February 27, 2023

Afternoon/Evening Update:

** Hannah Dreier of the New York Times: "Migrant children ... are part of a new economy of exploitation: ... children, who have been coming into the United States without their parents in record numbers, are ending up in some of the most punishing jobs in the country, a New York Times investigation found. This shadow work force extends across industries in every state, flouting child labor laws that have been in place for nearly a century. Twelve-year-old roofers in Florida and Tennessee. Underage slaughterhouse workers in Delaware, Mississippi and North Carolina. Children sawing planks of wood on overnight shifts in South Dakota.... The federal government knows they are in the United States, and the Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for ensuring sponsors will support them and protect them from trafficking or exploitation.... While H.H.S. checks on all minors by calling them a month after they begin living with their sponsors, data obtained by The Times showed that over the last two years, the agency could not reach more than 85,000 children. Overall, the agency lost immediate contact with a third of migrant children.

"'It's getting to be a business for some of these sponsors,' said Annette Passalacqua, who left her job as a caseworker in Central Florida last year. Ms. Passalacqua said she saw so many children put to work, and found law enforcement officials so unwilling to investigate these cases, that she largely stopped reporting them. Instead, she settled for explaining to the children that they were entitled to lunch breaks and overtime.... Caseworkers at [child welfare] agencies said that H.H.S. regularly ignored obvious signs of labor exploitation, a characterization the agency disputed.... [Under the leadership of Secretary Xavier Becerra, H.H.S.] began paring back protections that had been in place for years, including some background checks and reviews of children's files, according to memos reviewed by The Times and interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If Jungle Gym Jordan is looking for something to investigate, this should be it. A featured company in this story is called Hearthside, which makes products like Cheerios, Lucky Charms & Nature Valley granola bars for General Mills. Such warm & fuzzy happy names: "I'm going to sit hearthside here in the verdant Nature Valley & munch on a bowl of Cheerios." Never mind that those Cheerios were packaged by children working on assembly lines in the middle of the night. ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Hannah Dreier of the New York Times: "The Biden administration on Monday announced a wide crackdown on the labor exploitation of migrant children around the United States, including more aggressive investigations of companies benefiting from their work. The development came days after The New York Times published [the results, linked above, of] an investigation into the explosive growth of migrant child labor throughout the United States.... The White House laid out a host of new initiatives to investigate child labor violations among employers and improve the basic support that migrant children receive when they are released to sponsors.... Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, called the revelations in The Times 'heartbreaking' and 'completely unacceptable.' As part of the new effort, the Department of Labor, which enforces these laws, said it would target not just the factories and suppliers that illegally employ children, but also the larger companies that have child labor in their supply chains.... The Department of Labor has begun an investigation into Hearthside, administration officials said....

"[MB: And guess what?] Both the House Judiciary and Oversight committees pledged investigations, and Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and the Judiciary chairman, demanded in a letter sent Monday that Robin Dunn Marcos, the director of the division of H.H.S. in charge of child migrants, submit to a transcribed interview.... A spokesman for Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Xavier Becerra, the secretary of health and human services, 'cut corners on vetting procedures to prioritize the expedited release of minors, and as a result more migrant children are being handed off to traffickers and exploited.'" MB: It's damned sad when Kevin McCarthy's criticism of Democrats is wholly justified.

Ian Duncan of the Washington Post: "An internal Transportation Department watchdog said Monday that it will audit Secretary Pete Buttigieg's use of Federal Aviation Administration jets for official trips, as well as travel by his predecessor, Elaine Chao. The Transportation Department said Buttigieg made 18 flights on FAA planes over seven trips. In all but one trip, it was less expensive to use FAA aircraft than to fly commercially, Buttigieg's office said. The cost of the flights for Buttigieg and accompanying staff members was $41,905.20, according to the department.... The audit will come at a time when Republicans have been ratcheting up pressure on Buttigieg over the derailment of a freight train in Ohio and disruptions to air travel. The audit of Buttigieg's travel was requested by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who cited a report by Fox News. Kerry Arndt, a spokeswoman for Buttigieg, said in an emailed statement that his team welcomed the review, which it said would be a chance to 'put some of the false, outlandish, and cynical claims about the Secretary's mode of travel to rest.'" MB: Huh. Maybe Marco should not be relying on the veracity of Fox "News" reports. We could ask Rupert about that.

** Rupert Disses the Help. Jeremy Peters & Katie Robertson of the New York Times: "Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the conservative media empire that owns Fox News, acknowledged in a deposition that several hosts for his networks promoted the false narrative that the election in 2020 was stolen from ... Donald J. Trump, court documents released on Monday showed. 'They endorsed,' Mr. Murdoch said under oath in response to direct questions about the hosts Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo, a legal filing by Dominion Voting Systems said. 'I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it in hindsight.' Mr. Murdoch s remarks, which he made last month as part of the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox by Dominion, added to the evidence that ... the people running the country's most popular news network knew Mr. Trump's claims of voter fraud during the 2020 election were false but broadcast them anyway.... Dominion's latest filing also described how Paul D. Ryan, a former Republican speaker of the House and current member of the Fox Corporation board of directors, said in his deposition that he had told Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Murdoch's son Lachlan, the chief executive officer, 'Fox News should not be spreading conspiracy theories.'... In [a] deposition, [Fox's chief legal officier Viet] Dinh, when asked if Fox executives had an obligation to stop hosts of shows from broadcasting lies, said: 'Yes, to prevent and correct known falsehoods.'" Read on. MB: So surprising that Paul Ryan casts himself as the hero in a white hat.

Lisa Rein & Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post: "... a newly empowered GOP House majority [is] eager to ramp up scrutiny of the army of civil servants who run the government's day-to-day operations. The effort includes seeking testimony from middle- and lower-level workers who are part of what Republicans have long derided as the 'deep state,' while some lawmakers are drafting bills that have little chance of passing the Democrat-led Senate but give Republicans a chance to argue for reining in the federal bureaucracy of 2.1 million employees."

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Rep. Andrew Ogles (R-Tenn.), who is facing allegations of embellishing his résumé, acknowledged Monday that he misstated the degree he received from Middle Tennessee State University, claiming he learned of the discrepancy only last week after requesting an official copy of his transcript. Ogles said he mistakenly stated that he received a degree in international relations. In a statement Monday, he said his degree was for liberal studies. That is a general education degree typically for those who cannot settle on a major. Nashville television station WTVF has reported on a wider range of misrepresentations by Ogles about his background, including calling himself an 'economist' when, in fact, he took only one community college economics course that he barely passed. The station has also raised questions about Ogles's representations of having law enforcement experience, including a claim that he handled 'international sex crimes.'"

A Fallacy of the Right-wing Echo Chamber. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: Scott Adams, the creator of the comic strip "Dilbert," "enjoys presenting himself as smarter and more clever than everyone else, leading him to couch controversial statements with belated winks in the manner of Twitter owner Elon Musk (who rushed to support Adams in the wake of the new controversy).... He (like [Donald] Trump and Musk) has been able to tread further into controversy thanks to celebrity and power." Bump goes on to dismantle the Rasmussen Report question upon which Adams based his racist conclusions. Then he demonstrates that Adams was already a racist before the rant: "You don't simply jump from one poll about the views of Black Americans to a position of 'I endorse avoiding Black people at all cost.'"

Michigan Senate Race. Katie Glueck of the New York Times: "Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat and former C.I.A. analyst who has notched several high-profile victories in a challenging district, said Monday that she would run for the Senate seat being vacated by Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat. Ms. Slotkin is the first Democrat running in what could be a hotly contested primary followed by a marquee fight in the general election, held during a presidential year in a major battleground state." A CBS News story is here.

U.K., etc. Lisa O'Carroll & Jessica Elgot of the Guardian: UK Prime Minister "Rishi Sunak hailed a 'new chapter' in the UK's relationship with the EU as he agreed a deal to end the dispute over the post-Brexit Northern Ireland protocol. The prime minister said he had secured a significant change to the original text of the protocol. Now termed the Windsor framework, it will create a new green lane for traders, scrapping all trade restrictions between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and new freedoms for medicines, chilled meats and pets to move over the Irish Sea. A new 'Stormont brake', a surprise measure in Monday's package, means the Northern Ireland assembly can oppose new EU goods rules that would have significant and lasting effects on everyday lives in Northern Ireland."

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Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: "During ... Donald Trump's time in office, White House reporters asked about a train derailment on one occasion according to a review of transcripts.... On December 18, 2017, an Amtrak passenger train derailed near DuPont, Washington State, killing three people and injuring 65 others.... Trump spoke about the fatal crash once, for a total of 23 seconds, and did not visit the site or send his transportation secretary: 'Let me begin by expressing our deepest sympathies and most heartfelt prayers for the victims of the train derailment in Washington State. We are closely monitoring the situation and coordinating with local authorities. It is all the more reason why we must start immediately fixing the infrastructure of the United States.'... Trump never did get his infrastructure plan going, and in 2019 killed a raft of train safety regulations...."

digby publishes a big chunk of a Rolling Stone story: "... according to two former Trump administration officials, [in early 2018 Donald Trump] was so upset by [Jimmy] Kimmel's comedic jabs that he directed his White House staff to call up one of Disney's top executives in Washington, D.C., to complain and demand action. (ABC, on which Jimmy Kimmel Live! has long aired, is owned by Disney.) In at least two separate phone calls that occurred around the time Trump was finishing his first year in office, the White House conveyed the severity of his fury with Kimmel to Disney, the ex-officials tell Rolling Stone. Trump's staff mentioned that the leader of the free world wanted the billion-dollar company to rein in the Trump-trashing ABC host, and that Trump felt that Kimmel had, in the characterization of one former senior administration official, been 'very dishonest and doing things that [Trump] would have once sued over.'...

"In 2018, Trump's FCC chairman Ajit Pai announced that the agency would investigate a crass joke from Late Show host Stephen Colbert about Trump's cozy relationship with Vladimir Putin. Trump fumed at Colbert in an interview and called him a 'no-talent' who uses 'filthy' language.... The FCC ultimately declined to take action against the late night host. As the matter was being examined, the then-president took enough of an interest in it to repeatedly ask aides for updates on if the FCC had made a decision yet, a source with direct knowledge of the queries says."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Joe DePaulo of Mediaite: "A Fox News host said the network is not allowing him to cover the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed against Fox News by Dominion voting systems. Speaking at the midway point of his weekly media roundup show MediaBuzz on Sunday, Howard Kurtz said that the company has forbidden him from covering the case. 'The company has decided that as part of the organization being sued, I can't talk about it or write about it, at least for now,' Kurtz said. [']I strongly disagree with that decision. But as an employee, I have to abide by it.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Real news media regularly cover newsworthy stories in which they are litigants. ~~~

~~~ David French of the New York Times: "Fox News became a juggernaut not simply by being 'Republican,' or 'conservative,' but by offering its audience something it craved even more deeply: representation. And journalism centered on representation ultimately isn't journalism at all.... As the Trump years wore on, the prime-time messaging became more blatant. Supporting Trump became a marker not just of patriotism, but also of courage.... So you can start to understand the shock when, on Election Day in 2020, Fox News accurately, if arguably prematurely, called Arizona for Joe Biden. It broke the social compact.... In the emails and texts highlighted in the Dominion filing, you see Fox News figures, including Sean Hannity and Suzanne Scott and Lachlan Murdoch, referring to the need to 'respect' the audience. To be clear, by 'respect' they didn't mean 'tell the truth' -- an act of genuine respect. Instead they meant 'represent.'"

Get to Know a Billionaire. He Might Be a Cold-hearted, Racist Control Freak. ~~~

~~~ We White People Are So Lucky to Have Elon Defend Us. Will Oremus of the Washington Post: "Twitter and Tesla chief Elon Musk defended Scott Adams, the under-fire creator of 'Dilbert,' in a series of tweets Sunday, blasting media organizations for dropping his comic strip after Adams said that White people should 'get the hell away from Black people.' Replying to tweets about the controversy, Musk said it is actually the media that is 'racist against whites & Asians.' He offered no criticism of Adams's comments, in which the cartoonist called Black people a 'hate group' and said, 'I don't want to have anything to do with them.' Musk previously tweeted, then later deleted, a reply to Adams's tweet about media outlets pulling his comic strip, in which Musk asked, 'What exactly are they complaining about?' The billionaire's comments continue a pattern of Musk expressing more concern about the 'free speech' of people who make racist or antisemitic comments than about the comments themselves." A Reuters story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ AND He's Giving Twitter Employees Their Freeeedom. Kate Conger, et al., of the New York Times: "Twitter laid off at least 200 of its employees on Saturday night, three people familiar with the matter said, or about 10 percent of the roughly 2,000 who were still working for the company. Elon Musk, who acquired the social media platform in October, has steadily pared back its work force from about 7,500 employees as he has sought to reduce costs. The layoffs came after a week when the company made it difficult for Twitter employees to communicate with each other. The company's internal messaging service, Slack, was taken offline, preventing employees from chatting with each other or looking up company data, five current and former employees told The New York Times."

** The Pandemic, Ctd. A Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory May Be True. Julian Barnes of the New York Times: "New intelligence has prompted the Energy Department to conclude that an accidental laboratory leak in China most likely caused the coronavirus pandemic, though U.S. spy agencies remain divided over the origins of the virus, American officials said on Sunday. The conclusion was a change from the department's earlier position that it was undecided on how the virus emerged. Some officials briefed on the intelligence said that it was relatively weak and that the Energy Department's conclusion was made with 'low confidence,' suggesting its level of certainty was not high. While the department shared the information with other agencies, none of them changed their conclusions, officials said. Officials would not disclose what the intelligence was. But many of the Energy Department's insights come from the network of national laboratories it oversees, rather than more traditional forms of intelligence like spy networks or communications intercepts....

"In addition to the Energy Department, the F.B.I. has also concluded, with moderate confidence, that the virus first emerged accidentally from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a Chinese lab that worked on coronaviruses.... Early in the Biden administration, the president ordered the intelligence agencies to investigate the pandemic's origins, after criticism of a W.H.O. report on the matter." The Guardian's report is here. ~~~

Lauren Sforza of the Hill: "The lack of confidence or details on the assessment didn't stop Republicans from claiming validation and calling for urgent action against China."

Way Beyond the Beltway

Israel/Palestine. Isabel Kershner of the New York Times: "Hours after a Palestinian gunman fatally shot two Israeli brothers as they drove through a town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Sunday, Jewish settlers went on a rampage in the area to avenge the killings, stoning and burning dozens of Palestinian homes, stores and cars. The shooting occurred early Sunday afternoon on a road south of the city of Nablus even as Israeli, Palestinian and other Arab officials were participating in a summit in Jordan, along with senior U.S. representatives, to discuss ways to de-escalate rising tensions. After nightfall, with the summit concluded, settlers held marches in the same area as the shooting and began attacking Palestinians and their property. The Palestinian Health Ministry said that one man, Sameh Aqtash, 37, had been killed by live fire as a result of Israeli 'aggression.'"

Mexico. Natalie Kitroeff of the New York Times: "More than 100,000 people took to the streets of Mexico on Sunday to protest new laws hobbling the nation's election agency, in what demonstrators said was a repudiation of the president's efforts to weaken a pillar of democracy. Wearing shades of pink, the official color of the electoral watchdog that helped end one-party rule two decades ago, protesters filled the central square of the capital, Mexico City, and chanted, 'Don't touch my vote.' The protesters said they were trying to send a message to the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who backed the measures and lives in the national palace on the square's edge. They were also speaking directly to the nation's Supreme Court, which is expected to hear a challenge to the overhaul in the coming months. Many see the moment as a critical test for the court, which has been a target of criticism by the president." An AP story is here.

Ukraine, et al. The Guardian's live updates of developments Monday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's summary report is here.

News Lede

New York Times: "A 5.2-magnitude earthquake struck southern Turkey on Monday, killing at least one person and trapping others in collapsed buildings three weeks after a devastating quake struck the same region, leaving more than 50,000 people dead in the country and in neighboring Syria. The latest quake struck just after noon on Monday, south of the city of Malatya, according to the United States Geological Survey. Malatya is the capital of the province of the same name, one of 11 Turkish regions affected by the Feb. 6 tremor."

February 26, 2023

Toluse Olorunnipa, et al., of the Washington Post: "This account of how a train derailment, one of about 1,000 each year in America, morphed into the latest front in the nation's culture wars is based on interviews with administration officials, lawmakers, rail safety experts, local residents, historians and environmental advocates.... Within hours [of the derailment,] officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Transportation Safety Board and other agencies arrived on-site.... The next day, [President] Biden called Mike DeWine, Ohio's Republican governor, to say the federal government was prepared to provide any additional assistance he might need. For more than a week, DeWine did not call back with such requests, saying the situation was under control.... [Dan] Tierney, [Gov. DeWine's] spokesman, said in an interview the Biden administration has supplied significant help. 'Did the agencies provide the appropriate response, and was the president and White House in touch with the governor frequently? The answers to those are yes,' Tierney said, adding that the EPA has been 'extremely responsive.' That is not the picture painted by some Republicans.... On Feb. 16, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) wrote a letter to Biden asking him to fire [Transportation Secretary Pete] Buttigieg.... Fox News host Tucker Carlson used his show to bring race into the discussion, decrying an alleged lack of urgency by the government for a blue-collar community with few people of color." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Like "But Her Emails!," this is a crisis manufactured by right-wing demagogues. If there are 1,000 derailments a year, Buttigieg and Biden (and whoever else supposed doesn't care about White people) can't show up for every one. They would be going to three a day. And when would they have time to go to the sites of natural disasters? Or mass shootings? Moreover, the crisis itself -- along with all the other derailments & industrial accidents -- are often in whole or in part the result of Republicans' antipathy toward regulating businesses. As for many of those climate-induced crises and mass shootings, these too are in part the result of Republican malfeasance. Think climate-change deniers & Second Amendment enthusiasts. So-called conservatives are the single greatest drag on our national well-being, resisting every response to natural and societal disasters while they're busy creating new ones. The perps' only response is to try to deflect blame to somebody else. ~~~

     ~~~ A related Guardian story, by Ed Pilkington & Nina Lakhani, is here. The Guardian's report is more direct than the Post's in blaming the right wing for the controversy: "Three weeks into the disaster, a new set of headlines has started to billow up from right-wing outlets and commentators. Now the tragedy of East Palestine has morphed into a racialized lament for the 'forgotten' people abandoned by the uncaring 'woke' Biden administration. For 'forgotten', read white. Leading the charge, as is so often the case with such white-America nativist fearmongering, is the Fox News star Tucker Carlson. 'East Palestine is overwhelmingly white, and it's politically conservative,' he said recently. 'That shouldn't be relevant, but it very much is.'... Then Carlson contrasted [the] hardship [of East Palestine white people] with what he called the 'favoured poor' who live in 'favoured cities' such as Detroit and Philadelphia -- a clear euphemism for urban centers, often led by Democratic mayors, with large Black populations.... The idea that the rail disaster should be viewed through a racial lens has spread like a toxin from Fox News, through right-wing news sites and social media, into the political realm. JD Vance, the first-term Republican US senator from Ohio, picked up the clarion call of the 'forgotten' Americans, calling the residents of East Palestine, pointedly, 'our voters'." ~~~

     ~~~ Carey Gillam of the Guardian: "A Guardian analysis of data collected by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and by non-profit groups that track chemical accidents in the US shows that accidental releases -- be they through train derailments, truck crashes, pipeline ruptures or industrial plant leaks and spills -- are happening consistently across the country. By one estimate these incidents are occurring, on average, every two days.... In the first seven weeks of 2023 alone, there were more than 30 incidents recorded by the Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters, roughly one every day and a half. Last year the coalition recorded 188, up from 177 in 2021.... 'What happened in East Palestine, this is a regular occurrence for communities living adjacent to chemical plants,' said [Mathy] Stanislaus[, an EPA administrator during the Obama administration]. 'They live in daily fear of an accident.' In all, roughly 200 million people are at regular risk, with many of them people of color, or otherwise disadvantaged communities, he said."

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "In the hands of Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito and other conservatives on the Supreme Court, the founding fathers are small-minded and provincial, unable to think beyond the narrowest possible interpretation of the words they wrote. Of course, we know this isn't true. A large part of the reason that so many Americans hold the framers in such high esteem is precisely that they were farsighted and creative in response to the challenge of building a new political order. They made egregious errors and terrible mistakes -- one of which almost doomed the Republic -- but they also built a Constitution sturdy enough to survive much longer than they thought the union would."

Thomas Floyd & Michael Cavna of the Washington Post: "Newspapers across the United States have pulled Scott Adams's long-running 'Dilbert' comic strip after the cartoonist called Black Americans a 'hate group' and said White people should 'get the hell away from' them. The Washington Post, the USA Today network of hundreds of newspapers, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Los Angeles Times and other publications announced they would stop publishing 'Dilbert' after Adams's racist rant on YouTube on Wednesday. Asked on Saturday how many newspapers still carried the strip -- a workplace satire he created in 1989 -- Adams told The Post: 'By Monday, around zero.' The once widely celebrated cartoonist ... has been entertaining extreme-right ideologies and conspiracy theories for several years...." An AP story is here.

Beyond the Beltway

Arizona. Yvonne Sanchez & Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: "Arizona's Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, is seeking a review of what her office alleges was 'likely unethical conduct' by the state's former attorney general, Mark Brnovich. A letter sent Friday from the governor's office to the State Bar of Arizona follows the disclosure on Wednesday of records showing that Brnovich, a Republican, withheld findings by his own investigators refuting claims of fraud in the 2020 election and mischaracterized his office's probe of voting in the state's largest county." The Hill's story is here.

Georgia. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times contrasts two Georgia politicians: Jimmy Carter & Marjorie Taylor Greene.... "Carter, a brainiac, is a former nuclear engineer with a soaring I.Q. Greene, a maniac, ranted to Tucker Carlson on Thursday about 'this war against Russia in Ukraine.'"

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al. The Washington Post's live briefing of developments Sunday in Russia's war on Ukraine is here: "Chinese officials were notably silent as most attendees at a gathering of Group of 20 finance ministers in India agreed to a statement strongly condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine. China and Russia refused to sign the document, which meant the two-day summit ended without its usual communique. U.S. officials have told The Washington Post that Beijing is considering providing the Kremlin with artillery shells, a move that could alter the war's trajectory in Moscow's favor.... An American veteran [Andrew Peters] fighting in Ukraine was killed in action on Feb. 16, his family told The Post.... Russian forces are making 'marginal territorial gains' around the front-line cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, in the eastern Donetsk region, according to the latest battleground report by the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank." ~~~

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

News Ledes

New York Times: After "snow, freezing rain and wind gusts of 30 to 40 miles per hour ... hammered the Upper Midwest overnight Wednesday..., [knocking out power lines...,] nearly 400,000 customers in Michigan remained without power as of Saturday evening, according to PowerOutage.us.... Michigan is one of the worst states for power reliability.... Michigan is also among the worst for recovery after an outage, usually taking about six hours on average, the report said."

New York Times: "As steady snowfall continued to present hazards in the mountains of Southern California on Saturday..., intense rains and powerful winds ... pounded Los Angeles and surrounding counties on Friday night and early Saturday produced significant flooding in urban areas, downed trees and threatened to cause mudslides. Multiple water rescues were conducted across counties because of rising waters...."

AP: "All five people aboard a medical transport flight, including a patient, were killed in a plane crash Friday night in a mountainous area [near Stagecoach] in northern Nevada.... Care Flight, which provides ambulance service by plane and helicopter, said the dead included the pilot, a flight nurse, a flight paramedic, a patient and a patient's family member.... The crash occurred amid a winter storm warning issued by the National Weather Service in Reno for large swaths of Nevada, including parts of Lyon County [where the crash occurred]."

February 25, 2023

Marie: If you recall, Reagan-appointed former judge Michael Luttig advised mike pence, at pence's request, about the limited Constitutional powers of the President of the Senate. Luttig's advice is largely what discouraged pence from pulling a Trump and trying to overturn the 2020 election & place himself back in office. Well, it looks as if the humorless Judge Luttig still is not amused: ~~~

~~~ Michael Luttig in a New York Times op-ed: "The former vice president should not want the embarrassing spectacle of the Supreme Court compelling him to appear before a grand jury in Washington just when he's starting his campaign for the presidency.... Injecting campaign-style politics into the criminal investigatory process with his rhetorical characterization of Mr. Smith's subpoena as a 'Biden D.O.J. subpoena,' Mr. Pence is trying to score points with voters.... But Jack Smith's subpoena was neither politically motivated nor designed to strengthen President Biden's political hand in 2024. Thus the jarring dissonance between the subpoena and Mr. Pence's characterization of it. It is Mr. Pence who has chosen to politicize the subpoena, not the D.O.J.... We can expect the federal courts to make short shrift of this 'Hail Mary' claim [that he is protected from questioning by the Congress's 'speech or debate' clause], and Mr. Pence doesn't have a chance in the world of winning his case in any federal court and avoiding testifying before the grand jury.... The only question now is not whether he will have to testify before the grand jury, but how soon." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: We should remember, BTW, that Luttig was among the few who stood up for American democracy in the face of a devastating national crisis. And as much as I mocked Dan Quayle over the years, so was he.

No Deed Goes Unpunished. Jordain Carney of Politico: "House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and former Senate Judiciary chairs Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sent letters on Friday to Robert Bauer & Cristina Rodríguez -- the two former co-chairs of the Supreme Court reform commission that released its final report in December 2021 -- requesting documents and communications.... [President] Biden formally formed the commission in April 2021 with the task of providing an 'analysis of the principal arguments' for and against reforming the Supreme Court, after facing months of pressure to embrace expanding the size of the Supreme Court.... While the final report included endorsements for some more modest ideas, like new codes of ethics and increased court transparency, it steered clear of endorsing topics like expansion and term limits, instead largely weighing the arguments made on both sides."

Margie Has a Dream. Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: You can probably tell, from the substance of Greene's comments, that this 'national divorce' [Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene envisions] is more paranoid fantasy than serious proposal. Even so, it rests on a set of ideas and tropes that are in wide circulation in the public at large.... There's the idea, underneath all this, that states are, or ought to be, the fundamental unit of representation in the American political system.... Although states play an important role in the American political system, they are not the autonomous, nearly independent units of either Representative Greene's imagination or the folk civics that shapes political understanding for tens of millions of Americans.... A 'national divorce' is possible only if the states represent singular political communities. But they don't."

The Media Revolt. Anumita Kaur of the Washington Post: "Scores of news organizations -- including The Washington Post -- on Friday demanded congressional leaders release a trove of surveillance footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that the House speaker provided exclusively to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has downplayed the violence. Attorney Charles Tobin sent a letter [to Speaker Kevin McCarthy] on behalf of CBS News, CNN, Politico, ProPublica, ABC, Axios, Advance, Scripps, the Los Angeles Times and Gannett.... 'Without full public access to the complete historical record, there is concern that an ideologically-based narrative of an already polarizing event will take hold in the public consciousness, with destabilizing risks to the legitimacy of Congress, the Capitol Police, and the various federal investigations and prosecutions of Jan. 6 crimes,' the letter stated.... Carlson has repeatedly cast doubt on official accounts of what happened on Jan. 6 and has claimed it was a 'false flag' operation." The CBS News story is here.

Here's an update to a story linked here yesterday: ~~~

~~~ Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The chief judge of the federal district court in Washington, D.C., secretly rejected Rep. Scott Perry's bid to shield more than 2,000 messages relevant to Justice Department investigators probing efforts by Donald Trump to subvert the 2020 election, according to newly unsealed court filings. U.S. District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell unsealed her extraordinary Dec. 28 decision on Friday evening, determining that the 'powerful public interest' in seeing the previously secret opinion outweighed the need for continued secrecy.... Howell said Perry had taken an 'astonishing view' of his ['speech or debate' clause] immunity that would effectively put members of Congress above the law and free of political consequences for their actions. She ordered him to disclose 2,055 of the documents he sought to withhold -- including all 960 of his contacts with members of the executive branch, which she said are entitled to no constitutional protection at all. Some 161 items, she said, were proper to withhold.... Last month, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to stay Howell's ruling. On Thursday, those judges heard both public and private arguments about the dispute. The stay remains in place as the appeals court considers whether to leave Howell's ruling in place, set it aside or modify it in some way. The judges -- Karen Henderson, Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao -- appeared skeptical of the Justice Department's position and the breadth of Howell's ruling, although they discussed her stance only in broad strokes...." ~~~

     ~~~ Howell's opinion is here. MB: Bush I appointed Henderson; Trump appointed Katsas & Rao.

Jacqueline Sweet of Politico: "George Santos lied to a Seattle judge about working for Goldman Sachs while speaking at a 2017 bail hearing for a 'family friend' who later pleaded guilty to fraud in an ATM skimming scheme, according to an audio recording of the proceeding and court records. 'So what do you do for work?' King County Superior Court Judge Sean O'Donnell asked Santos at the May 15, 2017 arraignment of defendant Gustavo Ribeiro Trelha. 'I am an aspiring politician and I work for Goldman Sachs,' Santos replied. 'You work for Goldman Sachs in New York?' the judge asked. 'Yup,' Santos responded.... A spokesperson for the bank told The New York Times in its original investigation into Santos' background that there was no record of him working there.... In a telephone interview, Trelha said Santos lied about their relationship, too. Trelha, through a translator, said he met Santos in the fall of 2016 on a Facebook group for Brazilians living in Orlando, Fla...." MB: Sweet does not make clear whether or not Santos was under oath when he lied to O'Donnell, but presuming that he was, we can add perjury to his growing list of (alleged!) crimes. ~~~

     ~~~ Update: According to the CBS News story, by Graham Kates, "Santos appears to address the court without being sworn in." Too bad. Perhaps it is a crime to lie to a judge or other official during a formal federal proceeding. Plus, Kates writies, "The newly uncovered recording of his court appearance was also a reminder of how little is known about his connection to a man at the center of a wide-ranging credit card fraud case that involved stealing peoples' ATM card information and delivering it to Brazilian accomplices. Santos has declined to answer questions about the case.... Santos was not charged in the case, nor was he a suspect."

~~~ Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: In an interview with Piers Morgan, Rep. George Santos (R-Liar) "offered some insight into [his] ... strategy for political survival -- and why it may resonate with some in the MAGA crowd. True story: Santos claims he is the victim. His lies are everybody else's fault -- honest! This politics of victimhood, of course, is the essence of Donald Trump (who could, and did, claim it was sunny when it was raining).... Like Trump, Santos claimed to be the victim of a 'witch hunt' by 'desperate journalists' who are 'not interested in covering the facts.'... Yet there was one thing Santos said that rang true to me. 'If the media put the equal amount of efforts and resources,' he said, 'on all 435 members of the House and 100 members of the Senate, I think the American people would have more clarity of who represents them in Congress.'... The vast majority of House members ... never get a proper vetting because the parties can't be bothered and local media has been decimated.... How many others faked their way to high office with bogus claims or have backgrounds and associations that wouldn't hold up to scrutiny in the light of day? Maybe that's why so many of Santos's Republican colleagues refuse to expel this fraud." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Those of you who remember the old Stephen Colbert Show, which aired on Comedy Central, will also recall his "Better Know a District" segments [WashPo link] where Colbert interviewed & mocked MOCs. While the questions were sometimes humorously facetious, they also often revealed what complete dunderheads our representatives were. Local TV media should be so helpful.

Sara Boboltz of the Huffington Post: "Former Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) attributed his decision to retire due to the long-term effects of COVID-19, telling local newspaper Tulsa World that certain symptoms were still affecting him day-to-day. Inhofe voted against multiple coronavirus aid packages meant to help Americans at the height of the pandemic, including the Families First Coronavirus Response Act approved overwhelmingly by 90 senators in March 2020, and the American Rescue Plan in March 2021."

A (Possibly Unintended) Consequence of Right-wing Racism. Erica Werner of the Washington Post: "The massive crush of layoffs washing through the United States tech sector is sparking panic among large numbers of immigrants, who are scrambling to stay employed or risk losing their right to live in this country. These workers, primarily Indian nationals, are in the country on temporary visas designed to help U.S. firms employ an exceptionally skilled and educated workforce. Many have been here for years, in some cases decades. But now that many have been laid off, their visas are set to expire in 60 days. They must leave the country unless they can find a new employer willing to navigate complex immigration rules and pay fees that can mount into thousands of dollars to hire them. The situation is becoming a crisis for families in the Silicon Valley and beyond, while exposing anew lawmakers' inability to fix the nation's immigration system, even on matters where there is broad agreement."

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "... good for John Montenegro Cruz, an Arizona [death-row inmate] convicted in 2005 of murdering a Tucson police officer, and good for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, who joined with the court's three liberals to grant Cruz a new sentencing hearing. But read the facts of Cruz's case, and a less cheery, more chilling, reaction seems called for: How can it be that Cruz's life was spared by only a bare majority? Four other conservatives, in a decision written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, would have stuck with a cramped rules-are-rules mentality to let an obviously unconstitutional death sentence stand." Read on. Justice Elena Kagan called Cruz's predicament "one that 'Kafka would have loved.'" MB: Yeah, Kafka & those Supremes who are all concerned about the lives of fetuses but not of us "born" people. Marcus suggests that those same Supremes lack "undamental humanity." She's got that right. If you are wondering about the ideas an AI right-wing robot would spout, check out Amy & Clarence & & Sam & Neil.

Pam Belluck of the New York Times: "The attorneys general of a dozen Democratic-controlled states sued the Food and Drug Administration on Friday, asking a judge to remove special restrictions that the federal agency has long applied to the first of two drugs used in medication abortion.... [At the same time,] a federal judge in Texas is expected to issue an order soon in a case filed by anti-abortion groups that seeks to overturn the F.D.A.'s approval of the same abortion pill, mifepristone, and have it taken off the market.... The judge, a Trump appointee who is politically conservative and wrote an article that was critical of Roe v. Wade, could issue an order effectively blocking access to mifepristone across the country. Such a ruling would immediately be appealed, but if it ultimately stands, it would have far-reaching implications, affecting states where abortion is legal, not just states where abortion is already restricted. The new lawsuit filed by the 12 states does not address the possible outcomes of the Texas case, but it requests that the judge's ruling in the Washington case include orders that would effectively contravene steps that might be imposed by the Texas judge."

News You Can Use. Christina Jewitt & Emily Anthes of the New York Times: "The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency authorization for the first over-the-counter, at-home combination flu and Covid test on Friday, just two days after the company that makes the test announced that it had filed for bankruptcy protection based, in part, on the agency's lengthy approval timeline. The single-use test works with a self-collected nasal swab and provides a result in about 30 minutes, according to the F.D.A. The test is meant to be used by people 14 and older, or by an adult collecting a sample from someone age 2 or older.... Lucira Health [-- the developer of the test --] did not immediately respond to questions about its manufacturing capacity or how much the test would cost consumers."

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Chris Quinn, Editor, [Cleveland] Plain Dealer: "Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, went on a racist rant this week on his Coffee with Scott Adams online video show, and we will no longer carry his comic strip in The Plain Dealer. This is not a difficult decision.... 'I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people,' he says in the video. He says a lot more in the video, mostly hateful and racist, all viewable on Youtube.... Last year, according to The Daily Beast, 77 newspapers published by Lee Enterprises dropped it after Adams introduced his first Black character, apparently to poke fun at 'woke' culture and the LGBTQ community. We are part of Advance Local, and the leaders in all Advance Local newsrooms independently have made the same decision we did to stop running the strip.... In recent years, The Daily Beast says, Adams had gained attention for publicly embracing ridiculous right-wing conspiracies." MB: I had to sign in via Google to read the editorial.

Presidential Race 2024

Darlene Superville of the AP: "U.S. first lady Jill Biden gave one of the clearest indications yet that President Joe Biden will run for a second term, telling The Associated Press in an exclusive interview [in Nairobi, Kenya,] on Friday that there's 'pretty much' nothing left to do but figure out the time and place for the announcement.... The president himself was asked about his wife's comments just hours later in an interview with ABC News, and laughed when told of her remarks, adding, 'God love her. Look, I meant what I said, I've got other things to finish before I get into a full-blown campaign.'"

Jonathan Allen & Ali Vitali of NBC News: "Former Vice President Mike Pence said Friday that he will make a decision 'by the spring' about whether to seek the presidency and suggested that he would pledge to support the eventual GOP nominee if that's a condition of participating in primary debates. 'If I'm a candidate, I'm sure I'll meet whatever the requirement is for debates,' Pence told NBC News in an exclusive interview. As for his timing, Pence said he has a little while before he has to make a decision. 'We're listening, we're reflecting, we're talking to firms,' Pence said, adding that 'by the spring, our family expects to have a very clear sense of our calling.'" More on pence linked under Ukraine, et al., below.

Beyond the Beltway

Illinois. All the Pretty White People. Matthew Chapman of the Raw Story: "A viral Tiktok video shows a [MB: presumably White] woman calling the police on a Black man for clearing the snow on the sidewalk running near her property, reported The Daily Beast on Friday. 'Gregory McAdory, who uploaded the video to TikTok on Feb. 18, said in an interview with The Daily Beast that he and his friend have a snow removal business in Rockford, Illinois,' reported Brooke Leigh Howard. 'He explained that on Feb. 17 they finished clearing his friend's father's driveway, then moved onto the sidewalk in front of the neighbor's house. That's when the neighbor came out and "bugged" up on them, threatening to call the police, he said. "When the police is called on people of my color, just to be on the safe side, I just say, 'Record,'" McAdory said.'... On the phone call with police, which Rockford officers confirmed was lodged with them at half past noon on February 17, she can be heard saying, 'These two guys are African American, and I don't get along with them.... They are making fun of me. See, they don't have no respect!'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I must say it irritates me when reporters describe an interaction between White people & minorities, & they don't identify the White person as White. We the readers are just supposed to assume that anyone who is a "person" is a "White person." "Other" people, however, are "Black" or "Asian" or "Hispanic." IMO, this does nearly as much to "otherize" people of color as does whatever bigotry the reports presume to highlight.

Montana. Matthew Chapman of the Raw Story: "A man from Kalispell has been arrested and charged with sending graphic death threats to Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), reported the Daily Montanan on Friday. 'Kevin Patrick Smith, 45, pleaded not guilty to an indictment filed on Feb. 22 charging him with two counts of threats to injure and murder a United States senator, the news release said,' said the report.... According to prosecutors, Smith left a series of threatening voice mail messages for Tester, and continued after FBI agents contacted him and warned him to stop. 'There is nothing I want more than to have you stand toe to toe with me.... I rip your head off. You die...,' Smith allegedly said in one message. 'I will never stop.... And I would love to destroy you and rip your (obscenity) head from your shoulders. That is no problem. Call that a threat. Send the FBI. I would love to (obscenity) kill you. I would love to see your FBI at my door. I would love to see something in the news.'"

South Carolina. Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs of the New York Times: "After five weeks of trial, the murder case against Alex Murdaugh narrowed on Friday to the question of what happened in a critical few minutes after the prominent South Carolina lawyer went down to his family's dog kennels where his wife and son were found shot to death later that night. On the second and final day of Mr. Murdaugh's crucial testimony in his own defense, prosecutors aggressively challenged him about those key minutes, showing that his new account of his movements that night -- offered this week after more than 20 months of denying he was at the kennels at all -- is difficult to reconcile with the timeline of the murders. Armed with telephone calls, texts, videos, car navigation data and cellphone step counts, the lead prosecutor, Creighton Waters, showed that Mr. Murdaugh would have had to have left the kennels and returned to the house a short distance away only minutes before the killings -- despite his claims that he had heard no gunshots. [Waters] emphasized that Mr. Murdaugh had not admitted to being at the kennels until the crucial video, shot by his son Paul that night, emerged in court."

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al.

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

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefing for Saturday is here: "President Biden ruled out sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine 'for now,' saying the U.S. military deemed other military support more crucial at this stage. Kyiv has ramped up pleas for fighter jets since the United States and European countries pledged to send heavy tanks, but as Ukraine's allies rallied to mark one year of war, Biden told ABC News that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky 'doesn't need F-16s now.'... Zelensky described Feb. 24, 2022 as 'the hardest day of our modern history,' in a news conference marking one year since the Russian invasion....

"Poland delivered four Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine on the first anniversary, officials said, with Ukrainians troops having begun training in Germany.... Russian forces carried out more than a dozen airstrikes targeting Ukraine's east and south, the country's Defense Ministry said Friday on Telegram.... Marches, vigils and other actions against the war were held Friday around the world, including outside Russian embassies in cities such as London and Berlin.... Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) urged the United States and its allies to renew their resolve to help Ukraine, tacitly pushing back against members of his party who have become loudly skeptical of Ukraine's fight as the conflict passes the one-year mark.... The global watchdog for money laundering and terrorism financing has suspended Russia from its membership. It was the first time the Financial Action Task Force has taken such action, according to a statement from the U.S. Treasury Department."

A dictator bent on rebuilding an empire will never erase the people's love of liberty. Brutality will never grind down the will of the free. And Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia. Never. -- President Joe Biden, in a statement ~~~

~~~ Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Biden marked the start of a second year of war in Europe on Friday by announcing billions of dollars in additional military aid for Ukraine, imposing more sanctions on those helping President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and delivering a grim warning about an alliance between Russia and Iran.... Mr. Biden joined the leaders of the other Group of 7 nations -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Britain-- in reaffirming his support for the beleaguered country and condemning Russia's invasion a year ago."

Jonathan Allen & Ali Vitali of NBC News:"Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday rebuked fellow Republicans who have given less-than-robust support for America's defense of Ukraine -- a group that includes potential presidential campaign rivals like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. 'I would say anyone that thinks that Vladimir Putin will stop at Ukraine is wrong,' Pence said in an exclusive interview with NBC News when asked about DeSantis' position on U.S. efforts to help repel Russia in Europe. The interview came moments after a Pence speech at the University of Texas on the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 'While some in my party have taken a somewhat different view, there can be no room in the leadership of the Republican Party for apologists for Putin,' Pence ... said without naming names in his speech. 'There can only be room for champions of freedom.'"