Huffington Post: Donald Trump Jr. "advised Montana citizens to take matters into their own hands and shoot down the balloon themselves: 'If Joe Biden and his administration are too weak to do the obvious and shoot down an enemy surveillance balloon perhaps we just let the good people of Montana do their thing ... I imagine they have the capability and the resolve to do it all themselves.'" Some naysayers, like Helen Kennedy [and Akhilleus!] we a tad skeptical of the feasibility of Junior's plan: "It's 11 miles up, you blithering simpleton," Kennedy tweeted. Filip Van Overbeke excused Junior's possible miscalculation: "Which is almost as high as Junior on a regular weekday." AND, Akhilleus pointed out, "... if they could hit it, the object is large enough and loaded with enough gear to kill someone on the ground, but we all know no Trump cares about threats to human life as long as they get to scream about shooting something, or someone." Plus Alex Wagner pointed out on MSNBC that when Junior shared his idea, the balloon was over Missouri, not Montana. So longshot indeed. MB: Isn't it discouraging that some people are so quick to shoot down an idea so innovative that no one else even thought of it? ~~~

     ~~~ MEANWHILE. Jared Gans of the Hill: "Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee..., told Fox News's Harris Faulkner in an interview on Friday that ... the federal government 'obviously' does not know what is in the balloon.... 'Is it bioweapons in that balloon? Did that balloon take off from Wuhan?' Comer said, referring to the Chinese city where the COVID-19 virus was first discovered. 'We don't know anything about that balloon.'" MB: Yes, that balloon probably is wafting Covid viruses all over the U.S.A. -- like a swinging church thurible incensing a high mass. ~~~

~~~ It appears the real biological danger may be coming from the very U.S. government facilities the balloon is surveilling: ~~~

~~~ Meryl Kornfield of the Washington Post: "... a growing number of 'missileers' -- service members tasked with manning the nation's nuclear missile launch control centers -- have shared that they were diagnosed with cancer, and many have lymphoma. An unofficial, crowdsourced document created by a Space Force officer and obtained by The Washington Post totaled 30 cancer cases tied to people who worked at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana over 50 years. Fourteen had lymphoma, and four ... died, according to numbers tallied up last month. Most were men in their 30s and 40s, well below the median age of 67 for a non-Hodgkin's lymphoma diagnosis. An Air Force lieutenant colonel who commanded [Mark] Holmes argued in a Jan. 11 letter that Holmes's cancer was caused by the thousands of hours he spent in the subterranean missile bunkers at Malmstrom. The letter, written to help Holmes's wife prove his death was service-related so she could obtain survivor's benefits, pointed to radon exposure and a slew of other chemicals in the 1960s-era silos as potential causes of the cancer."

Matt Viser & others of the Washington Post profile Kathy Chung, a long-time Biden aide who in early 2017 oversaw the packing of then-Vice President Biden's papers destined for his office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. Chung has worked in political and government jobs since the early 1990s. Among those she worked with was Hunter Biden when they both had jobs at the Commerce Department in the 1990s, and he helped her get a job in 2012 with then-Vice President Biden. After Biden's lawyers found classified documents in his Penn Biden Center office last year, Chung "told agents that her job was not to review or curate the material, only to oversee the work of quickly packing it up.... She said she had no reason to believe any confidential presidential records remained within the office, as others had the job before her of preparing Biden's files to transfer to the National Archives, according to a person familiar with her account."

Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "Republicans on Friday issued their first subpoenas of the Biden administration since taking control of the House, demanding documents for an investigation into whether the government mistreated parents who were scrutinized after school officials endured threats and harassment over mask mandates and teaching about racism. Just two days after the Judiciary Committee was organized for the new Congress, Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and the panel's chairman, sent subpoenas to Merrick B. Garland, the attorney general, F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray and Miguel A. Cardona, the secretary of education, accusing them of withholding information about whether the government overreached in scrutinizing parents." MB: Sure, because it's so wrong to pick on loudmouthed bullies who harass school officials. ~~~

     ~~~ CNN's report is here.

Graham Kates of CBS News: "... Rep. George Santos, a Republican from New York..., may owe more than $3,400 in unpaid citations [for parking and traffic citations], according to records from New York City and Florida." Santos' (alleged!) moving violations include running red lights nine times and speeding in a school zone (at least four times) and speeding. MB: Say, maybe he was hurrying to get to the Spider-Man stage. ~~~

~~~ Song and Dance. Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: George Santos "told potential donors he was a producer on the notoriously ill-fated Spider-Man musical. Bloomberg News said: "The lead producer, Michael Cohl, denied Santos's involvement, saying through an assistant that [Santos] wasn't a producer on the musical. Santos's name also never appeared in the playbills for the show.... Bloomberg noted that during the time the musical was on Broadway, Santos went from living in Brazil to working at a call centre in Queens and founding a charity to raise money for sick animals that is now being investigated after a military veteran accused Santos of absconding with money raised for his dog."

The Party of Mass Murder. Amy Wang & John Wagner of the Washington Post: "By his own acknowledgment, Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (R-Ga.) has been handing out lapel pins shaped like assault rifles to fellow GOP lawmakers -- an exercise that comes in the wake of a spate of mass shootings and during a week intended to honor survivors of gun violence. Late Thursday, Clyde, who owns a gun store, tweeted a video about his efforts. 'I hear that this little pin that I've been giving out on the House floor has been triggering some of my Democratic colleagues,' he said in the video. 'Well, I give it out to remind people of the Second Amendment of the Constitution and how important it is in preserving our liberties.'... Perhaps more than other GOP lawmakers, Clyde has downplayed the severity of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, saying that parts of it were comparable to a 'normal tourist visit.'... Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) pointed out that GOP lawmakers were wearing the lapel pins during National Gun Violence Survivors Week." ~~~

     ~~~ Akhilleus pointed out in yesterday's thread that the new statement pins are far more authentic than the phony must-wear flag pins GOP lawmakers sport: "The assault rifle pins denote very real commitment to spreading gun violence across the entire country."

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump said late Thursday that he 'totally' disagrees with the assessment of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) that the Capitol Police officer who shot Ashli Babbitt during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol 'did his job.' 'I totally disagree with the Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy,' Trump wrote on ... his social media platform. 'ASHLI BABBITT WAS MURDERED!!!'... In his post, Trump characterized the officer as a 'Thug' and a 'MISFIT.'... McCarthy weighed in on the issue earlier Thursday when asked by a reporter if he agreed with a recent characterization by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) that Babbitt was 'murdered' by a Capitol Police officer while she was trying to breach the doors near the House chamber on Jan. 6." ~~~

      ~~~ Marie: Of course Trump claims the Capitol Police officer murdered Babbitt. Trump has to place the blame for Babbitt's death on somebody else so her heirs won't sue him for causing her death by fooling her with his lies.

William Rashbaum, et al., of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump grew his business, fortune and fame 'through a pattern of criminal activity,' according to a new book by a veteran prosecutor, who reveals that the Manhattan district attorney's office once considered charging the former president with racketeering, a law often used against the Mafia. The prosecutor, Mark F. Pomerantz, resigned in protest early last year after the newly elected district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, decided not to seek an indictment of Mr. Trump at that time.... For months..., Mr. Pomerantz had mapped out a wide-ranging possible case against the former president under the state racketeering law, according to the soon-to-be published book, 'People vs. Donald Trump.'" Mr. Pomerantz compared Mr. Trump to mob boss John Gotti. "A lawyer for Mr. Trump [Joe Tacopina] recently sent Mr. Pomerantz a letter threatening that, 'If you publish such a book and continue making defamatory statements against my clients, my office will aggressively pursue all legal remedies.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Shayna Jacobs of the Washington Post: "An association of New York state prosecutors said Friday that a former member of the Manhattan district attorney's office who investigated Donald Trump violated ethical standards by writing a book about the case during an ongoing criminal investigation. Former investigator Mark Pomerantz, whose book ... is scheduled for release Tuesday, violated professional standards important to justice matters, according to the statement by J. Anthony Jordan, the president of the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York.... The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has previously said Pomerantz may have broken a law barring prosecutors from disclosing grand jury material by writing the book. Bragg's office has an open grand jury presentation in the Trump case focusing on alleged hush money given to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during Trump's 2016 campaign...."

2016 Presidential Election. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump's 2016 campaign will pay $450,000 as part of a settlement of a long court fight over its use of nondisclosure agreements, according to documents filed on Friday in a New York federal court. The proposed settlement with Jessica Denson, a former campaign aide whom the campaign tried to silence as she claimed she was the target of abusive treatment and sexual discrimination by another campaign member, effectively invalidates the nondisclosure agreements that hundreds of officials from Mr. Trump's first presidential run signed."

Michael Rothfeld, et al., of the New York Times: "When Charles McGonigal, a former counterintelligence chief with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was accused of using his position to benefit an associate's business in Eastern Europe, it represented a startling turn for a high-ranking official who had been entrusted with access to some of the most sensitive secrets held by the American intelligence community. But it also set off a scramble within the bureau to assess the potential damage and determine whether any counterintelligence or law enforcement operations were compromised..., with the F.B.I.'s director, Christopher A. Wray, treating the case as a top priority." The article outlines some of McGonigal's (alleged!) skullduggery. (Also linked yesterday.)

Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "A Jan. 6 defendant's boast in an interview this week that he had no regrets about his role in the Capitol riot -- just days after he acknowledged his guilt in a federal courtroom -- may upend the man's efforts to resolve the criminal case against him. U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta issued an order Friday instructing defendant Thomas Adams Jr. and prosecutors to explain why the guilty findings the judge entered on Tuesday, following a brief 'stipulated' bench trial should not be overturned in light of Adams' comments to a reporter the following day. 'I wouldn't change anything I did,' Adams told the State Journal-Register Wednesday outside his home in Springfield, Ill. 'I didn't do anything. I still to this day, even though I had to admit guilt [in the stipulation], don't feel like I did what the charge is.' In a brief order Friday morning, Mehta gave both sides one week to provide reasons 'why the court should not vacate Defendan's convictions of guilt in light of his post-stipulated trial statements.'..." ~~~

     ~~~ Alanna Richer & Michael Kunzelman of the AP: "Appearing before a federal judge after pleading guilty to a felony charge in the deadly Capitol riot, former West Virginia lawmaker Derrick Evans expressed remorse for letting down his family and his community, saying he made a 'crucial mistake.' Less than a year later, Evans is portraying himself as a victim of a politically motivated prosecution as he runs to serve in the same building he stormed on Jan. 6, 2021. Evans is now calling the Justice Department's Jan. 6 prosecutions a 'miscarriage of justice' and describes himself on twitter as a 'J6 Patriot.'... Evans joins a series of Jan. 6 defendants who -- when up against possible prison time in court -- have expressed regret for joining the pro-Trump mob that rattled the foundations of American democracy only to strike a different tone or downplay the riot after receiving their punishment.... Some defendants have drawn ire from judges or the Justice Department for their inconsistent comments." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Let's see: they were fans of the liar-in-chief and they decided it would be a good idea to violently carry out a coup against the U.S. government based on his biggest lie ever. Are we all surprised that these people would perjure themselves to escape punishment or get a lighter sentence?

Kalley Huang & Peter Eavis of the New York Times: "A jury decided Friday that Elon Musk was not liable for losses suffered by investors after he posted messages on Twitter saying he had secured the funding to take Tesla private in 2018. Investors had sued Mr. Musk, Tesla and the company's board, arguing that his statements about his embryonic plan to take the electric car company private had devastating financial consequences for them. But in a federal civil trial in San Francisco over the last three weeks, lawyers for Tesla and Mr. Musk, the automaker's chief executive, have argued that he was such a successful businessman that he could have easily obtained financing to take Tesla private."

Beyond the Beltway

New Jersey. "A Little Black Woman Scares Me." Maya King of the New York Times: "... Bobbi Wilson, 9, took it upon herself to spend hours of her summer aiming to obliterate the invasive spotted lanternflies that were ravaging her northern New Jersey community.... She went out to the streets of her neighborhood in Caldwell, N.J., armed with a container with a mix of dish soap and water -- a recipe to disarm the bugs that she found on TikTok, and enhanced by adding apple cider vinegar.... [A few months into her project,] a neighbor complained about a 'little Black woman, walking and spraying stuff on the sidewalks and trees.... I don't know what the hell she's doing. Scares me though.'... The police questioned Bobbi and her mother in an episode that reflects the larger dialogue on racial profiling and the treatment of Black children.... [The upshot:] Yale University ... held a ceremony on Jan. 20 that recognized Bobbi's efforts to eradicate the lanternflies. Her insects will be added to the Peabody Museum's collection.... Princeton, the American Museum of Natural History and a host of other universities and state and local officials have recognized Bobbi for her lanternfly solution." (Also linked yesterday.)

Tennessee. Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs of the New York Times: "The two emergency medical technicians who first arrived to treat Tyre Nichols after he was severely beaten by Memphis police officers did not provide any care for 19 minutes after getting to the scene, a regulatory agency concluded on Friday as it voted to suspend their licenses. Members of the Tennessee Emergency Medical Services Board voted unanimously to suspend the licenses of the E.M.T.s, Robert Long and JaMichael Sandridge, who could be seen on video largely standing around as Mr. Nichols, 29, writhed in pain on the ground. On Friday evening, the Memphis Police Department also announced that it had fired a sixth officer, in addition to the five who had already been fired and charged with second-degree murder in Mr. Nichols's death. The sixth officer, Preston Hemphill, had fired his Taser at Mr. Nichols as he ran away from the police. After other officers caught up to Mr. Nichols, he was captured on his body camera video saying, 'I hope they stomp his ass.'"

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al.

The Washington Post's live briefing on developments Saturday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "Russia and Ukraine announced the release of nearly 180 troops in a prisoner swap on Saturday, the latest in a series of exchanges that have become a rare intersection of interests for the two countries. The Pentagon has revealed plans to send longer-range rocket artillery to Ukraine that will double the reach of its current munitions. Ukraine is set to receive the ground-launched, small diameter bombs (GLSDB) as part of the latest U.S. aid package, which is worth more than $2 billion.... The small diameter bombs promised by the U.S. have an approximate range of 95 miles.... Portugal said it plans to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, joining other European countries who have pledged to send the German-made tanks to the battlefield.... The United States will transfer seized assets of Russian oligarchs worth $5.4 million to Ukraine for rebuilding efforts, Andriy Kostin, Ukraine's prosecutor general, said Friday at a televised meeting.... Pete Reed, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and medical volunteer, was killed in an explosion in Bakhmut, according to his wife and Global Outreach Doctors, where he served as country director for Ukraine." ~~~

     ~~~ The Guardian's live updates for Saturday are here.

Matina Stevis-Gridneff of the New York Times: "European Union leaders met in Kyiv on Friday with President Volodymyr Zelensky and delivered a symbolic embrace of Ukraine as it fights for survival against Russia, but they withheld a prize Mr. Zelensky dearly wants, accelerated membership in the bloc.... E.U. leaders walked a careful line at a Friday news conference with Mr. Zelensky, validating Kyiv's aspiration to join and reiterating their commitment to supporting Ukraine, but gently applying the brakes on talk of fast-track membership."

U.K. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "An intruder wielding a crossbow who scaled a fence at Windsor Castle and threatened to kill Queen Elizabeth II on Christmas Day in 2021 pleaded guilty on Friday to treason, the first person to be convicted of such a charge in Britain in more than four decades.... In the Christmas Day incident, the intruder, Jaswant Singh Chail, 21, of Southampton, was confronted by the police at a gate that led to the queen's private quarters in the castle. Asked what he was doing there, he twice responded, 'I am here to kill the queen.'... The Metropolitan Police said that two officers spotted Mr. Chail, clad in black and wearing a metal mask, on the castle grounds at 8:10 on Christmas morning. One of the officers drew a Taser as they approached him. The officers discovered that Mr. Chail was carrying a crossbow, loaded with a bolt with the safety catch off." (Also linked yesterday.)

Marie: Yesterday's Comments, and the tail end of Thursday's Comments, were an object lesson in what really decent and caring people Reality Chex contributors are. It's an honor to serve you.

News Ledes

New York Times: "A new record for the coldest wind chill ever recorded, minus 108 degrees Fahrenheit, was set at the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire, the region's highest peak, on Friday. The previous record was minus 103 degrees. The temperature atop the mountain reached as low as minus 47 degrees in the early hours of Saturday, which tied the previous record from 1934."

New York Times: "People across the northeastern United States confronted the coldest temperatures seen in decades on Saturday, as an Arctic air mass passed over the region, accompanied by powerful winds that drove wind chills to dangerous levels. Frigid conditions demolished records set more than a century ago in Boston and Providence, where lows hit minus 10 and minus 9 degrees Fahrenheit early Saturday, the National Weather Service reported. Temperatures plunged to 4 degrees in New York City, minus 6 in Hartford, Conn., and minus 15 in Concord, N.H., with the wind making it feel much colder everywhere." This is part of a liveblog.