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Wednesday

Oct052022

October 5, 2022

Afternoon Update:

The New York Times is live-updating news about President Biden & Jill Biden's trip to Florida to view hurricane damage.

Stanley Reed of the New York Times: "Saudi Arabia and Russia, acting as leaders of the OPEC Plus energy cartel, agreed on Wednesday to their biggest cuts in production in more than two years in a bid to raise prices, rebuking efforts by the United States and Europe to choke off the massive revenue Moscow reaps from the sale of crude. President Biden and European leaders have urged more oil production to ease gasoline prices and punish Moscow for its aggression in Ukraine. Russia, a co-leader of OPEC Plus with Saudi Arabia, has been accused of using energy as a weapon against countries opposing its invasion of Ukraine, and the optics of the decision could not be missed." CNN's report is here. ~~~

~~~ Marie: Let's say you're a patriotic American Neanderthal and you can't help but think climate change is a myth/hoax. Wouldn't you still want the U.S. to develop alternate sources of energy to save the U.S. (and other nations) from being so dependent upon fickle oil & gas producers in the Middle East & Russia? ~~~

~~~ Lee Shan of CNBC: "OPEC+'s plans to cut oil production is a 'mistake,' according to U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, who said there needs to be a re-evaluation of the alliance between the group's de-facto leader and the United States.... 'I think it is a mistake on their part. And I think it's time for a wholesale re-revaluation of the U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia,' Murphy told CNBC's Hadley Gamble Tuesday. Murphy said that the United States needed the Saudis to take steps that 'may affect their short-term bottom line when it comes to oil revenues,' but which would allow the West to survive the challenge against Russia." ~~~

~~~ Why Can't the U.S. Be More Like Uruguay? Noah Shannon in the New York Times: "This is the paradox at the heart of climate change: We've burned far too many fossil fuels to go on living as we have, but we've also never learned to live well without them.... There are countries more prosperous, and countries with a smaller carbon footprint [than Uruguay's], but perhaps in none do the overlapping possibilities of living well and living without ruin show as much promise as in Uruguay.... Today, Uruguay boasts one of the world's greenest grids, powered by 98 percent renewable energy." Interesting. MB: Despite Uruguay's attempts to mitigate the environmental effects of their huge cattle industry, I still think they should learn to eat less beef.

Julian Barnes, et al., of the New York Times: "United States intelligence agencies believe parts of the Ukrainian government authorized the car bomb attack near Moscow in August that killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian nationalist, an element of a covert campaign that U.S. officials fear could widen the conflict. The United States took no part in the attack, either by providing intelligence or other assistance, officials said American officials also said they were not aware of the operation ahead of time and would have opposed the killing had they been consulted Afterward, American officials admonished Ukrainian officials over the assassination, they said. The closely held assessment of Ukrainian complicity, which has not been previously reported, was shared within the U.S. government last week. Ukraine denied involvement in the killing immediately after the attack, and senior officials repeated those denials when asked about the American intelligence assessment."

Cora Engelbrecht of the New York Times: "An Iranian American who was held captive in Iran for seven years was released on Wednesday for urgent medical surgery [in the U.A.E.], according to his lawyer and the U.N. The man, Baquer Namazi, 85, a retired UNICEF official, was imprisoned in 2016 by Iranian authorities during a visit to Iran to check on his son, Siamak Namazi, who had been arrested the year before while on a business trip. The Namazis were convicted of collaborating with a hostile power -- the United States -- in a secretive trial in Iran in October 2016, but the precise nature of the accusations has never been made clear. A video released by Iranian state media on Wednesday appeared to show Baquer Namazi on a tarmac struggling to board a flight of stairs...."

From the Department of Be Careful What You Wish For. Marcy Wheeler on how Judge Aileen Cannon appears to have caused Donald Trump more harm than if she "had left well enough alone.... That's because, by means that are not yet clear (but are likely due to a fuck-up by one of Cannon's own staffers), the inventories [of documents] ... were briefly posted on the docket. (h/t Zoe Tillman, who snagged a copy [MB: Bloomberg link]). Those inventories not only show Cannon's claims of injury to Trump were even more hackish than I imagined. But it creates the possibility that DOJ's filter team will attempt to retain some of the documents..., notably records pertaining to the Georgia fraud attempts and January 6, they otherwise wouldn't have.... The single solitary medical document pertaining to Trump ... is this letter from Trump's then-personal physician released during the 2016 Presidential campaign.... [That is, Cannon] personally halted efforts to keep the United States safe, in part, to prevent leaks of a document that Trump released himself six years ago."

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Alex Marquardt, et al., of CNN: "The Biden administration has launched a full-scale pressure campaign in a last-ditch effort to dissuade Middle Eastern allies from dramatically cutting oil production, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. The push comes ahead of Wednesday's crucial meeting of OPEC+, the international cartel of oil producers that is widely expected to announce a significant cut to output in an effort to raise oil prices. That in turn would cause US gasoline prices to rise at a precarious time for the Biden administration, just five weeks before the midterm elections. For the past several days, President Joe Biden's senior-most energy, economic and foreign policy officials have been enlisted to lobby their foreign counterparts in Middle Eastern allied countries including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE to vote against cutting oil production."

Marie: It's Tuesday afternoon as I type this, and Trump hasn't filed a new lawsuit since way back on Monday. So ~~~

~~~ Not a New Case, But a New Venue. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to intervene in the litigation over documents marked as classified that the F.B.I. removed from his Florida estate, saying that an appeals court had lacked jurisdiction to rule on the matter. Although the Supreme Court is dominated by six conservative justices, three of them appointed by Mr. Trump, it has rejected earlier efforts to block the disclosure of information about him, and legal experts said Mr. Trump's new emergency application faced significant challenges. The new filing was largely technical, saying that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, had not been authorized to stay aspects of a trial judge's order appointing a special master in the case." CNN's report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Oh, and There's This. Devlin Barrett & Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The petition was filed with Justice Clarence Thomas, who oversees emergency requests from the 11th Circuit. Thomas instructed the Justice Department to file a response to the court by Oct. 11." MB: I don't see a problem. Do u? (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Shane Harris of the Washington Post: "During his four years in office, [Donald] Trump never strictly followed the rules and customs for handling sensitive government documents, according to 14 officials from his administration.... He took transcripts of his calls with foreign leaders as well as photos and charts used in his intelligence briefings to his private residence with no explanation. He demanded that letters he exchanged with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un be kept close at hand so he could show them off to visitors. Documents that would ordinarily be kept under lock and key mingled with piles of newspaper articles in Trump's living quarters and in a dining room that he used as an informal office.... Several former aides said Trump spent his time in office flouting classification rules and intimidating staffers who might try to take secret intelligence material away from him." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Marie: Those 14 former aides are all liars, Maggie Haberman is a creep, and if you don't acknowledge that only Donald Trump is the source of all truth and knowledge, human and divine, Democrats will come & eat you and your children alive.

A Grandiose Call to Arms. Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, was a prolific writer of encrypted text messages, many of which have been featured this week as evidence at his trial on seditious conspiracy charges in Federal District Court in Washington. The government has used the messages to build its case that Mr. Rhodes and four other members of the group plotted to stop the transfer of power and keep ... Donald J. Trump in office. But they have also provided a window into the mind-set of Mr. Rhodes and others in the far-right organization during a period when Mr. Trump was stoking outrage among his supporters.... The messages, which were seized during the government's investigation of the Capitol assault, paint a portrait of an organization in thrall to conspiracy theories and willing to use extreme measures to fight for what they saw as a country in apocalyptic decline." The article includes partial texts of numerous Rhodes missives in which, among other things, he seems to compare himself to George Washington in his capacity as revolutionary general.

Natasha Korecki of NBC News: "Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., acknowledged Tuesday that he exchanged text messages with one of Donald Trump's attorneys before and after Johnson's staff tried to deliver a package to then-Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021. He added that the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack 'smeared' him because it didn't publicize all the text messages between his and Pence's aides. Johnson, in response to questions from NBC News, said 'the entire episode lasted about an hour,' referring to his ties to a fake electors scheme he said he knew nothing about. He also said he didn't know the contents of the package he said the attorney wanted to be delivered. 'You can't even call it participation. I wrote a couple texts,' Johnson said. Johnson has previously distanced himself from the scheme, telling WISN-TV of Milwaukee in August: 'My involvement in that attempt to deliver spanned the course of a couple seconds.'" ~~~

~~~ Marie: Yeah, I know you're shocked that Johnson would lie to a reporter while pretending to be on the phone to try to avoid answering the reporter's questions about Johnson's involvement in or knowledge of the fake electors scheme.

Justices in Search of a Path to Permit Racism. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "In Supreme Court arguments on Tuesday, members of the court's conservative majority seemed to be searching for a narrow way to uphold a congressional map drawn by Alabama lawmakers that a lower court had said diluted the power of Black voters, violating the Voting Rights Act. Based on their questioning, which was mostly subdued and limited, the court's conservatives seemed likely to reject some of the state's most aggressive arguments, which would impose profound new restrictions on how the 1965 act applies in redistricting cases." ~~~

~~~ Marie: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson engaged in some first-class trolling of the Court's confederate originalists. And of CJ John Roberts, who infamously wrote in an opinion in an earlier case, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." This, of course, is a pretense to all but ignore racism as a valid reason for taking, or failing to take, certain actions that promote racist discrimination. Jackson said in oral arguments yesterday that "the law had to be understood in the context of the history of the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, which was meant to protect formerly enslaved Black people. 'That's not a race-neutral or race-blind idea,' she said."

Rachel Pannett of the Washington Post: On Monday, the "Onion -- a satirical publication known for poking fun at everything from popular culture to global politics -- ... filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of an Ohio man who faced criminal charges over a Facebook page parodying his local police department.... True to form, the supporting brief filed by the Onion's lawyers Monday takes a satirical approach in its bid to get the nation's top court to consider Novak's petition.... Despite the sarcasm and hyperbole, the legal brief isn't a joke. The publication's aim is to get the Supreme Court to scrutinize qualified immunity and free speech rights.... It also highlights what the Onion suggests are shortcomings in the legal system when it comes to protecting those who use comedy to question people in positions of authority." ~~~

~~~ Alex Henderson of AlterNet: "The Onion, founded in 1988, has been offering parody for 34 years. In the Amicus brief, The Onion noted its ability to occasionally fool people. None of the articles published in The Onion are meant to be taken seriously, but on occasion, some readers have taken them seriously and didn't realize they were reading fiction.... In the Amicus brief, The Onion's lawyers argued that a 'reasonable reader' should be able to recognize parody when they see it.... Noting the Onion's Latin motto is "Tu stultus es. You are dumb," the brief claims: '... the phrase 'you are dumb' captures the very heart of parody: tricking readers into believing that they're seeing a serious rendering of some specific form -- a pop song lyric, a newspaper article, a police beat -- and then allowing them to laugh at their own gullibility when they realize that they've fallen victim to one of the oldest tricks in the history of rhetoric.'" Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~

~~~ Marie: You sort of have to read both stories to get to the gist of the brief: the WashPo story give the background but too little in the way of content. The AlterNet story provides little in the way of background; it doesn't even mention the case for which the Onion filed the brief, but it goes much more into the content of the Onion's brief. Most interesting to me is that the Onion's brief makes precisely the argument Trump lawyer & all-around wacko Sidney Powell made in her own defense in a defamation suit Dominion Voting Systems brought against her: "'No reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact,' Powell's attorneys said in a court filing...." That is, an intelligent Fox "News" viewer (okay, an oxymoron) would realize that her attacks on Dominion were obviously hyperbolic. I can foresee Donald Trump making a similar claim about his January 6 speech at the ellipse. Reportedly, he already has called the insurrectionists "idiots."

Kate Conger & Lauren Hirsch of the New York Times: "Elon Musk, in a surprise move..., proposed a deal with Twitter on Monday evening that could bring to an end an acrimonious legal fight between the billionaire and the social media company. The arrangement would allow Mr. Musk to acquire Twitter at $54.20 per share, the price he agreed to pay for the company in April, two people familiar with the proposal who were not authorized to speak publicly said. But it was not immediately clear whether Twitter planned to accept his offer, which could be seen as a negotiating tactic by Mr. Musk to halt Twitter's litigation against him." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) An NBC News story is here.

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. Christopher Flavelle & Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Hurricane Ian's wrath made clear that Florida faces some of the most severe consequences of climate change anywhere in the country. But the state's top elected leaders opposed the most significant climate legislation to pass Congress -- laws to help fortify states against, and recover from, climate disasters, and confront their underlying cause: the burning of fossil fuels. Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott voted against last year's bipartisan infrastructure law, which devotes some $50 billion to help states better prepare for events like Ian, because they said it was wasteful. And in August, they joined every fellow Republican in the Senate to oppose a new climate law that invests $369 billion in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the largest such effort in the country's history. At the same time, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has blocked the state's pension fund from taking climate change into account when making investment decisions, saying that politics should be absent from financial calculations." ~~~

~~~ Marie: Southwest Florida is a Republican stronghold. It's fine to feel sorry for the people who lost their homes and/or their lives to a climate-change exacerbated hurricane, but the fact is that many of the people who are now crying for help from the rest of us taxpayers voted for Republicans who oppose efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change. Sorry, Ronnie Boy, but it's your own party that has consistently decided to put the politics into sound climate policy. And Republicans have done so for the crassest of "financial" reasons: campaign contributions from the fossil-fuel industry.

Georgia. Hypocrites on Parade. Shane Goldmacher, et al., of the New York Times: "National Republicans quickly began to close ranks on Tuesday behind Herschel Walker, the party's embattled nominee for Senate in Georgia, a day after a report that Mr. Walker, an outspoken supporter of an abortion ban with no exceptions, had paid for a girlfriend's abortion in 2009.... Mr. Walker appeared on Fox News on Monday hours after the allegations broke, denying the Daily Beast report and explaining away the $700 payment by saying, 'I send money to a lot of people.'... The statements of support from fellow Republicans came quickly on Tuesday.... Mr. Walker, who has spoken extensively about his religious faith, is counting on the support of evangelical Christians in Georgia. [Christianist leader Ralph] Reed argued that the latest report could lift turnout among social conservatives, saying voters would rally to defend Mr. Walker." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Marie: Wait, wait. How is it that Walker is such a paragon of Christian virtue, whereas Sen. Warnock, who has a Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary & for decades has been pastor of prominent churches, is not? ~~~

~~~ Meredith McGraw, et al., of Politico: "Months before news broke alleging that Herschel Walker paid for an abortion, top Republicans in the state -- including those advising his team -- warned him that the story could torpedo his campaign. Four people with knowledge of those preliminary discussions said that the abortion issue was well known within the state, even before reporters began inquiring about it.... Rather than move to proactively address the story, Walker's team held their breath, hoping that the election would pass before it surfaced."

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 are here. ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Wednesday are here: "... Vladimir Putin signed documents Wednesday for the illegal annexation of four regions of Ukraine, although the exact borders of the attempted land grab remain unclear. The move is a breach of international law. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces were making a 'fast and powerful advance' in the country's south, with 'dozens of settlements' liberated from Russian control.... The Biden administration approved an additional $625 million in security assistance for Kyiv, bringing total U.S. military aid to Ukraine to $16.8 billion since February, the Defense Department said in a statement.... The OPEC Plus group of oil-producing nations is set to meet Wednesday, and oil prices rose Tuesday amid signals it would announce plans to cut production significantly.... A Russian court set Oct. 25 as the appeal date for Brittney Griner, the WNBA star held in Russia on charges of drug possession, the Associated Press reported."

News Ledes

New York Times: "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless on Wednesday for the development of click chemistry and bio-orthogonal chemistry -- work that has 'led to a revolution in how chemists think about linking molecules together,' the Nobel committee said. Dr. Bertozzi is the eighth woman to be awarded the prize, and Dr. Sharpless is the fifth scientist to be honored with two Nobels, the committee noted."

Forgot this yesterday:

New York Times: "Three physicists whose works each showed that nature is even weirder than Einstein had dared to imagine have been named winners of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics. John Clauser, of J.F. Clauser and Associates in Walnut Creek, Calif.; Alain Aspect of the Institut d'Optique in Palaiseau, France; and Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna in Austria, will split a prize of 10 million Swedish kronor. Their independent works explored the foundations of quantum mechanics, the paradoxical rules that govern behavior in the subatomic world."

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Monday

Oct032022

October 4, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Marie: It's Tuesday afternoon as I type this, and Trump hasn't filed a new lawsuit since way back on Monday. So ~~~

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Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "President Biden traveled to Puerto Rico on Monday, promising $60 million in hurricane relief funds and 'every bit of help' from the federal government to help the storm-battered territory rebuild faster than in the past. Mr. Biden and Jill Biden, the first lady, visited Ponce, a city on Puerto Rico's southern coast that was hit by Hurricane Fiona two weeks earlier -- five years after Hurricane Maria, a strong Category 4 storm, decimated the island.... Ahead of Mr. Biden's arrival in Puerto Rico, the White House announced that the territory would receive $60 million to help coastal areas prepare for future storms, and pointed out that the administration had removed many of the restrictions on federal aid that ... Donald J. Trump put into place during his presidency."

Bada Bing. Jeremy Herb of CNN: "... Donald Trump falsely claimed he had given the letters he exchanged with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to the National Archives last year when he was interviewed by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman for her forthcoming book, according to audio of the interview obtained by CNN.... Haberman told The New York Times, which first reported the audio clips, that she asked Trump in a September 2021 interview 'on a lark' whether he had taken any memento documents from the White House. Trump told Haberman, 'Nothing of great urgency, no,' before bringing up the Kim letters unprompted. 'I have great things though, you know. The letters, the Kim Jong Un letters. I had many of them,' Trump said. 'You were able to take those with you?' Haberman asked. 'No, I think that has the ... I think that's in the archives, but most of it is in the Archives. But the Kim Jong Un letters, we have incredible things. I have incredible letters with other leaders.'... CNN and other outlets have previously reported that Trump, in fact, had kept the Kim letters among the tens of thousands of government documents that he took to his Mar-a-Lago resort after leaving the White House." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Marie: Kind of fun to see how Trump uses word salad to lie his way out of an accidental moment of candor. And how Haberman, a Trump pro, catches him. First, she asks an "innocent" question. He answers with a boast, saying he has (present tense) many great things. Then he mentions, without using a connective word, the Kim letters. Then he says he had (evidently the exact same subject, but now, inexplicably, he describes his possession of them in the past tense) many of them (so not all??). As we now know, "I have" is true, but Trump suddenly realizes in the conversation with Haberman that it's illegal for him to "have" them. So "have" becomes "had" in the very same thought fart. Haberman tries to verify that Trump kept the letters, but by then he's ready to embellish his lie with more obfuscation, telling her he thinks the Kim letters are in the Archives. Then he utters one of those nonsense sentences for which he is famous: "But the Kim Jong Un letters, we have incredible things." Those letters are "great," they're "incredible." Superlatives required. Finally, he changes the subject to "incredible" exchanges with other leaders. ~~~

~~~ AND, as Akhilleus pointed out at the end of yesterday's Comments thread, this story begins as most stories about Trump do: "Donald Trump falsely claimed...." ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE, Trump is out there calling Haberman a lying creep. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ AND David Leonhardt of the New York Times goes a bit meta when he interviews Haberman about interviewing Trump. (Also linked yesterday.)

Bada Boom. Josh Dawsey & Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump asked one of his lawyers [-- Alex Cannon --] to tell the National Archives and Records Administration in early 2022 that Trump had returned all materials requested by the agency, but the lawyer declined because he was not sure the statement was true, according to people familiar with the matter. As it turned out, thousands more government documents -- including some highly classified secrets -- remained at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence....

"Cannon ... had facilitated the January transfer of 15 boxes of presidential records from Mar-a-Lago to the National Archives.... Trump himself eventually packed the boxes that were returned in January, people familiar with the matter said. The former president seemed determined in February to declare that all material sought by the archives had been handed over.... Trump asked his team to release a statement he had dictated. The statement said Trump had returned 'everything' the archives had requested. Trump asked Cannon to send a similar message to archives officials, the people said. In addition, the former president told his aides that the documents in the boxes were 'newspaper clippings' and not relevant to the archives.... But Cannon, a former Trump Organization lawyer who worked for the campaign and for Trump after the presidency, told Trump he could not tell the archives all the requested material had been returned.... Other Trump advisers also encouraged Cannon not to make such a definitive statement.... The Feb. 7 statement Trump dictated was never released over concerns by some of his team that it was not accurate...." ~~~

~~~ Marie: As you may notice, "not accurate" has become another euphemism for "honking big lie." To be perfectly clear, say I ask you how many jelly beans there are in a bottle containing 3,100 jellybeans, and you guess there are 2,500 jellybeans. Your guess was not accurate. Then I tell you that I've given away the whole bottle of jellybeans, but you pop over & discover the full bottle sitting on my kitchen counter, that would be a honking big lie. Oh, and did I mention that this is another blatant example of Trump throwing a young employee under the bus. Cannon (any relation to Aileen???) could be disbarred or prosecuted for making misrepresentations to federal officials.

What Trump Needs is Another Lawsuit. Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump sued CNN on Monday, claiming that the network defamed him and demanding $475 million in damages. Over the course of his business and political career, Mr. Trump has frequently threatened to sue media organizations over news coverage that he deems unfair or disrespectful. Although he rarely followed through, his attacks on the media became a staple of his political messaging and have often been cited in fund-raising entreaties in the run-up to this year's midterm elections.... In Monday's suit, Mr. Trump's lawyers justified their demand for $475 million in damages in part by alleging that CNN's coverage has caused the former president to suffer 'embarrassment, pain, humiliation and mental anguish.'" The Guardian's story is here. MB: He is a very sensitive fellow.

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "Setting out their opening argument in the trial of [Oath Keepers leader Stewart] Rhodes and four other members of the Oath Keepers on charges of seditious conspiracy, federal prosecutors said on Monday that [beginning as early as two days after the November 2020 election, Oath Keepers made] a broad effort to stop the transfer of presidential power and to use the might of the far-right militia to keep ... Donald J. Trump in office.... Mr. Rhodes riled up and recruited dozens of Oath Keepers to join his plot, prosecutors said, eventually deploying them in Washington and across the river in Virginia to disrupt the certification on Jan. 6, 2021, of Mr. Biden's victory.... In his own opening statement, Phillip Linder, Mr. Rhodes's lawyer, said that Mr. Rhodes and his subordinates had never planned an illegal attack against the government.... Instead, Mr. Linder said, the Oath Keepers were waiting for Mr. Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act -- a move, they claim, would have given the group standing as a militia to employ force of arms in support of Mr. Trump." (Also linked yesterday.) The Washington Post's report is here. ~~~

~~~ Tierney Sneed, et al., of CNN outline takeaways from the first day of the trial. ~~~

~~~ Marie: This may prove to be an interesting trial to follow because it's likely to release some new facts about the insurrection (in the form of evidence) or ones we've only speculated about.

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "In its first argument of the Supreme Court's new term and the first to feature its newest member, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the justices on Monday considered a dispute over the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to police some kinds of water pollution. In June, on the final day of its last term, the court limited the E.P.A.'s power to address climate change under the Clean Air Act. The new case concerned its authority under a different law, the Clean Water Act, which allows the regulation of discharges into what the law calls 'waters of the United States.' The question for the justices was how to determine which wetlands qualify as such waters." (Also linked yesterday.)

Lawrence Hurley of NBC News: "The Supreme Court on Monday rejected MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell's bid to fend off a defamation lawsuit the voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems filed over his far-fetched claims about the 2020 presidential election. The justices' decision not to hear the case means a federal judge's ruling in August 2021 that allowed the lawsuit to move forward remains in place." (Also linked yesterday.)

Kevin Draper of the New York Times: "... a highly anticipated investigative report into abuse in women's soccer ... found sexual misconduct, verbal abuse and emotional abuse by coaches in the game's top tier, the National Women's Soccer League, and issued warnings that girls face abuse in youth soccer as well. The report was published Monday, a year after players outraged by what they saw as a culture of abuse in their sport demanded changes by refusing to take the field. It found that leaders of the N.W.S.L. and the United States Soccer Federation -- the governing body of the sport in America -- as well as owners, executives and coaches at all levels failed to act on years of voluminous and persistent reports of abuse by coaches.... 'Our investigation has revealed a league in which abuse and misconduct -- verbal and emotional abuse and sexual misconduct -- had become systemic, spanning multiple teams, coaches and victims,' Sally Q. Yates, the lead investigator, wrote in the report's executive summary." ~~~

~~~ Jesus Jiménez of the New York Times outlines some takeaways from the report. MB: My big takeaway: the modern women's movement began in earnest six decades ago. Laws have changed, but male "culture" has not. American men still think and act on the belief that they can abuse women with impunity. And they're right, even on a systemic basis.

From Marie's Celebrity* News Page. Declan Harty & Sam Sutton of Politico: "Kim Kardashian will pay $1.26 million to settle federal charges that she promoted a cryptocurrency without disclosing she was paid to do so, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday. The SEC alleged that the celebrity billionaire and reality TV star used her Instagram account -- followed by 331 million people -- to tout EthereumMax's token, EMAX, without disclosing that she was being given $250,000 in exchange. EMAX is a token built on the popular Ethereum blockchain. Its value has fallen by more than 99 percent since peaking in May 2021." MB: BTW, herein we find an opportunity to appropriate use the word "deceptive." (See today's Comments). As in, "By failing to disclose that she received a fee for endorsing the product, Ms. Kardashian engaged in deceptive advertising." (Also linked yesterday.)

*Celebrity: someone who is famous for being famous. And not much else.

Beyond the Beltway

Alabama State GOP Chairman Used Fake ID to Vote. Kyle Whitmere of AL.com: In "Alabama, state law requires you to show a photo ID at the polls. For most folks, this means a driver's license, but other forms of government-issued ID are permitted -- a military ID, a passport or a college student ID, among others.... And if you don't have any of those, the Alabama Secretary of State's office will help you get a special voter ID. The office will even make house calls for the non-ambulatory. But the last few times Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl voted, he presented poll workers with an ID they'd never seen before.... It bore a state seal, a barcode and Wahl's picture. The badge said Wahl was a media representative for State Auditor Jim Zeigler. But when I asked the Alabama Department of Finance, which administers employee IDs, that department said it had never issued him one, nor was Wahl on the list of employees, past and present, in Zeigler's office. As it turns out, Wahl made the ID, he says, with Zeigler’s permission. And now, the state's top election official, Secretary of State John Merrill, says that badge is not a valid voter ID." MB: The story gets weirder. Uh, something about Anabaptists & the "mark of the beast." Really. (Also linked yesterday.)

Florida, etc. This New York Times story, by Edgar Sandoval & others, examines how Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis used Florida funds to round up asylum-seekers in San Antonio, Texas, and ship them to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, without telling the migrants their destination or that they were going to a place that had no jobs or facilities for them. The story also identifies (MB: for the first time, I think) who the mysterious recruiter "Perla" is.

~~~ Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "The New York Times has now identified ... Perla Huerta, describing her as a 'former combat medic and counterintelligence agent.' This opens the door to a host of new inquiries that could implicate DeSantis more deeply in the scheme's sordid aspects. Specifically, lawyers for migrants suing DeSantis tell me they are moving to name Perla Huerta as a defendant in the lawsuit. They say this could pave the way to deposing her for details about the DeSantis administration's potential involvement in deceiving the migrants.... As Brian Beutler argues, it's critical that the country understands the truly sordid and potentially criminal nature of DeSantis's scheme. This would illustrate how central the toxic combination of official corruption and racist agitprop has become to GOP politics these days.”

Georgia Senate Race. Maya King of the New York Times: "Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Georgia and an avowed abortion opponent, paid for his then-girlfriend to have an abortion in 2009, according to a report published Monday in The Daily Beast. Mr. Walker called the claim 'a flat-out lie.' The woman, who The Daily Beast said asked to remain anonymous out of privacy concerns, said that she and Mr. Walker had conceived the child while the two were dating, and mutually agreed not to go ahead with the pregnancy. She said Mr. Walker, who was not married at the time, reimbursed her for the cost of the procedure, the outlet reported. As evidence, the woman provided a copy of a $700 check from Mr. Walker, a receipt from the abortion clinic and a 'get well' card from Mr. Walker, The Daily Beast reported.... Mr. Walker has made his opposition to abortion a cornerstone of his campaign message, saying repeatedly that he supports bans on the procedure with no exceptions for rape or incest." An ABC News story is here. ~~~

~~~ Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: "Herschel Walker's son Christian took to Twitter after the story broke that the former NFL player paid for the abortion of an ex.... 'I know my mom and I would really appreciate if my father Herschel Walker stopped lying and making a mockery of us,' Christian Walker said. 'You're not a "family man" when you left us to bang a bunch of women, threatened to kill us, and had us move over 6 times in 6 months running from your violence.' Walker is alleged to have threatened his ex-wife with a knife and a gun. 'Every family member of Herschel Walker asked him not to run for office, because we all knew (some of) his past. Every single one. He decided to give us the middle finger and air out all of his dirty laundry in public, while simultaneously lying about it. I'm done,' Walker's son continued."

Louisiana Congressional Race. A gutsy campaign ad by Katie Darling, the Democrat running a long-shot campaign against homo sapiens throwback & House Minority Whip Steve Scalise: ~~~

Minnesota Gubernatorial Race. Another GOP Candidate Lives in a Right-wing Conspiracy Bubble. Andrew Kaczynski of CNN: "The Republican candidate for governor of Minnesota repeated last week a bizarre hoax claim which has been debunked that children are being told they can identify as anthropomorphic cats and are being allowed to use litter boxes to urinate in schools. Scott Jensen, the Republican candidate and a former state lawmaker, made the comments while speaking to supporters, according to a video of the event posted on Facebook. 'But what about education?' Jensen said. 'What are we doing to our kids? Why are we telling elementary kids that they get to choose their gender this week? Why do we have litter boxes in some of the school districts so kids can pee in them, because they identify as a furry? We've lost our minds. We've lost our minds.'" MB: Actually, Scotty boy, we haven't lost our minds. You've lost yours.

Mississippi. Favre Gets a Great Effing Criminal Defense Attorney. Mike Allen of Axios: "Eric Herschmann, a top White House lawyer to President Trump, confirms to Axios he is now lead counsel to NFL legend Brett Favre, who is embroiled in a welfare-funds scandal in his home state of Mississippi.... [Favre] is at the center of Mississippi's biggest-ever public corruption case.... Herschmann ... represented Trump at his first impeachment trial.... Herschmann gave videotaped testimony to the House Jan. 6 committee."

Pennsylvania. Colby Itkowitz & Lenny Bernsthttps://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/04/arts/music/loretta-lynn-dead.html... as a Republican candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania..., [Mehmet] Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon, is putting his medical background and his popular TV show at the center of his campaign pitch. At a recent town hall in a Philadelphia suburb, he said his approaches to medicine and politics are similar: 'If you teach people on television or whatever forum you use, they actually begin to use the information and they begin to change what they do in their lives. I want to do the same thing as your senator. Empower you.' But during the show's run from 2009 to 2021, Oz provided a platform for potentially dangerous products and fringe viewpoints, aimed at millions of viewers, according to medical experts, public health organizations and federal health guidance. Among the treatments that Oz promoted were HCG, garcinia cambogia -- an herbal weight-loss product the FDA has said can cause liver damage -- and selenium -- a trace mineral needed for normal body functioning -- for cancer prevention."

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Marie: Some of today's stories are reminders of the importance of journalists in advancing stories that help bolster our democracy, whether the stories are identifying possible witnesses in cases against cruel, corrupt politicians (NYT -- Florida), catching politicians' lies and hypocrisy (Daily Beast -- Georgia), finding evidence of cruel, corrupt conspiracies among politicians & influential muckitymucks (Mississippi Free Press), or exposing a quack doctor-politician (WashPo -- Pa.).

Way Beyond

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

~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Tuesday are here: "Days after retaking the Donetsk transportation hub of Lyman, Ukrainian forces extended their battlefield gains Monday in the country's eastern and southern regions, putting them in position to attack Russian forces in the nearby Luhansk region. In his nightly address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that fierce fighting continues on many fronts, claiming 'new liberated settlements in several regions.' Some of the recent advances are in areas that ... Vladimir Putin is trying to seize through illegal annexations. Russia's lower house voted to ratify the annexations Monday, and the upper house is expected to formalize them Tuesday.";

Dear @elonmusk, when someone tries to steal the wheels of your Tesla, it doesn't make them [the] legal owner of the car or of the wheels. Even though they claim both voted in favor of it. Just saying. -- President Gitanas Nauseda of Lithuania

Fuck off is my very diplomatic reply to you @elonmusk. -- Andrij Melnyk, Ukraine's ambassador to Germany ~~~

~~~ World's Richest & Most Arrogant Person Tweets a "Peace Plan." Sammy Westfall & Missy Ryan of the Washington Post: "Elon Musk, as he often does, fired off some tweets on Monday. This time, he took aim at the Russia-Ukraine war -- asking via a Twitter poll if his followers approved of a four-point peace plan to end the conflict. The internet was not impressed." ... MB: partly because the so-called plan was pro-Russia, partly because it ignored historical facts diplomatic considerations, and partly because any idiot should know a peace plan won't fit in a tweet.

U.K. Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "Liz Truss ... isn’t the first leader who has been forced to make a policy U-turn in the face of adverse market reactions. But announcing an economic program and then abandoning its central plank just 10 days later is something special.... The simple story -- Truss proposed policies that would increase the budget deficit and feed inflation, and markets reacted by pushing interest rates up and the pound down -- ... was ... largely about a government squandering its intellectual and moral credibility.... Questions about Truss's judgment were reinforced by the cluelessness of her timing. Right now ordinary Europeans, including Britons, are facing hard times, largely as an indirect consequence of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.... In tough times, leaders need to be perceived as being both realistic and fair. What Britain got instead was a leader who seems to live in a fantasy world and is oblivious to concerns about social solidarity. And it's going to be very hard to make up for the damage she did in just a few days."

News Lede

New York Times: "Loretta Lynn, the country singer whose plucky songs and inspiring life story made her one of the most beloved American musical performers of her generation, died on Tuesday at her home in Hurricane Mills, Tenn. She was 90."

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Sunday

Oct022022

October 3, 2022

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

~~~ Marie: This may prove to be an interesting trial to follow because it's likely to release some new facts about the insurrection or ones we've only speculated about.

This New York Times story, by Edgar Sandoval & others, examines how Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis used Florida funds to round up asylum-seekers in San Antonio, Texas, and ship them to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, without telling the migrants their destination or that they were going to a place that had no jobs or facilities for them. The story also identifies, for the first time (MB: I think), who the mysterious recruiter "Perla" is.

Jeremy Herb of CNN: "... Donald Trump falsely claimed he had given the letters he exchanged with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to the National Archives last year when he was interviewed by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman for her forthcoming book, according to audio of the interview obtained by CNN.... Haberman told The New York Times, which first reported the audio clips, that she asked Trump in a September 2021 interview 'on a lark' whether he had taken any memento documents from the White House. Trump told Haberman, 'Nothing of great urgency, no,' before bringing up the Kim letters unprompted. 'I have great things though, you know. The letters, the Kim Jong Un letters. I had many of them,' Trump said. 'You were able to take those with you?' Haberman asked. 'No, I think that has the ... I think that's in the archives, but most of it is in the Archives. But the Kim Jong Un letters, we have incredible things. I have incredible letters with other leaders.'... CNN and other outlets have previously reported that Trump, in fact, had kept the Kim letters among the tens of thousands of government documents that he took to his Mar-a-Lago resort after leaving the White House." ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE, Trump is out there calling Haberman a lying creep. ~~~

~~~ AND David Leonhardt of the New York Times goes a bit meta when he interviews Haberman about interviewing Trump.

Alabama State GOP Chairman Used Fake ID to Vote. Kyle Whitmere of AL.com: In "Alabama, state law requires you to show a photo ID at the polls. For most folks, this means a driver's license, but other forms of government-issued ID are permitted -- a military ID, a passport or a college student ID, among others.... And if you don't have any of those, the Alabama Secretary of State's office will help you get a special voter ID. The office will even make house calls for the non-ambulatory. But the last few times Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl voted, he presented poll workers with an ID they'd never seen before.... It bore a state seal, a barcode and Wahl's picture. The badge said Wahl was a media representative for State Auditor Jim Zeigler. But when I asked the Alabama Department of Finance, which administers employee IDs, that department said it had never issued him one, nor was Wahl on the list of employees, past and present, in Zeigler's office. As it turns out, Wahl made the ID, he says, with Zeigler's permission. And now, the state's top election official, Secretary of State John Merrill, says that badge is not a valid voter ID." MB: The story gets weirder. Uh, something about Anabaptists & the "mark of the beast." Really.

From Marie's Celebrity* News Page. Declan Harty & Sam Sutton of Politico: "Kim Kardashian will pay $1.26 million to settle federal charges that she promoted a cryptocurrency without disclosing she was paid to do so, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday. The SEC alleged that the celebrity billionaire and reality TV star used her Instagram account -- followed by 331 million people -- to tout EthereumMax's token, EMAX, without disclosing that she was being given $250,000 in exchange. EMAX is a token built on the popular Ethereum blockchain. Its value has fallen by more than 99 percent since peaking in May 2021." MB: BTW, herein we find an opportunity to appropriately use the word "deceptive." (See today's Comments). As in, "By failing to disclose that she received a fee for endorsing the product, Ms. Kardashian engaged in deceptive advertising."

*Celebrity: someone who is famous for being famous. And not much else.

~~~~~~~~~~

Apocalypse Pending. Yasmeen Abutaleb of the Washington Post: "With a tough midterm election about six weeks away, many Democrats have largely settled on a campaign message ... that ... amounts to a stark warning: If Republicans take power, they will establish a dystopia that cripples democracy and eviscerates abortion rights and other freedoms.... For months leading Democrats, starting with President Biden, signaled that they would campaign on having helped Americans, from fixing bridges to cutting drug costs. Biden suggested that attacking Republicans too harshly would divide the country and alienate potential supporters. But with Trump's reemergence, the proliferation of Republican nominees who reject fair elections, and the Supreme Court's overturning abortion rights, the calculus has starkly changed." ~~~

~~~ Marie: It depends upon the audience. In my state, Congressional Democrats are running ads about how bipartisany they are & how they are so independent, they cross the aisle all the time to work with Republicans. The ads make me sick, but I suppose the candidates have focus-grouped out what the nitwits want to hear.

The Party of Psychopaths. Joshua Zitser of Insider, republished by Yahoo! News: "Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene ... claimed at a rally for ... Donald Trump in Warren, Michigan, on Saturday that Democrats are murdering Republicans. 'I'm not going to mince words with you all,' Greene said. 'Democrats want Republicans dead. They've already started the killings.' Greene, who has repeatedly spread bizarre conspiracy theories, went on to reference two local news stories to support her baseless claim that Democrats are hunting down GOP voters.... 'Joe Biden has declared every freedom-loving American an enemy of the state,' she said. It was Trump who used this specific terminology, referring to President Joe Biden as an 'enemy of the state' during a rally in Pennsylvania last month. 'We will take back our country from the communists who have stolen it and want us to disappear,' she continued. 'We will expose the unelected bureaucrats, the real enemies within, who have abused their power and have declared political warfare on the greatest president this country has ever had.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Collaborators: The Things They Do for Orange Jesus. Steve Eder, et al., of the New York Times: Republican Congressional "votes to reject the election results have become a badge of honor within the party, in some cases even a requirement for advancement, as doubts about the election have come to define what it means to be a Trump Republican. The most far-reaching of Mr. Trump's ploys to overturn his defeat, the objections to the Electoral College results by so many House Republicans did more than any lawsuit, speech or rally to engrave in party orthodoxy the myth of a stolen election. Their actions that day legitimized Mr. Trump's refusal to concede, gave new life to his claims of conspiracy and fraud and lent institutional weight to doubts about the central ritual of American democracy.... Objectors are set to fill the Republican leadership posts and head a majority of the committees....

"In formal statements justifying their votes, about three-quarters relied on the arguments of a low-profile Louisiana congressman, Representative Mike Johnson, the most important architect of the Electoral College objections. On the eve of the Jan. 6 votes, he presented colleagues with what he called a 'third option.' He faulted the way some states had changed voting procedures during the pandemic, saying it was unconstitutional, without supporting the outlandish claims of Mr. Trump's most vocal supporters. His Republican critics called it a Trojan horse that allowed lawmakers to vote with the president while hiding behind a more defensible case."

Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "In an extraordinarily candid and profane interview with Rolling Stone, Michael Fanone -- the former Washington police officer who was seriously hurt at the US Capitol during the January 6 attack -- called the Republican House leader, [Kevin McCarthy,] potentially the next speaker, a 'fucking weasel bitch'.... Fanone, now an analyst for CNN, said his new mission in life was to 'wag[e] a one-man war against Donald Trump and the fucking people that refuse to accept reality'."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The last Supreme Court term ended with a series of judicial bombshells in June that eliminated the right to abortion, established a right to carry guns outside the home and limited efforts to address climate change. As the justices return to the bench on Monday, there are few signs that the court's race to the right is slowing. The new term will feature major disputes on affirmative action, voting, religion, free speech and gay rights. And the court's six-justice conservative supermajority seems poised to dominate the new term as it did the earlier one. 'On things that matter most,' said Irv Gornstein, the executive director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown Law, 'get ready for a lot of 6-3s.'" ~~~

~~~ Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "Already, with its calendar only partly filled, the justices have once again piled onto their agenda cases that embroil the court in some of the most inflammatory issues confronting the nation -- and more are on the way."

Way Beyond the Beltway

Brazil. Terrence McCoy, et al., of the Washington Post: "Brazil's deeply polarizing presidential election, which has pitted populists from opposite ends of the political spectrum -- right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro and left-wing former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva -- will go to a second round after no candidate secured enough votes Sunday to claim outright victory. In a race that voters, analysts and the candidates themselves framed as an existential moment in Latin America's largest country, Lula, a former union leader who served two terms as president from 2003 to 2010, won a narrow plurality. But it was not enough to defeat Bolsonaro, who ended the night with a far more significant share of the vote than many polls predicted." An AP report is here. ~~~

~~~ The Guardian is live-updating developments.

Iran. AP: "Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded publicly on Monday to the biggest protests in Iran in years, breaking weeks of silence to condemn what he called 'rioting' and accuse the United States and Israel of planning the protests. The unrest, ignited by the death of a young woman in the custody of Iran's morality police, are flaring up across the country for a third week despite government efforts to crack down. On Monday, Iran shuttered its top technology university following an hours-long standoff between students and the police that turned the prestigious institution into the latest flashpoint of protests and ended with hundreds of young people arrested." MB: Because dictators & repressive governments are never at fault.

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 for Monday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Monday are here: "Russian lawmakers are poised to finalize the illegal takeover of four Ukrainian regions this week, with both houses of Russia's rubber-stamp parliament expected to pass annexation documents Monday and Tuesday. Ukraine celebrated the retaking of Lyman, saying on Sunday that the key logistics hub in the eastern Donetsk region was completely 'cleared of the Russian occupiers.' Russian forces' retreat from Lyman and other recent setbacks led to unusually open criticism of the Russian military on hard-line pro-Kremlin Telegram channels.... Denmark said the Nord Stream gas leaks are under control.... About 150 Ukrainian schools have been destroyed and 900 damaged, first lady Olena Zelenska said in an interview with '60 Minutes' that aired Sunday. 'Around 3,500 schools will operate online only, because schools cannot receive students and because their parents are afraid to send their children to school,' Zelenska said."

Michael Biesecker, et al., of the AP: "... an investigation by The Associated Press and the PBS series 'Frontline' has found ... a sophisticated Russian-run smuggling operation that has used falsified manifests and seaborne subterfuge to steal Ukrainian grain worth at least $530 million -- cash that has helped feed President Vladimir Putin's war machine.... The ongoing theft, which legal experts say is a potential war crime, is being carried out by  wealthy businessmen and state-owned companies in Russia and Syria, some of them already facing financial sanctions from the United States and European Union. Meanwhile, the Russian military has attacked farms, grain silos and shipping facilities still under Ukrainian control with artillery and air strikes, destroying food, driving up prices and reducing the flow of grain from a country long known as the breadbasket of Europe."

U.K. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "Bowing to intense opposition from Conservative lawmakers after a market backlash, Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain on Monday reversed plans to abolish the top income tax rate of 45 percent on high earners, a key element of her government's tax-cutting economic agenda. The announcement buoyed the British pound, which had been driven down by fears over the government's plans. But it was a humbling capitulation by the government, a day after Ms. Truss declared that she would go ahead with the tax cuts that were the centerpiece of her successful campaign to replace Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party.: The Guardian's story is here. ~~~

~~~ Marie: Perhaps you think Miss Lizzie does not know what she's doing. I don't think she does.

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