The Ledes

Monday, September 30, 2024

New York Times: “Kris Kristofferson, the singer and songwriter whose literary yet plain-spoken compositions infused country music with rarely heard candor and depth, and who later had a successful second career in movies, died at his home on Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday. He was 88.”

~~~ The New York Times highlights “twelve essential Kristofferson songs.”

The Wires
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The Ledes

Sunday, September 29, 2024

Washington Post: “Towns throughout western North Carolina ... were transformed overnight by ... [Hurricane Helene]. Muddy floodwaters lifted homes from their foundations. Landslides and overflowing rivers severed the only way in and out of small mountain communities. Rescuers said they were struggling to respond to the high number of emergency calls.... The death toll grew throughout the Southeast as the scope of Helene’s devastation came into clearer view. At least 49 people had been killed in five states — Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. By early counts, South Carolina suffered the greatest loss of life, registering at least 19 deaths.”

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Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

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

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

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

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

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

Click on photo to enlarge.

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

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

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

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

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Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Wednesday
Oct192022

October 20, 2022

Morning/Afternoon Update:

Nicholas Wu, et al., of Politico: "... Donald Trump has hired a firm to engage with the Jan. 6 select committee on its forthcoming subpoena of him.... A person familiar with the situation said [the Dhillon Law Group] is now being tasked with negotiating the terms of the Trump subpoena, which the committee voted to issue last week.... Harmeet Dhillon, the firm's managing partner, is a national Republican committeewoman from California. She has helmed litigation related to other conservative causes including pushing back on policies that shut down schools, churches and businesses during the Covid pandemic. Dhillon has also been critical of previous select committee and Justice Department grand jury subpoenas to her other clients."

Kyle Cheney & Nicholas Wu of Politico: "A log of text messages sent and received by former Sen. Kelly Loeffler [R-Ga.] during the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack is raising questions about potentially unauthorized access to investigative material relevant to probes of the 2020 election. The messages, reviewed by Politico, shed light on Loeffler's shifting political calculus as she weighed whether to lodge a challenge to the 2020 results at the urging of ... Donald Trump.... The 59-page log of 405 texts was obtained by media organizations via an anonymous sender who declined to reveal more details about the source of the messages, which begin on Nov. 8, 2020 and end Feb. 3, 2021. The document, which Politico is not publishing in full because it contains unauthenticated as well as authenticated conversations, focuses only on Loeffler's election-related correspondence." After Loeffler called for the resignation of of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, his wife Tricia Raffensperger wrote to Loeffler in an authenticated text, "... My family and I am being personally besieged by people threatening our lives because you didn't have the decency or good manners to come and talk to my husband with any questions you may have had. Instead you have put us in the eye of the storm."

Stacy Cowley of the New York Times: "A federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a leading financial regulator, has been unconstitutionally funded since its creation more than a decade ago, a decision that vacated a bureau rule on payday lending and cast doubt over a vast swath of its regulations. The consumer bureau is funded directly by the Federal Reserve, a structure that Congress created through the 2010 Dodd-Frank law to shield the independent agency from political whims. It has been a frequent target of ire from Republican lawmakers. A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals said that the funding method improperly ceded too much authority to the bureau and insulated it from being accountable to Congress and the American people."

Craig Whitlock & Nate Jones of the Washington Post: "Two retired U.S. admirals and three former U.S. Navy civilian leaders are playing critical but secretive roles as paid advisers to the government of Australia during its negotiations to acquire top-secret nuclear submarine technology from the United States and Britain. The Americans are among a group of former U.S. Navy officials whom the Australian government has hired as high-dollar consultants to help transform its fleet of ships and submarines, receiving contracts worth as much as $800,000 a person.... All told, six retired U.S. admirals have worked for the Australian government since 2015, including one who served for two years as Australia's deputy secretary of defense. In addition, a former U.S. secretary of the Navy has been a paid adviser to three successive Australian prime ministers. A Washington Post investigation found that the former U.S. Navy officials have benefited financially from a tangle of overlapping interests in their work for a longtime ally of the United States. Some of the retired admirals have worked for the Australian government while simultaneously consulting for U.S. shipbuilders and the U.S. Navy, including on classified programs."

U.K. Lettuce Outlasts Liz. Peter Walker, et al., of the Guardian: "Liz Truss has resigned as prime minister and will step down after a week-long emergency contest to find her successor, she has announced outside Downing Street. It follows a turbulent 45 days in office during which Truss's mini-budget crashed the markets, she lost two key ministers and shed the confidence of almost all her own MPs. Her statement came after she met Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs at Downing Street, followed by her deputy PM, Thérèse Coffey, and the party chair, Jake Berry." MB: In fairness to Liz, she is the first British PM since Winnie whose leadership" spanned the reigns of two rulers. ~~~

     ~~~ Mark Landler & Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "Prime Minister Liz Truss announced on Thursday that she would resign, just days after her new finance minister reversed virtually all of her planned tax cuts, sweeping away a free-market fiscal agenda that promised a radical policy shift for Britain but instead plunged the country into weeks of economic and political turmoil. 'I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected,' she said in brief remarks outside Downing Street." This is a liveblog. ~~~

     ~~~ Leo Sands of the Washington Post: "The question was all over British social media. Who would survive longer: the United Kingdom's prime minister, Liz Truss, or a wilting head of lettuce with a shelf life of just 10 days? By Thursday at lunch time, Britain had its answer. It was the lettuce.... [A head of iceberg lettuce] has done what many Machiavellian politicians have failed to achieve -- a takedown of a sitting prime minister." ~~~

Amanda Holpuch of the New York Times: "Anne Sacoolas, an American who fled Britain in 2019 [under diplomatic immunity] after her car fatally stuck a 19-year-old British motorcyclist in central England, pleaded guilty on Thursday to causing the death of the teenager, Harry Dunn, by careless driving, British prosecutors said. The British Crown Prosecution Service had previously charged Ms. Sacoolas, 45, with causing death by dangerous driving in December 2019, but she pleaded guilty to the lesser charge in a hearing in London on Thursday at the central criminal court of England and Wales. She appeared at the hearing in a video call. The police said that Ms. Sacoolas, a State Department employee, was driving on the wrong side of the road near the village of Croughton, in central England, on Aug. 27, 2019, when her car struck Mr. Dunn, who was riding a motorcycle on the correct side of the road. Mr. Dunn died at a hospital shortly after."

Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "... even before a government can be sworn in, [Silvio Berlusconi,] the 86-year-old billionaire media mogul has proved himself to be less of a stable, moderating force, than the source of renewed anxiety after the leak of surreptitiously recorded remarks revealed that he blamed Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for forcing President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to invade Ukraine. The remarks, complete with talk about a 'sweet letter' and vodka from Mr. Putin, raise concerns that the new right-wing government, led by Giorgia Meloni, herself a solid supporter of Ukraine, is wobblier than expected and could, if it ever actually comes together with another Putin-admiring partner, potentially lead Italy to undercut Europe's united front against Russia.... Within days, the hard-right leader Giorgia Meloni ... is expected to become prime minister. But she needs Mr. Berlusconi's support, and he has now become the largest, and most erratic, obstacle to forming a government."

~~~~~~~~~~

Judge: Trump Lied in Sworn Affadavits. Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "... Donald Trump signed legal documents describing evidence of election fraud that he knew were false, a federal judge indicated on Wednesday. U.S. District Court Judge David Carter wrote in an 18-page opinion that emails from attorney John Eastman, an architect of Trump's last-ditch effort to subvert the 2020 election, needed to be turned over to the Jan. 6 select committee. Those emails, Carter wrote, 'show that President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public.' The emails are among the files that Eastman had been declining to turn over to the committee, citing attorney-client privilege.... [Judge Carter] ruled that Eastman must disclose four [of those] emails to congressional investigators because they are evidence of a likely crime." After Eastman warned some of Trump's attorneys that allegations Trump had previously made were "not accurate," "Trump and his lawyers opted to file the federal complaint using the same numbers that Eastman conceded were inaccurate." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Luke Broadwater & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump signed a document swearing under oath that information in a Georgia lawsuit he filed challenging the results of the 2020 election was true even though his own lawyers had told him it was false, a federal judge wrote on Wednesday.... Judge [David] Carter wrote on Wednesday that the crime-fraud exception applied to a number of the emails related to Mr. Trump and [attorney John] Eastman's 'efforts to delay or disrupt the Jan. 6 vote' and 'their knowing misrepresentation of voter fraud numbers in Georgia when seeking to overturn the election results in federal court.'... In one [email], Mr. Trump's lawyers advised him that simply having a challenge to the election pending in front of the Supreme Court could be enough to delay the final tally of Electoral College votes from Georgia. 'This email,' Judge Carter wrote, 'read in context with other documents in this review, make clear that President Trump filed certain lawsuits not to obtain legal relief, but to disrupt or delay the Jan. 6 congressional proceedings through the courts.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: George Conway, appearing on CNN, said that the timing of the email exchange is crucial. Eastman urged Trump not to sign documents misrepresenting voter-fraud numbers in Georgia just a few days before Trump called Georgia Secretary of State [WashPo link] Brad Raffensperger (R) & pleaded with him to "find me 11,700 votes" because "we won the state, and we won it very substantially and easily." That is, Trump knew that everything he told Raffensperger about his big win in Georgia was a lie, including multiple claims like, "anywhere from 250 to 300,000 ballots were dropped mysteriously into the rolls," and "a couple of hundred thousand of forged signatures of people who have been forged." Yet Trump used these false (and absurd) claims to pressure Raffensperger to change votes for Joe Biden to votes for Trump. ~~~

     ~~~ As Politico notes, the false affidavits Trump signed were in a federal case, so Trump has managed to break both federal law -- by submitting false verifications to a federal court -- and Georgia state law -- by urging the Secretary of State to unlawfully change votes Trump knew were legal votes for Joe Biden.

Katherine Faulders of ABC News: "The Jan. 6 committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol has yet to formally subpoena ... Donald Trump, in part because investigators are still trying to find someone authorized to accept service of it, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News. Last week, the committee took the historic step of voting to subpoena the former president, with all nine members of the panel voting to approve the resolution to compel him to testify about the attack on the Capitol, which the committee argues was the violent culmination of Trump's many efforts to overturn the 2020 election. But multiple lawyers representing Trump have told committee investigators they aren't permitted to formally accept service of the subpoena on behalf of Trump...." At least three Trump lawyers have told committee investigators they don't have the authority to accept a subpoena for Trump.

Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "Three years after the writer E. Jean Carroll sued Donald J. Trump for defamation in New York, the former president submitted to a sworn deposition on Wednesday at Mar-a-Lago, his residence and private club in Florida. Ms. Carroll, in a 2019 book and excerpt in New York magazine, accused Mr. Trump of raping her in the mid-1990s at the department store Bergdorf Goodman. She said that he pushed her against a dressing room wall, pulled down her tights, opened his pants and forced himself upon her. Mr. Trump said that he had never met Ms. Carroll, that she was 'totally lying' and that she was not his 'type.'... [Recently] Mr. Trump blasted Ms. Carroll in a lengthy social media post, repeating the kind of statements that had prompted her to sue in the first place.... The trial is scheduled for Feb. 6." A CNN story is here.

Sarah Murray, et al., of CNN: "Donald Trump's legal team is weighing whether to allow federal agents to return to the former President's Florida residence, and potentially conduct a supervised search, to satisfy the Justice Department's demands that all sensitive government documents are returned, sources tell CNN.... In the throes of multiple legal battles and hoping to alleviate some of the pressure he is facing, Trump has recently signaled to aides and allies that he is open to a less adversarial approach toward the Justice Department.... The approach comes even as Trump continues to indulge legal theories that the records he took with him at the end of his presidency are his personal property...." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This doesn't make any sense. We've already seen photos of Trump staff at the airport bringing file boxes from Mar-a-Lardo to some undisclosed location in New York or New Jersey. We've already read reports that the FBI doesn't believe all the docs Trump stole are at Mar-a-Lardo. So how is a Trump-"supervised" FBI visit to the Florida residence supposed to satisfy the FBI & DOJ? No search, without considerable cooperation from Trump staff, family members & other co-conspirators, can begin to answer where Trump has stashed all the stuff he (allegedly) stole.

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump inquired whether a documentary filmmaker recording an interview with him last year was a 'good Jewish character,' described Persians as 'very good salesmen' and complained that Israeli Jews favored him more than Jews in the United States, a new clip released by the filmmaker shows.... The clip cuts off as Mr. Trump asks someone...: 'You Persian? Very smart. Be careful, they're very good salesmen.'... The video was recorded on May 20, 2021, and was provided to The New York Times by the documentary filmmaker, Alex Holder. It was filmed at an event at Mr. Trump's golf club in Bedminster, N.J., as he spoke with several people.... Mr. Holder said that in one of their meetings, Mr. Trump had, off camera, expected Mr. Holder to be appreciative of the fact that as president, he had moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. Mr. Trump, he said, seemed surprised when Mr. Holder explained that he was British. 'But you're Jewish,' he recalled Mr. Trump saying.... Mr. Holder's footage was subpoenaed by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'm confused. Apparently if you're of Jewish heritage, no matter where in the world you live & however little you care or even know where the U.S. Embassy in Israel is located, you're supposed to be grateful -- and loyal -- to Trump because he moved it to Jerusalem. Or something.

Jill Colvin of the AP: "Former Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday warned against the growing populist tide in the Republican Party as he admonished 'Putin apologists' unwilling to stand up to the Russian leader over his assault on Ukraine. Speaking at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington less than a month before November's midterm elections, Pence addressed the growing gulf between traditional conservatives and a new generation of populist candidates inspired, in part, by ... Donald Trump.... Pence criticized those in the party who have pushed a more isolationist foreign policy, particularly when it comes to Russian aggression."

Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "Christian Secor, who led a campus group at UCLA with white supremacist ties, was sentenced Wednesday to 42 months in prison for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after admitting he entered the Senate chamber that day and sat in Vice President Mike Pence's chair.... Secor, who pleaded guilty in May to obstructing an official proceeding, was among the first wave that broke into the Capitol. He went into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office suite, where McFadden noted staffers were 'cowering ... terrified' in another room. Secor then joined a group of about 40 people pushing against three Capitol Police officers guarding a set of doors on the east side of the Rotunda. The door gave way, allowing more demonstrators to flood in -- including members of the Oath Keepers who are on trial in the same courthouse." The AP's report is here.

Fractured History. On Tuesday, Marjorie Taylor Greene posted to Liars Social, "Tonight, I stopped at the Wilder Monument in Chickamauga, GA, which honors the Confederate soldiers of the Wilder Brigade. I will always defend our nation's history!" Minor hiccup: the Wilder Monument memorializes the Wilder Brigade, a crack unit of the Union Army credited with twice saving the Union Army from the Confederates at the Battle of Chickamauga. The Confederates ultimately won the battle, but at the price of great loss of life on both sides. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)


Akilah Johnson & Dan Keating of the Washington Post: "The imbalance in death rates [from Covid-19] among the nation's racial and ethnic groups has been a defining part of the pandemic since the start.... Early in the crisis, the differing covid threat was evident in places such as Memphis and Fayette County. Deaths were concentrated in dense urban areas, where Black people died at several times the rate of White people.... Over time, the gap in deaths widened and narrowed but never disappeared -- until mid-October 2021, when the nation's pattern of covid mortality changed, with the rate of death among White Americans sometimes eclipsing other groups.... Racial disparity vanished at the end of last year, becoming roughly equal. And at times during that same period, the overall age-adjusted death rate for White people slightly surpassed that of Black and Latino people."

Fox "News" Starts a New Covid Conspiracy Theory. Dan Diamond & Lena Sun of the Washington Post: "On Tuesday morning, a Fox News contributor claimed on Twitter that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was set to mandate that schoolchildren get coronavirus vaccines. By Tuesday evening, the claim was being repeated by the nation's most popular cable news show, and had been amplified to millions more on social media. 'The CDC is about to add the Covid vaccine to the childhood immunization schedule, which would make the vax mandatory for kids to attend school,' host Tucker Carlson tweeted, sharing a segment from his show that has been viewed more than 1.5 million times online. But the claim was wrong: The CDC cannot mandate that schoolchildren receive vaccines, a decision left up to states and jurisdictions.... 'This is an all new level of dangerous misinformation,' Jerome M. Adams, who served as U.S. surgeon general during the Trump administration..., wrote in a text message to The Washington Post." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Surely some regulatory agency (FCC) can send Fox a cease-and-desist letter ordering it to stop describing the network as "Fox News" when so much of its content is "Faux News" or "Fox Rumors, Conspiracy Theories & Flat-Out Lies." If I sold you a bag of sand and gravel labelled "Pure Cane Sugar," you would have some recourse. Fox viewers should have similar protection.

November Elections

Arizona. Sebastian Murdock of the Huffington Post: "A GOP candidate running for an Arizona college district's governing board was arrested on a charge of public sexual indecency after an officer allegedly caught him masturbating in his truck near a preschool. Randy Kaufman was arrested Oct. 4 but suspended his campaign Tuesday following media reports of his arrest. Kaufman is running for the governing board of the Maricopa County Community College District, and was allegedly caught masturbating by the county's community college police.... The officer said ... that Kaufman was in view of a nearby bicyclist and a preschool where children were playing outside. When confronted, the officer said, Kaufman apologized for the act. 'I'm sorry,' Kaufman said, according to the report. 'I fucked up. I'm really stressed.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. Another DeSantolini Stunt Gone Awry. Michael Wines & Neil Vigdor of the New York Times: "Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida announced in August 'a first salvo' in what he called a long-overdue crackdown on voting crimes. But newly released body camera footage indicates that people arrested on charges of voting illegally seemed puzzled and appeared to have run afoul of the law through confusion rather than intent. The arrests targeted people convicted of felonies, a group that includes many former inmates who had voting rights restored in a process that left many others uncertain or misinformed about their eligibility to vote. In the videos that were obtained on Wednesday by The New York Times from the Tampa Police Department, those arrested repeatedly told officers that they were blindsided by the charges and had previously been cleared to vote by election officials." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I heard on MSNBC (I think it was) that the state (the outfit DeSantolini runs) was supposed to send lists to the counties of ex-felons who were ineligible to vote for some reason. But, at least to the five largest Florida counties, the state did not send the list. So, naturally, poll workers allowed these registered voters to vote.

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al.

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

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Thursday are here: "Ukrainians are set to experience rolling blackouts starting Thursday after Russia's military continued attacks on the country's energy facilities this week, officials said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who will join a European Council summit to address Ukraine's energy challenges later in the day, pledged to do 'everything possible to restore the normal energy capabilities of our country.'... Ukraine's electricity grid operator told residents to charge their phones, flashlights and other key appliances, adding: 'The weather is getting worse.'... The resettlement of around 50,000 civilians from Kherson is under way, Russian proxy officials in the southern region said. The Wednesday announcement came as the Institute for the Study of War think tank said Russia's warnings of a Ukrainian offensive in the region were likely attempts to set the conditions for a full retreat across the Dnieper River and Russia's ceding of the city of Kherson, the first major settlement it took in the invasion.... The U.S. government has examined wrecked Iranian-made drones shot down in Ukraine, and information it gains about the drones could help the United States and its Ukrainian allies prevent future drones from reaching their targets...."

Andrew Kramer & Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times: "President Vladimir V. Putin declared martial law in four Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine on Wednesday, but in a telling sign that his real concerns may lie far closer to home, he also moved to put the economy on a wartime footing and imposed restrictions in more than two dozen areas across Russia. With battlefield losses mounting in Ukraine and the Russian public simmering over an unpopular military conscription order, Mr. Putin's actions appeared to be less a show of strength than a sign of disarray. As a practical matter, Moscow has only tenuous control of the eastern Ukrainian regions where it imposed martial law, weeks after illegally annexing them."

Eric Tucker & Fatima Hussein of the AP: "The Biden administration on Wednesday announced a round of criminal charges and sanctions related to a complicated scheme to procure military technologies from U.S. manufacturers and illegally supply them to Russia for its war in Ukraine. Some of the equipment was recovered on battlefields in Ukraine, the Justice Department said, and other nuclear proliferation technology was intercepted in Latvia before it could be shipped to Russia. The Justice Department charged nearly a dozen people in separate cases in New York and Connecticut, including Russian nationals accused of purchasing sensitive military technologies from U.S. companies and laundering tens of millions of dollars for wealthy Russian businessmen; Latvians accused of conspiring to smuggle equipment to Russian and oil brokers for Venezuela accused of working on illicit deals for a Venezuelan state-owned oil company."


U.K. Mark Landler & Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "Fighting for her political survival after the collapse of her economic agenda, Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain suffered another heavy blow on Wednesday after she was forced to fire one of her most senior cabinet ministers, the second major ouster in a six-week-old government that has tumbled into chaos. Hours after Ms. Truss rejected demands to resign herself..., the prime minister dismissed the home secretary, Suella Braverman, over a security breach involving a government document that Ms. Braverman had sent to a lawmaker in Parliament through her personal email.... Appearing at a stormy session of prime minister's questions in Parliament, Ms. Truss repeated her apology for the disastrous fiscal program.... The emergence of the news about Ms. Braverman only a few hours later exposed bitter rifts in the cabinet and a prime minister largely at the mercy of events.... In her letter of resignation to Ms. Truss, [Ms. Braverman] said she had 'concerns about the direction of this government,' accusing it of breaking pledges to voters and, in particular, of failing to curb immigration.... Ms. Braverman was replaced by Grant Shapps, a more centrist figure, whose appointment underscored the shift in the political balance of the cabinet away from the hard-liners who supported Ms. Truss in the leadership contest...." The Guardian's story, which first broke the news, is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Gosh, the U.K. is like a mini-U.S. An incompetent leader (tho maybe not as stupid as Trump), ridiculous Cabinet turnover, recriminations and even, "But the emails!" ~~~

~~~ Daniel Victor of the New York Times: "... [a head of] lettuce has become a caricature of the Conservative leader's flailing hold on power, pitted against the prime minister by The Daily Star, a left-leaning British tabloid. 'Will Liz Truss outlast this lettuce?' the newspaper asks in a live video that has been running since Oct. 14, attracting bounds of viewers and comments on social media. The lettuce gag was inspired by The Economist, which noted on Oct. 11 that between a near-immediate political implosion at the beginning of her tenure and the 10 days of mourning after Queen Elizabeth II died, her grip on power amounted to seven days, or 'roughly the shelf-life of a lettuce.'... On Tuesday the newspaper declared in a front-page headline: 'Lettuce Liz on Leaf Support.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

News Lede

Washington Post: Daniel R. "Smith, who was 90 when he died Oct. 19 at a hospital in Washington, was one of the last remaining children of enslaved Black Americans, and a rare direct link to slavery in the United States. Born when his father was 70, he was part of a generation that dwindled and then all but disappeared, taking with them stories of bondage that were told firsthand by mothers and fathers who, after enduring brutal conditions on Southern plantations, sought to build a new, better life for their families."

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Wednesday
Oct192022

October 19, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Judge: Trump Lied in Sworn Affadavits. Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "... Donald Trump signed legal documents describing evidence of election fraud that he knew were false, a federal judge indicated on Wednesday. U.S. District Court Judge David Carter wrote in an 18-page opinion that emails from attorney John Eastman, an architect of Trump's last-ditch effort to subvert the 2020 election, needed to be turned over to the Jan. 6 select committee. Those emails, Carter wrote, 'show that President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public.' The emails are among the files that Eastman had been declining to turn over to the committee, citing attorney-client privilege.... [Judge Carter] ruled that Eastman must disclose four [of those] emails to congressional investigators because they are evidence of a likely crime." After Eastman warned some of Trump's attorneys that allegations Trump had previously made were "not accurate," "Trump and his lawyers opted to file the federal complaint using the same numbers that Eastman conceded were inaccurate."

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump inquired whether a documentary filmmaker recording an interview with him last year was a 'good Jewish character,' described Persians as 'very good salesmen' and complained that Israeli Jews favored him more than Jews in the United States, a new clip released by the filmmaker shows.... The clip cuts off as Mr. Trump asks someone...: 'You Persian? Very smart. Be careful, they're very good salesmen.'... The video was recorded on May 20, 2021, and was provided to The New York Times by the documentary filmmaker, Alex Holder. It was filmed at an event at Mr. Trump's golf club in Bedminster, N.J., as he spoke with several people.... Mr. Holder said that in one of their meetings, Mr. Trump had, off camera, expected Mr. Holder to be appreciative of the fact that as president, he had moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. Mr. Trump, he said, seemed surprised when Mr. Holder explained that he was British. 'But you're Jewish,' he recalled Mr. Trump saying.... Mr. Holder's footage was subpoenaed by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'm confused. Apparently if you're of Jewish heritage, no matter where in the world you live & however little you care or even know where the U.S. Embassy in Israel is located, you're supposed to be grateful -- and loyal -- to Trump because he moved it to Jerusalem. Or something.

Fractured History. On Tuesday, Marjorie Taylor Greene posted to Liars Social, "Tonight, I stopped at the Wilder Monument in Chickamauga, GA, which honors the Confederate soldiers of the Wilder Brigade. I will always defend our nation's history!" Minor hiccup: the Wilder Monument memorializes the Wilder Brigade, a crack unit of the Union Army credited with twice saving the Union Army from the Confederates at the Battle of Chickamauga. The Confederates ultimately won the battle, but at the price of great loss of life on both sides.

Arizona. Sebastian Murdock of the Huffington Post: "A GOP candidate running for an Arizona college district's governing board was arrested on a charge of public sexual indecency after an officer allegedly caught him masturbating in his truck near a preschool. Randy Kaufman was arrested Oct. 4 but suspended his campaign Tuesday following media reports of his arrest. Kaufman is running for the governing board of the Maricopa County Community College District, and was allegedly caught masturbating by the county's community college police.... The officer said ... that Kaufman was in view of a nearby bicyclist and a preschool where children were playing outside. When confronted, the officer said, Kaufman apologized for the act. 'I'm sorry,' Kaufman said, according to the report. 'I fucked up. I'm really stressed.'"

Florida. Another DeSantolini Stunt Gone Awry. Michael Wines & Neil Vigdor of the New York Times: "Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida announced in August 'a first salvo' in what he called a long-overdue crackdown on voting crimes. But newly released body camera footage indicates that people arrested on charges of voting illegally seemed puzzled and appeared to have run afoul of the law through confusion rather than intent. The arrests targeted people convicted of felonies, a group that includes many former inmates who had voting rights restored in a process that left many others uncertain or misinformed about their eligibility to vote. In the videos that were obtained on Wednesday by The New York Times from the Tampa Police Department, those arrested repeatedly told officers that they were blindsided by the charges and had previously been cleared to vote by election officials." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I heard on MSNBC (I think it was) that the state (the outfit DeSantolini runs) was supposed to send lists to the counties of ex-felons who were ineligible to vote for some reason. But, at least to the five largest Florida counties, the state did not send the list. So, naturally, poll workers allowed these registered voters to vote.

U.K. Mark Landler & Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "Fighting for her political survival after the collapse of her economic agenda, Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain suffered another heavy blow on Wednesday after she was forced to fire one of her most senior cabinet ministers, the second major ouster in a six-week-old government that has tumbled into chaos. Hours after Ms. Truss rejected demands to resign herself..., the prime minister dismissed the home secretary, Suella Braverman, over a security breach involving a government document that Ms. Braverman had sent to a lawmaker in Parliament through her personal email.... Appearing at a stormy session of prime minister's questions in Parliament, Ms. Truss repeated her apology for the disastrous fiscal program.... The emergence of the news about Ms. Braverman only a few hours later exposed bitter rifts in the cabinet and a prime minister largely at the mercy of events.... In her letter of resignation to Ms. Truss, [Ms. Braverman] said she had 'concerns about the direction of this government,' accusing it of breaking pledges to voters and, in particular, of failing to curb immigration.... Ms. Braverman was replaced by Grant Shapps, a more centrist figure, whose appointment underscored the shift in the political balance of the cabinet away from the hard-liners who supported Ms. Truss in the leadership contest...." The Guardian's story, which first broke the news, is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Gosh, the U.K. is like a mini-U.S. An incompetent leader (tho maybe not as stupid as Trump), ridiculous Cabinet turnover, recriminations and even, "But the emails!" ~~~

~~~ Daniel Victor of the New York Times: "... [a head] lettuce has become a caricature of the Conservative leader's flailing hold on power, pitted against the prime minister by The Daily Star, a left-leaning British tabloid. 'Will Liz Truss outlast this lettuce?' the newspaper asks in a live video that has been running since Oct. 14, attracting bounds of viewers and comments on social media. The lettuce gag was inspired by The Economist, which noted on Oct. 11 that between a near-immediate political implosion at the beginning of her tenure and the 10 days of mourning after Queen Elizabeth II died, her grip on power amounted to seven days, or 'roughly the shelf-life of a lettuce.'... On Tuesday the newspaper declared in a front-page headline: 'Lettuce Liz on Leaf Support.'"

~~~~~~~~~~

Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "President Biden pledged on Tuesday that the first bill he would send to Congress next year if Democrats retain House control and expand their Senate majority would be to codify abortion rights across the country. The commitment comes as the White House and Democratic candidates have been increasingly focused on protecting abortion access before the midterm elections next month, seeking to broaden support among women and independent voters. Mr. Biden said this summer that he supported ending the filibuster to protect a woman's right to an abortion and a broader constitutional right to privacy." CNN's report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

The "Fucking Lunatic" Exception. Marie: Here's another good reason to keep Democrats in power: Jim McGovern (D-Ma.), chair of the House Rules Committee, "explained to Republicans that his new rule for his committee says if you're 'batsh[it] crazy, you're not getting an amendment after he blocked one of [Lauren] Boebert's [Batshit-Colo.] amendments from going to the House floor. '... We're not doing this.... I'm not going to be part of any effort to legitimize people who are f[u]cking lunatics.'..." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

~~~ MEANWHILE, GOP Plan: Global Financial Crisis. Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: "After refusing for months to divulge what they'd do if they regained control of Congress, Republicans have finally revealed some of their economic agenda. Unfortunately, it might involve causing a global financial crisis.... House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and other Republicans have recently backed proposals to make the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent, as well as to extend or expand several other corporate tax breaks.... [Also, there's their] plan to hold the debt ceiling hostage next year, which could easily precipitate a global financial catastrophe.... If lawmakers dine-and-dash on behalf of Uncle Sam, they tarnish the creditworthiness of the United States and can make it more expensive for the federal government to borrow in the future because investors dont trust us. Worse, they might accidentally blow up every other financial market on Earth, too." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ AND. Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "What will the Biden administration do when the G.O.P. threatens to blow up the world economy by refusing to raise the debt limit?... The consequences of forcing a federal debt default, which is what refusing to raise the limit would do, would extend far beyond the operations of the federal government itself.... There's lots of evidence that Republicans will, if they can, try to use the debt limit to extort major cuts in Social Security and Medicare.... If Republicans do gain control of one or both houses in November, Democrats should use the lame-duck session to enact a very large rise in the debt limit, enough to put the issue on ice for years.... If for some reason Democrats don't take this obvious step, the Biden administration should be prepared to turn to legal strategies for bypassing the debt limit." MB: Republicans really do constitute, among other things, the most wilfully innumerate body in the world. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Charlie Savage & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "The special master reviewing materials seized by the F.B.I. from ... Donald J. Trump's compound in Florida expressed skepticism on Tuesday about early claims by Mr. Trump's lawyers that certain documents were privileged and thus could be withheld from a Justice Department investigation. In a phone conference, the special master, Judge Raymond J. Dearie of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, complained that the log of an initial batch of documents over which Mr. Trump is seeking to claim privilege lacked sufficient information to determine whether the arguments were valid." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) The Guardian's report is here.

Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "In December 2019, after ... Donald Trump had shared with journalist Bob Woodward the fawning letters that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had written to him, the U.S. leader seems to acknowledge he should not be showing them around. After urging Woodward to 'treat them with respect,' Trump warns in an interview, 'and don't say I gave them to you, okay?... But I'll let you see them,' Trump adds.... A month later, in January 2020 Woodward pressed Trump in a phone call to let him also see the letters that Trump wrote to Kim. 'Oh, those are so top secret,' Trump says.... The comments by Trump show he was well aware that the 27 letters exchanged between himself and Kim were classified, despite his repeated claims that none of the documents he improperly took from the White House when leaving office, including the Kim letters, were in that category.... In an aside in the audio book, [which is to be released next week,] Woodward describes 'the casual, dangerous way that Trump treats the most classified programs and information...' That was in reference to Trump implying there was a secretive weapons system he controlled." CNN's report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Another Trump Conspiracy Theory Fail. Linda Qiu & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Igor Danchenko, an analyst who provided much of the research in a notorious dossier of unproven assertions and rumors about ... Donald J. Trump and Russia, was acquitted on Tuesday on four counts of lying to the F.B.I. about one of his sources. The verdict was another stinging defeat for the special counsel, John H. Durham, who was appointed by Attorney General William P. Barr three years ago to investigate the F.B.I.'s investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. Mr. Trump and his supporters have long insisted the inquiry would prove a 'deep state' conspiracy against him, but after pursuing various baseless theories, Mr. Durham never found and charged one. Instead he developed two narrow cases accusing people involved in outside efforts to scrutinize purported links between Mr. Trump and Russia of making false statements.... The trial against Mr. Danchenko is expected to be the last of Mr. Durham's prosecutions...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) CNN's report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The Durham project has been a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars spent on a lunatic "deep-state" conspiracy theory. Trump, Barr & Durham should have to pay back the Treasury with their own dollars. Yesterday in the Comments section, I mentioned former Sen. Bill Proxmire (D-Wis.). Proxmire's claim to fame was the monthly "Golden Fleece Award" he bestowed upon public officials who wasted taxpayer dollars. Some present-day senator should revive Proxmire's pet project.

Alan Feuer & Zach Montague of the New York Times: "A former member of the Oath Keepers militia testified on Tuesday that the far-right group intended to block the certification of the 2020 election 'by any means necessary,' stashing weapons in a hotel in Virginia on Jan. 6, 2021, in anticipation of supporting ... Donald J. Trump in his bid to keep Joseph R. Biden Jr. out of the White House. The former Oath Keeper, Jason Dolan, gave his account at the seditious conspiracy trial of the organization's leader, Stewart Rhodes, telling the jury that the group envisioned a battle breaking out in Washington that day between factions loyal to Mr. Trump and others loyal to Mr. Biden.... The Oath Keepers, Mr. Dolan added, were firmly committed to Mr. Trump and wanted to stop the certification of Mr. Biden's victory in any way they could. 'That's why we brought our firearms,' he said." An NBC News story is here.

U.S. Is Training Top Mercenaries for Repressive Countries. Craig Whitlock & Nate Jones of the Washington Post: "More than 500 retired U.S. military personnel -- including scores of generals and admirals -- have taken lucrative jobs since 2015 working for foreign governments, mostly in countries known for human rights abuses and political repression, according to a Washington Post investigation. In Saudi Arabia, for example, 15 retired U.S. generals and admirals have worked as paid consultants for the Defense Ministry since 2016. The ministry is led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, who U.S. intelligence agencies say approved the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist, as part of a brutal crackdown on dissent.... Most of the retired U.S. personnel have worked as civilian contractors for Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Persian Gulf monarchies, playing a critical, though largely invisible, role in upgrading their militaries.... The U.S. government has fought to keep the hirings secret." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)&

November Elections

Colorado Governor. Manu Raju of CNN: "Joe O'Dea, the Republican nominee for US Senate from Colorado, fired back at Donald Trump on Monday after the former President slammed him as a 'RINO' and suggested Trump's supporters wouldn't vote for a 'stupid' person like O'Dea. In a statement to CNN, O'Dea, the CEO of a Colorado construction company, didn't walk away from the criticism he's been leveling at Trump, including on Sunday when he told CNN's Dana Bash on 'State of the Union' that he would 'actively' campaign against Trump and for other GOP candidates if the former President runs again. O'Dea also told Bash that Trump should have done more to prevent the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Once again, Trump proves he is a thin-skinned whiney baby. Democratic candidates continually distance themselves from President Biden if they feel they must do so to win election. Biden doesn't complain or insult them; neither have other former presidents subjected to the same treatment. They are adults & understand it's usually about politics & usually not personal.

Pennsylvania Governor. Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "The crowning chapter of Doug Mastriano's military career -- a stint on the faculty of the U.S. Army War College -- has flared up in his campaign for Pennsylvania governor. Two former professors at the War College in Carlisle, Pa., publicly declared Mr. Mastriano unfit for public office. A photograph surfaced of Mr. Mastriano posing in a Confederate uniform with other faculty. And Mr. Mastriano’s Ph.D. dissertation has been criticized as deeply flawed, with a former academic adviser saying his doctorate rests 'on very shaky grounds.' Mr. Mastriano -- the Republican nominee for governor in a crucial battleground state -- received his Ph.D. in history from the University of New Brunswick in Canada in 2013, the year after he joined the faculty of the War College. His research focused on a World War I hero, Sgt. Alvin York, who credited his exploits killing and capturing German soldiers to divine intervention and who inspired the 1941 Gary Cooper movie 'Sergeant York.' 'I think Mastriano really likes that story because York became the kind of spiritual warrior that Mastriano sees himself as being,' said Jeffrey Scott Brown, a history professor at the University of New Brunswick who advised Mr. Mastriano but objected to his academic techniques. Dr. Brown's criticisms included Mr. Mastriano's amateur archaeological sleuthing on a French battlefield and his credulity in accepting divine intervention to explain Sergeant York's heroics."

Wisconsin Governor. Never Mind. Scott Bauer of the AP: "The Republican running for governor in Wisconsin suggested Tuesday that he did not support enforcing the swing state's near-total ban on abortions, saying 'I will never arrest a doctor' before his campaign walked back his comment. Tim Michels is locked in a tight race with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and abortion has been a major issue. Michels, who is endorsed by former President Donald Trump, said in the Republican primary that he backed a state law dating to 1849 that makes it a felony for doctors to perform nearly all abortions.... Michels' spokesperson Anna Kelly attempted to clarify his comment, saying it was the district attorneys, not the governor, who enforce laws.... 'He's either lying to voters today, in a desperate attempt to hide his radical positions, or he was lying to them for the last six months," [Evers' campaign spokesman] said."

Beyond the Beltway

Texas. Stephanie Pfeffer of People: A young Texas woman describes her near-death experience caused by a dangerous, desired pregnancy which doctors refused to terminate under Texas law. 'It took three days at home until I became sick 'enough' that the ethics board at our hospital agreed we could begin medical treatment; three days until my life was considered at risk "enough" [with sepsis] for the inevitable premature delivery of my daughter to be performed; three days until the doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals were allowed to do their jobs.... Had [the medical professionals] acted, they would have been charged with a felony.' [Amanda Zurawski] writes in a first-person essay for The Meteor, a media company committed to storytelling around issues of gender equity." Zurawski is experiencing complications from the delayed treatment which require further surgery. Zurawski is a married tech professional who enjoys excellent health insurance & lives near a good hospital. "'... we truly are the best-case scenario. And look what happened.' She knows that many others will not be as fortunate." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Pregnancy is, among other things, an emotional, frightening experience fraught with real & possible dangers. For self-righteous pricks to purposely add the fear and danger of medicare-care failure to all that is unconscionable.

How Texas Plans for Mass Grade-School Murders. Dave Manning of Reform Austin: "This month Texas public school systems are distributing DNA and fingerprint identification kits to K-8 level campuses for parents who wish to store their child's DNA. The kits provide identification if law enforcement were to need help finding a missing or trafficked child, or identifying victims of mass shootings.... The state legislature passed a law in 2021 requiring the Texas Education Agency to give inkless, in-home fingerprint and DNA identification cards to each public school system in Texas.... Despite the magnitude of the tragedy of school shootings like Uvalde, [Texas,] no significant gun law reforms have been passed."

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al.

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

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Wednesday are here: "Russia has renewed attacks against Ukraine's already-battered energy system, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said in a speech late Tuesday, urging households to remain conscious of their energy usage in the evening hours. Zelensky earlier in the day said that 30 percent of the country's power stations had been destroyed by Russian attacks since Oct. 10, causing 'massive blackouts.'... The United States, Britain and France will raise the issue of Iran transferring weapons to Russia during a closed-door meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday, according to diplomats familiar with the situation. The decision follows U.S. and European concerns about Russia's attacks on Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure using Iranian drones.... Russia resumed attacks on Ukraine's civilian infrastructure Tuesday, killing at least one person in Kyiv, according to the country's largest private electricity producer."

Marie: As I surmised in a Comment last week, Republicans have no interest in protecting allied nations' efforts to establish viable democracies in the face of violent invasion by totalitarian, imperial aggressors. Either that, or they've joined Donald Trump's Traveling Russian Marionette Show. ~~~

     ~~~ Eugene Scott of the Washington Post: "House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is signaling that if Republicans win the House majority in next month's midterm elections, the GOP is likely to oppose more aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)


U.K. Eshe Nelson of the New York Times: "Consumer prices in Britain rose 10.1 percent in September from a year earlier, continuing their steep climb as the nation grapples with rapidly increasing food prices, high energy costs and political uncertainty.... Prices were pushed higher by large increases in the cost of food and, to a lesser extent, at restaurants and hotels. Food prices rose 14.5 percent in September from a year earlier, the largest annual rise in more than 40 years...."

Marina Hyde of the Guardian: "The prime minister [Liz Truss ]certainly now presents as a captured beast, having spent the entire summer campaigning stridently against the hideous failings of precisely the policies she is now saying are the only thing that make sense. Yet as [surprise new chancellor Jeremy] Hunt outlined the biggest U-turn in modern political history to the Commons yesterday afternoon, Truss flanked him, wearing that sad, faraway smile of a Tory wife standing next to her husband explaining why he's resigning over a sex scandal. This arguably isn't the optimal look for a leader.... This morning we learned from armed forces minister James Heappey that none of them even realised Truss's mini-budget had the potential to backfire.... As of yesterday, ordinary people are realising that the calamitous mini-budget and this era-defining U-turn have combined to leave them in the worst of both worlds...." MB: I guess this column is funnier because the situation Hyde describes is befalling a country that is not our own.

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Monday
Oct172022

October 18, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Another Trump Conspiracy Theory Fail. Linda Qiu & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Igor Danchenko, an analyst who provided much of the research in a notorious dossier of unproven assertions and rumors about ... Donald J. Trump and Russia, was acquitted on Tuesday on four counts of lying to the F.B.I. about one of his sources. The verdict was another stinging defeat for the special counsel, John H. Durham, who was appointed by Attorney General William P. Barr three years ago to investigate the F.B.I.'s investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. Mr. Trump and his supporters have long insisted the inquiry would prove a 'deep state' conspiracy against him, but after pursuing various baseless theories, Mr. Durham never found and charged one. Instead he developed two narrow cases accusing people involved in outside efforts to scrutinize purported links between Mr. Trump and Russia of making false statements.... The trial against Mr. Danchenko is expected to be the last of Mr. Durham's prosecutions...."

Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "President Biden pledged on Tuesday that the first bill he would send to Congress next year if Democrats retain House control and expand their Senate majority would be to codify abortion rights across the country. The commitment comes as the White House and Democratic candidates have been increasingly focused on protecting abortion access before the midterm elections next month, seeking to broaden support among women and independent voters. Mr. Biden said this summer that he supported ending the filibuster to protect a woman's right to an abortion and a broader constitutional right to privacy." CNN's report is here. ~~~

The "Fucking Lunatic" Exception. Marie: Here's another good reason to keep Democrats in power: Jim McGovern (D-Ma.), chair of the House Rules Committee, "explained to Republicans that his new rule for his committee says if you're 'batsh[it] crazy, you're not getting an amendment after he blocked one of [Lauren] Boebert's [Batshit-Colo.] amendments from going to the House floor. '... We're not doing this.... I'm not going to be part of any effort to legitimize people who are f[u]cking lunatics.'..."

~~~ MEANWHILE, GOP Plan: Global Financial Crisis. Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: "After refusing for months to divulge what they'd do if they regained control of Congress, Republicans have finally revealed some of their economic agenda. Unfortunately, it might involve causing a global financial crisis.... House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and other Republicans have recently backed proposals to make the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent, as well as to extend or expand several other corporate tax breaks.... [Also, there's their] plan to hold the debt ceiling hostage next year, which could easily precipitate a global financial catastrophe.... If lawmakers dine-and-dash on behalf of Uncle Sam, they tarnish the creditworthiness of the United States and can make it more expensive for the federal government to borrow in the future because investors don't trust us. Worse, they might accidentally blow up every other financial market on Earth, too." ~~~

~~~ AND. Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "What will the Biden administration do when the G.O.P. threatens to blow up the world economy by refusing to raise the debt limit?... The consequences of forcing a federal debt default, which is what refusing to raise the limit would do, would extend far beyond the operations of the federal government itself.... There's lots of evidence that Republicans will, if they can, try to use the debt limit to extort major cuts in Social Security and Medicare.... If Republicans do gain control of one or both houses in November, Democrats should use the lame-duck session to enact a very large rise in the debt limit, enough to put the issue on ice for years.... If for some reason Democrats don't take this obvious step, the Biden administration should be prepared to turn to legal strategies for bypassing the debt limit." MB: Republicans really do constitute the most wilfully innumerate body in the world. ~~~

~~~ AND, as I surmised in a Comment last week, Republicans have no interest in protecting allied nations' efforts to establish viable democracies in the face of violent invasion by totalitarian, imperial aggressors. Either that, or they've joined Donald Trump's Traveling Russian Marionette Show. ~~~

     ~~~ Eugene Scott of the Washington Post: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is signaling that if Republicans win the House majority in next month's midterm elections, the GOP is likely to oppose more aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia."

Charlie Savage & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "The special master reviewing materials seized by the F.B.I. from ... Donald J. Trump's compound in Florida expressed skepticism on Tuesday about early claims by Mr. Trump's lawyers that certain documents were privileged and thus could be withheld from a Justice Department investigation. In a phone conference, the special master, Judge Raymond J. Dearie of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, complained that the log of an initial batch of documents over which Mr. Trump is seeking to claim privilege lacked sufficient information to determine whether the arguments were valid."

Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "In December 2019, after ... Donald Trump had shared with journalist Bob Woodward the fawning letters that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had written to him, the U.S. leader seems to acknowledge he should not be showing them around. After urging Woodward to 'treat them with respect,' Trump warns in an interview, 'and don't say I gave them to you, okay?... But I'll let you see them,' Trump adds.... A month later, in January 2020, Woodward pressed Trump in a phone call to let him also see the letters that Trump wrote to Kim. 'Oh, those are so top secret,' Trump says.... The comments by Trump show he was well aware that the 27 letters exchanged between himself and Kim were classified, despite his repeated claims that none of the documents he improperly took from the White House when leaving office, including the Kim letters, were in that category.... In an aside in the audio book, [which is to be released next week,] Woodward describes 'the casual, dangerous way that Trump treats the most classified programs and information...' That was in reference to Trump implying there was a secretive weapons system he controlled." CNN's report is here.

U.S. Is Training Top Mercenaries for Repressive Countries. Craig Whitlock & Nate Jones of the Washington Post: "More than 500 retired U.S. military personnel -- including scores of generals and admirals -- have taken lucrative jobs since 2015 working for foreign governments, mostly in countries known for human rights abuses and political repression, according to a Washington Post investigation. In Saudi Arabia, for example, 15 retired U.S. generals and admirals have worked as paid consultants for the Defense Ministry since 2016. The ministry is led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, who U.S. intelligence agencies say approved the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist, as part of a brutal crackdown on dissent.... Most of the retired U.S. personnel have worked as civilian contractors for Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Persian Gulf monarchies, playing a critical, though largely invisible, role in upgrading their militaries.... The U.S. government has fought to keep the hirings secret."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Stacy Cowley & Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "The federal government on Monday began accepting applications for President Biden's promised student debt cancellation of up to $20,000 per borrower. Those who meet the program's annual income limits -- up to $125,000 per individual or $250,000 per household -- can apply online at https://studentaid.gov/debt-relief/application. 'This is a game changer for millions of Americans,' Mr. Biden said on Monday afternoon. The Education Department, which holds $1.6 trillion in student loan debt and will manage the cancellation process, quietly opened the application website for testing on Friday night. More than eight million people had already applied by Monday, Mr. Biden said. The form is available in English and Spanish, and is intended to work on desktop computers and mobile devices." ~~~

     ~~~ AND Then There Was This: "Lawsuits seeking to block the action were ... filed, most prominently by a group of six attorneys general from Republican-led states." MB: IOW, While Democrats are trying to help out ordinary Americans -- in this case, young people -- Republicans are suing to end the aid. As Rachel Maddow pointed out Monday night, this is de rigueur. Democrats passed a law to put a cap on life-saving insulin costs; For instance, Herschel Walker, who must have got a "junior doctor" certificate from a cereal box, pooh-poohed the price cap, saying, "Unless you're eating right, insulin is doing you no good. So you have to get food prices down and you gotta get gas down so you can go get insulin."

Max Boot of the Washington Post: "... last week the [Biden] administration's diplomacy hit pay dirt -- and almost no one noticed. On Oct. 11, Israel and Lebanon announced an agreement that would demarcate their maritime boundary. This sounds narrow and technical but is a major achievement given that the two countries have been formally at war since 1948. (And that has sometimes led to actual military conflict -- most recently in 2006.)... U.S. administrations have been trying for a decade to broker an agreement -- with no luck.... Enter Amos J. Hochstein, a former Senate staffer, energy industry executive and veteran of the Obama State Department who is the presidential coordinator for energy security.... The ... deal [he brokered] was hailed as 'historic' by both sides."

Azi Paybarah of the Washington Post: "The White House on Monday called Donald Trump's attack on American Jews antisemitic after the former president wrote online that American Jews need to 'get their act together' and show more appreciation for the state of Israel 'before it is too late.'... 'Donald Trump's comments were antisemitic, as you all know, and insulting both to Jews and to our Israeli allies,' [press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre] said. '... for years now, Donald Trump has aligned with extremist and antisemitic figures.... We need to root out antisemitism everywhere it rears its ugly head. We need to call this out. With respect to Israel, our relationship is ironclad and it's rooted in shared values and interests. Donald Trump clearly doesn't understand that either.'" An ABC News story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I suppose Trump sees nothing wrong with his attack on American Jews. As far as he is concerned, "other people" are not actually people. They're "others." They're part of a non-white Christianist "group." And if that "group" as a whole doesn't sufficiently express gratitude to him for something he imagines he did for them, then the entire "group" deserves punishment. In exchange for gifts he bestows (or imagines he does), the recipients must pledge loyalty to him. ~~~

     ~~~ MEANWHILE, Chris McGreal of the Guardian: "The US's largest pro-Israel lobby group is backing dozens of racists, homophobes and election deniers running for Congress next month because they have pledged to defend Israel against stiffening criticism of its oppression of the Palestinians. The powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) has justified endorsing Republicans with extremist views, including members of Congress with ties to white supremacist groups and representatives who attempted to block Joe Biden's election victory, on the grounds that the singular issue of support for Israel trumps other considerations." MB: This, of course, is precisely the sort of self-defeating behavior Trump expects.

Lawyers, Guns & Sexting. Alan Feuer & Zach Montague of the New York Times: "In the days before a pro-Trump mob -- including members of his own organization -- broke into the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, went on a cross-country weapon-buying spree.... By the time he reached [Virginia,], prosecutors said on Monday at the trial of Mr. Rhodes and four of his subordinates on seditious conspiracy charges, the Oath Keepers leader had spent as much as $20,000 on what amounted to a small arsenal that included at least three rifles and an Israeli-made semiautomatic shotgun.... The purchases took place as Mr. Rhodes was overseeing the creation of what he has called an armed 'quick reaction force' that was staged in ... hotel rooms in Virginia.... [Accompanying Rhodes on his trip from Texas to Virginia was Oath Keepers lawyer Kellye SoRelle.] Earlier in the day, prosecutors showed the jury some sexually explicit text messages that Mr. Rhodes had swapped with Ms. SoRelle, the lawyer, in the days leading up to Jan. 6, suggesting that the two had more than the usual lawyer-client relationship." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Rhodes' sexts suggest that the reason these people go in for "thrills" like pretending they're revolutionaries is the stale banality of their bleak lives.

Alan Feuer & Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "The Justice Department said on Monday that Stephen K. Bannon ... should spend six months in jail and pay a fine of $200,000 after a jury found him guilty this summer of willfully disobeying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. Mr. Bannon pursued a bad-faith strategy of defiance and contempt' from the moment he received the subpoena last year seeking records and testimony about his knowledge of Mr. Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, culminating in the violent assault on the Capitol, prosecutors said in a sentencing memo to Judge Carl J. Nichols, who is overseeing the case. The prosecutors noted that Mr. Bannon, who is set to be sentenced by Judge Nichols on Friday, deserved a penalty harsher than the minimum term of one month in jail because he had blatantly brushed off the committee"s demands and then attacked it in a series of brazen public statements." An AP story is here.

The Big Grifter's Gotta Grift. David Fahrenthold & Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "The Trump Organization charged the Secret Service up to $1,185 per night for hotel rooms used by agents protecting ... Donald J. Trump and his family, according to documents released on Monday by the House Oversight Committee.... The committee released Secret Service records showing more than $1.4 million in payments by the department to Trump properties since Mr. Trump took office in 2017. The committee said that the accounting was incomplete, however, because it did not include payments to Mr. Trump's foreign properties -- where agents accompanied his family repeatedly -- and because the records stopped in September 2021. The records the panel managed to obtain provided new details about an arrangement in which Mr. Trump and his family effectively turned the Secret Service into a captive customer of their business -- by visiting their properties hundreds of times, and then charging the government rates far above its usual spending limits.... Mr. Trump's son Eric -- who ran the family business while his father was in office -- provided a misleading account of what his company was charging. In 2019, Eric Trump said the Trump Organization charged the government only 'like $50' for hotel rooms during presidential visits." A Politico story is here. ~~~

      ~~~ Marie: I don't call "like $50" misleading; I call it a "honking big lie" when the rate the facilities charges could more "like $1,200," or 24 times as much as the figure he cited.

CDC = Center for Donald's Control. Dan Diamond of the Washington Post: "Former CDC director Robert Redfield, former top deputy Anne Schuchat and others described how the Trump White House and its allies repeatedly 'bullied' staff, tried to rewrite their publications and threatened their jobs in an attempt to align the CDC with the more optimistic view of the pandemic espoused by Donald Trump, the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis concluded in a report released Monday.... Trump appointees oversaw a concerted effort to restrict immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border during the pandemic, change scientific reports and muzzle top officials at the [CDC], according to emails, text messages and interviews gathered by [the] congressional panel.... Redfield and other officials told the panel that they believed they might be fired if they angered the White House, hindering the CDC's ability to fight the virus."

Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: "Rolling Stone reported that [Donald] Trump is bragging to his close allies that he wants Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) as one of his [Cabinet] secretaries.... It's unclear what he would appoint Greene to be as she has no real expertise in anything other than CrossFit.... A second source said that over the past year Trump has been talking about Greene as someone who could be a senior official at the Justice Department.... Greene isn't a lawyer...." But so?

Robert Draper of the New York Times Magazine writes a feature piece on Majorie Taylor Greene. MB: I skimmed it, and it seems like a waste of ink to me.

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Cate Cadell & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "Military research groups at the leading edge of China's hypersonics and missile programs -- many on a U.S. export blacklist -- are purchasing a range of specialized American technology, including products developed by firms that have received millions of dollars in grants and contracts from the Pentagon, a Washington Post investigation has found. The advanced software products are acquired by these military organizations through private Chinese firms that sell them on despite U.S. export controls designed to prevent sales or resales to foreign entities deemed a threat to U.S. national security, the investigation shows. Scientists who work in the sprawling network of Chinese military research academies and the companies that aid them said in interviews that American technology -- such as highly specialized aeronautical engineering software -- fills critical gaps in domestic technology and is key to advances in Chinese weaponry." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: IOW, the Pentagon is giving your tax dollars to companies that develop technology that the companies then sell to Chinese weapons makers.

Jenny Gross & Tiffany Hsu of the New York Times: "Kanye West has agreed in principle to buy Parler, the social media service that has attracted fans of ... Donald J. Trump, the service's parent company, Parlement Technologies, said in a news release on Monday.... The announcement came a little over a week after Twitter and Instagram restricted [West's] accounts in response to antisemitic remarks that he posted." An NPR story is here.

Lizzie Johnson of the Washington Post on how dogs being bred for research at Envigo became the target of the largest animal welfare seizure in the Humane Society's history.... After years of alarm from animal rights advocates and state legislators, after U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors found maggot-infested kibble, 300 dead puppies and injured beagles being euthanized, after an undercover investigation by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and after a lawsuit filed against Envigo by the Justice Department, the Indianapolis-based company had reached a settlement with the federal government. It agreed to shut down the Virginia breeding operation -- admitting no wrongdoing and receiving no punishment or fines -- rather than make what the CEO of its parent company called 'the required investments to improve the facility.' In July, U.S. District Court Judge Norman K. Moon approved the surrender of Envigo's beagles to the Humane Society of the United States.... What followed was two months of beagle mania, as people across the country showered the Humane Society with $2.2 million in donations and clamored to adopt the dogs. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle took in a beagle. So did the governor of New Jersey and the chief meteorologist at a Virginia news station." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The settlement should have included locking that CEO in a cage, cutting off his tail & feeding him maggot-infested kibble.

November Elections

Marie: I seldom do polls, but since the latest semi-reliable polls are finding pretty much the same thing, here's one: ~~~

~~~ Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: "Republicans enter the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress with a narrow but distinctive advantage as the economy and inflation have surged as the dominant concerns, giving the party momentum to take back power from Democrats in next month's midterm elections, a New York Times/Siena College poll has found. The poll shows that 49 percent of likely voters said they planned to vote for a Republican to represent them in Congress on Nov. 8, compared with 45 percent who planned to vote for a Democrat. The result represents an improvement for Republicans since September, when Democrats held a one-point edge among likely voters.... (The October poll's unrounded margin is closer to three points, not the four points that the rounded figures imply.)" ~~~

     ~~~ As RAS pointed out in yesterday's Comments thread, Nate Cohn of the New York Times added some caveats to the "perceived" poll results. "Characterizing this poll as a four-point Republican lead doesn't merely offer a false sense of precision -- it's just false," Cohn writes.

California House. Eric Swalwell (D) on what Republicans have in mind:

The Philadelphia Inquirer may have endorsed John Fetterman (D) for U.S. Senate, but wait! Why not vote for this guy? ~~~

~~~ Pennsylvania Senate. Meidas Touch: "In a newly resurfaced clip from The Jimmy Kimmel Show discovered by PatriotTakes, Republican Senate Candidate Dr. [Mehmet] Oz [R] talks about his love of drinking urine. Jordy Meiselas reports." ~~~

Beyond the Beltway

Georgia Man Runs Big Con from Prison. Vimal Patel of the New York Times: Arthur Cofield, an inmate in a Butts County, Georgia, state prison, ran a massive con from the prison in which he stole $11 million by stealing the identity of an elderly billionaire. "Mr. Cofield, 31, was charged with several federal counts, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud, aggravated identity theft, money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering, according to court documents. He has pleaded not guilty. MB: If Cofield is looking for a new job, he has just the right resumé to join Trump's Liars Social, which reportedly has been shedding executives.

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al.

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

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Tuesday are here: "The death toll from a Russian fighter-bomber crash in Russia rose to 13, the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry reported Tuesday morning. The Russian Su-34 aircraft crashed into a residential building Monday near the Russian city of Krasnodar, about 120 miles east of Crimea. Monday's kamikaze drone strikes in Kyiv killed at least five people, including a pregnant woman, Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry accused Iran of supplying Russia with the drones, and the Defense Ministry said Tuesday morning that more than 40 Iranian-made Shahed-136 attack drones had been deployed by Russia in the past 24 hours. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied knowledge of Russia using Iranian drones.... E.U. member countries are considering paying billionaire Elon Musk to maintain internet services provided by Starlink to Ukraine, Politico reported. Musk tweeted Monday that 25,300 Starlink terminals were sent to Ukraine but that 10,630 are being paid for. Musk's company SpaceX, which provides the Starlink services, has withdrawn its request for funding from the U.S. Defense Department, Musk tweeted."

Nahal Toosi & Matt Berg of Politico: "The United States intends to further crack down on Iran for helping Russia in the war on Ukraine, a U.S. official said Monday following reports that Tehran plans to send Moscow missiles to use on the battlefield. The penalties -- likely to include economic sanctions and possibly some export controls -- would also target third parties that help Tehran and Moscow.... The Washington Post reported over the weekend that Iran -- in addition to continuing to sell Russia drones, some of which are used kamikaze style to crash into targets -- plans to send Moscow surface-to-surface missiles."

Iran. Josh Rogin of the Washington Post: "The Saudi government has sentenced a 72-year-old U.S. citizen [Saad Ibrahim Almadi] to 16 years in prison for tweets he posted while inside the United States, some of which were critical of the Saudi regime. His son, speaking publicly for the first time, alleges that the Saudi government has tortured his father in prison and says that the State Department mishandled the case ... with neglect and incompetence.... Despite that Saudi Arabia is supposedly a U.S. ally, the Saudi government under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) is dealing with its U.S.-citizen critics more harshly than ever.... Almadi is not a dissident or an activist; he is simply a project manager from Florida who decided to practice his right to free speech inside the United States. But last November, when he traveled to Riyadh to visit family, he was detained regarding 14 tweets posted on his account over the previous seven years."


U.K. NEVER MIND! Mark Landler & Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "Britain's new chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, said on Monday that he would reverse virtually all the government's planned tax cuts, sweeping away Prime Minister Liz Truss's free-market economic plan in a desperate bid to steady the financial markets and stabilize her government. Mr. Hunt also announced that the government would end its massive state intervention to cap energy prices next April, replacing it with a still-undefined program that he said would promote energy efficiency, but that could increase uncertainty for households facing rising gas and electricity bills. Ms. Truss's Conservative government had planned to announce the tax and spending details of its fiscal plan on Oct. 31, but with the markets still gyrating, Mr. Hunt rushed forward the schedule. His announcement constituted one of the most dramatic reversals in modern British political history." ~~~

     ~~~ William Booth & Karla Adam of the Washington Post: "Britain's brand new finance minister [Jeremy Hunt] scrapped the remaining elements of Prime Minister Liz Truss's signature taxation policy on Monday, a move that seemed to successfully reassure markets but left many wondering who is now in charge of the government." MB: Maybe it's "Charles in Charge."

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