The Ledes

Thursday, September 19, 2024

New York Times: “A body believed to be of the suspect in a Kentucky highway shooting that left five people seriously injured this month was found on Wednesday, the authorities said, ending a manhunt that stretched into a second week and set the local community on edge. The Kentucky State Police commissioner, Phillip Burnett Jr., said in a Wednesday night news conference that at approximately 3:30 p.m., two troopers and two civilians found an unidentified body in the brush behind the highway exit where the shooting occurred.... The police have identified the suspect of the shooting as Joseph A. Couch, 32. They said that on Sept. 7, Mr. Couch perched on a cliff overlooking Interstate 75 about eight miles north of London, Ky., and opened fire. One of the wounded was shot in the face, and another was shot in the chest. A dozen vehicles were riddled with gunfire.”

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

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

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

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

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

Click on photo to enlarge.

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

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

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

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

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

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Friday
Jun142024

The Conversation -- June 14, 2024

We're all curious, as Forrest M. wrote yesterday, as to what flag Sam & Martha-Ann will be flying on Flag Day and whether it will be upside-down or right-side-up. Update: here are some helpful instructions:

Robert Jimison of the New York Times: "House Republicans banded together on Friday to narrowly pass an $895 billion defense policy bill that would restrict access to abortion and transgender medical care in the military and eliminate all positions and offices of diversity, equity and inclusion across the Pentagon. The 217-to-199 vote, largely along party lines, reflected a dramatic shift in support for the annual National Defense Authorization Act, normally an overwhelmingly popular bill, since it emerged from a House committee last month with broad bipartisan support. Democrats turned against the bill in droves after Republicans insisted for the second year in a row on loading it with conservative policy dictates.... The Democratic-led Senate, which typically produces a bipartisan bill, will almost certainly leave the measures out, and they are unlikely to survive a conference between the two chambers to reconcile competing versions of the legislation. Even if they did, President Biden would be highly unlikely to sign them into law." Politico's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Brooke Migdon of the Hill: "Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) on Thursday protested an amendment added to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that bars funding for drag performances with a blown-up photo [displayed on the House floor] of former President Trump and Rudy Giuliani ... dressed in drag. [MB Note: Trump is not in drag; Rudy is.] An amendment filed this week to the annual defense policy bill by Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.) would prevent funding made available by the measure from being used for drag events. The amendment passed Thursday by voice vote."

** Mass Murder, They Wrote. Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Friday struck down a ban on bump stocks enacted by the Trump administration after a deadly mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017. The decision, by a vote of 6 to 3, split along ideological lines. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, found that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had exceeded its power when it prohibited the device, an attachment that enables a semiautomatic rifle to fire at a speed rivaling that of a machine gun. The agency, he added, had overstepped in issuing a rule that classified bump stocks as machine guns....

"The narrowly written decision was not a Second Amendment challenge. Rather, it is one of several cases this term seeking to undercut the power of administrative agencies.... The man who challenged the bump stock ban is Michael Cargill, a gun shop owner in Texas, backed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, an advocacy group with financial ties to Charles Koch, a billionaire who has long supported conservative and libertarian causes. The organization primarily targets what it considers unlawful uses of administrative power....

"Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed a dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Sotomayor summarized her dissent from the bench, a practice reserved for profound disagreements and the first such announcement of the term.... 'A bump stock-equipped semiautomatic rifle fires 'automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.' Because I, like Congress, call that a machine gun, I respectfully dissent.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: What I learned from Dahlia Lithwick & Andrew Weissmann -- who discussed the ruling on MSNBC -- is that this is another instance of a right-wing justice (in this case, Thomas), after having read friendly amicus briefs (in this case by the bump-stock industry), then deciding the knowledge he gained from these self-serving briefs allows him to substitute his new-found "expertise" for the actual expertise of administrative agencies (in this case, the ATF). And all the other winger "justices" nod their heads & sign on, even as they pretend to be "calling balls & strikes." Or ascribing to an "originalist" judicial philosophy. So we find out that when the Founders wrote that Second Amendment militia thing, they were just dreaming of the day when Rapid-fire Guns for All would become a legal and technical reality. At last the day has come, folks! Maybe we should forget Flag Day (sorry, Martha-Ann!) and designate June 14 Supreme Boost to Mass Murderers Day.

Benjamin Weiss of Courthouse News Service: "The White House urged Congress on Friday to codify a federal ban on bump stocks for semiautomatic firearms just hours after the Supreme Court struck down Trump-era regulations making such accessories illegal." ~~~

     ~~~ President Biden's statement is here, via the White House.

Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)on Friday condemned a 6-3 Supreme Court ruling overturning the Trump-era ban on bump stocks, which allow semi-automatic guns to fire like machine guns, and called on Congress to pass legislation to counter the decision. 'The far-right Supreme Court continues their unprecedented assault on public safety by reversing the commonsense guidance issued in 2018 by the ATF. Bump stocks have played a devastating role in many of the horrific mass shootings in our country, but sadly it's no surprise to see the Supreme Court roll back this necessary public safety rule as they push their out of touch extreme agenda. They're even further to the right of Donald Trump,' Schumer said in a statement responding to the ruling."

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "The Biden campaign is taking over the homepage of a local newspaper in Milwaukee on Friday, seizing on comments from former President Trump a day earlier in which he criticized the city. The Biden campaign will have a homepage takeover ad of The Shepherd Express -- an alt weekly -- and the Journal Sentinel, highlighting Trump calling Milwaukee a 'horrible city' during a meeting on Capitol Hill with Republicans.... The ad is a split-screen image, one highlighting Trump's 'horrible city' critique and the other boasting that President Biden passed legislation to invest in Milwaukee. Trump officials have insisted the former president's remark was specifically referring to crime. In addition to the ad, the Biden campaign created merchandise around the Trump comment, including T-shirts and Wisconsin-shaped stickers that read, '(Not) a horrible city,' and T-shirts and can koozies that play off 'I heart Milwaukee' and feature a mug of beer in place of a heart."

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post keeps us up-to-date on what's going on in the Trump campaign and in Republican politics in general. Conspiracy theorists are especially busy. For instance: "Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), on Fox Business, declared that Hunter Biden's guilty verdict 'creates an opening for Democrats to slip someone like Michelle Obama in here' as the Democratic presidential nominee, rather than [Joe] Biden, he said. Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo replied: 'I am buying into what you're saying there.' So, Biden ordered the Justice Department to prosecute his son to create an excuse to decline the presidential nomination? That one is so crazy, it must be true!"

David Kurtz of TPM: "Donald Trump’s return to the scene of the Jan. 6 attack that he instigated was a watershed moment in the whitewashing of his failed auto-coup. Republicans in Congress, many of whom three years ago were running for their lives from the mob Trump unleashed, applauded and celebrated his return in ways that highlighted the party’s cultish, authoritarian turn. It marked a papering over of all the internal divisions and past animosities (which tend to arise when a president of your own party sends over to the Capitol a mob that is intent on hanging his own vice president ) in order to rally together to win in November." ~~~

Putin's Proposal. Dasha Litvinova of the AP: "Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Friday to 'immediately' order a cease-fire in Ukraine and start negotiations if Kyiv began withdrawing troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in 2022 and renounced plans to join NATO. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected what he called an ultimatum by Putin to surrender more territory. Putin's remarks came as Switzerland prepared to host scores of world leaders -- but not from Moscow -- this weekend to try to map out first steps toward peace in Ukraine. They also coincided with a meeting of leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations in Italy and after the U.S. and Ukraine this week signed a 10-year security agreement that Russian officials, including Putin, denounced as 'null and void.'"

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Defending Ukraine with Putin's Money. David Sanger of the New York Times: On Thursday, "President Biden ... signed a 10-year security pact with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine that Mr. Biden portrayed as guaranteeing a supply of weapons, intelligence support, advice and technology needed to win the war and deter a new one. He also said the United States would take the lead in providing Ukraine with a $50 billion loan to rebuild its devastated ports and power plants and to buy weapons. The money is to be repaid from interest generated from $300 billion in assets that Mr. Putin, inexplicably, left in Western financial institutions before his February 2022 invasion.... 'We're not backing down,' [Mr. Biden] added, warning Mr. Putin that 'he cannot wait us out.' Mr. Zelensky thanked Mr. Biden warmly, even though the security pact and loan were far short of what he wanted at this grave moment in the war." ~~~

     ~~~ Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, in a New York Times op-ed, explains how the plan will work. ~~~

     ~~~ Trying to Trump-Proof Ukraine. Kevin Liptak of CNN: "President Joe Biden and fellow G7 leaders meeting on the coast of Italy this week are working to harden support for Ukraine and rush western resources to the country as they look uneasily toward November's US election... Yet whether the measures agreed to this week can withstand another Donald Trump presidency remained something of an unknown. As Biden was finalizing his agreements in Italy, Trump was meeting with Republicans on Capitol Hill, where he once again made clear he didn't want to see another $60 billion in aid flowing to Ukraine, according to a person familiar with his comments. Trump argued, as he had before, that if he were president the war wouldn't still be going."

Tyler Pager, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Biden, whose reelection campaign is centered on mobilizing voters on abortion rights, has been waging a behind-the-scenes battle [at the G-7 meeting in Italy] to ensure that abortion access and reproductive rights are part of a global agreement among the world's leading democracies. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a hard-line conservative, has been intent on changing language that was included in last year's Group of Seven communiqué to exclude mentions of abortion or reproductive rights, according to officials familiar with the negotiations.... But Biden, along with the leaders of France, Germany and Canada, pushed for its inclusion, and Biden threatened to not sign the document if it was not included, the officials said. The debate over the communiqué became a major sticking point, with negotiations lasting until 2 a.m. for several nights over the past week, and the reproductive rights language did not get resolved until the very end, according to one of the officials involved." (Also linked yesterday.)

Matt Viser & Tyler Pager of the Washington Post: "President Biden emphatically defended his son at a summit of world leaders here, commenting directly for the first time since Hunter Biden was convicted this week on federal gun charges, while also reiterating that he would not use his presidential powers to soften whatever penalty his son faces.... As Biden was walking away from the stage, he was also asked whether he would commute his son's sentence -- that is, reduce its severity. 'No,' Biden responded."

Maya Miller of the New York Times: "Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked legislation that would codify the right to access fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization, in the latest election-year bid by Democrats to spotlight G.O.P. opposition to protecting reproductive freedoms. On a vote of 48 to 47, all but two Republicans [Susan Collins & Lisa Murkowski] opposed advancing the bill, which would give Americans the statutory right to receive fertility treatments and decide how their reproductive material is used, stored and disposed of." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This strikes me as a little odd. I thought Republicans mostly had it in for poor women. But IVF treatment is expensive, so it's wealthier young families who opt for it -- you know, the lovely kind of people one would think Republicans would want to welcome into their base. Update: See Eugene Robinson's column, linked below, for an explanation.

What if you held a hearing and Adam Schiff stepped all over your message? ~~~

~~~ Miranda Nazzaro of the Hill: "Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) sought to make a statement about former President Trump's criminal conviction Thursday, repeating the word 'guilty' 34 times in a row, once for each of the former president's guilty counts in the Manhattan hush money case. The move by Schiff came at the beginning of his line of questioning during the House Judiciary Committee's hearing on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's (D) office and its investigation into Trump's hush money scheme during the 2016 election.... 'My Republican colleagues don't really contest Donald Trump's guilt, this is the fascinating thing,' Schiff ... (D), said. '... They don't contest -- not really -- that Donald Trump was making hush money payments to a porn star to hide their affair from voters,' the lawmaker continued. 'What they're really saying is they're more than comfortable electing -- nominating and electing as the president of the United States -- someone making hush money payments to a porn star.'"

Ann Marimow of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to limit access to a widely used abortion medication, rejecting a challenge from antiabortion doctors ... on procedural grounds. In a unanimous ruling, the court sided with the Biden administration and the manufacturer of mifepristone and reversed a lower court decision that would have made it more difficult to obtain the drug used in more than 60 percent of U.S. abortions. The ruling was not on the substance of the case, but on a procedural ruling that the plaintiffs did not have legal grounds to bring the case.... Individual physicians and the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine filed the initial lawsuit in Amarillo, Tex., where the only sitting District Court judge is Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump nominee known for his long-standing opposition to abortion." Here's the ScotusBlog report. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I wouldn't get all excited about this decision. All the justices agreed on was that the doctors who brought suit didn't have standing/weren't harmed by the distribution of mifepristone. Update: In fact, in the the New York Times' liveblog of the decision, Kate Zernicke wrote, "Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood, noted that the decision does not rule out future challenges." And ~~~

Pam Belluck: "The decision will fuel efforts on the anti-abortion side to restrict abortion pills in other ways. One recent example involved Louisiana classifying abortion pills as Schedule IV drugs, a category that suggested they were dangerous or addictive substances, contrary to medical evidence."

Elizabeth Dias: "Anti-abortion activists are vowing that this will not be the end of their mission. They noted the case was decided on standing, not the merits of arguments about medication abortion itself. 'We'll be back,' said Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America."

Zernicke: "Abortion rights groups reacted with wary relief. 'The attacks on abortion pills will not stop here,' Nancy Northup, the president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. 'The anti-abortion movement sees how critical abortion pills are in this post-Roe world, and they are hell bent on cutting off access. In the end, this ruling is not a "win" for abortion -- it just maintains the status quo, which is a dire public health crisis in which 14 states have criminalized abortion.'"

Now, this sounds more like the Supreme Court we all know and despise: ~~~

Santul Nerkar & Noam Scheiber of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Starbucks on Thursday in a challenge against a labor ruling by a federal judge, making it more difficult for a key federal agency to intervene when a company is accused of illegally suppressing labor organizing. Eight justices backed the majority opinion, which was written by Justice Clarence Thomas. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a separate opinion concurring with parts of the majority opinion, dissenting from other portions and agreeing with the overall judgment. The ruling came in a case brought by Starbucks over the firing of seven workers in Memphis who were trying to unionize a store in 2022. The company said it had fired them for allowing a television crew into a closed store, while the workers said that they were fired for their unionization efforts and that the company didn't typically enforce the rules they were accused of violating. After the firings, the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint saying that Starbucks had acted because the workers had 'joined or assisted the union and engaged in concerted activities, and to discourage employees from engaging in these activities.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

** Clarence Committed More Crimes of Omission. Justin Elliott, et al., of ProPublica: "Billionaire political donor Harlan Crow provided at least three previously undisclosed private jet trips to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in recent years, an investigation by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats has found. The flights, which were detailed by Crow's lawyer in response to inquiries from the committee, took the justice to destinations including the region near Glacier National Park in Montana and Thomas' hometown in Georgia.... ProPublica could not immediately find evidence of Thomas making public appearances in Montana, Georgia or California on the dates in question.... Thomas has not reported the recent private jet trips from Crow, which many legal experts have described as a violation of the federal financial disclosure law." The New York Times story is here.

No outsider knows what goes on inside a family, but the contrast between Joe Biden's embrace of his drug-addicted, criminal son and Clarence Thomas' rejection of his is at least notable: ~~~

~~~ Carl Gibson of AlterNet: "When he was six years old, Mark Martin was legally adopted by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni, who raised him from ages six to 19. But according to Martin, they've both cut off all contact with him, and now he's facing up to 25 years in prison. Business Insider recently interviewed Martin from the South Carolina jail where he's being held without bail. Martin, who was arrested for allegedly trafficking 400 grams of meth and heroin in 2021, was also arrested for drug trafficking and gun possession in June of last year. Because South Carolina considers those 'violent' crimes, Martin is ineligible for bond.... Clarence and Ginni Thomas reportedly cut off contact with Martin when he entered his teenage years, and Martin said the two 'just didn't have time to deal with' him when he was in high school." Thanks to RAS for the lead. See also Akhilleus' commentary in yesterday's thread.

Presidential Race

Trump Approaches the Scene of the Crime

~~~ Mariana Sotomayor, et al., of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump swooped down on Capitol Hill on Thursday to rally congressional Republicans behind a political and policy message aimed at establishing a GOP lock on Washington in the November elections.... This was the first time Trump has appeared on Capitol Hill since the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection intended to prevent the installation of Joe Biden as president.... House and Senate Republicans rallied behind their leader in a show of unusual support among their divided ranks. At a Senate lunch, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who nearly broke with Trump over Jan. 6 and had not spoken with him since, sat on his right.... Trump and McConnell even shook hands.... Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) said they had scheduling conflicts and did not attend." ~~~

~~~ Juliegrace Brufke & Andrew Solender of Axios: "... Donald Trump boasted about his polling in New York, New Jersey, New Mexico and other blue states - and showered praise on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) - during his first visit to Capitol Hill since leaving office 2.5 years ago.... At a closed-door meeting with House GOP lawmakers Thursday, Trump talked about his own electoral and legal grievances, while praising loyalists and touching on policy issues like abortion, according to sources in the room." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Annie Grayer, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump led House Republicans through a gripe-filled closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill on Thursday, airing grievances about his legal and electoral challenges, attacking his critics in the room, and only briefly addressing policy matters like abortion and taxes, according to multiple GOP lawmakers in the room.... Trump called the Department of Justice 'dirty no good bastards.'..." ~~~

~~~ Michael Gold, et al., of the New York Times: "According to various people in the room, Mr. Trump, during his meeting with House members at the Capitol Hill Club, complained that the pop music megastar Taylor Swift would support President Biden over him.... He falsely claimed that former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's daughter once told him that he and her mother might have been a good match.... And perhaps most striking, he disparaged the city of Milwaukee -- the most populous city in the swing state of Wisconsin and the site of the Republican National Convention in July -- over its crime rate.... Punchbowl News reported that he had called Milwaukee 'horrible.'" ~~~

     ~~~ In His Dreams. Matt Arco of NJ Online: "Trump, who called [Nancy] Pelosi's daughter a 'whacko,' told party leaders, 'Her daughter told me if things were different Nancy and I would be perfect together, there's an age difference though.' Christine Pelosi ... [posted on X]: 'Speaking for all 4 Pelosi daughters -- this is a LIE. His deceitful, deranged obsession with our mother is yet another reason Donald Trump is unwell, unhinged and unfit to step foot anywhere near her -- or the White House,'..." she posted to X.... Nancy Pelosi had her own thoughts about the former president on his trip[:]

"Today, the instigator of an insurrection is returning to the scene of the crime. January 6th was a crime against the Capitol, that saw Nazi and Confederate flags flying under the dome that Lincoln built. It was a crime against the Constitution and its peaceful transfer of power, in a desperate attempt to cling to power. And it was a crime against members, heroic police offices and staff, that resulted in the death, injury, and trauma that endure to this day. With his pledges to be a dictator on day one and seek revenge against his political opponents, Donald Trump comes to Capitol Hill today with the same mission of dismantling our democracy...."


National Crime Blotter. Rachel Bade of Politico: Donald Trump "has been obsessed in recent weeks with harnessing the powers of Congress to fight on his own behalf and go to war against the Democrats he accuses of 'weaponizing' the justice system against him. It's a campaign he orchestrated in the days after his May 31 conviction on 34 felony counts in New York, starting with a phone call to the man he wanted to lead it: Speaker Mike Johnson. Trump was still angry when he made the call, according to those who have heard accounts of it from Johnson, dropping frequent F-bombs as he spoke with the soft-spoken and pious GOP leader. 'We have to overturn this,' Trump i[said]."

Jack Ewing & Peter Eavis of the New York Times: "Tesla shareholders have reaffirmed a pay award of more than $45 billion for Elon Musk, the chief executive, after it was thrown out in a legal challenge. The vote result, announced at Tesla;s annual meeting at its headquarters in Austin, Texas, on Thursday, is a strong sign that shareholders still believe in Mr. Musk, and it could persuade the judge who voided the award to reinstate it.... The vote was a setback for investors who had hoped it would send a message about the accountability of chief executives and the limits of executive pay." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If you don't think executive compensation is way, way out of whack, I will remind you that back in the day, auto exec George Romney (father of Greedy Mitt) turned down big bonuses because he said no one should make more than $225,000 a year. The only point of a $45BB compensation package, IMO, is to get the recipient into trouble. Nevertheless, Trump has promised today's execs even lower tax rates, including for those billionaires who pay zero taxes now (NYT link).

Eli Tan of the New York Times: "Eight former employees of Elon Musk's rocket company, SpaceX, sued the company and Mr. Musk on Wednesday, contending they were wrongfully fired for raising concerns about sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace. The employees were fired in 2022 after they circulated an open letter urging SpaceX executives to condemn Mr. Musk's comments on Twitter, later renamed X, which amounted to 'a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us.' After being made aware of the letter, Mr. Musk ordered the terminations, according to the complaint." (Also linked yesterday.)

Molly Escobar, et al., of the New York Times: "... more than 171,000 patients ... traveled for an abortion in 2023, new estimates show, demonstrating both the upheaval in access since the overturn of Roe v. Wade and the limits of state bans to stop the procedure.... Out-of-state travel for abortions -- either to have a procedure or obtain abortion pills -- more than doubled in 2023 compared with 2019, and made up nearly a fifth of recorded abortions." Includes lots of maps & some charts.

Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post: "On Wednesday, the Southern Baptist Convention ... adopted a resolution denouncing in vitro fertilization (IVF).... How can the religious right, a movement that calls itself pro-life, take a stance against a procedure that creates life? The answer lies in the concept of fetal personhood -- in this case, embryonic personhood. That is clearly where the zealots who seek 'The Handmaid's Tale' control over women's bodies are headed, now that the obstacle of Roe v. Wade no longer stands in their way.... With public opinion against them, antiabortion activists are already waging the next battle: to give embryos full personhood rights and protections. They are coming hard after IVF.... This is, simply, a forever war. Remain vigilant because there is no end in sight."

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Ron, it's raining. -- Florida Democratic party ~~~

~~~ Florida. Ja'han Jones of MSNBC: "Massive flooding in Florida is bringing new attention to the climate change denial of Gov. Ron DeSantis and his Republican allies in the state Legislature. In May, DeSantis took steps to deprioritize climate change resilience, a truly reckless and cruel decision considering the existential crisis climate change poses to the state.... Florida Democrats used the current flooding in Florida to highlight DeSantis' neglectful approach to climate resilience, and to highlight the fact that the governor on Wednesday signed a budget that vetoed more than $200 million in funding for projects related to stormwater, wastewater and sewer water."

Pennsylvania. Liz Goodwin of the Washington Post: "Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was speeding and at fault for a Sunday morning auto accident in western Maryland, where he rear-ended another driver, a 62-year-old woman who was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, according to a Maryland State Police report.... The accident was the latest example of unsafe driving by Fetterman, according to public records and people with knowledge of the situation. He has received two speeding tickets for violations of at least 24 miles per hour above the speed limit, one in 2016 and one in March, according to Pennsylvania state records. After the ticket this year, when he was driving 34 miles per hour over the limit, he was required by the state to complete a driver's improvement course.... At other times, aides have said Fetterman has texted and FaceTimed while driving, prompting concern among his staff and fears about riding with him.... The concerns sparked an informal practice recently instituted in the office that aides should not be in the car when Fetterman is driving...." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The guy had a massive stroke. He shouldn't be driving anyway. And he's one of a small number of Americans who has the luxury of having drivers available to him. Family and staff should have intervened before this.

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Israel/Palestine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Friday in the Israel/Hamas war are here.

Russia. Mary Ilyushina of the Washington Post: "American journalist Evan Gershkovich of the Wall Street Journal will soon stand trial in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg on charges of spying for the CIA, Russian authorities said Thursday, after announcing that they had finalized an indictment. Gershkovich was arrested in March 2023 while on a reporting trip in Yekaterinburg and accused of espionage. Gershkovich, the journal and U.S. officials have repeatedly rejected the charges as baseless." At 11:30 am ET, this was a developing story. (Also linked yesterday.)

News Lede

CNN: "Heavy rainfall that's caused unrelenting flooding in South Florida since Tuesday will continue for a fourth consecutive day after turning roads into canals and forcing some residents to stand on the roofs of their cars or trudge through waist-deep waters. Even as the robust tropical moisture fueling the soaking storms slowly starts to shift out of the area, Friday marks yet another drenching day for South Florida and multiple cities could see more than 2 feet of rain Tuesday through Friday.... Flood watches remain in effect for over 7 million people across South Florida, including in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, through Friday evening. An additional 2 to 4 inches or more of rainfall is expected through Friday night but thunderstorm activity is expected to subside by the weekend. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency for Broward, Collier, Lee, Miami-Dade and Sarasota counties, and officials have urged locals to stay at home instead of walking or driving through the floodwater...."

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Thursday
Jun132024

The Conversation -- June 13, 2024

Maya Miller of the New York Times: "Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked legislation that would codify the right to access fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization, in the latest election-year bid by Democrats to spotlight G.O.P. opposition to protecting reproductive freedoms. On a vote of 48 to 47, all but two Republicans [Susan Collins & Lisa Murkowski] opposed advancing the bill, which would give Americans the statutory right to receive fertility treatments and decide how their reproductive material is used, stored and disposed of." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This strikes me as a little odd. I thought Republicans mostly had it in for poor women. But IVF treatment is expensive, so it's wealthier young families who opt for it -- you know, the lovely kind of people one would think Republicans would want to welcome into their base. Apparently not.

Tyler Pager, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Biden, whose reelection campaign is centered on mobilizing voters on abortion rights, has been waging a behind-the-scenes battle [at the G-7 meeting in Italy] to ensure that abortion access and reproductive rights are part of a global agreement among the world's leading democracies. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a hard-line conservative, has been intent on changing language that was included in last year's Group of Seven communiqué to exclude mentions of abortion or reproductive rights, according to officials familiar with the negotiations.... But Biden, along with the leaders of France, Germany and Canada, pushed for its inclusion, and Biden threatened to not sign the document if it was not included.... The debate over the communiqué became a major sticking point, with negotiations lasting until 2 a.m. for several nights over the past week, and the reproductive rights language did not get resolved until the very end, according to one of the officials involved."

Ann Marimow of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to limit access to a widely used abortion medication, rejecting a challenge from antiabortion doctors ... on procedural grounds. In a unanimous ruling, the court sided with the Biden administration and the manufacturer of mifepristone and reversed a lower court decision that would have made it more difficult to obtain the drug used in more than 60 percent of U.S. abortions. The ruling was not on the substance of the case, but on a procedural ruling that the plaintiffs did not have legal grounds to bring the case.... Individual physicians and the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine filed the initial lawsuit in Amarillo, Tex., where the only sitting District Court judge is Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump nominee known for his long-standing opposition to abortion." Here's the ScotusBlog report. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I wouldn't get all excited about this decision. All the justices agreed on was that the doctors who brought suit didn't have standing/weren't harmed by the distribution of mifepristone. Update: In fact, in the the New York Times' liveblog of the decision, Kate Zernicke wrote, "Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood, noted that the decision does not rule out future challenges." And ~~~

Pam Belluck: "The decision will fuel efforts on the anti-abortion side to restrict abortion pills in other ways. One recent example involved Louisiana classifying abortion pills as Schedule IV drugs, a category that suggested they were dangerous or addictive substances, contrary to medical evidence."

Elizabeth Dias: "Anti-abortion activists are vowing that this will not be the end of their mission. They noted the case was decided on standing, not the merits of arguments about medication abortion itself. 'We'll be back,' said Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America."

Zernicke: "Abortion rights groups reacted with wary relief. 'The attacks on abortion pills will not stop here,' Nancy Northup, the president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. 'The anti-abortion movement sees how critical abortion pills are in this post-Roe world, and they are hell bent on cutting off access. In the end, this ruling is not a "win" for abortion -- it just maintains the status quo, which is a dire public health crisis in which 14 states have criminalized abortion.'"

Now, this sounds more like the Supreme Court we all know and despise: ~~~

Santul Nerkar & Noam Scheiber of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Starbucks on Thursday in a challenge against a labor ruling by a federal judge, making it more difficult for a key federal agency to intervene when a company is accused of illegally suppressing labor organizing. Eight justices backed the majority opinion, which was written by Justice Clarence Thomas. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a separate opinion concurring with parts of the majority opinion, dissenting from other portions and agreeing with the overall judgment. The ruling came in a case brought by Starbucks over the firing of seven workers in Memphis who were trying to unionize a store in 2022. The company said it had fired them for allowing a television crew into a closed store, while the workers said that they were fired for their unionization efforts and that the company didn't typically enforce the rules they were accused of violating. After the firings, the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint saying that Starbucks had acted because the workers had 'joined or assisted the union and engaged in concerted activities, and t discourage employees from engaging in these activities.'"

Juliegrace Brufke & Andrew Solender of Axios: "... Donald Trump boasted about his polling in New York, New Jersey, New Mexico and other blue states - and showered praise on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) - during his first visit to Capitol Hill since leaving office 2.5 years ago.... At a closed-door meeting with House GOP lawmakers Thursday, Trump talked about his own electoral and legal grievances, while praising loyalists and touching on policy issues like abortion, according to sources in the room."

Eli Tan of the New York Times: "Eight former employees of Elon Musk's' rocket company, SpaceX, sued the company and Mr. Musk on Wednesday, contending they were wrongfully fired for raising concerns about sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace. The employees were fired in 2022 after they circulated an open letter urging SpaceX executives to condemn Mr. Musk's comments on Twitter, later renamed X, which amounted to 'a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us.' After being made aware of the letter, Mr. Musk ordered the terminations, according to the complaint."

Mary Ilyushina of the Washington Post: "American journalist Evan Gershkovich of the Wall Street Journal will soon stand trial in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg on charges of spying for the CIA, Russian authorities said Thursday, after announcing that they had finalized an indictment. Gershkovich was arrested in March 2023 while on a reporting trip in Yekaterinburg and accused of espionage. Gershkovich, the journal and U.S. officials have repeatedly rejected the charges as baseless." At 11:30 am ET, this was a developing story.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ellen Nakashima & Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post: "President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky plan Thursday to sign a 10-year security agreement that will commit Washington to supply Kyiv with a wide range of military assistance, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said, in a bid to bolster Ukraine's fight with Russia. The deal aims to commit future U.S. administrations to support Ukraine, even if former president Donald Trump wins November's election, officials said. It will be a framework for a long-term effort by the United States to help develop Ukraine's armed forces, which have innovated on drone warfare and other cutting-edge techniques in the fight against Russia, but are also desperately outgunned and in need of modern weapons."

Mark Landler & Steven Erlanger of the New York Times: "When Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy convenes the leaders of the Group of 7 countries on Thursday at a luxury resort hotel overlooking the Adriatic Sea, she might be forgiven for thinking her guests are seeking a refuge. Except for Ms. Meloni herself, every one of the leaders is arriving at the meeting beleaguered, embattled or endangered -- an ill-starred convergence that speaks to the political tremors rattling across the West. It also doesn't bode well for the results of a gathering that already faced vexing challenges, ranging from Russia's war in Ukraine to China's global economic competition."

Jeanna Smialek of the New York Times: "Federal Reserve officials left interest rates unchanged at their June meeting on Wednesday and predicted that they will cut borrowing costs just once before the end of 2024, taking a cautious approach as they try to avoid declaring a premature victory over inflation.... Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, made clear in a postmeeting news conference that officials were taking a careful and conservative approach after months of bumpy inflation data." ~~~

     ~~~ The AP reports the Federal Reserve's statement here.

Nemo Debet Esse Judex in Propria Causa. Unless He's a Supreme Winger. Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked an effort by Democrats to quickly pass Supreme Court ethics and transparency legislation they had pushed forward in the wake of disclosures about justices taking unreported gifts and travel and other ethical issues surrounding the high court." The NBC News report is here. ~~~

~~~ digby: "Just as Donald Trump realized that as long as he had the Republican Party backing him he could not be convicted in an impeachment trial, so too have the Supreme Court right wing extremists. They essentially have full immunity from consequences for their corruption. I'll be surprised if they don't grant it for Trump for all of his legal problems as well. They have shown their true colors. Immunity from accountability is their new superpower." MB: Oh, it's a superpower they've enjoyed for decades.

Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "House Republicans on Wednesday muscled through a measure recommending that Attorney General Merrick B. Garland be held in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena. The G.O.P. acted over Democratic opposition after the Justice Department declined to provide audio recordings of President Biden's interview with the special counsel investigating his handling of classified documents. By a nearly party-line vote of 216 to 207, the House called on the Justice Department to compel the executive branch to produce the materials.... In a statement, Mr. Garland said it was 'deeply disappointing that this House of Representatives has turned a serious congressional authority into a partisan weapon.'... Just one Republican, Representative David Joyce of Ohio, the leader of a mainstream G.O.P. group on Capitol Hill, voted 'no.'... The Justice Department has already made public a transcript of Mr. Biden's interview with [special counsel Robert] Hur, but House Republicans argue they need the recordings to continue their impeachment investigation and examine the president's mental fitness.... Mr. Biden last month asserted executive privilege to deny House Republicans access to recordings. That move was intended to shield Mr. Garland from prosecution." CNN's report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ David Edwards of the Raw Story: "'It's rich beyond measure, like a billionaire rich, to be asked to hold the attorney general in contempt by people who themselves received subpoenas to testify before the January 6th Committee, who never rendered a single document nor a single minute of testimony to the January 6th Committee,' [Rep. Jamie] Raskin [D-Md.] said."

Lauren Irwin of the Hill: "Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) launched an investigation Wednesday into former President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his investment firm, Affinity Partners, over details regarding its investments in Saudi Arabia. In a letter to Affinity Partners Chief Financial Officer Lauren Key, Wyden said its concerning that several Middle Eastern governments, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, are using funds managed by the company and creating 'significant conflicts of interest and potential counterintelligence risks.'" ~~~

~~~ Charles Davis of Salon: "As The New York Times reported in April, [Jared] Kushner's investment fund, valued at $3 billion, 'is financed almost entirely from overseas investors with whom he worked when he served as a senior adviser in the Trump White House.' Some two-thirds of that money has come from Saudi Arabia's state-run Public Investment Fund, whose own advisers deemed Kushner's fund 'unsatisfactory in all aspects' only to be overruled by a board that includes Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the man who ordered the killing of U.S.-Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi when Trump was in office and who Kushner today describes as a 'visionary leader.' The other third? Much of it reportedly comes from other sovereign wealth funds run by the likes of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates....

"Virginia Canter, former chief ethics counsel for the Treasury Department and now an attorney with the watchdog group [CREW]..., said, 'It appears to be a payoff as much as a potential investment,' she said, and also ... buying [Donald] Trump's continued support for the Saudi government, which has also paid the former president millions of dollars to host its Liv Golf events. By enriching Kushner, and consequently Trump's daughter, Ivanka, the Saudis have increased the potential cost, personally, for ever breaking with them politically....'"

National Crime Blotter

Daniel Barnes & Zoe Richards of NBC News: "Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon asked a federal appeals court Tuesday to let him remain out of prison while he continues to appeal a nearly two-year-old conviction on criminal contempt of Congress charges. Bannon filed an emergency motion Tuesday evening asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to overrule a lower court's order last week that he report to prison for four months on July 1. Bannon is asking the D.C. Circuit to quickly rule on his motion -- by next Tuesday -- to allow him time if necessary to appeal to the Supreme Court over his conviction on two counts of contempt of Congress in 2022, after he refused to answer questions from the House Jan. 6 committee." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Yo, Steve-o. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Salvador Rizzo of the Washington Post reports on U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger's testimony in the case against Sen. Bob Menendez.

Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "Hunter Biden is expected to appeal his felony conviction for falsifying a federal firearms application, likely arguing that the judge in the case violated his constitutional rights in her instructions to the jury, according to people in his orbit and legal experts. Mr. Biden's lawyer Abbe Lowell has also signaled that any appeal would be based on the Supreme Court's landmark decision in 2022 that vastly expanded gun rights, a ruling that spawned legal challenges to the part of the federal firearms form at the center of the Biden case. In Mr. Biden's case, it included a question asking buyers about their drug use. Any appeal would be an uphill climb, and the lawyers representing President Biden's son cannot officially file one until he is sentenced at the courthouse in Wilmington, Del., within 120 days, or about a month after he is scheduled to go on trial on federal tax charges in Los Angeles." ~~~

~~~ It's Complicated. Andrew Prokop of Vox: "... the backstory to this trial is messy: It's been a years-long, sprawling federal probe beset by accusations of political bias from both directions. But the trial itself was fairly straightforward. Some jurors told CNN that they questioned the importance of the case -- after all, no one was hurt with the gun, and Hunter has apparently been clean since 2019 -- but they felt the evidence was clear that Hunter broke the law.... It does indeed seem to be the case that Hunter would have gotten the plea deal he preferred if not for criticism from [two IRS] whistleblowers, Judge [Maryellen] Noreika, and the GOP. But that can be interpreted in two ways. One could argue that prosecutors wanted to give Hunter Biden a lenient 'sweetheart deal' until the whistleblowers and the judge called them out. Or one could argue that prosecutors belatedly went overly hard on Hunter due to politicized criticism from the whistleblowers and Republicans." ~~~

     ~~~ In case you're interested in how complicated, Marcy Wheeler has got you covered. ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Swan, et al., of the New York Times: "Many Trump allies had been secretly rooting for an acquittal. The talking points wrote themselves: It would have been yet more evidence that the United States justice system was rigged in favor of the Bidens and against the Trumps. Tuesday's guilty verdict was inconvenient to that narrative. Even more valuable would have been the fund-raising potential.... In a meeting last year..., Mr. Trump said Republicans needed to be careful, the person said, 'not to go overboard' on the Hunter Biden attacks, especially on the drug addiction issue, because it could elicit sympathy and make people view the president as a caring father.... Mr. Trump stopped making specific comments about Hunter in his stump speech as he moved toward the general election and as his own criminal trial in Manhattan began, instead using the 'Biden crime family' as an all-purpose slur." ~~~

~~~ Steve M. is not at all convinced by news analyses claiming that Hunter Biden's conviction messed up the GOP's claim that President Biden and Democrats had rigged the justice system against honorable fellows like Donald Trump. "Once a conspiracy theory is accepted by a segment of the population -- something that seems to happen on the right a couple of times a week -- it can't be dislodged by contrary facts.... The message of every conspiracy theory is that the 'official' story is wrong. That's why you can't debunk a conspiracy theory with new information -- that information is also 'official,' so it also has to be wrong. In fact, efforts to argue that new information definitively disproves the conspiracy theory just prove that the conspirators are trying even harder to lie to you." MB: You see? You see? It's all very logical. ~~~

~~~ ** digby covers all the bases. "... Republicans ... simply couldn't take 'guilty' for an answer.... They've been sobbing and whining and rending their garments for weeks now over the Trump verdict insisting that the Biden DOJ had implemented a two-tiered system of justice to target Republicans, specifically Donald Trump. And here you have that same DOJ prosecuting the president's only living son over a crime that Republicans insist is a violation of the second amendment. In fact, if it had been anyone else, much less the son of a GOP president, the NRA would have been holding vigils outside the courthouse. If Republicans still required logic and consistency to persuade their voters this whole thing would have been terribly confusing for them. Lucky for them, all they need is lies and demagoguery."

Presidential Race

Nia-Malika Henderson of Bloomberg: "On one of the worst days of his life, President Joe Biden showed the best of who he is. He affirmed his faith in his son, Hunter Biden, who was convicted on three felony gun charges. And he affirmed his faith in the justice system that held his only living son to account. Not only that, but hours after his son was found guilty, the president delivered a forceful speech on gun control that underscored his deep humanity, decency, and determination to stay focused on the problems of average Americans rather than drown in bitterness, self-pity, revenge and victimization. He spoke of hope in the face of loss, comforting those who've lost loved ones with his own story of grief. It was yet another stark and important contrast with ... Donald Trump, who believes that his self-created legal problems are matters of the state. Trump has vowed revenge if he returns to the White House, and Biden has said he respects the outcome of his son's trial." Firewalled.

How Donald Spent Grandpa's Last $25. Kathleen Culliton of the Raw Story: "... Donald Trump has funneled nearly $5 million from his presidential campaign coffers into his private businesses, according to a new financial analysis..., Forbes reported Wednesday.... Forbes analysis of Federal Election Commission records found $4.2 million funneled to Trump's aviation company Tag Air. Trump's private jet -- which he claims is better than Air Force One but experts say is comparable to a flying Staten Island ferry -- has been transformed into 'something of a charter service,' Forbes reports.... Trump's 2024 campaign has also spent $332,000 at his social club Mar-a-Lago.... The campaign spent $20,000 at the Miami golf resort Trump National Doral, $36,000 a Trump hotel in Las Vegas, according to the report. 'Add it all up -- the $4.6 million from the 2024 campaign and millions more from Trump's other groups -- and his businesses have collected about $7 million in total since the 2020 election," the analysis concludes."

Alex Woodward of the Independent: "A fundraising email blast from the chief political action committees supporting Donald Trump shared a troubling new message: 'haul out the guillotine.' The email went on to blast 'sicko' Kathy Griffin for her 2017 image holding a mock-severed Trump head and instead accused his Democratic rivals of wanting to behead him. 'The SAD and HORRIFIC TRUTH is that this is STILL the Sick Dream of every Trump-Deranged lunatic out there!' the message says. 'And it's not just me they want gone, THEY'RE REALLY COMING AFTER YOU! SICK SICK SICK!'"

Donald Trump is asking, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" Let's check. New York Times, June 13, 2020: "Many veterans and members of the military stuck with [Donald Trump] even as he attacked the Vietnam War record of Senator John McCain, disparaged families of those killed in combat and denigrated generals whom he fired or drove from government service.... But the president's threat last week to use active-duty troops on American streets against largely peaceful protesters, and his flirtation with invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act, have rattled the military world, from its top leaders to its youngest veterans.... The recent condemnations of Mr. Trump from high-level military veterans like Jim Mattis, the former defense secretary and a retired four-star Marine Corps general, have in some cases fortified the shifting views among military members."

** Jessica Contrera, et al., of the Washington Post: "A Washington Post investigation has found that over the past two decades, hundreds of law enforcement officers in the United States have sexually abused children while officials at every level of the criminal justice system have failed to protect kids, punish abusers and prevent additional crimes. Police and sheriff's departments have enabled predators by botching background checks, ignoring red flags and mishandling investigations. Accused cops have used their knowledge of the legal system to stall cases, get charges lowered or evade convictions. Prosecutors have given generous plea deals to officers who admitted to raping and groping minors. Judges have allowed many convicted officers to avoid prison time."

Ruth Graham of the New York Times: "Southern Baptists, the country's largest Protestant denomination, voted on Wednesday to oppose the use of in vitro fertilization. The vote was an indication that evangelicals are increasingly open to arguments that equate embryos with human life, and that two years after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, 'fetal personhood' may be the next front for the anti-abortion movement. More than 10,000 delegates, called 'messengers,' have gathered in Indianapolis for the denomination's annual meeting, which is closely watched as a barometer of evangelical sentiment on a variety of cultural and political issues. The vote on Wednesday was the first time that attendees at the Southern Baptist meeting have addressed the ethics of in vitro fertilization directly."

~~~~~~~~~~

Florida. Brooks Barnes of the New York Times: "Disney and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida have finally ended their feud, clearing the way for $17 billion in planned development at Walt Disney World near Orlando. On Wednesday night, the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District -- an entity that Mr. DeSantis took over in 2022, ending 55 years of Disney control and sparking multiple lawsuits -- gave the company a big part of what it wanted all along: a locked-in, long-term plan for expanding Disney World. At least for the next 15 years, the length of the new agreement, Disney can develop the resort without worrying about interference by Florida politicians."

Florida. Gary Fineout of Politico: "A Florida appeals court on Wednesday refused to go along with Gov. Ron DeSantis' argument that he can shield public records due to executive privilege -- a right that had not been recognized previously under state law that could have drastically expanded the governor's ability to keep records from the public. The decision by the three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal was a stinging setback for both DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody, who insisted that the governor's office has the constitutional authority to shield records about internal discussions and deliberations.

Maryland/Pennsylvania. Tom Ignudo of CBS News: "Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman was 'at fault' and allegedly speeding before he rear-ended a car in a crash in Maryland on Sunday, state police said. In a report on Wednesday, a witness of the crash told Maryland State Police Fetterman was driving in a car with his wife, Gisele, 'well over the posted speed limit' as he passed by her on Interstate 70 just before the exit for Interstate 68 on Sunday just after 7:45 a.m. The speed limit on I-70 is 70 mph. Moments later, the witness said Fetterman rear-ended a 2013 Chevrolet Impala driven by 62-year-old woman of Pennsylvania, according to state police."

Oklahoma. Sean Murphy of the AP: "The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit by survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, dampening the hope of advocates for racial justice that the city would make financial amends for one of the worst single acts of violence against Black people in U.S. history that left as many as 300 people dead and a once-thriving district in smoldering ruins. The nine-member court upheld the decision made by a district court judge in Tulsa last year, ruling that the plaintiff's grievances about the destruction of the Greenwood district, although legitimate, did not fall within the scope of the state's public nuisance statute."

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Cuba, et al. Eva Sampson of the New York Times: "Russian warships arrived in Cuban waters on Wednesday as part of planned military exercises that experts say were a symbolic show of strength in reaction to continued U.S. support for Ukraine, and a reflection of growing ties between Russia and Cuba. The four-vessel group poses no real threat, U.S. officials said, despite tensions between the United States and Russia over the Ukraine war. The group includes the nuclear-powered submarine Kazan and the frigate Admiral Gorshkov, and contains no nuclear weapons, according to Cuban officials."

Israel/Palestine, et al.

Michael Crowley, et al., of the New York Times: "Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Wednesday that he would continue to press urgently for a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip despite a counterproposal from Hamas that he said included unacceptable demands.... Hamas's response [to the deal], he said, which was received by Egyptian and Qatari mediators and passed to American officials on Tuesday, makes demands that 'go beyond positions that it had previously taken and accepted.'"

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Wednesday
Jun122024

The Conversation -- June 12, 2024

Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "House Republicans on Wednesday muscled through a measure recommending that Attorney General Merrick B. Garland be held in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena. The G.O.P. acted over Democratic opposition after the Justice Department declined to provide audio recordings of President Biden's interview with the special counsel investigating his handling of classified documents. By a nearly party-line vote of 216 to 207, the House called on the Justice Department to compel the executive branch to produce the materials.... In a statement, Mr. Garland said it was 'deeply disappointing that this House of Representatives has turned a serious congressional authority into a partisan weapon.'... Just one Republican, Representative David Joyce of Ohio, the leader of a mainstream G.O.P. group on Capitol Hill, voted 'no.'... The Justice Department has already made public a transcript of Mr. Biden's interview with [special counsel Robert] Hur, but House Republicans argue they need the recordings to continue their impeachment investigation and examine the president's mental fitness.... Mr. Biden last month asserted executive privilege to deny House Republicans access to recordings. That move was intended to shield Mr. Garland from prosecution."

Nia-Malika Henderson of Bloomberg: "On one of the worst days of his life, President Joe Biden showed the best of who he is. He affirmed his faith in his son, Hunter Biden, who was convicted on three felony gun charges. And he affirmed his faith in the justice system that held his only living son to account. Not only that, but hours after his son was found guilty, the president delivered a forceful speech on gun control that underscored his deep humanity, decency, and determination to stay focused on the problems of average Americans rather than drown in bitterness, self-pity, revenge and victimization. He spoke of hope in the face of loss, comforting those who've lost loved ones with his own story of grief. It was yet another stark and important contrast with ... Donald Trump, who believes that his self-created legal problems are matters of the state. Trump has vowed revenge if he returns to the White House, and Biden has said he respects the outcome of his son's trial." Firewalled.

Kathleen Culliton of the Raw Story: "... Donald Trump has funneled nearly $5 million from his presidential campaign coffers into his private businesses, according to a new financial analysis..., Forbes reported Wednesday.... Forbes analysis of Federal Election Commission records found $4.2 million funneled to Trump's aviation company Tag Air. Trump's private jet -- which he claims is better than Air Force One but experts say is comparable to a flying Staten Island ferry -- has been transformed into 'something of a charter service,' Forbes reports.... Trump's 2024 campaign has also spent $332,000 at his social club Mar-a-Lago.... The campaign spent $20,000 at the Miami golf resort Trump National Doral, $36,000 a Trump hotel in Las Vegas, according to the report. 'Add it all up -- the $4.6 million from the 2024 campaign and millions more from Trump's other groups -- and his businesses have collected about $7 million in total since the 2020 election," the analysis concludes."

Alex Woodward of the Independent: "A fundraising email blast from the chief political action committees supporting Donald Trump shared a troubling new message: 'haul out the guillotine.' The email went on to blast 'sicko' Kathy Griffin for her 2017 image holding a mock-severed Trump head and instead accused his Democratic rivals of wanting to behead him. 'The SAD and HORRIFIC TRUTH is that this is STILL the Sick Dream of every Trump-Deranged lunatic out there!' the message says. 'And it's not just me they want gone, THEY'RE REALLY COMING AFTER YOU! SICK SICK SICK!'"

Daniel Barnes & Zoe Richards of NBC News: "Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon asked a federal appeals court Tuesday to let him remain out of prison while he continues to appeal a nearly two-year-old conviction on criminal contempt of Congress charges. Bannon filed an emergency motion Tuesday evening asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to overrule a lower court's order last week that he report to prison for four months on July 1. Bannon is asking the D.C. Circuit to quickly rule on his motion -- by next Tuesday -- to allow him time if necessary to appeal to the Supreme Court over his conviction on two counts of contempt of Congress in 2022, after he refused to answer questions from the House Jan. 6 committee." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Yo, Steve-o. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

~~~~~~~~~~

David Lynch of the Washington Post: "The global economy is in better shape than it was at the start of the year, thanks largely to the performance of the United States, the World Bank said in its latest forecast Tuesday. But the sunnier outlook could cloud over if major central banks -- including the Federal Reserve -- keep interest rates at elevated levels.... While Americans' unhappiness with high prices remains a key vulnerability for President Biden's reelection bid, the World Bank now expects the U.S. economy to grow at an annual rate of 2.5 percent, nearly a full percentage point higher than it predicted in January. The United States is the only advanced economy growing significantly faster than the bank anticipated at the start of the year."

ProPublica Cracks the IRS. Jesse Eisenger, et al., of ProPublica: "ProPublica has obtained a vast cache of IRS information showing how billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett pay little in income tax compared to their massive wealth -- sometimes, even nothing.... The data provides an unprecedented look inside the financial lives of America's titans.... It shows not just their income and taxes, but also their investments, stock trades, gambling winnings and even the results of audits. Taken together, it demolishes the cornerstone myth of the American tax system: that everyone pays their fair share and the richest Americans pay the most. The IRS records show that the wealthiest can -- perfectly legally -- pay income taxes that are only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions, if not billions, their fortunes grow each year." Thanks to RAS for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Although the specifics here may make for blockbluster news (and surely somebody's head will roll), as the authors themselves note, "Experts have long understood the broad outlines of how little the wealthy are taxed in the United States...." Trump and Republicans, of course, want to cut these billionaires' tax liability even more (and, yes, less than zero is possible), while Democrats like Elizabeth Warren and President Biden (and even billionaire Warren Buffett) want to tax the rich and ultra-rich more. If you want a good example of stupid, you will find it animated in the form of "typical Republican voter."

New York Times reporters liveblogged results from Tuesday's primary elections. Here are a few:

Chris Cameron: "Candidates [were] on the ballot on Tuesday in five states: South Carolina, Nevada, Maine, North Dakota and Ohio...."

Richard Fausset: "A 22-year-old who participated in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol lost his bid to unseat a Republican incumbent in the South Carolina House of Representatives. The defeat of Elias Irizarry in the state primary on Tuesday is the latest in a number of losses that riot participants have suffered at the ballot box in recent months.... The incumbent, Randy Ligon, will not face a Democratic challenger in the general election, and will serve a fourth term in office."

Mitch Smith: "Representative Kelly Armstrong won the Republican nomination for governor of North Dakota, The Associated Press said on Tuesday, defeating the state's lieutenant governor, Tammy Miller, and positioning himself as the strong favorite in the general election.... On the campaign trail, both candidates emphasized their support for ... Donald J. Trump and, as one debate moderator put it, tried to 'out-conservative the other.'"

Ernesto Londoño: "Voters in North Dakota approved a ballot measure that sets a maximum age for representing the state in Congress, The Associated Press said on Tuesday. Experts said they believed North Dakota was the first state to impose such a requirement on members of Congress, though they said the measure is likely to be challenged in court.... A Supreme Court case in 1995 established that states cannot add eligibility restrictions beyond those in the Constitution."

Annie Karni: "Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, on Tuesday defeated a well-funded primary challenger, putting her on track to win a third term. Her resounding victory also dealt a major blow to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy's efforts to exact political retribution against those who voted to oust him. Ms. Mace, 46, who once leaned center on social issues, won a Democratic seat in 2020 and claimed that all of ... Donald J. Trump's accomplishments had been 'wiped out' by his behavior on Jan. 6, 2021. But she has made a hard tack to the right over the past year as she has tried to game out her political future."

Kellen Browning: "Sam Brown, an Army veteran who was the heavy favorite in the Nevada Republican primary race for Senate even before ... Donald J. Trump's last-minute endorsement, won the nomination on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press. He will face Senator Jacky Rosen, the state's Democratic incumbent, in one of the most closely watched Senate contests of the year."

National Crime Blotter

Perry Stein, et al., of the Washington Post: "Hunter Biden was found guilty of felony gun charges in federal court Tuesday, ending a trial that exposed some of the ugliest moments in the life of the president's son and put on national display the first family's pain, heartache and regrets.... The jury deliberated for a little more than three hours before finding him guilty on all three counts. Biden nodded, but otherwise showed little emotion when the verdict was read. He then hugged each member of his legal team and said thank you. Biden walked out past the defendant's table, hugged and kissed his wife, Melissa Cohen-Biden, and left the courtroom, shaking the hands of friends and family along the way.... After the verdict, one juror told The Washington Post that he didn't believe Hunter Biden belonged in prison and that he felt bad that his daughter had to testify about her father's drug use." ~~~

~~~ Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "A jury in Wilmington, Del., on Tuesday found Hunter Biden, President Biden's long-troubled son, guilty of three felony counts of lying on a federal firearms application in 2018, a grievous personal blow to the Biden family as his father enters the final months of a brutal re-election campaign. He could face up to 25 years in prison, but first-time offenders who did not use their weapons to commit a violent crime typically receive no jail time." This is the pinned item in a liveblog. Some other items in the liveblog appear in yesterday's Conversation.

Hannah Rabinowitz of CNN: Some jurors in the Hunter Biden case spoke to CNN about how the jury reached its verdict and their feelings about Biden and the case against him.

Lisa Kashinsky & Meredith McGraw of Politico: "Republicans are scrambling to prevent Hunter Biden's conviction on felony gun charges from undermining their argument that the judicial system is being weaponized against Donald Trump. They just can't agree on how. Trump's campaign cast the conviction of his rival's son on Tuesday as a 'distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family,' while some hard-line supporters dismissed the proceedings as 'fake.' House Speaker Mike Johnson argued that Hunter Biden's conviction 'doesn't' undercut Republicans claims of a two-tiered justice system because the evidence against him was 'overwhelming.' And still other Hill Republicans went so far as to describe the verdict as a 'step towards ensuring equal application of the law.'... 'It throws a bit of sand in the gears of people suggesting the Biden Department of Justice has been engineered to go after Trump,' said Jason Roe, a GOP strategist and former chair of the Michigan Republican Party. But, Roe conceded, 'one feature of the modern Republican Party is ignoring facts that don't support the argument and sometimes embracing the conspiracy theories that do.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Why, Mr. Roe, how could you possibly say that? ~~~

     ~~~ Jordain Carney of Politico: "House Oversight Chair James Comer is urging the Justice Department to launch a sweeping investigation into the Biden family in the wake of Hunter Biden being found guilty on three felony gun charges. 'Today's verdict is a step toward accountability but until the Department of Justice investigates everyone involved in the Bidens' corrupt influence peddling schemes that generated over $18 million in foreign payments to the Biden family, it will be clear department officials continue to cover for the Big Guy, Joe Biden,' Comer (R-Ky.) said in a statement after the verdict." ~~~

     ~~~ And This. Hadas Gold of CNN: "In the wake of Hunter Biden's conviction on federal gun charges Tuesday, right-wing media personalities sought to downplay the jury's decision, falsely claiming the case was a 'fake trial' designed to 'cover up' other supposed crimes committed by the president and his family. The reaction showcased how far to the fringes the right-wing and pro-Trump media ecosystem has drifted in recent years, with high-profile personalities defaulting to conspiracy theories and innuendo in response to inconvenient political news.... There is no evidence Joe Biden has received large sums of money from China or has otherwise gained wealth as a result of his son's business dealings abroad." ~~~

     ~~~ And This. Julianne McShane of Mother Jones: "In the moments following Hunter Biden's conviction on federal gun charges on Tuesday, Fox News celebrated the justice system doing its job. They sang the praises of the judge and jury. They delighted in the fact that Biden would face consequences. And they doubted President Joe Biden's repeated pledges that he will not pardon his son. In short: They reacted very differently from how they did when Donald Trump was found guilty in his hush-money trial.... Yet not everyone on the right was jubilant.... Stephen Miller, a senior advisor to Trump, posted to X: 'DOJ is running election interference for Joe Biden -- that's why DOJ did NOT charge Hunter with being an unregistered foreign agent (FARA) or any crime connected with foreign corruption. Why? Because all the evidence would lead back to JOE.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This is all so surprising, because naturally I thought when Hunter was convicted of a crime that most prosecutors would never have charged under the circumstances, all the wingers would be totally apologetic and at least concede that the DOJ was unfair to a Democratic President's son. Oddly enough, one of the usual suspects did come close: Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said: "The Hunter Biden gun conviction is kinda dumb tbh." ~~~

~~~ digby also cites others' reactions to the verdict and their reporting on GOP responses. Unfortunately, she fails to credit the source (not for the first time) for some reactions. Like these: "Hunter Biden was convicted in the state of Delaware, where the Bidens decidedly have a 'home court' advantage -- for the people who say trump couldn't get a fair trial in NYC because they hate him, just look at Delaware. There was no ridiculous daily parade of same-suit-wearing Senators and members of Congress in the court; just Hunter's mom and family members." Read on.

Tracey Tully & Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "On Tuesday..., cross-examination [of the prosecution's star witness against Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.)] began with a blistering volley of questions aimed at undermining the testimony of Jose Uribe, a disgraced insurance broker who pleaded guilty in March to conspiring to bribe Mr. Menendez with a Mercedes-Benz and is cooperating with federal prosecutors.... Mr. Uribe, 57, acknowledged that he had lied to [customers, to a bank and to the federal government], leading [Menendez attorney Adam] Fee to call him a 'sophisticated liar' who was willing to put his family members in legal jeopardy to cover up his crimes. Mr. Uribe, who also pleaded guilty in 2011 to insurance fraud charges in New Jersey, maintained his composure during hours of aggressive cross-examination, even as he avoided answering many questions by claiming he had 'no recollection' of certain events."

Presidential Race

If you could reason with Trump's supporters there would be no Trump supporters. -- Sundae Gurl

Ed Mazza of the Huffington Post: "Former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan tore into ... Donald Trump on Tuesday, saying he won't be voting for him and calling out his lack of character and principles. 'If you put yourself above the Constitution, as he has done, I think that makes you unfit for office,' he told Fox News host Neil Cavuto.... Ryan also blamed Trump for GOP election losses in recent years. 'He's cost us a lot of seats,' Ryan said. 'He cost us the Senate twice. He cost us the House because he is nominating, he is pushing through the primaries people who cannot win general elections but who pledge fealty to him.' Ryan, who added that he doesn't support President Joe Biden either, said voters have been given 'terrible choices' for the Nov. 5 election."

Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: Donald Trump is "already preparing to constitutionally nuke Congress. So far, lawmakers in his party seem to be welcoming their own obliteration.... In recent months, Trump has said explicitly that sometimes he won't spend money the way Congress -- which controls power of the purse, per the Constitution -- instructs him to. He and his advisers have described plans to use 'impoundment,' a technical term meaning to withhold funds that Congress has appropriated for specific purposes. 'Restoring the Impoundment Power,' Trump's campaign website says, will help 'stop unnecessary spending' and 'crush the Deep State.'... Trump could unilaterally zero out any program he doesn't like, or whose recipient has angered him, regardless of Congress's instructions.... Trump's targets for budgetary nuking include clean-energy subsidies, international aid programs and funding for the World Health Organization. He told Fox News last week that he might cut the entire Education Department, Interior Department and 'the environmental agencies,' too." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Yeah? So? As far as I can tell, Congressional Republicans have no desire whatsoever to legislate. When Democrats control either house or the presidency, their job is to obstruct. When Republicans control a house, they generally accede to the wishes of a Republican president. So it's hardly surprising that they're willing to roll over and play dead for Trump again. It's what they do.


Ethics Are So Wrong. Zoe Richards, et al., of NBC News: "Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, plans to block an effort by Senate Democrats to unanimously pass a Supreme Court ethics bill Wednesday on the Senate floor.... Graham's objection means the bill won't be able to move forward, because any senator can block a request. It isn't clear whether the measure will come up for a vote under the normal process, but Senate Majority LeaderChuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he's considering it. Even before Graham made his comments, Democrats doubted the legislation would advance.... The Democratic-led Judiciary Committee advanced the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act on a party-line vote nearly a year ago, but it can't break a filibuster on the Senate floor without 60 votes. Democrats have 51 members, and no Republican is on board with the bill."

ProPublica gets a lot of money, and they have spent a fortune investigating Clarence Thomas, for example. You know, everything he's ever done in his entire life.... [They have] done some of that to me, too.... They look for any little thing they can find, and they try to make something out of it. -- Justice Sam Alito, to Lauren Windsor, June 3 ~~~

Yes, yes, "any little thing." Like a half-million-dollar vacation, or a quarter-million-dollar travel bus. Petty, petty partisans! -- Marie ~~~

~~~ Daniel Hampton of the Raw Story: "Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito believes news organizations -- specifically calling out the investigative news organization ProPublica -- [are] out to get him.'... That's according to a new recording from liberal documentary maker Lauren Windsor that were obtained Tuesday by Rolling Stone. In the audio, recorded June 3 at an event hosted by the Supreme Court Historical Society, the questioner asks the justice why he feels the nation's highest court has been 'attacked' and 'targeted by the media' in recent years. Alito replied: 'They don't like our decisions, and they don't like how they anticipate we may decide some cases that are coming up. That's the beginning of the end of it,' he said.... 'There are groups that are very well-funded by ideological groups that have spearheaded these attacks. That's what it is.'"

Jesse Wegman of the New York Times: Samuel "Alito has long made clear his special solicitude for religious claims, whether before the court or on the flagpole outside his house. Still, it should shock us to hear him lay out his worldview so bluntly -- and to a woman he never met before. It shows an utter lack of regard for the court's delicate posture of neutrality in the constitutional system and American society.... He is also in good company in the upper reaches of government. Recall that House Speaker Mike Johnson ... told an interviewer..., 'Go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That's my worldview.' Perhaps we should be grateful that these aspiring theocrats have fully ripped off the mask. Why submit to the sinful compromises demanded by a pluralistic society when you can just impose your (and God's) will by fiat? In that regard, this is really the Alito court." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This is a good place to emphasize that Bible Mike doesn't know WTF he's talking about. If he did "go pick up a bible off the shelf and read" more than a few passages, he would know that the Christian Bible does not by any stretch express a definable, cohesive worldview. It is a book with many authors, many editors, written and revised over centuries, with all the contradictions and oddities one would expect of such a miscellany. And the contradictions are not a neat dichotomy between the Old Testament and the New. Within each testament, indeed, often within a single book, there appears a god of diverging attributes and attitudes, a savior messiah disagreeing with something he supposedly said in the previous chapter, and so on. If Bible Mike "goes and picks up a bible off the shelf and reads it," his worldview will depend upon the verse he lands on.

Uh, Onward, Christian Soldiers. Elizabeth Dias & Lisa Lerer of the New York Times: "... the core of the idea expressed to [Justice Samuel] Alito, that the country must fight the decline of Christianity in public life, goes beyond the questions of bias and influence at the nation's highest court. An array of conservatives ... has openly embraced the idea that American democracy needs to be grounded in Christian values and guarded against the rise of secular culture. They are right-wing Catholics and evangelicals who oppose abortion, same-sex marriage, transgender rights and what they see as the dominance of liberal views in school curriculums. And they've become a crucial segment of ... Donald J. Trump's political coalition, intermingled with the MAGA movement.... Justice Alito ... is embracing language and symbolism that line up with a much broader movement pushing back against the declining power of Christianity as a majority religion in America."

You need a democracy to have effective capitalism. If you don't, you get cronyism. You get oligarchy. You get crony capitalism. You get arbitrary and capricious administration to the law, which reduces people's tendency to invest in your country. -- Words of Wisdom, from the most unlikely sources, the Mooch a/k/a Anthony Scaramucci ~~~

~~~ Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "... democracy under capitalism is necessarily of limited scope. We have the power and capacity to regulate and structure the market, but the fundamental questions -- of production and surplus, of ownership and social reproduction -- are beyond the reach of democratic decision-making as presently constituted. But even the weak grasp of capitalist democracy is too strong for, well, capitalists.... According to Sam Sutton, writing in Politico, several Wall Street executives and Silicon Valley venture capitalists who backed Donald Trump and then spurned him after the Jan. 6 insurrection have now returned to the fold, with open arms and open wallets. They are, he writes, 'looking past qualms about his personality and willingness to bulldoze institutional norms and focusing instead on issues closer to the heart: how he might ease regulations, cut their taxes or flex U.S. power on the global stage.'... [But] the truth is that regimes of corrupt, personalist rule -- in which authoritarians wield the state to reward friends, punish enemies and secure their fortunes -- are much less prosperous than the alternative."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Elahe Izadi & Sarah Ellison of the Washington Post use the front page for some navel-gazing: "What [owner Jeff] Bezos wants from and for The Post has remained the compelling question through a week of internal turmoil, during which his handpicked new publisher and CEO, William Lewis, abruptly replaced the newspaper's first female executive editor and announced a reorganization of the newsroom -- the exact plans for which remain unclear -- in a bid to boost earnings." (Also linked yesterday.)

~~~~~~~~~~

Florida. Patricia Mazzei of the New York Times: "Key parts of a Florida law that bans gender transition care for minors and imposes hurdles on adults seeking such care are unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday. Judge Robert L. Hinkle of Federal District Court in Tallahassee sided with advocacy groups and three families who had said that the law stripped them of parents' rights to make medical decisions for their transgender children. In a 105-page order, Judge Hinkle said that 'gender identity is real' and that a 'widely accepted standard of care' includes puberty blockers and hormone treatments that Florida unlawfully banned. 'The State of Florida can regulate as needed but cannot flatly deny transgender individuals safe and effective medical treatment -- treatment with medications routinely provided to others with the state's full approval so long as the purpose is not to support the patient's transgender identity,' Judge Hinkle wrote." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Explain to me again why legislators and judges are horning in on family medical care decisions. Oh yeah, Ron DeSantis thought bullying vulnerable teenagers would compensate enough for his multiple personality disorders that voters would want him to be POTUS. DeLusional.

Virginia. Karina Elwood of the Washington Post: "The Virginia NAACP and five students are suing a school board that voted last month to restore the names of two schools previously named for Confederate leaders, saying the decision creates a discriminatory educational environment for Black students. The federal complaint filed Tuesday says the reversal denies Black students an equal opportunity to education by forcing them to attend a school named after Confederate leaders.... The Shenandoah County School Board voted 5-1 last month to revert the name of Mountain View High to Stonewall Jackson High School. In addition, Honey Run Elementary School was renamed Ashby Lee Elementary School after Robert E. Lee and Turner Ashby."

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Israel/Palestine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Wednesday in the Israel/Hamas war are here.

Vatican. Emma Bubola of the New York Times: "Pope Francis repeated an anti-gay slur during a meeting with priests in Rome on Tuesday, Italian news outlets reported, the same offensive term he was accused of using two weeks ago. The Vatican, in summarizing the gathering, said only that the pontiff had cautioned about admitting gay men into Roman Catholic seminaries. The Vatican did not address the reports by two of the most prominent news agencies in Italy, ANSA and Adnkronos, that he had again used the word 'frociaggine,' an offensive Italian slang term referring to gay men. The reports cited anonymous sources they said had been present at the meeting."

News Ledes

We are in what I view as a new global world war for control of the search for truth. We have to mobilize our truth-seeking strength to survive, for America and democracy to survive. -- Howard Fineman, 2024 ~~~

~~~ New York Times: "Howard Fineman, a witty, encyclopedic political reporter who dominated the fast-evolving world of Washington journalism for nearly 40 years, moving effortlessly from daily news coverage to the pages of Newsweek magazine to cable news punditry and later to the frontiers of online journalism, died on Tuesday at his home in Washington. He was 75."

CNBC: "The consumer price index showed no increase in May as inflation slightly loosened its stubborn grip on the U.S. economy, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. The CPI, a broad inflation gauge that measures a basket of goods and services costs across the U.S. economy, held flat on the month though it increased 3.3% from a year ago, according to the departments Bureau of Labor Statistics."

New York Times: "Jerry West, who emerged from West Virginia coal country to become one of basketball's greatest players, a signature figure in the history of the Los Angeles Lakers and a literal icon of the sport -- his is the silhouette on the logo of the National Basketball Association -- died on Wednesday. He was 86."

New York Times: "Morrie Markoff, a supercentenarian blogger and scrap-metal sculptor who was believed to be the oldest man in the United States and whose brain has been donated for research on what is known as super-aging, died on June 3 at his home in downtown Los Angeles. He was 110."

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