October 11, 2022

Afternoon Update:

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."

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." ~~~

     ~~~ 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."

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.

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."

** 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."

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.'"

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.

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Kristen Holmes & Jeremy Herb of CNN: An "email exchange between GSA officials and [Trump aide Beau] Harrison is one of more than 100 pages of emails and documents newly released by the GSA that debunk claims from Trump and his allies that the government agency is to blame for packing the boxes containing classified documents that were later recovered by the FBI during the search of his Mar-a-Lago resort in August.... In an interview on Fox News on August 12, four days after the FBI search, former Trump defense official Kash Patel claimed the GSA was responsible for the documents being at Trump's Florida home.... 'They [GSA personnel] packed them,' Trump said in an interview with Sean Hannity on September 23.... In emails throughout 2021, however, career officials at the GSA outlined to Trump's aides what could and could not be included in the shipments GSA would send to Florida -- underscoring that the federal agency was relying on Trump's aides to assess the contents being shipped.... 'If the item is considered property of the Former President then it should not be shipped using Transition Funds. If the item is considered property of the Federal Government then it should go to NARA or GSA,' [GSA transition director] Kathy Geisler wrote in an email and attached the guidance on gifts." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So not only does another Trump lie bite the dust, but I'm inferring Trump may have appropriated government funds to steal federal documents (tho the CNN article doesn't firmly establish that). Usually when bank robbers steal the cash, they whisk it away in their own getaway car; it appears Trump used the government's own dime to pay for the getaway transportation.

Marc Caputo of NBC News: "Christina Bobb, the attorney who signed a letter certifying that all sensitive records in ... Donald Trump's possession had been returned to the government, spoke to federal investigators Friday..., according to three sources familiar with the matter. The certification statement, signed June 3 by Bobb, indicated that Trump ... no longer had possession of a host of documents with classification markings at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, according to the three sources.... Bobb, who was Trump's custodian of record at the time, did not draft the statement.... Instead, Trump's lead lawyer in the case at the time, Evan Corcoran, drafted it and told her to sign it, Bobb told investigators.... Bobb also spoke to investigators about Trump legal adviser Boris Epshteyn, who she said did not help draft the statement but was minimally involved in discussions about the records.... Before Bobb signed the document, she insisted [twice that] it be rewritten with a disclaimer that said she was certifying Trump had no more records 'based upon the information that has been provided to me.'..." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So Miss Bibbidy-Bobb, Esq., ratted out the guy who told her to say Trump had returned all the classified docs. Now, is that guy going to rat out the guy who told him to say Trump had returned all the docs? Who would be Trump.

They should give me immediately back everything that they've taken from me, because it's mine. It's mine.... Likewise, under the Presidential Record Act, everything should come back.... [The Archives] lose documents, they plant documents. "Let's see, is there a book on nuclear destruction or the building of a nuclear weapon cheaply? Let's put that book in with Trump." No, they plant documents. -- Donald Trump, in a speech Sunday

IOW, a public confession/proof of intent. -- Marie Burns, not a lawyer ~~~

~~~ Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump's latest riff on his decision to keep government documents at his residence at Mar-a-Lago is chock full of ridiculousness and false equivalency to a degree remarkable even by his standards. Appearing at a rally in Arizona on Sunday, Trump repeatedly compared his retention of presidential records to the actions of his predecessors. Except most of the examples he cited involved those presidents setting up presidential libraries. (And his other arguments were almost complete non sequiturs.) MB: Hard to tell if he's crazy, lying or both. I'd guess both. (Also linked yesterday.)

Sara Murray & Zachary Cohen of CNN: "An Atlanta-area prosecutor investigating Donald Trump and his allies' efforts to overturn the 2020 election has secured cooperation from former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.... Prosecutors have called for [Hutchinson's former boss, Chief of Staff Mark] Meadows to testify before the special grand jury, but they are still working to secure his testimony." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

November Elections

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "Victory for the election deniers in any state would, in combination with any version of the independent state legislature theory [if endorsed by the confederate Supremes], put the United States on the glide path to an acutely felt constitutional crisis. We may face a situation where the voters of Nevada or Wisconsin want Joe Biden (or another Democrat) for president, but state officials and lawmakers want Trump, and have the power to make it so. One of the more ominous developments of the last few years is the way that conservatives have rejected the language of American democracy, saying instead that the United States is a 'republic and not a democracy,' in a direct lift from Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society.... [Election deniers] see Donald Trump as their sovereign as much as their president, and they hope to make him a kind of king."

Nevada Secretary of State. Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "The head of a US coalition of election deniers standing for secretary of state positions in key battleground states has made the most explicit threat yet that they will use their powers, should they win in November, to subvert democracy and force a return of Donald Trump to the White House. Jim Marchant, who is running in the midterms as the Republican candidate for secretary of state in Nevada, has vowed publicly that he and his fellow coalition members will strive to make Trump president again. Speaking at a Make America Great Again rally in Minden, Nevada, on Saturday night, he repeated the lie that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from Trump. Marchant said he had investigated what he described as the 'rigged election' and had discovered 'horrifying' irregularities. He provided no details -- an official review of the 2020 count in Nevada, which Joe Biden won by 34,000 votes, found no evidence of mass fraud." ~~~

~~~ Marie: Here's something I didn't know about Minden, Nevada, that helps explain why Trump & his allies chose the small town of Minden (pop. 3,000) to hold a rally where 5,000 Trumpbots showed up: ~~~

~~~ Sam Metz of the AP: "A red siren perched atop a small town's volunteer fire department sounds every night at 6 p.m., sending a piercing noise echoing through the ranches and towns of northern Nevada's Carson Valley including Dresslerville -- a community governed by the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California. To Serrell Smokey, the tribe's chairman, the sound is a reminder of racism and violence inflicted upon Native Americans -- a 'living piece of historical trauma' with an enduring legacy. He requested officials in the town of Minden silence the region's last remaining siren last summer.... Minden is one of what experts believe were thousands of American communities where discriminatory 'sundown' laws were in effect, either through formal ordinances or unwritten rules enforced with intimidation and injury. The town siren has blared since 1921. Until 1974, it served as a warning to non-white people that they were required to leave town before the sun faded behind the rugged mountaintops of the Carson range.... [Washoe] elders remember seeing law enforcement jailing Native Americans and residents attacking non-white people." Minden is fighting a state law,signed in June, to silence sundown sirens. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I have a house across the street from the town's firehouse. I cannot think of any circumstance in which I would welcome their siren's going off every evening -- for life! -- for no other reason than to celebrate the remembrance of some event, glorious or ignominious. But then I'm not a rabid racist who will endure pain & inconvenience just to stick it to people whose lands my forebears have appropriated.

Ohio Senate. Jonathan Weisman & Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "In a sometimes heated, often personal debate, the two candidates vying for the seat of the retiring Senator Rob Portman -- Representative Tim Ryan and the investor J.D. Vance -- each took turns accusing the other of being elite and out of touch, while claiming the mantle of working-class defender. Here are six takeaways from the one and only Ohio Senate debate."

Pennsylvania Governor. Katie Glueck of of the New York Times: "Four years after the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue..., Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, has rattled a diverse swath of the state's Jewish community.... The race between Mr. Mastriano, a state senator, and his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Josh Shapiro -- a Jewish day school alum ... -- has also centered to an extraordinary degree on Mr. Shapiro's religion. Mr. Mastriano, who promotes Christian power and disdains the separation of church and state, has repeatedly lashed Mr. Shapiro for attending and sending his children to what Mr. Mastriano calls a 'privileged, exclusive, elite' school, suggesting to one audience that it evinced Mr. Shapiro's 'disdain for people like us.'... Mr. Mastriano has also spread the lie that George Soros, a Holocaust survivor and liberal billionaire often vilified on the right, was a Nazi collaborator. And Mr. Mastriano has baselessly accused Mr. Shapiro of holding a 'real grudge' against the Roman Catholic Church. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Of course I can't speak to Mastriano's personal opinions, but I can speak from personal experience that the type of remarks he is willing to make in public may only hint of the deep animus "people like him" holds toward Jews. I grew up in the midst of this type of prejudice, and it was widespread -- and incomprehensible to me. I imagine there are communities where this is still true.

Beyond the Beltway

California. Shawn Hubler & Jill Cowan of the New York Times: "The president of the Los Angeles City Council stepped down from her powerful leadership role on Monday after a leaked audio recording revealed racist and disparaging remarks that she had made about the Black child of a white council member, and about Indigenous immigrants in the city's Koreatown neighborhood." This is an update of a story linked earlier yesterday. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ The story has a second major update. New Lede: "The head of one of Los Angeles County's most powerful labor organizations resigned on Monday night amid a nationwide furor over a leaked audio recording that revealed his involvement in a racist and disparaging conversation with two members of the Los Angeles City Council and the council president. The official, Ron Herrera, resigned at a meeting of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor's executive board.... His resignation came hours after the City Council president, Nury Martinez, had stepped down from her leadership role Monday morning amid fallout from remarks she had made about the Black child of a white fellow council member and about Indigenous immigrants in the city's Koreatown neighborhood." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I hope more than a few people notice that Democrats resign in disgrace (as they should) when they make disgusting racist remarks, even when they think those remarks are private. Republicans, on the other hand, shout racist remarks at public rallies, and their base cheers while fellow Republicans continue to support them & deflect questions about the the remarks.

Florida. There Is No Joy in Gainesville. AP: "Nebraska U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse faced pointed questions and loud protests Monday during his first visit to the University of Florida as the lone finalist for the school's presidency. Sasse, a Republican in his second Senate term, has drawn criticism from some at the school in Gainesville, Florida, for his stance on same-sex marriage and other LBGTQ issues. Others question his qualifications to run such a sprawling school with more than 50,000 students. The separate meetings Monday were with students, faculty and staff on campus. During those sessions, the Gainesville Sun reported about 1,000 people yelling 'Hey, hey, ho, ho, Ben Sasse has got to go' gathered and disrupted at least one of the meetings."

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al.

New York Times' live updates of developments Tuesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "Ukraine said on Tuesday that it had shot down several Russian cruise missiles, hours before leaders of the Group of 7 nations planned to hold an emergency virtual meeting to discuss Russia's broad aerial assault across Ukraine that killed at least 19 people on Monday. The Russian strikes, in retaliation for an attack on a bridge linking Russia and occupied Crimea, did not appear to seriously damage the Ukrainian military's ability to wage war, analysts said. Moscow's goal seemed instead to be to knock out critical infrastructure, plunging cities into darkness and depriving Ukrainians of light and heat as winter approaches." ~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Tuesday are here: "Air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine early Tuesday, including in the capital, Kyiv, a day after strikes killed 19 people and injured more than 100, emergency services said.... Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to address an emergency virtual meeting of the Group of Seven nations Tuesday.... A meeting of NATO defense ministers will also discuss Ukraine's pleas for weapons later this week.... Vladimir Putin will meet International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Mariano Grossi on Tuesday, the Kremlin said. The U.N. watchdog is seeking a buffer zone at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine, which Russian forces control." ~~~

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

Emily Rauhala, et al., of the Washington Post: "The string of strikes against Ukrainian cities and key infrastructure on Monday galvanized long-standing calls from the government to its allies for more sophisticated air defense systems and longer-range weapons. The Russian attacks appeared to signal a significant escalation, raising pressure on the United States and other European countries that have been slow to provide Ukrainian forces with the most advanced weapons systems. While a chorus of U.S. and European leaders condemned the attacks and declared their continued support for Ukraine, it was not clear that they would accelerate or expand their deliveries." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Maegan Vazquez & Sam Fossum of CNN: "President Joe Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday after a deluge of Russian missiles targeted cities across Ukraine, condemning the strikes and pledging continued US security assistance 'including advanced air defense systems.'... The White House did not specify which air defense systems Biden discussed with Zelensky, but the United States previously committed to providing Ukraine with National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems. NASAMS would be capable of engaging Russian cruise missiles."

News Lede

New York Times: "Angela Lansbury, a formidable actress who captivated Hollywood in her youth, became a Broadway musical sensation in middle age and then drew millions of fans as a widowed mystery writer on the long-running television series 'Murder, She Wrote,' died on Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 96.... Ms. Lansbury was the winner of five Tony Awards for her starring performances on the New York stage, from 'Mame' in 1966 to 'Blithe Spirit' in 2009, when she was 83, a testament to her extraordinary stamina.... The English-born daughter of an Irish actress, she was just 18 when she landed her first movie role, as Charles Boyer's cheeky Cockney servant in the thriller 'Gaslight' (1944), a precocious debut that brought her a contract with MGM and an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress."

October 10, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Marc Caputo of NBC News: "Christina Bobb, the attorney who signed a letter certifying that all sensitive records in ... Donald Trump's possession had been returned to the government, spoke to federal investigators Friday..., according to three sources familiar with the matter. The certification statement, signed June 3 by Bobb, indicated that Trump ... no longer had possession of a host of documents with classification markings at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, according to the three sources.... Bobb, who was Trump's custodian of record at the time, did not draft the statement.... Instead, Trump's lead lawyer in the case at the time, Evan Corcoran, drafted it and told her to sign it, Bobb told investigators.... Bobb also spoke to investigators about Trump legal adviser Boris Epshteyn, who she said did not help draft the statement but was minimally involved in discussions about the records.... Before Bobb signed the document, she insisted [twice that] it be rewritten with a disclaimer that said she was certifying Trump had no more records 'based upon the information that has been provided to me.'..." ~~~

They should give me immediately back everything that they've taken from me, because it's mine. I';s mine.... Likewise, under the Presidential Record Act, everything should come back.... [The Archives] lose documents, they plant documents. "Let's see, is there a book on nuclear destruction or the building of a nuclear weapon cheaply? Let's put that book in with Trump." No, they plant documents. -- Donald Trump, in a speech Sunday

IOW, a confession/proof of intent. -- Marie Burns, not a lawyer ~~~

~~~ Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump's latest riff on his decision to keep government documents at his residence at Mar-a-Lago is chock full of ridiculousness and false equivalency to a degree remarkable even by his standards. Appearing at a rally in Arizona on Sunday, Trump repeatedly compared his retention of presidential records to the actions of his predecessors. Except most of the examples he cited involved those presidents setting up presidential libraries. (And his other arguments were almost complete non sequiturs.) He cited Barack Obama, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton having their presidential records moved to warehouses as their libraries were being built. But that's how the process works. And even if there were evidence that the records were handled improperly during those moves -- which there isn't -- they were in the custody of the National Archives...." Blake runs down some of Trump's assertions. MB: Hard to tell if he's crazy, lying or both. I'd guess both.

Sara Murray & Zachary Cohen of CNN: "An Atlanta-area prosecutor investigating Donald Trump and his allies' efforts to overturn the 2020 election has secured cooperation from former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.... Prosecutors have called for [Hutchinson's former boss, Chief of Staff Mark] Meadows to testify before the special grand jury, but they are still working to secure his testimony."

California. Shawn Hubler & Jill Cowan of the New York Times: "The president of the Los Angeles City Council stepped down from her powerful leadership role on Monday after a leaked audio recording revealed racist and disparaging remarks that she had made about the Black child of a white council member, and about Indigenous immigrants in the city's Koreatown neighborhood." This is an update of a story linked earlier today.

Pennsylvania. Katie Glueck of of the New York Times: "Four years after the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue..., Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, has rattled a diverse swath of the state's Jewish community.... The race between Mr. Mastriano, a state senator, and his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Josh Shapiro -- a Jewish day school alum ... -- has also centered to an extraordinary degree on Mr. Shapiro's religion. Mr. Mastriano, who promotes Christian power and disdains the separation of church and state, has repeatedly lashed Mr. Shapiro for attending and sending his children to what Mr. Mastriano calls a 'privileged, exclusive, elite' school, suggesting to one audience that it evinced Mr. Shapiro's 'disdain for people like us.'... Mr. Mastriano has also spread the lie that George Soros, a Holocaust survivor and liberal billionaire often vilified on the right, was a Nazi collaborator. And Mr. Mastriano has baselessly accused Mr. Shapiro of holding a 'real grudge' against the Roman Catholic Church." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Of course I can't speak to Mastriano's personal opinions, but I can speak from personal experience that the type of remarks he is willing to make in public may only hint of the deep animus "people like him" holds toward Jews. I grew up in the midst of this type of prejudice, and it was widespread -- and incomprehensible to me. I imagine there are communities where this is still true.

Ukraine, et al. Emily Rauhala, et al., of the Washington Post: “The string of strikes against Ukrainian cities and key infrastructure on Monday galvanized long-standing calls from the government to its allies for more sophisticated air defense systems and longer-range weapons. The Russian attacks appeared to signal a significant escalation, raising pressure on the United States and other European countries that have been slow to provide Ukrainian forces with the most advanced weapons systems. While a chorus of U.S. and European leaders condemned the attacks and declared their continued support for Ukraine, it was not clear that they would accelerate or expand their deliveries."

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Donald Trump Thinks Racism Is a Joke. Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post: "... two weeks ago at a rally in North Carolina for Rep. Ted Budd, the MAGA Republican candidate for U.S. Senate..., [Donald] Trump bellowed, 'You know Putin mentioned the n-word. Do you know what the n-word is?' Plenty of people shouted the answer they thought Trump was looking for -- because there is only one answer. Hardly surprised by the response to his purposefully provocative question, Trump jumped in and said, 'No, no, no, it's the "nuclear" word.' Doug Jones, the former Alabama senator who successfully prosecuted two of the Klansmen who bombed Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963, called out Trump's tip of the hood to white supremacists for what it was. 'Folks, no one uses the term "n-word" when talking about nuclear weapons. That term refers to only one thing & Trump used it for a MAGA candidate running for the Senate,' Jones tweeted. 'This is the kind of white nationalist, dog whistle rhetoric that has no place in America.'"

Jennifer Solis of the Nevada Current: "In [a] speech [in rural Nevada] riddled with inaccuracies..., [Donald] Trump said, 'You know the biggest crowd I've ever seen? January 6. And you never hear that.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: (1) The January 6 crowd was not the biggest he'd ever seen. (2) No one in his right mind would boast about the size of a crowd of insurrectionists. ~~~

~~~ Sen./Mr. Potato Head Goes Full Racist. Sarah Swetlik of AL.com: "U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville on Saturday said Democrats are in favor of 'reparations' because they are 'pro-crime.' Tuberville, R-Ala., made the comments while at a rally held by ... Donald Trump in Nevada. 'They want reparations because they think the people who do the crime are owed that,' Tuberville said as the crowd cheered behind him. 'Bullshit!' he added.... Reparations typically refer to 'financial recompense for African-Americans whose ancestors were slaves and lived through the Jim Crow era,' according to the NAACP." Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ BUT what do Trump's Black friends say? Here's one now. ~~~

~~~ Hannah Getahun of Insider, republiced by Yahoo! News: "Rapper Kanye West faced more accusations of antisemitism on Saturday after posting a rant about Jewish people. In a tweet now removed by Twitter for violating its guidelines, the rapper and fashion designer said he was 'going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.' West defended himself by saying he could not be antisemitic because 'black people are actually Jew [sic].'... West returned to Twitter -- from which he had been on hiatus since Nov. 4, 2020 -- after his Instagram account was restricted amid a week of tirades on the platform. Instagram confirmed to Insider it had restricted West's account.... After photos and videos surfaced of West on Monday wearing a hoodie with the words "White Lives Matter," prominent Republicans like Candace Owens, former congressional candidate Lavern Spicer, and the GOP House Judiciary Committee came to his defense. West, a friend of ... Donald Trump, pulled the stunt as a part of his YZYSZN9 show at Paris Fashion Week. Critics pointed out that the phrase on West's hoodie is tied to white supremacist movements." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Stuart Thompson of the New York Times: "In a statement, a spokeswoman for Twitter said Ye's [i.e., Kanye West's] account was locked for violating Twitter's policies. A spokeswoman for Meta said it places restrictions on [Instagram] accounts that repeatedly break its rules." MB: Oh, and for those of you who just can't keep up, it's not Kanye West anymore; it's "Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West." Okay then. Maybe I'll change my name to the last two letters of my first name, i.e., "Ie," pronounced "Aiyee!"

Teddy Amenabar of the Washington Post consults experts on how to debunk your friends' and families' false claims. For some reason, they seem to advise against telling Uncle Fred at Thanksgiving dinner that he's a certifiable lunatic. Yeah, but especially if you say it calmly, with your best smug, know-it-all expression, that's so satisfying.

Beyond the Beltway

California. Shawn Hubler & Jill Cowan of the New York Times: "The president of the Los Angeles City Council faced widespread calls to resign on Sunday after a leaked audio recording revealed racist and disparaging remarks about the Black child of a white council member and also about Indigenous immigrants in the city's Koreatown neighborhood. The comments, made during a meeting last year with two other council members and a labor official, exposed longstanding racial tensions in the governance of one of the nation's most multicultural cities as well as fault lines among the city's Democrats. In the profanity-laced recording, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times and which was first reported by The Los Angeles Times, the City Council president, Nury Martinez, who is Latina, compared the Black child of a white council member to a 'changuito,' Spanish for little monkey. She also called Oaxacan immigrants living in Koreatown 'short little dark people.'... The recording ... included Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León, council members representing parts of the city's East Side, and Ron Herrera, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor."

New York. Michelle Price of the AP: "New York congressman and Republican candidate for governor Lee Zeldin says his family is safe after two strangers were shot outside his Long Island home on Sunday. Zeldin said in a statement that he does not know the identities of the two people who were shot but that they were found under his porch and in the bushes in front of his home in Shirley, New York. The congressman and his wife were not at home at the time of the shooting but their teenage daughters were in the home and heard gunshots and screaming, he said in the statement released by his office.... The Suffolk County Police Department issued a brief statement saying it was investigating the shooting, which appeared to have no connection to Zeldin's family."

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al.

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

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Monday are here: "Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted of a 'massive strike' across Ukraine at a meeting of his Security Council on Monday. Accusing Ukraine's special services of carrying out an attack on the Crimean Bridge, Putin warned of 'harsh' reprisal: 'Its scale will correspond to the level of threats.' The torrent of attacks -- including in the hear of Kyiv, the first major strikes there in months -- on energy facilities and civilian targets spurred Ukrainian officials to call for a 'resolute response' from allies. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted Monday that he had an urgent call with French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss 'air defense, the need for a tough European and international reaction, as well as increased pressure on the Russian Federation.' Ukraine's prime minister said 11 infrastructure facilities in eight regions and the city of Kyiv were damaged, warning of interruptions to electricity, water and communication -- in addition to attacks on a children's playground, museums and educational institutions. Attacks were reported in key areas including Kharkiv in the northeast, Lviv in the west, and Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro in the center.... Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko announced that he and Putin agreed to 'deploy a joint regional grouping of troops' in response to the 'aggravated situation' in Ukraine. It's not immediately clear where this grouping would be based."

North Korea. Hyung-Jin Kim of the AP: "North Korea's recent barrage of missile launches were the simulated use of its tactical battlefield nuclear weapons to 'hit and wipe out' potential South Korean and U.S. targets, state media reported Monday, as its leader Kim Jong Un signaled he would conduct more provocative tests." ~~~

News Ledes

AP: "Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke, who put his academic expertise on the Great Depression to work reviving the American economy after the 2007-2008 financial crisis, won the Nobel Prize in economic sciences along with two other U.S.-based economists for their research into the fallout from bank failures. Bernanke was recognized Monday along with Douglas W. Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig. The Nobel panel at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm said the trio's research had shown 'why avoiding bank collapses is vital.'"

New York Times: "Heavy rains and landslides have left at least 22 people dead and 52 missing in a single town in north-central Venezuela, officials said Sunday. The authorities believe that an unknown number of other people in the town, Las Tejerías, remain trapped in their homes by the mud. The Venezuelan armed forces planned to deploy canines and drones to find the missing residents and to deliver food and medicine, one top military officer, Remigio Ceballos, said at the news conference in Las Tejerías, about 40 miles southwest of the capital, Caracas."

Variety: "Nikki Finke, a tenacious journalist who revolutionized entertainment reporting with what became the Hollywood trade website Deadline, died Sunday morning in Boca Raton, Fla. after a prolonged illness. She was 68." ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Finke's New York Times obituary is here.

October 9, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Jennifer Solis of the Nevada Current: "In [a] speech [in rural Nevada] riddled with inaccuracies..., [Donald] Trump said, 'You know the biggest crowd I've ever seen? January 6. And you never hear that.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: (1) The January 6 crowd was not the biggest he'd ever seen. (2) No one in his right mind would boast about the size of a crowd of insurrectionists. ~~~

~~~ Sen./Mr. Potato Head Goes Full Racist. Sarah Swetlik of AL.com: "U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville on Saturday said Democrats are in favor of 'reparations' because they are 'pro-crime.' Tuberville, R-Ala., made the comments while at a rally held by ... Donald Trump in Nevada. 'They want reparations because they think the people who do the crime are owed that,' Tuberville said as the crowd cheered behind him. 'Bullshit!' he added.... Reparations typically refer to 'financial recompense for African-Americans whose ancestors were slaves and lived through the Jim Crow era,' according to the NAACP." Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead. ~~~

~~~ BUT what do Trump's Black friends say? Here's one now. ~~~

~~~ Hannah Getahun of Insider, republished by Yahoo! News: "Rapper Kanye West faced more accusations of antisemitism on Saturday after posting a rant about Jewish people. In a tweet now removed by Twitter for violating its guidelines, the rapper and fashion designer said he was 'going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.' West defended himself by saying he could not be antisemitic because 'black people are actually Jew [sic].'... West returned to Twitter -- from which he had been on hiatus since Nov. 4, 2020 -- after his Instagram account was restricted amid a week of tirades on the platform. Instagram confirmed to Insider it had restricted West's account.... After photos and videos surfaced of West on Monday wearing a hoodie with the words "White Lives Matter," prominent Republicans like Candace Owens, former congressional candidate Lavern Spicer, and the GOP House Judiciary Committee came to his defense. West, a friend of ... Donald Trump, pulled the stunt as a part of his YZYSZN9 show at Paris Fashion Week. Critics pointed out that the phrase on West's hoodie is tied to white supremacist movements."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Maggie Haberman & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: Donald "Trump spent a year and a half deflecting, delaying and sometimes leading aides to dissemble when it came to demands from the National Archives and ultimately the Justice Department to return the material he had taken, interviews and documents show. That pattern was strikingly similar to how Mr. Trump confronted inquiries into his conduct while in office: entertain or promote outlandish ideas, eschew the advice of lawyers and mislead them, then push lawyers and aides to impede investigators.... In the closing weeks of his presidency, the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, flagged the need for Mr. Trump to return documents that had piled up in boxes in the White House residence, according to archives officials." MB: Mostly a review of what you already know, but entertaining/maddening. (Also linked yesterday.)

Danny Hakim & Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "Witnesses called to testify in a Georgia criminal investigation into ... Donald J. Trump and his allies have not always come willingly. A number of them have fought their subpoenas in their home-state courts, only to have local judges order them to cooperate.... But the state of Texas is proving to be an outlier, creating serious headaches for Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, who is leading the investigation into efforts by Mr. Trump and others to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. Last month, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court, thwarted Ms. Willis's effort to force Jacki L. Pick, a Republican lawyer and pundit, to testify in Atlanta, saying that her subpoena had essentially expired. But in a pair of opinions, a majority of the judges on the all-Republican court went further, indicating that they believed the Georgia special grand jury conducting the inquiry may not have the legal standing to compel testimony from Texas witnesses.... It looks to some Georgia observers like a pattern of Texas Republicans meddling with Georgia when it comes to the fate of Mr. Trump." (Also linked yesterday.)

Judge Slaps Down Durham. Charlie Savage & Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "John H. Durham, the Trump-era special counsel, set off political reverberations last year when he unveiled a lengthy indictment of an analyst he accused of lying to the F.B.I. about sources for the so-called Steele dossier, a discredited compendium of political opposition research about purported ties between Donald J. Trump and Russia. But the trial of the analyst, Igor Danchenko, which opens on Tuesday with jury selection in federal court in Alexandria, Va., now appears likely to be shorter and less politically salient than the sprawling narrative in Mr. Durham's indictment had suggested the proceeding would be. In an 18-page order last week, the judge overseeing the case, Anthony J. Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia, excluded from the trial large amounts of information that Mr. Durham had wanted to showcase -- including material that undercuts the credibility of the dossier's notorious rumor that Russia had a blackmail tape of Mr. Trump with prostitutes.... Judge Trenga, a George W. Bush appointee, almost always sided with Mr. Danchenko's defense lawyers. Mr. Durham, they said, had tried to inject irrelevant issues into the trial in 'an unnecessary and impermissible attempt to make this case about more than it is.'"

Mark Miller of the New York Times: "Social Security will soon announce the largest inflation adjustment to benefits in four decades -- a welcome development for millions of older Americans struggling to keep up with fast-rising living costs. The cost-of-living adjustment for 2023 is likely to be around 8.7 percent, based on the latest government inflation figures. The final COLA, as the adjustment is known, will be released Thursday, when the federal government announces inflation figures for September. Medicare enrollees can anticipate some additional good news: The standard Part B premium, which is typically deducted from Social Security benefits, will decline next year.... The New York Times examined the back story of Social Security's inflation adjustment -- how it works, how it could be revised -- and how it affects pocketbooks."

Reed Abelson & Margot Sanger-Katz of the New York Times: "Medicare Advantage, a private-sector alternative to traditional Medicare, was designed by Congress two decades ago to encourage health insurers to find innovative ways to provide better care at lower cost. If trends hold, by next year, more than half of Medicare recipients will be in a private plan.... But a New York Times review of dozens of fraud lawsuits, inspector general audits and investigations by watchdogs shows how major health insurers exploited the program to inflate their profits by billions of dollars.... The insurers, among the largest and most prosperous American companies, have developed elaborate systems to make their patients appear as sick as possible, often without providing additional treatment, according to the lawsuits. As a result, a program devised to help lower health care spending has instead become substantially more costly than the traditional government program it was meant to improve. Eight of the 10 biggest Medicare Advantage insurers ... have submitted inflated bills, according to the federal audits. And four of the five largest players -- UnitedHealth, Humana, Elevance and Kaiser -- have faced federal lawsuits alleging that efforts to overdiagnose their customers crossed the line into fraud."

Today in Fake Heiress News

Emily Palmer of the New York Times: "Anna Sorokin, who bilked banks and tricked New York's elite into believing she was a German heiress named Anna Delvey, was released from an immigration detention facility in Goshen, N.Y., on Friday and sent back to Manhattan. In May 2019, Ms. Sorokin was sentenced to four to 12 years in prison for financial crimes including grand larceny and stealing a private jet. After serving nearly four years, she spent 18 months behind bars in immigration detention for overstaying her visa, after a judge determined she was unrepentant. (Ms. Sorokin, 31, who was born in what was then the Soviet Union, has German citizenship.)... While in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, Ms. Sorokin accrued one million Instagram followers when her exploits were dramatized this year in a series on Netflix about her time, in her mid-20s, as Anna Delvey, the heiress persona she fabricated.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "A close associate of a woman who posed as a member of a famous banking family and spent days at ... Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home was shot Friday in a brazen attack outside a lakeside resort northwest of Montreal, the Canadian paper LaPresse reported. Quebec provincial police have launched a search for the shooter and other accomplices behind the midday attack on Valeriy Tarasenko, 44, in the upscale community of Esterel, according to LaPresse. Police said he suffered 'significant injuries' but was expected to survive. Mr. Tarasenko was a former business partner of Inna Yashchyshyn, a Russian-speaking Ukrainian immigrant who gained recent notoriety after an investigation by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project in August revealed that she masqueraded as a member of the Rothschild family and went to Mar-a-Lago, where she made inroads in the former president's inner circle."(Also linked yesterday.)

~~~ BTW, that part about Mehmet Oz's killing hundreds of dogs & giving a speech in front of a Hitlermobile are true (except, of course, for the joke parts). And, no, that picture of DeSantolini in the cheerleader boots is not Photoshopped. ~~~

November Elections

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "Conservatives have sacrificed any claim to principle. In an unholy transaction, they stuck with Trump because there was a Supreme Court seat and they were willing to tolerate his moral void in order to hijack the court. They didn't care how he treated women as long as he gave them the opportunity to rip away rights from women. They wanted to impose their warped morality, a 'Handmaid's Tale' world, on the rest of us.... Now, in Georgia, conservatives are turning a blind eye to sordid stories coming out about Herschel Walker, who demonstrates no qualifications for serving in the Senate. Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans should be ashamed to promote this troubled person for their own benefit. Privately, some Republicans are mortified by the Walker spiral, but they're going to brazen it out for the win." (Also linked yesterday.)

The Democrats want to destroy this country, and they will destroy anyone who gets in their way. Today, it's Herschel Walker, but tomorrow it's the American people.... I'm proud to stand with Herschel Walker and make sure Georgians know that he will always fight to protect them from the forces trying to destroy Georgia values. -- Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), statement to the Washington Post ~~~

~~~ Georgia Senate. Michael Scherer & Annie Linskey of the Washington Post: "National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rick Scott (Fla.) will travel to Georgia on Tuesday to demonstrate support for Herschel Walker, days after news reports in which a former girlfriend accused the Senate candidate of paying for one abortion and urging a second. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) is also making the trip, as the party continues to treat the Georgia contest as a marquee race that could help determine control of the Senate in 2023.... Walker -- who is running for office on a platform that opposes abortion in all cases, without exceptions for rape or incest -- has denied that he paid for an abortion or knew about it at the time." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Walker has supported strict anti-abortion laws with no exceptions. However, it turns out he has carved out one acceptable exception: if you're a Republican candidate for public office.

Beyond the Beltway

New York. Such a Romantic Twist on Nepotism. Susan Edelman of the New York Post: New York City "Schools Chancellor David Banks quietly promoted Mayor [Eric] Adams' girlfriend to a top job at the Department of Education, just months after Adams hired Banks' girlfriend as a deputy mayor, The Post has learned. Banks named Tracey Collins -- Adams' longtime partner and NYC's unofficial First Lady -- the DOE's 'senior advisor to the deputy chancellor of school leadership,' Desmond Blackburn. She started the new job in July, and got a giant, 23% raise to $221,597 a year, records show. Hizzoner named Banks' girlfriend, Sheena Wright, and four other women deputy mayors last Dec. 21. Deputy mayors made $251,982 in FY 21."

New York. Hurubie Meko of the New York Times: "Columbia University and its affiliated hospitals on Friday announced a $165 million settlement with 147 patients of a former gynecologist accused of sexual abuse by dozens of women. Among the people who have accused him of abuse was Evelyn Yang, the wife of the former presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Robert A. Hadden, who according to the hospitals has not worked as a doctor since 2012, pleaded guilty in 2016 to abusing 19 women, but was spared prison time. Now, Mr. Hadden is awaiting trial on federal charges of enticing and inducing women, including a minor, to travel from outside New York State to his Manhattan offices to engage in illegal sex acts." MB: It's amazing how long it takes to catch some of these creeps. Why, it almost makes you think the institutions where they work don't care. (Also linked yesterday.)

Texas. Vimal Patel of the New York Times: "A rookie San Antonio police officer was fired after he shot a teenager who was eating in a McDonald's parking lot, leaving the 17-year-old in critical condition, the authorities said. The San Antonio Police Department said that the former officer, James Brennand, was fired because of his actions during the encounter on Oct. 2. Body camera footage showed him abruptly opening the door of a car the teenager was in and opening fire moments later.... [The Bexar County D.A., Joe] Gonzales said that he had not determined yet whether to file charges against Mr. Brennand, a newly hired officer who was still in a probationary period, and was awaiting 'all the evidence.'"

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al.

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

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Sunday are here: "Overnight airstrikes on the city of Zaporizhzhia killed at least 12 people and reduced high-rise apartment buildings and homes to rubble, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday, branding the strikes' absolute evil.'... Ukraine hasn’t taken public credit for the Crimean Bridge explosion, which poses a strategic and symbolic disaster for ... Vladimir Putin, although a Ukrainian official told The Washington Post that the country's special services were behind the attack.... The Kremlin appointed Gen. Sergei Surovikin as the latest top commander in Ukraine, the Defense Ministry announced Saturday, as it grapples with strategic errors and a Ukrainian counteroffensive that has left its forces in disarray.... The International Monetary Fund has approved Ukraine's request for $1.3 billion in additional emergency funding as the war grinds into its eighth month...."

Missy Ryan, et al., of the Washington Post with more on the explosion on the Russia-Crimea bridge: "A giant explosion ripped across the Crimean Bridge, a strategic link between mainland Russia and Crimea, in what appeared to be a stunning blow early Saturday morning to a symbol of President Vladimir Putin's ambitions to control Ukraine.... The Ukrainian government provided no immediate official statement on the cause of the blast. But in a taunt, the government's official Twitter account posted: 'sick burn.' A Ukrainian government official told The Washington Post on Saturday that Ukrainian special services were behind the bridge attack." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Putin's "Off-Ramp" ... Ends in the Waters of the Kerch Strait. Megan Specia of the New York Times: "Within hours of the explosion, several government agencies in Ukraine had posted some sort of meme or joke on social media to celebrate it, to poke fun at Mr. Putin or to hint at who might have been behind it.... Ukraine's postal service quickly came up with a mock stamp depicting the bridge in a scene from the movie 'Titanic.' One Ukrainian bank -- Monobank -- offered a new image for their virtual mobile bank cards that showed the destroyed surface of the Crimean bridge and the burning train. By midday, it had been downloaded more than 300,000 times. Oleksiy Danilov, head of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, posted footage of the destruction alongside a video of Marilyn Monroe singing, 'Happy Birthday, Mr. President,' alluding to Mr. Putin's birthday a day earlier." ~~~

Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of #Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov published a video of a burning bridge, combining them with Marilyn Monroe singing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President". pic.twitter.com/jRJIeVS5Gt

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) October 8, 2022

Andrew Higgins of the New York Times:"With the Kremlin distracted by its flagging war more than 1,500 miles away in Ukraine, Russia's dominium over its old Soviet empire shows signs of unraveling. Moscow has lost its aura and its grip, creating a disorderly vacuum that previously obedient former Soviet satraps, as well as China, are moving to fill.... Before President Vladimir V. Putin invaded Ukraine in February, Russia played an outsize role in the affairs of Central Asia and also the volatile Caucasus region, in what had passed for a far-flung Pax Russica.... Moscow's security alliance has long been touted by Mr. Putin as Russia's answer to NATO and an anchor of its role as the dominant (and often domineering) force across vast swaths of the former Soviet Union. But now the bloc is barely functioning. Five of its six members -- Armenia, Belarus, Russia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan -- have been involved in wars this year, while the sixth, Kazakhstan, has seen violent internal strife."

Marie: Let's say you had set a goal for yourself. You believed it was a worthy goal & achieving it would benefit you but was not essential to your existence. Months or years into working toward that goal, you had miserably failed, and -- what's worse -- your attempts had many negative effects, like say, killing a lot of innocent people. Wouldn't you quit? Well, not if you were Vladimir Putin or most American presidents since Ike. Neither a totalitarian government nor a quasi-democratic one has a structure that incentivizes its leaders to act rationally & in the broader public good.

News Lede

New York Times: "Grace Glueck, a transformative journalist who broke new ground by making the art world a distinct beat at The New York Times, and who then helped bring an important sex-discrimination lawsuit against the paper, her employer of more than 60 years, died on Saturday at her home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She was 96."