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


Thursday
Oct132022

October 14, 2022

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "The Justice Department asked an appeals court on Friday to end a special master review of thousands of documents that the F.B.I. seized from ... Donald J. Trump's Florida estate, arguing that a federal judge had been wrong to intervene in its investigation into Mr. Trump's hoarding of sensitive government records. In a 53-page brief before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, the Justice Department broadly challenged the legal legitimacy of orders last month by Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who blocked investigators from using the materials and appointed an independent arbiter to sift them for any that are potentially privileged or Mr. Trump's personal property. The Justice Department already succeeded in persuading a panel of the Atlanta-based court to exempt about 100 documents marked classified from Judge Cannon's move -- a decision the Supreme Court declined to overturn this week. In its new filing, the Justice Department asked the appeals court to reverse her order for the remaining 11,000 or so documents."

Kristen Holmes & Sara Murray of CNN: "... Donald Trump on Friday does not say whether he will comply with the subpoena by the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill insurrection, in a lengthy response to the committee posted on Truth Social. In a letter addressed to committee chairman Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the former President doubles down on fraudulent claims that the 2020 election was stolen and insists the committee should have instead looked into these claims.... Trump lays blame on DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for not utilizing the National Guard. As CNN has previously reported, the speaker of the House is not in charge of Capitol security. That's the responsibility of the Capitol Police Board...." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie's Hint to Orange Jesus: If you want to contact Bennie Thompson, you might send a letter through Louis DeJoy's faltering outfit; I would guess Rep. Thompson does not have a subscription to Liars Social. And just as an aside, it's likely you won't convince Thompson that Nancy Pelosi is the perp here. P.S. I guess you didn't see the tape of Pelosi running the show, trying to get your pathetic made guys off their asses. ~~~

~~~ Azi Paybarah of the Washington Post: "Never-before-seen video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other congressional leaders on Jan. 6, 2021, offers strikingly vivid evidence undermining ... Donald Trump's long-debunked claim that the failure to adequately protect the Capitol from a pro-Trump mob lay not with him but with Pelosi. In the video shown Thursday by the House committee investigating the attack, Pelosi is on the phone pleading with Trump administration officials for help to stop the violence and secure the Capitol as U.S. Capitol Police were overmatched by the hundreds of rioters storming the building -- including some who demanded her head. Getting nowhere with the officials, she contacts Virginia's governor and says she will contact the D.C. mayor....

"Trump often has suggested that Pelosi failed to do her job, that the breach of the Capitol was her fault and ... not that of the commander in chief. He has falsely claimed that Pelosi rejected his order for 10,000 National Guard troops -- something that never happened. The former president, in a statement posted online Friday responding to the committee, wrote, 'I fully authorized' deployment of National Guard troops, but, he added falsely, the request was refused by officials who answer to Pelosi.... Trump's false claims were echoed by Republican lawmakers, including some who -- according to the newly released video -- were literally in the room when Pelosi and others were calling in reinforcements."

Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: "Trumpworld sources tell New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman that ... Donald Trump says he'll testify before the January 6 Committee if he can do it live -- and at least one of his lawyers is on board." MB: I don't hold much stock in this story; it sounds like something Trump is throwing out there so he can (1) get more attention and (2) later say, "I wanted to testify, but my lawyers insisted the committee would be too unfa-a-a-ir."

"Better Check Bedminster.” Mary Papenfuss of the Huffington Post: "As many as nine boxes that Donald Trump's aides hauled from his home in Florida this year to his New Jersey resort are raising new questions about the ex-president's hoarding of secret government documents. Video published May 9 by the Trump-friendly Daily Mail with an article about Trump decamping from Mar-a-Lago in the hot weather and settling in at Bedminster, New Jersey, for the summer shows aides loading boxes onto a private plane ferrying Trump. The cartons appear similar to those that FBI agents confiscated at Mar-a-Lago in August with a search warrant. 'Better check Bedminster,' former FBI official Peter Strozok tweeted last month as the video made the rounds on social media.... The National Archives ... has said it believes members of Trump's administration still have failed to turn over documents and electronic records."

Why Marc Short Went Back to a Grand Jury. Spencer Hsu, et al., of the Washington Post: "A former top aide to Vice President Mike Pence returned before a grand jury Thursday to testify in a criminal probe of efforts to overturn the 2020 election after federal courts overruled ... Donald Trump's objections to the testimony, according to people familiar with the matter. In a sealed decision that could clear the way for other top Trump White House officials to answer questions before a grand jury, Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled that former Pence chief of staff Marc Short probably possessed information important to the Justice Department's criminal investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol that was not available from other sources, one of those people said. Trump appealed, but the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit refused to postpone Short's appearance while the litigation continues, the people said, signaling that attempts by Trump to invoke executive privilege to preserve the confidentiality of presidential decision-making were not likely to prevail.... Other senior Trump White House officials could also be affected by the outcome of the court ruling...."

digby republishes a big chunk of a Daily Beast story: "In new exclusive footage obtained by The Daily Beast, a yet-to-be-released documentary captured [Roger] Stone's meltdown after learning on President Joe Biden's inauguration day that he wouldn't be granted a second coveted legal protection, this time to shield from any Jan 6 legal fallout. (Trump issued a pardon to Stone in December 2020.)... 'Fuck you and your abortionist bitch daughter,' he concluded, referring to Ivanka Trump, according to the filmmaker Christoffer Guldbrandsen who said there was 'no doubt' who Stone was ranting about. According to the filmmakers, the video clip above was one of the few videos hand-selected by the Jan 6th Committee, but, in the end, the committee elected not to play the clip.... Guldbrandsen ... told The Daily Beast that the tense scene was from inauguration day on Jan. 20, 2021, and recorded in Fort Lauderdale.... 'Aside from Donald Trump, he also held Jared Kush[n]er responsible as being the guy who was the point man on the pardon,' he said."

Lauren Hirsch & Julie Creswell of the New York Times: "The grocery giant Kroger announced plans on Friday to acquire Albertsons in a deal that could reshape the supermarket landscape in the United States, uniting the country's largest supermarket chains at a time when rising costs and competition from Walmart and Amazon squeeze the industry. But the deal, which values Albertsons at about $24.6 billion including debt, is likely to invite intense scrutiny from regulators who are focused on the potential for large companies to affect prices, and have a history of blocking deals that may directly impact consumers. Even before the deal was announced Friday, consumer advocates had raised objections to its possibility."

Peter Walker of the Guardian: "Jeremy Hunt has been appointed as Liz Truss's new chancellor, in a stunning reversal of political fortune and a sign that the beleaguered prime minister wants to reach out to other sections of the Conservative party. Hunt, the former foreign secretary and health secretary, who has twice tried unsuccessfully to become Conservative leader, was named chancellor after Kwasi Kwarteng, in the job for just over five weeks, was sacked by Truss ahead of another U-turn over tax cuts."

~~~~~~~~~~

Lisa Mascaro, et al., of the AP: "The House Jan. 6 committee voted unanimously Thursday to subpoena Donald Trump, demanding the former president's personal testimony as it unveiled startling new video from his closest aides describing his multi-part plan to overturn his 2020 election loss that resulted in the assault on the U.S. Capitol.... In the committee's 10th public session, just weeks before the congressional midterm elections, the panel summed up Trump's 'staggering betrayal' of his oath of office.... To illustrate what it said were 'purposeful lies,' the committee juxtaposed repeated instances in which top administration officials recounted telling Trump the actual facts with clips of him repeating the exact opposite at his pre-riot rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6.... In never-before-seen Secret Service messages, the panel produced evidence that extremist groups provided the muscle in the fight for Trump's presidency, planning weeks before the attack to send a violent force to Washington. The Secret Service warned in a Dec. 26, 2020, email of a tip that members of the right-wing Proud Boys planned to outnumber the police in a march in Washington on Jan. 6." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) The Washington Post's report is here.

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post pulls out five takeaways from the January 6 committee hearing that seem spot on. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The New York Times' live updates of the January 6 committee hearing are useful. ~~~

~~~ Catie Edmondson & Aishvarya Kavi: "Chilling new footage shared by the select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol showed for the first time how Congress's top leaders scrambled on Jan. 6 to try to secure the building as it came under attack. The tense video underscored how deeply they feared for the safety of their colleagues and staff members. As they watched the rioters' assault on television, [Nancy] Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer ... implored governors of nearby states to dispatch their national guards to protect lawmakers still in the building.... The footage, shot by Ms. Pelosi's daughter, Alexandra, also showed top Democratic and Republican officials -- including Senator Mitch McConnell ... -- huddling on the phone with Pentagon officials, mapping out how they could quickly certify President Biden's electoral victory....

Maggie Haberman: "This behind-the-scenes footage of the congressional leaders desperately trying to get help from the Trump administration is stunning....

Charlie Savage: Adam "Schiff seems to be accusing witnesses of perjury: 'The Secret Service and other agencies knew of the prospect of violence well in advance of the president's speech at the Ellipse. Despite this, certain White House and Secret Service witnesses previously testified that they had received no intelligence about violence that could potentially threaten any of the protectees on Jan. 6, including the vice president. Evidence strongly suggests that this testimony is not credible.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

** Marshall Cohen of CNN: "Never-before-seen footage, obtained exclusively by CNN, shows in vivid new detail how congressional leaders fled the US Capitol on January 6 and transformed a nearby military base into a command center, where they frantically coordinated with Vice President Mike Pence and Trump Cabinet members to quell the insurrection and finish certifying the 2020 election. The January 6 select committee aired snippets of the footage at its public hearing on Thursday, but CNN has obtained roughly an hour of additional material that wasn't presented by the panel.... The extended raw footage shines a devastating light on ... Donald Trump's inaction during the riot. Lawmakers are seen working around Trump to secure any help they could get -- from the National Guard, federal agencies and local police departments -- to defeat the mob he incited.... In [a] shocking moment, Schumer and Pelosi are seen chewing out the acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. In a heated phone call, Schumer told Rosen that federal authorities should 'make arrests, starting now,' but Rosen only offered a halting, non-committal response." Worth reading the whole article. ~~~

   ~~~ Marie: Unlike the clips the committee showed, CNN's footage included audio of the responses to Trump's Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Army & Attorney General. The Congressional leaders urged these men to immediately send military & law enforcement personnel to the Capitol to aid the Capitol Police, who were vastly outnumbered by the mob. You have never heard more stonewalling, hemming & hawing & double-speaking from government officials. They seemed petrified. ~~~

      ~~~ To me, this was the most shocking news of the day: that the top U.S. military & law enforcement officials were unable or unwilling to save the Capitol from the mobs whom their boss Donald Trump had sent to attack it. Meanwhile, of course, Trump was gleefully watching TV & egging on the mob. To add insult to injury, Trump, Kevin McCarthy & other House leaders later blamed Pelosi for not protecting the Capitol. Nothing could be further from the truth. She, Chuck Schumer & House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer took the lead in pressing for reinforcements for the Capitol Police. And while the Congressional leaders were explaining the urgency of the situation to men who also could watch TV coverage of what was going on, these top administrative officials were mumbling about "coordinating" and "planning" & "waiting to secure authority" to act. Pathetic!

Petula Dvorak of the Washington Post: As insurrectionists ran through the Capitol hallways on January 6 seeking to capture & assassinate Nancy Pelosi, Pelosi was in action. She was a battle general in taupe heels, making calls to move troops, to quell the ambush, to secure a peaceful transfer of power. This was the scene America finally saw in the video played at the Jan. 6 select committee's hearing Thursday. Calm, cool and focused, Pelosi was the leader that American democracy needed that day. Tell me again: How are women too emotional to be in charge?"

Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "The Secret Service had warnings earlier than previously known that supporters of ... Donald Trump were plotting an armed attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to records revealed in a congressional hearing Thursday. Secret Service agents in charge of assessing the risks around the protests had been tracking online chats on pro-Trump websites and noted that rallygoers were vowing to bring firearms, target the Capitol for a siege and even kill Vice President Mike Pence. As early as Dec. 26, Secret Service officials were sharing one tipster's warnings about extremist groups coming to the Capitol with murderous plans. 'They think they will have a large enough group to march into DC armed and will outnumber the police so they can't be stopped,' the tip read.... The evidence presented at the hearing adds the Secret Service to a long list of national security agencies who received prescient warnings about the assault protesters planned for Jan. 6, yet failed to respond with urgency or cohesion to prevent the insurrection." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This is the other shocking revelation from Thursday's hearing. The Secret Service, the White House & Trump himself knew of the plans for violence on January 6. And they knew on January 6 that many of the insurrectionists were armed (rendering ridiculous Trump's later attempts to blame antifa adherents for the siege). In the past we have heard that the attack was the result of "a failure of intelligence." But it turns out law enforcement had the intelligence all along & they chose to suppress it and not share it with, say, the Capitol police or Congressional leadership.

Casey Gannon of CNN: "Two former Trump administration officials were seen Thursday at the Washington, DC, federal courthouse where the grand jury investigating the January 6 US Capitol attack meets. Marc Short, the former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, was compelled to testify to the January 6 grand jury on Thursday, according to a person familiar with the matter. It was his second time testifying.... Short previously testified this summer in front of the grand jury investigating the attack on the Capitol. His appearance at the court Thursday also comes as the Justice Department and attorneys for Trump are engaged in a secret court fight to stop a federal grand jury from getting information from former Trump administration officials. Trump adviser and former national security aide Kash Patel was also seen walking into an area where the grand jury meets."

Ryan Reilly & Ken Delanian of NBC News: "A week after the Jan. 6 attack, a person familiar with FBI operations informed a top bureau manager that 'there is, at best, a sizeable percentage of the employee population that felt sympathetic to the group that stormed the Capitol,' according to an email just released under the Freedom of Information Act.... The unnamed emailer said many FBI agents believed Jan. 6 'was no different than (Black Lives Matter) protests of last summer. Several also lamented that the only reason this violent activity is getting more attention is because of "political correctness."'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Supremes Brush Off Trump. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a request from ... Donald J. Trump to intervene in the litigation over documents seized from his Florida estate. The court';s order, which was a sentence long, was a stinging rebuke to Mr. Trump. There were no noted dissents, and the court gave no reasons, saying only: 'The application to vacate the stay entered by the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit on Sept. 21, 2022, presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the court is denied.'" Politico's report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Devlin Barrett, et al., of the Washington Post: "A key witness in the ongoing Justice Department and FBI investigation of Donald Trump's alleged mishandling of classified documents is a Navy veteran who followed the former president to Florida after serving as a valet in the Trump White House, people familiar with the matter said. Walt Nauta is the witness in question, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.... The information Nauta provided to FBI agents, and the footage described to The Post, offer the most direct account to date of Trump's actions and instructions leading up to the FBI's Aug. 8 search of his Florida property.... When FBI agents first interviewed Nauta, he denied any role in moving boxes or sensitive documents, the people familiar with the situation said in interviews before Nauta's name became public. But as investigators gathered more evidence, they questioned him a second time and he told a starkly different story -- that Trump instructed him to move the boxes, these people said." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Nauta is the person the New York Times identified Wednesday; the Times reporters were not sure he was the same Mar-a-Lago worker described in the WashPo 's Wednesday article; now we know he was. The Times story was updated Thursday.

Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: "Days before the New York attorney general filed a lawsuit accusing Donald J. Trump and his company of fraud and seeking to shut down some of their business in the state, Mr. Trump's lawyers created a new company in Delaware.... On Sept. 21, the day the suit was filed, the new Delaware company filed paperwork in New York, seeking to be recognized there as the Trump Organization II. Those maneuvers were detailed for the first time in a court filing on Thursday from the attorney general, Letitia James, who raised the prospect that Mr. Trump was seeking an end run around some of her lawsuit's harshest potential punishments." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) A Mother Jones report is here.

Stephanie Kirchgaessner of the Guardian: "A financial firm that operates billions of dollars in real estate properties around the world is facing new questions from the powerful chairman of the Senate finance committee about whether Qatar was secretly involved in the $1.2bn (£1bn) rescue of a Fifth Avenue property owned by Jared Kushner's family while Kushner was serving in the White House. Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who leads the finance committee, has given the chief executive of Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management until 24 October to answer a series of detailed questions about a 2018 deal in which Brookfield paid Kushner Companies for a 99-year lease on the family's marquee 666 Fifth Avenue property.... In a statement on Thursday, Wyden accused Brookfield of stonewalling his committee and refusing to answer questions about the transaction, including whether Brookfield 'intentionally misled' the public...."


Lori Konish of CNBC: "Amid record high inflation, Social Security beneficiaries will get an 8.7% increase to their benefits in 2023, the highest increase in 40 years. The Social Security Administration announced the change on Thursday. It will result in a benefit increase of more than $140 more per month on average starting in January. The average Social Security retiree benefit will increase $146 per month, to $1,827 in 2023, from $1,681 in 2022." (Also linked yesterday.)

Everything Is Going Very Smoothly. Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "A veteran F.B.I. counterintelligence agent testified on Thursday that the Trump Justice Department's decision in 2020 to release sensitive documents about a bureau informant to a Senate committee examining the bureau's Russia investigation had damaged national security. The agent told jurors at the trial of Igor Danchenko, who is charged with lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about matters related to the anti-Trump Steele dossier, that Mr. Danchenko, a Russia analyst, had provided extraordinary assistance for years as a paid F.B.I. informant. Internet sleuths managed to piece together Mr. Danchenko's identity after Attorney General William P. Barr directed the F.B.I. to declassify a redacted report about its three-day interview of Mr. Danchenko in 2017 and give it to Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time.... The testimony by [agent Kevin] Helson, a witness for the prosecution, seemed to be another setback for the special counsel investigation...." ~~~

     ~~~ Marshall Cohen of CNN: "The final expected trial of special counsel John Durham's probe took an unexpected turn Wednesday, with Durham grilling and rebuking his own witness after the witness seemed to bolster the defense of Igor Danchenko, a key Steele dossier source.... The special counsel opened his case with testimony from Brian Auten, a senior FBI intelligence analyst who oversaw part of the FBI's early investigation into possible Trump-Russia collusion. Over two days, Auten helped prosecutors by saying there was information that Danchenko didn't share with the FBI about his dossier.... But the situation shifted when the defense got to cross-examine Auten. Danchenko's lawyers highlighted Auten's previous testimony, given years ago to the Justice Department inspector general and to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which contradicted some of Durham's claims. Auten previously said Danchenko was 'truthful' and 'assisted' the Russia probe. He also said securing Danchenko as an FBI source was 'one of the best things that came out of' the Russia probe. This undercuts the core of Durham's indictment.... Durham returned for a final round of questioning.... Durham sounded angry at times, and many of Auten's responses were adversarial, clearly not giving Durham the answers that fit his narrative." Durham tried to impeach his own witness.

James Barragan of the Texas Tribune: "Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar on Thursday certified that 49 migrants who were flown to Martha’s Vineyard by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last month were victims of a crime. The move clears a pathway for those migrants to get a special visa to stay in the country that they otherwise would not have received." The criminal? Why, DeSantolink, of course.

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. Terry Spencer of the AP: "Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz will be sentenced to life without parole for the 2018 murder of 17 people at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, after the jury said Thursday that it could not unanimously agree that he should be executed -- a decision that left some parents in tears as they exited the courtroom. The jury's recommendation came after seven hours of deliberations over two days, ending a three-month trial that included graphic videos, photos and testimony from the massacre and its aftermath, heart-wrenching testimony from victims'family members and a tour of the still blood-spattered building. Under Florida law, a death sentence requires a unanimous vote on at least one count. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer will formally issue the life sentences Nov. 1. Relatives, along with the students and teachers Cruz wounded, will be given the opportunity to speak at the sentencing hearing." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) The New York Times story is here.

Way Beyond

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

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Friday are here: "A Russian-installed official in Kherson is urging citizens to evacuate to Russia, as Ukrainian forces conduct a counteroffensive and appear to make gains in the southern region that Moscow illegally declared it annexed last month. Ukraine says it has reclaimed more than 600 settlements from Russian control so far, including in the regions of Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk. Kyiv has criticized the International Committee of the Red Cross, saying it should do more to ensure the safety of Ukrainian citizens and fighters held in Russian captivity. President Volodymyr Zelensky urged the ICRC to visit the Olenivka prisoner of war camp, thought to house hundreds of Ukrainian detainees. The humanitarian agency says it has not been granted access to the prison, which is run by Russia. A blast at the camp in the separatist-controlled Donetsk People's Republic in the east is reported to have killed at least 50 people in July."

Alex Marquardt of CNN: "Since they first started arriving in Ukraine last spring, the Starlink satellite internet terminals made by Elon Musk's SpaceX have been a vital source of communication for Ukraine's military, allowing it to fight and stay connected even as cellular phone and internet networks have been destroyed in its war with Russia. So far roughly 20,000 Starlink satellite units have been donated to Ukraine, with Musk tweeting on Friday the 'operation has cost SpaceX $80 million and will exceed $100 million by the end of the year.'... SpaceX has warned the Pentagon that it may stop funding the service in Ukraine unless the US military kicks in tens of millions of dollars per month.... Last month Musk's SpaceX sent a letter to the Pentagon saying it can no longer continue to fund the Starlink service as it has. The letter also requested that the Pentagon take over funding for Ukraine's government and military use of Starlink, which SpaceX claims would cost more than $120 million for the rest of the year and could cost close to $400 million for the next 12 months."

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Wednesday
Oct122022

October 13, 2022

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Lisa Mascaro, et al., of the AP: "The House Jan. 6 committee voted unanimously Thursday to subpoena Donald Trump, demanding the former president's personal testimony as it unveiled startling new video from his closest aides describing his multi-part plan to overturn his 2020 election loss that resulted in the assault on the U.S. Capitol.... In the committee's 10th public session, just weeks before the congressional midterm elections, the panel summed up Trump's 'staggering betrayal' of his oath of office.... To illustrate what it said were 'purposeful lies,' the committee juxtaposed repeated instances in which top administration officials recounted telling Trump the actual facts with clips of him repeating the exact opposite at his pre-riot rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6.... In never-before-seen Secret Service messages, the panel produced evidence that extremist groups provided the muscle in the fight for Trump's presidency, planning weeks before the attack to send a violent force to Washington. The Secret Service warned in a Dec. 26, 2020, email of a tip that members of the right-wing Proud Boys planned to outnumber the police in a march in Washington on Jan. 6."

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post pulls out five takeaways from the Jan. 6 committee hearing that seem spot on.

The New York Times' live updates of the January 6 committee hearing are useful. ~~~

~~~ Catie Edmondson & Aishvarya Kavi: "Chilling new footage shared by the select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol showed for the first time how Congress's top leaders scrambled on Jan. 6 to try to secure the building as it came under attack. The tense video underscored how deeply they feared for the safety of their colleagues and staff members. As they watched the rioters' assault on television, [Nancy] Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer ... implored governors of nearby states to dispatch their national guards to protect lawmakers still in the building.... The footage, shot by Ms. Pelosi's daughter, Alexandra, also showed top Democratic and Republican officials — including Senator Mitch McConnell ... -- huddling on the phone with Pentagon officials, mapping out how they could quickly certify President Biden's electoral victory....

Maggie Haberman: "This behind-the-scenes footage of the congressional leaders desperately trying to get help from the Trump administration is stunning....

Charlie Savage: Adam "Schiff seems to be accusing witnesses of perjury: 'The Secret Service and other agencies knew of the prospect of violence well in advance of the president's speech at the Ellipse. Despite this, certain White House and Secret Service witnesses previously testified that they had received no intelligence about violence that could potentially threaten any of the protectees on Jan. 6, including the vice president. Evidence strongly suggests that this testimony is not credible.'"

Supremes Brush Off Trump. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a request from ... Donald J. Trump to intervene in the litigation over documents seized from his Florida estate. The court's order, which was a sentence long, was a stinging rebuke to Mr. Trump. There were no noted dissents, and the court gave no reasons, saying only: 'The application to vacate the stay entered by the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit on Sept. 21, 2022, presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the court is denied.'" Politico's report is here.

Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: "Days before the New York attorney general filed a lawsuit accusing Donald J. Trump and his company of fraud and seeking to shut down some of their business in the state, Mr. Trump's lawyers created a new company in Delaware.... On Sept. 21, the day the suit was filed, the new Delaware company filed paperwork in New York, seeking to be recognized there as the Trump Organization II. Those maneuvers were detailed for the first time in a court filing on Thursday from the attorney general, Letitia James, who raised the prospect that Mr. Trump was seeking an end run around some of her lawsuit's harshest potential punishments."

Ryan Reilly & Ken Delanian of NBC News: "A week after the Jan. 6 attack, a person familiar with FBI operations informed a top bureau manager that 'there is, at best, a sizeable percentage of the employee population that felt sympathetic to the group that stormed the Capitol,' according to an email just released under the Freedom of Information Act.... The unnamed emailer said many FBI agents believed Jan. 6 'was no different than (Black Lives Matter) protests of last summer. Several also lamented that the only reason this violent activity is getting more attention is because of "political correctness."'"

Terry Spencer of the AP: "Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz will be sentenced to life without parole for the 2018 murder of 17 people at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, after the jury said Thursday that it could not unanimously agree that he should be executed -- a decision that left some parents in tears as they exited the courtroom. The jury's recommendation came after seven hours of deliberations over two days, ending a three-month trial that included graphic videos, photos and testimony from the massacre and its aftermath, heart-wrenching testimony from victims' family members and a tour of the still blood-spattered building. Under Florida law, a death sentence requires a unanimous vote on at least one count. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer will formally issue the life sentences Nov. 1. Relatives, along with the students and teachers Cruz wounded, will be given the opportunity to speak at the sentencing hearing."

Lori Konish of CNBC: "Amid record high inflation, Social Security beneficiaries will get an 8.7% increase to their benefits in 2023, the highest increase in 40 years. The Social Security Administration announced the change on Thursday. It will result in a benefit increase of more than $140 more per month on average starting in January. The average Social Security retiree benefit will increase $146 per month, to $1,827 in 2023, from $1,681 in 2022." Related WashPo story linked below.

~~~~~~~~~~

** David Sanger of the New York Times: "President Biden declared on Wednesday that the overwhelming challenge for the United States in the coming years would be 'outcompeting China and restraining Russia' while focusing on restoring a damaged democracy at home. In his 48-page national security strategy, which every new administration is required to issue, Mr. Biden made clear that over the long term he was more worried about China's moves to 'layer authoritarian governance with a revisionist foreign policy' than he was about a declining, battered Russia." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

"These Treasured Lands." Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Biden on Wednesday announced the creation of the country's newest national monument, protecting tens of thousands of acres in the mountains of Colorado from mining and development and delivering an election-year gift to Michael Bennet, one of the state's two Democratic senators. Standing on the grounds of Camp Hale, a World War II military installation that was used to train the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division, Mr. Biden said he was designating 53,804 acres of rugged landscape as the Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument. 'When you think about the national beauty of Colorado and the history of our nation, you find it here,' the president said moments before signing the proclamation. He pointed to the area's highlights: 'the Tenmile Range, soaring peaks and steep canyons, black bears, bald eagles, moose, mountain lions, wonderful pristine rivers, alpine lakes.'"

Eileen Sullivan & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "The Biden administration will expand its use of a public health rule to start expelling to Mexico thousands of Venezuelans who illegally cross the U.S. border and announced a new humanitarian parole program to provide a narrow legal pathway to the United States for up to 24,000 Venezuelans. The administration hopes that Venezuelans will apply for the parole plan remotely and fly to the United States rather than making the dangerous trek to the southwest border. But the reliance on a Trump-era pandemic rule to deny entry to many others crystallized the Biden administration's balancing act in both helping refugees and tightening border restrictions in the face of Republican attacks on President Biden's immigration policy and record numbers of illegal border crossings."

It's Going to be a Trump Day Today

What is likely the final January 6 House Committee public hearing will begin at 1:00 pm ET today. It is scheduled to last two-and-a-half hours.

Annie Grayer, et al., of CNN: "The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol will treat its Thursday hearing as a closing argument ahead of the November midterms, which will seek to hammer home that ... Donald Trump remains a clear and present danger to democracy, particularly in the context of the upcoming 2024 presidential election, multiple sources tell CNN. Although there will not be witnesses appearing in-person on Thursday, sources say, the hearing will feature new testimony and evidence that the committee has uncovered." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "Armed with new witness interviews and unreleased footage of the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, the panel is planning to argue that Mr. Trump's lies about widespread voter fraud inspired far-right extremists and election deniers who present a continuing threat to American democracy. Unlike previous hearings, which focused on specific aspects of Mr. Trump's attempts to overturn the election, members will attempt to portray the entire arc of the plan, demonstrating Mr. Trump's involvement in every step.... To bolster its case, the committee has obtained more than 1.5 million pages of documents and communications from the Secret Service that include details of how agents blocked Mr. Trump's attempts to join his supporters at the Capitol even after they had begun the assault.... Secret Service staff initially attempted to accommodate Mr. Trump's wishes [to drive to the Capitol], but supervisors at the agency expressed alarm, and District of Columbia police declined to block off intersections for his motorcade as a mob of his supporters began attacking and injuring dozens of police officers, according to the communications...." ~~~

~~~ Carol Leonnig & Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post: "The probably final public hearing of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is expected to highlight newly obtained Secret Service records showing how ... Donald Trump was repeatedly alerted to brewing violence that day, and he still sought to stoke the conflict, according to three people briefed on the records. The committee plans to share in Thursday's hearing new video footage and internal Secret Service emails that appear to corroborate parts of the most startling inside accounts of that day.... After being alerted to violence erupting at the Capitol when he returned to the White House, Trump tweeted criticism of Vice President Mike Pence for not blocking the certification of the election, whipping up supporters who had already trampled over security barricades and were battling police to break into the halls of Congress." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Which gives me another reason to wonder why Kevin McCarthy had the audacity to try to get away with this line of B.S. ~~~

     ~~~ Zachary Cohen of CNN (Oct. 10): "During a private meeting last summer, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told two police officers who defended the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 and the mother of a third who died after the riot, that ... Donald Trump had no idea his supporters were carrying out the attack, according to newly obtained audio of the conversation. Testimony to the House Select Committee on January 6 revealed that Trump watched television for hours as the rioters engaged in a brutal fight with law enforcement.... 'I'm just telling you from my phone call, I don't know that he did know that,' McCarthy said during the June 2021 meeting about Trump's knowledge of the fighting, according to audio secretly recorded by [former D.C. police officer Michael] Fanone...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

** Devlin Barrett & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "A Trump employee has told federal agents about moving boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago at the specific direction of the former president, according to people familiar with the investigation, who say the witness account -- combined with security-camera footage -- offers key evidence of Donald Trump's behavior as investigators sought the return of classified material. The witness description and footage described to The Washington Post offer the most direct account to date of Trump's actions and instructions leading up to the FBI's Aug. 8 search of the Florida residence and private club, in which agents were looking for evidence of potential crimes including obstruction, destruction of government records or mishandling classified information.... After Trump advisers received a subpoena in May for any classified documents that remained at Mar-a-Lago, Trump told people to move boxes to his residence at the property. That description of events was corroborated by the security-camera footage...." ~~~

     ~~~ Maggie Haberman & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: Walt Nauta, "a long-serving aide to ... Donald J. Trump, was captured on security camera footage moving boxes out of a storage room at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump's residence in Florida, both before and after the Justice Department issued a subpoena in May demanding the return of all classified documents, according to three people familiar with the matter.... The Justice Department has interviewed Mr. Nauta on several occasions.... Those interviews started before the F.B.I. executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8 and carted off more than 11,000 documents, including about 100 that bore classification markings. Mr. Nauta has answered questions but is not formally cooperating with the investigation.... It is not clear whether that employee [described in the WashPo story linked above] was Mr. Nauta, and a person familiar with the matter and with Mr. Trump's orbit said it could be a different staff member." ~~~

     ~~~ An NBC News story is here. CNN's report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Donnie Boy, are ya gonna try to plead out?

Trump, a Clear & Present Danger. Bob Brigham of the Raw Story: "Donald Trump considered exposing the identities of confidential government sources from his first impeachment, according to a bombshell new report. Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley reported for Rolling Stone, [in] "the final days of his presidency[, Trump] repeatedly threatened to out government sources involved in the Trump-Russia investigation, an anti-Deep State revenge fantasy he still obsesses over to this day.... One ... source tells Rolling Stone that in the days after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the then-president, sometimes while brandishing pieces of paper, would loudly complain that none of the identifying facts in the highly sensitive Russia documents should be blacked-out. Trump would insist, the source says, that it should 'all be out there' so that the American people could see the truth of who 'did it' to the president. Intelligence officials were ultimately able to talk Trump out of revealing the sources' identities.... 'The former president, the source says, still sporadically talks about the need to get "the names" out into the public record,' the magazine reported."

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "In the emerging history of how a small group of lawyers aided ... Donald J. Trump's attempt to stay in power despite losing the 2020 election, Kenneth Chesebro has received far less attention than others like Rudolph W. Giuliani and John Eastman. But documents show that Mr. Chesebro played a central part in developing the idea of having Trump supporters pretend to be electors from states won by Joseph R. Biden Jr., then claiming that Vice President Mike Pence had the power to cite the purported existence of rival slates to delay counting or to discard real Electoral College votes for Mr. Biden on Jan. 6, 2021. On Wednesday, several dozen prominent legal figures submitted an ethics complaint to the Supreme Court of New York's attorney grievance committee, calling Mr. Chesebro 'the apparent mastermind behind key aspects of the fake elector ploy' and accusing him of conspiring 'with Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Eastman and others to subvert our democracy.'... The complaint against Mr. Chesebro did not explicitly call for him to lose his license but asked for an investigation and 'appropriate sanctions.'"

Shayna Jacobs of the Washington Post: "A federal judge has denied a request by ... Donald Trump to pause proceedings in a defamation case brought against him in 2019 by an author who said he raped her in a department store dressing room decades ago. The decision clears the way for Trump, who denies the claim, to be deposed as scheduled next week. In the lawsuit brought against Trump by former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, Trump recently won a temporary reprieve from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, which sent the case to the appeals court in D.C. to resolve whether Trump was a federal employee as defined by the law when he publicly rebutted Carroll's story.... In [his] decision Wednesday, [U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan] said depositions of Trump and Carroll are essentially all that remains for the parties to complete the pretrial discovery process." The AP's report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Holmes Lybrand & Hannah Rabinowitz of CNN: "A veteran and member of the Oath Keepers testified Wednesday that the far-right group amassed more weapons outside Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021, than he had seen since his days in the military. Terry Cummings told the jury during the second week of the historic seditious conspiracy trial that he traveled to Washington with several members of a group from Florida, bringing his own AR-15 rifle and ammunition box to contribute to the Quick Reaction Force (QRF) allegedly established by the group in a hotel outside the city.... Cummings has not been charged in connection with January 6.... Throughout his entire trip to Washington, DC, [from Florida,] Cummings testified on cross-examination, he 'did not hear of any plans' to storm the [Capitol] building."


Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "The Social Security Administration is expected to announce on Thursday a roughly 9 percent increase in benefit checks for seniors starting next year, a response to the fastest inflation America has seen in roughly four decades.The change will affect about 70.3 million Social Security beneficiaries, including roughly 8 million Supplemental Security Income recipients. The adjustment is expected to increase monthly Social Security checks by roughly $150 per month on average.... Alex Lawson ... of Social Security Works ... also pointed to lower Medicare premiums resulting from a Biden administration decision to narrow coverage of a controversial drug that had driven premium increases in 2022. That change, which takes effect next year, will help seniors keep more of the additional Social Security benefits than they otherwise would have been able to do." ~~~

     ~~~ The story has been updated. New Lede: "The Social Security Administration on Thursday announced an 8.7 percent increase in benefit checks for seniors starting next year, a response to the fastest U.S. inflation in four decades." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Assuming the Medicare payments, which come directly out of the Social Security payments, really don't rise substantially, a 9% 8.7% increase can make a noticeable difference for many of us.

The F.B.I. Gave Her No R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Michael Levenson of the New York Times: An FBI "file, as previously reported by Rolling Stone, reveals that the Federal Bureau of Investigation monitored ... [Aretha Franklin] for years, collecting intelligence from sources on her involvement in the civil rights movement and what it suspected were her links to Black Panthers, Communists and those it deemed 'Black extremists.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Dave Collins of the AP: "The conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should pay $965 million to people who suffered from his false claim that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax, a jury in Connecticut decided Wednesday. The verdict is the second big judgment against the Infowars host over his relentless promotion of the lie that the 2012 massacre never happened, and that the grieving families seen in news coverage were actors hired as part of a plot to take away people's guns. It came in a lawsuit filed by the relatives of five children and three educators killed in the mass shooting, plus an FBI agent who was among the first responders to the scene. A Texas jury in August awarded nearly $50 million to the parents of another slain child.... Jones wasn't there, but live video from the court played on a split screen on his Infowars show." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) The New York Times story is here.

Scott Dance of the Washington Post: "The Mississippi River is flowing at its lowest level in at least a decade, and until rain relieves a worsening drought in the region, it's becoming increasingly difficult to maintain water levels high enough to carry critical exports from the nation's bread basket. Areas of persistent and developing drought stretch across much of the Mississippi basin, which itself covers 41 percent of the contiguous United States. Though record-setting storms caused catastrophic flooding in parts of the watershed this summer, the past few months have been among the driest on record in parts of the Heartland, at a time of year when river levels are normally hitting their low points. And long-term forecasts suggest that unusually dry weather is likely to continue."

Catrin Einhorn of the New York Times: "The [biennial Living Plant Index] assessment's latest number, issued Wednesday by 89 authors from around the world, is its most alarming yet: From 1970 to 2018, monitored populations of vertebrates declined an average of 69 percent. That's more than two-thirds in only 48 years. It's a staggering figure with serious implications, especially as nations prepare to meet in Montreal this December in an effort to agree on a new global plan to protect biodiversity.... The study tracks selected populations of 5,320 species.... There's a temptation to think that an average 69 percent decline in these populations means that's the share of monitored wildlife that was wiped out. But that's not true.... [Also,] there is quite likely bias in which species are tracked."


Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "Federal regulators on Wednesday broadened access to updated coronavirus booster shots to include children as young as 5, hoping to bolster protection against the now-dominant version of the virus. The revised shot developed by Pfizer-BioNTech previously had been cleared for those 12 and older, while Moderna's updated booster was available only to those 18 and older. The action by the Food and Drug Administration will expand access to Pfizer's shot to children as young as 5, and to Moderna's shot to children 6 and older." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Frances Sellers of the Washington Post: "A new long-covid study based on the experiences of nearly 100,000 participants provides powerful evidence that many people do not fully recover months after being infected with the coronavirus. The Scottish study found that between six and 18 months after infection, 1 in 20 people had not recovered and 42 percent reported partial recovery. There were some reassuring aspects to the results: People with asymptomatic infections are unlikely to suffer long-term effects, and vaccination appears to offer some protection from long covid." Access to this story is free to nonsubscribers.

November Elections

David Moye of the Huffington Post: "Herschel Walker apparently has decided the best way to counter the reports that he paid for at least one former partner's abortion is to tell bizarre anecdotes about bulls who get multiple cows pregnant. During a rally on Tuesday with Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton (R) and Florida Senator Rick Scott (R), the Georgia Senate candidate wrapped up his speech with ... [a story] about a bull who got three different cows pregnant. Although the story's point was apparently about how the United States is the best country in the world, audience members are forgiven if they related it to recent reports that he fathered numerous kids out of wedlock while publicly criticizing 'absent fathers.' Here's the anecdote in all its glory[.]" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I urge you to read the text of Hershel's little parable. Article includes video. What Walker was trying to convey was the adage, "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." But what's on his mind is pregnant cows & how they can mess up a fellow, even to the point of emasculating him. So that's how it came out. I suppose someone once may have told him a story of this nature to discourage him from getting any more women pregnant, but Hershel didn't quite grasp the storyteller's meaning.

Nevada Senate. Gabe Stern of the AP: Fourteen "members of Nevada Republican Senate candidate Adam Laxalt's family sent a letter endorsing his opponent, Democratic U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. 'We staunchly believe that Catherine is well equipped with her own "Nevada grit" -- a quality that she will take forward in representation of our home state for six more years across the halls of Congress,' the letter states. The letter, first obtained by The Nevada Independent, does not mention Laxalt by name. Instead, it talks of Cortez Masto's ... experience in public education as well as her commitment to law enforcement.... During his unsuccessful gubernatorial run in 2018, a dozen family members endorsed Democrat Steve Sisolak in an op-ed to the Reno Gazette-Journal. That letter more explicitly criticized Laxalt, saying he 'leveraged and exploited' the family name throughout his campaign.... [Adam Laxalt is the] grandson of former U.S. Sen. and Nevada Gov. Paul Laxalt and the son of former Sen. Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico...."

Wisconsin Senate. Jack Schonfeld of the Hill: "The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's editorial board on Wednesday published a scathing reproach of Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), outlining to readers eight reasons why the group believes they should oppose Johnson's reelection. 'In fact, Ron Johnson is the worst Wisconsin political representative since the infamous Sen. Joseph McCarthy,' the editorial board concluded.... Three of the board's reasons related to unfounded objections to the results of the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.... 'We cannot elect people to office who do not honor the results of elections and still expect to hold onto our democratic republic...,' the board wrote." MB: The JS editorial is firewalled, but I was able to pick it up here.

Beyond the Beltway

California. Jill Cowan & Shawn Hubler of the New York Times: "The former president of the Los Angeles City Council resigned from elective office on Wednesday amid national outrage over racist remarks in a leaked recording, hours after the state attorney general announced an investigation into the redistricting process during which the comments were made. The decision by the former Council leader, Nury Martinez, who had risen to one of the most powerful posts in the nation's second-largest city, came three days after a year-old audio recording surfaced of her disparaging colleagues, constituencies and even the child of a fellow council member while discussing ways to change political boundaries to benefit Latino representatives. Caught on tape with her were two other council members, Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León, as well as Ron Herrera, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. The men, all well-known members of the Latino political establishment in California, did not confront Ms. Martinez and at times kept the conversation going with derogatory comments of their own, according to the recording obtained by The New York Times." Politico's story is here.

Florida. Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "A federal watchdog is investigating whether Florida improperly tapped coronavirus aid to fly migrants to Martha's Vineyard, part of a widening government inquiry into states that put their pandemic dollars toward controversial immigration crackdowns. The inspector general for the Treasury Department confirmed its new interest in a letter sent last week to Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and other members of Congress who had expressed concern that the spending approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) 'violates federal law.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Politico's report is here.

Michigan. Ed White of the AP: "Prosecutors raised concerns Wednesday about a female juror who apparently has been smiling at one of three men on trial in connection with a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020. Judge Thomas Wilson said he, too, noticed it and pledged to pay 'close attention' to the juror. He said the expressions didn't appear to be a reaction to testimony. 'She is in my direct view,' Wilson said. 'So I am often looking right at her while I'm listening to the witness testify. ... I've seen smiles come out of her face. Not great big smiles but more of a small smirk.' The juror has been looking at Paul Bellar, 24, who was a member of a paramilitary group, the Wolverine Watchmen." MB: Ripped from Fiction? This sounds like the premise of a "Law & Order" episode I saw years ago.

Ohio. A Fish Story Becomes a Criminal Case. Christine Chung of the New York Times: "A month after a two-person fishing team at an Ohio contest scandalized the competitive fishing world when organizers said they engorged walleyes with lead balls to increase their weight, a grand jury indicted both men on Wednesday on felony charges of cheating and attempted grand theft.... Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael C. O'Malley said in a statement that the men's actions were 'not only dishonorable but also criminal.'"

Texas. McKenna Oxenden of the New York Times: "A former rookie San Antonio police officer was arrested and charged Tuesday night in the shooting of a teenager who had been eating in a McDonald's parking lot and is now on life support. The former officer, James Brennand, who was fired from the San Antonio Police Department on Oct. 2 because of the shooting, was charged with two felony counts of aggravated assault...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Utah. Zoom Conquers All: Same-sex Marriage -- Anywhere in the World. Cathy Free of the Washington Post: "Since the spring of 2020, the Utah County [clerk's] office has performed virtual weddings for thousands of international couples, including 585 Chinese couples, said Russ Rampton, deputy clerk of digital marriage-license services for the county. About 150 of those Chinese marriages involved same-gender couples.... Anyone is eligible for the nuptials as long as they provide proof they are of legal age, fill out all of the required forms online and pay a $35 fee, he said." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Most of the stories I link are about bad news: war, natural & man-made calamities & other hardship; corruption, bigotry; murderers, thieves, liars & other bad actors, etc. So it's wonderfully refreshing to link a story like this, which centers on a same-sex Chinese couple who were able to marry thanks to a Utah County clerk's office.

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al.

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

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Thursday are here: "Strikes continued to rain down on Kyiv region early Thursday, according to regional governor Oleksiy Kuleba. A presidential adviser said 'kamikaze' drone attacks hit 'critical infrastructure.' Rescue operations are ongoing, and residents have been told to shelter.... The U.N. General Assembly voted to condemn Russia's illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory, adopting a U.S.-sponsored resolution. The text, which is not legally binding, demands that Moscow give up claims to the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine.... Vladimir Putin is expected to meet with Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Kazakhstan later Thursday. Rafael Mariano Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he would return to Kyiv after his meetings in Russia to work on creating a 'protection zone' around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant." ~~~

     ~~~ A Guardian story on the U.N. vote is here.

Michael Schwirtz, et al., of the New York Times: "In just two days this week, Russian forces fired more than 100 cruise missiles and dozens of exploding drones at cities across Ukraine, far more than the nation's aging air defenses were ever expected to encounter. And yet fewer than half made it to their targets, Ukrainian officials say. Ukraine's success in knocking down those projectiles ... has reinvigorated calls by officials in Kyiv for Western countries to provide more sophisticated defensive weapons systems. At a meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, the United States and other allies readily agreed, pledging to rapidly provide the weaponry. Germany began delivery of four units of a missile defense system so advanced even its own forces have yet to use it. The Netherlands promised millions of dollars in air-defense missiles, and President Emmanuel Macron of France said his country would send 'radars, systems and anti-air missiles.' And a day after the Biden administration said it was working to speed up delivery of two advanced missile systems, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said, 'The systems will be provided as fast as we can physically get them there.'" ~~~

BUT. Steve Hendrix of the Washington Post: "Israel's Iron Dome air defense, which boasts a 90 percent success rate against rockets fired against it, will stay out of Ukraine's reach, experts said, as Jerusalem seeks to maintain strategic relations with Russia in Syria and other hot spots. Israel's Defense and Foreign ministries and the prime minister's office uniformly declined to comment Wednesday on long-standing requests from Ukraine and its supporters for it to give, sell or loan Ukraine the system, including calls made since Monday's barrage.... 'I don't know what happened to Israel,' [Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky] said in an interview with French TV5 channel on Sept. 23. 'I am in shock, because I don't understand why they couldn't give us air defenses.'... The system was developed with funding help from Washington, and both governments have veto power over proposals to share it." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Maybe the Biden administration is too afraid to do anything before the November elections, but I suggest they pull a Trump (as in the aid Trump refused to send to Ukraine in order to extort Zelensky into coming up with anti-Biden fibs) & "accidentally" forget to send Israel a chunk of the massive aid we give the country.

Izzatso? Saudi Arabia. Kareem Faheem of the Washington Post: "Saudi Arabia responded Thursday to a barrage of criticism from the United States over a decision by the Saudi-led oil-producing cartel and its allies to cut production, saying the decision was based solely on 'economic considerations' while denying it was 'politically motivated' against the United States. The unusually detailed and often caustic statement, attributed to a Saudi Foreign Ministry official, came after the White House and members of Congress condemned the kingdom for a decision by OPEC Plus last week to cut its oil output by 2 million barrels a day, a move that could boost oil prices in the United States and worldwide."

News Ledes

New York Times: "A gunman killed at least five people, including an off-duty police officer, in a shooting that turned a normally quiet residential area of Raleigh, N.C., into a sprawling crime scene on Thursday evening. At least two others were wounded,including a police officer, whose injuries were described as 'non-life threatening,' according to Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin.... The authorities said late Thursday that a suspect was in custody."

New York Times: Two "police officers [were] killed in Connecticut after a suspicious 911 call. A third officer was seriously wounded in the violence in Bristol, officials said, and a suspect also died.... In a statement, the State Police said that the initial 911 report might have been a ruse, saying its investigation suggested the call had been placed in a 'deliberate act to lure' officers to the home on Redstone Hill Road in Bristol."

CNBC: "Prices consumers pay for a wide variety of goods and services rose more than expected in September as inflation pressures continued to weigh on the U.S. economy. The consumer price index increased 0.4% for the month, more than the 0.3% Dow Jones estimate, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. On a 12-month basis, so-called headline inflation was up 8.2%, off its peak around 9% in June but still hovering near the highest levels since the early 1980s. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, core CPI accelerated 0.6% against the Dow Jones estimate for a 0.4% increase. Core inflation was up 6.6% from a year ago, the biggest 12-month gain since August 1982."

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Tuesday
Oct112022

October 12, 2022

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Dave Collins of the AP: "The conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should pay $965 million to people who suffered from his false claim that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax, a jury in Connecticut decided Wednesday. The verdict is the second big judgment against the Infowars host over his relentless promotion of the lie that the 2012 massacre never happened, and that the grieving families seen in news coverage were actors hired as part of a plot to take away people's guns. It came in a lawsuit filed by the relatives of five children and three educators killed in the mass shooting, plus an FBI agent who was among the first responders to the scene. A Texas jury in August awarded nearly $50 million to the parents of another slain child.... Jones wasn't there, but live video from the court played on a split screen on his Infowars show."

** David Sanger of the New York Times: "President Biden declared on Wednesday that the overwhelming challenge for the United States in the coming years would be 'outcompeting China and restraining Russia' while focusing on restoring a damaged democracy at home. In his 48-page nationalsecurity strategy, which every new administration is required to issue, Mr. Biden made clear that over the long term he was more worried about China's moves to 'layer authoritarian governance with a revisionist foreign policy' than he was about a declining, battered Russia."

Annie Grayer, et al., of CNN: "The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol will treat its Thursday hearing as a closing argument ahead of the November midterms, which will seek to hammer home that ... Donald Trump remains a clear and present danger to democracy, particularly in the context of the upcoming 2024 presidential election, multiple sources tell CNN. Although there will not be witnesses appearing in-person on Thursday, sources say, the hearing will feature new testimony and evidence that the committee has uncovered." ~~~

~~~ Carol Leonnig & Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post: "The probably final public hearing of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is expected to highlight newly obtained Secret Service records showing how ... Donald Trump was repeatedly alerted to brewing violence that day, and he still sought to stoke the conflict, according to three people briefed on the records. The committee plans to share in Thursday's hearing new video footage and internal Secret Service emails that appear to corroborate parts of the most startling inside accounts of that day, said the people briefed.... After being alerted to violence erupting at the Capitol when he returned to the White House, Trump tweeted criticism of Vice President Mike Pence for not blocking the certification of the election, whipping up supporters who had already trampled over security barricades and were battling police to break into the halls of Congress." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Which gives me another reason to wonder why Kevin McCarthy had the audacity to try to get away with this line of B.S. ~~~

     ~~~ Zachary Cohen of CNN (Oct. 10): "During a private meeting last summer, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told two police officers who defended the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and the mother of a third who died after the riot, that ... Donald Trump had no idea his supporters were carrying out the attack, according to newly obtained audio of the conversation. Testimony to the House Select Committee on January 6 revealed that Trump watched television for hours as the rioters engaged in a brutal fight with law enforcement.... 'I'm just telling you from my phone call, I don't know that he did know that,' McCarthy said during the June 2021 meeting about Trump's knowledge of the fighting, according to audio secretly recorded by [former D.C. police officer Michael] Fanone...."

Shayna Jacobs of the Washington Post: "A federal judge has denied a request by ... Donald Trump to pause proceedings in a defamation case brought against him in 2019 by an author who said he raped her in a department store dressing room decades ago. The decision clears the way for Trump, who denies the claim, to be deposed as scheduled next week. In the lawsuit brought against Trump by former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, Trump recently won a temporary reprieve from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, which sent the case to the appeals court in D.C. to resolve whether Trump was a federal employee as defined by the law when he publicly rebutted Carroll's story.... In [his] decision Wednesday, [U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan] said depositions of Trump and Carroll are essentially all that remains for the parties to complete the pretrial discovery process." The AP's report is here.

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "In the emerging history of how a small group of lawyers aided ... Donald J. Trump's attempt to stay in power despite losing the 2020 election, Kenneth Chesebro has received far less attention than others like Rudolph W. Giuliani and John Eastman. But documents show that Mr. Chesebro played a central part in developing the idea of having Trump supporters pretend to be electors from states won by Joseph R. Biden Jr., then claiming that Vice President Mike Pence had the power to cite the purported existence of rival slates to delay counting or to discard real Electoral College votes for Mr. Biden on Jan. 6, 2021. On Wednesday, several dozen prominent legal figures submitted an ethics complaint to the Supreme Court of New York's attorney grievance committee, calling Mr. Chesebro 'the apparent mastermind behind key aspects of the fake elector ploy' and accusing him of conspiring 'with Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Eastman and others to subvert our democracy.'... The complaint against Mr. Chesebro did not explicitly call for him to lose his license but asked for an investigation and 'appropriate sanctions.'"

The F.B.I. Gave Her No R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Michael Levenson of the New York Times: An FBI "file, as previously reported by Rolling Stone, reveals that the Federal Bureau of Investigation monitored ... [Aretha Franklin] for years, collecting intelligence from sources on her involvement in the civil rights movement and what it suspected were her links to Black Panthers, Communists and those it deemed 'Black extremists.'"

Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "Federal regulators on Wednesday broadened access to updated coronavirus booster shots to include children as young as 5, hoping to bolster protection against the now-dominant version of the virus. The revised shot developed by Pfizer-BioNTech previously had been cleared for those 12 and older, while Moderna's updated booster was available only to those 18 and older. The action by the Food and Drug Administration will expand access to Pfizer's shot to children as young as 5, and to Moderna's shot to children 6 and older."

Georgia Senate Race. David Moye of the Huffington Post: "Herschel Walker apparently has decided the best way to counter the reports that he paid for at least one former partner's abortion is to tell bizarre anecdotes about bulls who get multiple cows pregnant. During a rally on Tuesday with Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton (R) and Florida Senator Rick Scott (R), the Georgia Senate candidate wrapped up his speech with ... [a story] about a bull who got three different cows pregnant. Although the story's point was apparently about how the United States is the best country in the world, audience members are forgiven if they related it to recent reports that he fathered numerous kids out of wedlock while publicly criticizing 'absent fathers.' Here's the anecdote in all its glory[.]" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I urge you to read the text of Hershel's little parable. Article includes video. What Walker was trying to convey was the adage, "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." But what's on his mind is pregnant cows & how they can mess up a fellow, even to the point of emasculating him. So that's how it came out. I suppose someone once may have told him a story of this nature to discourage him from getting any more women pregnant, but Hershel didn't quite grasp the storyteller's meaning.

Florida. Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "A federal watchdog is investigating whether Florida improperly tapped coronavirus aid to fly migrants to Martha's Vineyard, part of a widening government inquiry into states that put their pandemic dollars toward controversial immigration crackdowns. The inspector general for the Treasury Department confirmed its new interest in a letter sent last week to Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and other members of Congress who had expressed concern that the spending approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) 'violates federal law.'"

Texas. McKenna Oxenden of the New York Times: "A former rookie San Antonio police officer was arrested and charged Tuesday night in the shooting of a teenager who had been eating in a McDonald's parking lot and is now on life support. The former officer, James Brennand, who was fired from the San Antonio Police Department on Oct. 2 because of the shooting, was charged with two felony counts of aggravated assault...."

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In Case You're Under the Misimpression that Biden Doesn't Know What's Happening

Biden: Supremes Have Become an "Advocacy Group." Allie Malloy & Paul LeBlanc of CNN: "President Joe Biden on Tuesday ... [said,] 'I view this off-year election as one of the most important elections that I've been engaged in because a lot can change because the institutions have changed. The Supreme Court is more an advocacy group these days than it is an even handed' court... [Biden made the remark during] a virtual fundraiser for Democratic Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware."

If the Carrot Doesn't Work, Get out the Stick. Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Biden will re-evaluate the relationship with Saudi Arabia after it teamed up with Russia to cut oil production in a move that bolstered President Vladimir V. Putin's government and could raise gasoline prices in the United States just before midterm elections, a White House official said on Tuesday.... [John] Kirby, the strategic communications coordinator for the National Security Council, signaled openness to retaliatory measures proposed by Democratic congressional leaders who were outraged by the oil production cut announced last week by OPEC Plus, the international cartel. Among other things, leading Democrats have proposed curbing security cooperation with Saudi Arabia, including arms sales, and stripping OPEC members of their legal immunity so they can be sued for violations of U.S. antitrust laws." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

Stephanie Kirchgaessner & Julian Borger of the Guardian: "Joe Biden said there 'will be consequences' for Saudi Arabia after its decision last week to side with Vladimir Putin and cut oil production. 'There's going to be some consequences for what they've done, with Russia,' the US president said in an interview on CNN. 'I'm not going to get into what I'd consider and what I have in mind. But there will be -- there will be consequences.' The remarks signalled a dramatic abandonment of Biden's recent attempts to seek a rapprochement with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and casts doubt on the future of the US-Saudi security relationship."

Eilen Sullivan & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "The Biden administration is considering a humanitarian parole program for Venezuelans who have been fleeing political instability and poverty in large numbers, according to two administration officials familiar with the proposed plan, which the administration hopes will discourage Venezuelans from crossing the southwestern border illegally. If implemented, the program for Venezuelans would be similar to a humanitarian program offered to Ukrainians, which allows a family member or sponsor in the United States to apply on behalf of the refugee and commit to providing them with financial assistance while they're in the country." A Reuters story is here.

Another Trumpity-Doo-Dah-Day

Trump's Save America Me PAC. Isaac Stanley-Becker & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump's political operation has spent more money since he left office on lawyers representing the former president and a pair of nonprofits staffed by former Cabinet members than it has on Republican congressional campaigns, according to a review of financial filings. Trump's leadership PAC, Save America, has blitzed supporters in recent days with fundraising solicitations that focus on next month's high-stakes contest for control of Congress. 'It is IMPERATIVE that we win BIG in November,' blared an email last week. The group has contributed about $8.4 million so far directly to Republican campaigns and committees, while devoting $7 million to Trump's lawyers and another $2 million to the nonprofits, which employ former members of his administration, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Legal fees are expected to climb, Trump advisers say, as he employs a growing retinue of lawyers to fend off federal, state and county-level investigations." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Unfortunately, I'd guess that many of the Trumpbots don't care. They think the DOJ is unfa-a-a-rly picking on the Lord & Master.

Perry Stein & Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to deny a petition from Donald Trump's attorneys in the Mar-a-Lago search case, arguing that allowing an outside arbiter to review the classified documents seized from the former president's Florida residence would 'irreparably injure' the government and that Trump has no 'plausible' claims of ownership over these sensitive government materials. Trump's legal team last week made a technical and narrow petition to the court, asking the justices to reconsider a portion of an appeals court ruling that granted the Justice Department's request to keep the classified documents separate from a review of seized material being conducted by the outside expert, known as a special master." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) CNN's report is here.

Glenn Thrush, et al., of the New York Times: A Trump lawyer, "M. Evan Corcoran, met [new Trump lawyer Christina] Bobb at the president's residence and private club in Florida and asked her to sign a statement for the [Justice D]epartment that the Trump legal team had conducted a 'diligent search' of Mar-a-Lago and found only a few files that had not been returned to the government. Ms. Bobb ... was being asked to take a step that neither Mr. Trump nor other members of the legal team were willing to take -- so she looked before leaping. 'Wait a minute -- I don't know you,' Ms. Bobb replied to Mr. Corcoran's request, according to a person to whom she later recounted the episode. She later complained that she did not have a full grasp of what was going on around her when she signed the document, according to two people who have heard her account. Ms. Bobb, who relentlessly promoted falsehoods about the 2020 election as an on-air host for the far-right One America News Network, eventually signed her name. But she insisted on adding a written caveat before giving it to a senior Justice Department official on June 3: 'The above statements are true and correct to the best of my knowledge.' Her sworn statement, hedged or not, was shown to be flatly false.... And prosecutors are now investigating whether her actions constitute obstruction of justice or if she committed other crimes." The article goes into Bobb's participation in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election & her over-the-top enthusiasm for election-denying. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Rebecca Beitsch of the Hill: "The National Archives, without naming former President Trump, pushed back Tuesday on claims he made over the weekend that other past presidents had mishandled their White House records with the help of the agency. Trump had previously claimed ... President Obama had mishandled his own records but expanded that claim during rallies in Arizona and New Mexico to include several prior presidents.... At one point Trump even claimed, without evidence, that records from President George H.W. Bush's administration were stored in a Chinese restaurant and a bowling alley 'with no security and a broken front door.' The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) said Tuesday that while records are transported to presidents' libraries, any temporary storage has 'met strict archival and security standards, and have been managed and staffed exclusively by NARA employees.' It added that any insinuations that records were stored in substandard conditions 'are false and misleading.' At another point during the rallies, Trump also accused former President Clinton of losing nuclear codes and keeping classified recordings in his sock. While Clinton did store some tapes in his sock drawer while serving as president, he did not leave office with the recordings in tow." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

A Massive Docudump. Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "The Secret Service has handed congressional investigators more than 1 million electronic communications sent by agents in the lead-up to and during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, according to two sources.... While the communications do not include text messages, they do include emails and other electronic messages, according to a Secret Service spokesperson. The communications may shed light on lingering questions, including contact agents may have had with rioters, their efforts to protect then-Vice President Mike Pence and what occurred inside ... Donald Trump's car when Trump allegedly ordered Secret Service agents to take him to the Capitol." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Whether or not Democrats hold the House (and the signs remain that they will not), the committee by law will cease to exist in only a little more than two months. Its only Republican members -- Cheney & Kinsinger -- will have lost their day jobs (although it occurs to me the committee could hire them as consultants). So there's probably a reason the Secret Service just couldn't get around to finding a million+ documents to thumb through until recently. ~~~

~~~ ** The January 6 committee is holding what might be its last public hearing tomorrow, Thursday, at 1 pm ET.

Matthew Barakat of the AP: "A Russian analyst who played a major role in the creation of a flawed dossier about ... Donald Trump fabricated one of his own sources and concealed the identity of another when interviewed by the FBI, prosecutors said Tuesday. The allegations were aired during opening statements in the trial of Igor Danchenko, who is indicted on five counts of making false statements to the FBI. The FBI interviewed Danchenko on multiple occasions in 2017 as it tried to corroborate allegations in what became known as the 'Steele dossier.'" ~~~

~~~ Marshall Cohen of CNN: "Shortly before the 2016 election, the FBI offered retired British spy Christopher Steele 'up to $1 million' to prove the explosive allegations in his dossier about Donald Trump, a senior FBI analyst testified Tuesday. The cash offer was made during an overseas October 2016 meeting between Steele and several top FBI officials who were trying to corroborate Steele's claims that the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia to win the election. FBI supervisory analyst Brian Auten testified that Steele never got the money because he could not 'prove the allegations.' Auten also said Steele refused to provide the names of any of his sources during that meeting, and that Steele didn't give the FBI anything during that meeting that corroborated the claims in his explosive dossier. Auten was testifying at the criminal trial of Igor Danchenko, a primary source for Steele's dossier, who is being prosecuted by special counsel John Durham."


How to Play the GOP Racist Card Game. Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "The right-winger starts with a bigoted provocation and, when criticized, defaults to aggrieved claims of persecution and accusations of oversensitivity. He revels in the power he's amassed even as he poses as a victim.... Insinuating rhetoric lets Republicans speak to antisemites and then take umbrage when other people notice. The umbrage itself then becomes part of the political message: Those people won't let you say anything anymore! Usually, this performance depends on language with at least a shred of ambiguity, allowing the speaker to adopt a posture of put-upon faux naïveté." ~~~

     ~~~ Anna Merlan of Vice: "Fox News recently aired a two-part interview between Tucker Carlson and Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West. Motherboard has obtained portions of the interview that were edited out of the final broadcast. These include numerous antisemitic sentiments from Ye, a strange and lengthy digression about 'fake children' he claimed were planted in his house to manipulate his own children, and a statement that he's vaccinated against COVID-19.... In the version of the interview that made it to air, Ye described what he said was pressure not to support Donald Trump when the latter was a candidate.... A simple statement of fact from Ye -- 'I was vaccinated' -- was edited out...; Carlson has repeatedly used his show to air false and dangerous claims aimed at discouraging his viewers from getting vaccinated. The other footage that didn't air specifically includes numerous asides about Jewish people." ~~~

     ~~~ Philip Bump of the Washington Post: Tucker Carlson "wants his viewers to hear that their sense of victimization is valid and that Black Lives Matter is about their own subjugation, not the systemic constraints of race. He wants to present Candace Owens and Ye, Black celebrities, as the faces of such messages.... Carlson [also] went to great lengths to reinforce for his viewers last week just how levelheaded Ye ... actually was." strong> MB: Which of course required leaving a lot of the interview on the proverbial cutting room floor.

** Star Wars. Yes, NASA Can Save Earth from an Asteroid Hit. Sarah Scoles of the New York Times: "NASA took aim at an asteroid last month, and on Tuesday, the space agency announced that its planned 14,000 mile-per-hour collision with an object named Dimorphos made even more of a bull's-eye shot than expected. That winning strike was the first of its kind. 'We conducted humanity's first planetary defense test,' said Bill Nelson, the administrator of NASA, during a news conference, 'and we showed the world that NASA is serious as a defender of this planet.' In November 2021, NASA launched the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, mission, shooting a refrigerator-size spacecraft toward a small asteroid." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) A BBC story is here.

November Elections

Georgia Senate. Annie Linskey & Alice Crites of the Washington Post: "The mother of one of Herschel Walker's children had to repeatedly press the former football star who is now the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia for funds to pay for a 2009 abortion that she said he wanted her to have, according to the woman and a person she confided in at the time.... The woman, who lived in the Atlanta area at the time, said she became pregnant when she was unemployed and had less than $600 in her bank account."

Beyond the Beltway

California/Texas. Benjamin Hoffman of the New York Times: "Eric Kay, a former Los Angeles Angels employee, was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison on Tuesday for having provided drugs to the pitcher Tyler Skaggs that led to his overdose death in Texas. Kay, 48, who was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Terry R. Means in Fort Worth, had faced at least 20 years in prison after being convicted in February of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance and conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance resulting in death and serious bodily injury."

California. Jill Cowan & Shawn Hubler of the New York Times: "The Los Angeles City Council chamber became a raucous floor for protest on Tuesday, as an hourslong cavalcade of speakers furiously demanded that three Latino council members immediately resign over a secretly recorded private discussion that involved racist insults and slurs.... A white council member whose Black child was the target of racist comments tearfully told his colleagues how he and his husband were both 'raw and angry and heartbroken and sick.' President Biden on Tuesday called for the departure of the three council members in the nation's second-largest city. 'He believes they should all resign,' Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said.... By Monday night, [Ron] Herrera had resigned from the labor federation and [Nury] Martinez had relinquished her leadership post on the City Council, although she resisted calls for her to leave the Council entirely. [Gil] Cedillo and [Kevin] de León also have resisted calls for them to step down from their council seats." A related Guardian report is here.

Maryland. Amanda Holpuch of the New York Times: "Baltimore prosecutors on Tuesday dropped the charges against Adnan Syed, who was released last month after he spent 23 years in prison fighting a murder conviction that was chronicled in the hit podcast 'Serial,' officials said. Marilyn J. Mosby, the state's attorney for Baltimore City, said that she had instructed her office to dismiss the charges against Mr. Syed on Tuesday morning after he was cleared by DNA testing. Mr. Syed, 41, had been serving a life sentence for the strangling death of Hae Min Lee, 18.... Questions about the fairness of the trial received widespread attention in 2014 after the debut of the podcast 'Serial,' which examined the case in detail, but it wasn't until last month that a judge vacated Mr. Syed's conviction. Prosecutors said in a hearing on Sept. 19 that an investigation had revealed problems with key evidence that was used to convict Mr. Syed, as well as the possibility of 'alternative suspects.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) NPR's story is here.

Texas. The Scapegoat. Robin Stein & Alexander Cardia of the New York Times: "After the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, in May, a simple account of the police response took hold: A school police chief [-- Pete Arredondo --] misread the threat and scores of officers from over a dozen federal, state and local agencies, following his command, idly stood by, waiting for equipment and SWAT teams while children trapped in classrooms with the gunman called 911 for help. This shocking scene was described by the agency leading the criminal investigation of the mass shooting, the Texas Department of Public Safety.... But an analysis of footage by The New York Times ... shows high-ranking officers, experienced state troopers, police academy instructors -- even federal SWAT specialists -- came to the same conclusions and were detoured by the same delays the school police chief has been condemned for causing.... Claims by Mr. McCraw that Mr. Arredondo stymied 360 officers with flawed orders or misinformation are not supported by the available footage, which shows little evidence that commands were issued by the school chief, let alone widely communicated. The available footage shows the D.P.S. timeline -- which [DPS director Steven] McCraw told lawmakers was corroborated by 'frame-by-frame' video analysis -- miscast Mr. Arredondo's role and omitted actions, and inaction, by other officers, especially D.P.S. troopers and federal agents, who were involved earlier or more centrally than it notes."

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: "NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said sending more air defense systems to Ukraine is a 'top priority' as the alliance's defense ministers gather in Brussels. Ukraine's call for more military aid is on the agenda Wednesday as defense officials from nearly 50 countries also convene [in Brussels], with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin set to join both meetings.... The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine is relying on generators after losing all external power for the second time in days, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Wednesday. The U.N. nuclear watchdog is trying to establish a security zone at the site, Europe's largest nuclear power plant, which Russian forces control."

Matthew Champion of Vice: "Elon Musk spoke directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin before tweeting a proposal to end the war in Ukraine that would have seen territory permanently ceded to Russia, it has been claimed. In a mailout sent to Eurasia Group subscribers, Ian Bremmer wrote that Tesla CEO Musk told him that Putin was 'prepared to negotiate,' but only if Crimea remained Russian, if Ukraine accepted a form of permanent neutrality, and Ukraine recognised Russia's annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. According to Bremmer, Musk said Putin told him these goals would be accomplished 'no matter what,' including the potential of a nuclear strike if Ukraine invaded Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. Bremmer wrote that Musk told him that 'everything needed to be done to avoid that outcome.'" Musk denies he spoke to Putin. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)


Iran. Farnaz Fassihi & Jane Arraf of the New York Times: "Defying a lethal crackdown in cities across Iran, protesters demanding the ouster of Iran's Islamic Republic have driven their uprising into a fourth week, with workers from the country's vital oil sector going on strike this week and activists calling for further work stoppages and protests on Wednesday. Despite efforts by Iran's security forces, including the feared plainclothes Basij militias, to crush the protests, they have only widened. Some have turned into chaotic street battles, with the security forces opening fire and protesters fighting back and refusing to give ground, according to witnesses, rights groups and videos of the clashes on social media."

U.K. Karla Adam of the Washington Post: "King Charles III's coronation, the first for Britain in more than 70 years, has been set for May 6 and may be a somewhat less extravagant affair than his mother's coronation in 1953. Buckingham Palace announced in a statement Tuesday that the ceremony will be 'rooted in long-standing traditions and pageantry' but will also 'reflect the monarch's role today and look towards the future.'... In keeping with tradition dating back to 1066, the ceremony is scheduled to take place at London's Westminster Abbey. Charles would be the 40th sovereign to be crowned there.... Camilla is set to be crowned Queen Consort alongside her husband." The BBC's story is here.

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