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
Jun072024

The Conversation -- June 8, 2024

David Smith of the Guardian: “Democrats will target Donald Trump's first full-scale campaign rally since his criminal trial with a billboard that brands him 'a convicted white-collar crook'. The ad, paid for by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), is the latest indication that the party is ready to become more aggressive in capitalising on last month's guilty verdict in New York. 'Trump was a disaster for Nevada's economy,' says the billboard, which will be displayed in Las Vegas, where Trump is due to speak on Sunday. 'Now he's back. A convicted white-collar crook. Coddling billionaires, leaving workers behind.'"

Donald Trump Asks If You're Better Off Today Than You Were Four Years Ago. Here's the New York Times top story on June 8, 2020: "President Trump said on Sunday that he had ordered National Guard troops to begin withdrawing from the nation's capital, after a week of relentless criticism over his threat to militarize the government's response to nationwide protests, including rebukes from inside the military establishment itself.Mr. Trump announced his order on Twitter as three former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff harshly condemned him for using force to drive protesters back from the White House and threatening to send troops to quell protests in other cities."

If you're 60 years old, 69.1% of all job growth since your birth occurred under Democratic administrations. If you're 45 years old, that number is 74.7%. If you're under 30 years old, the number is 100%. -- Democratic Coalition

I'm not 100% sure this is true, but the post includes a Bureau of Labor Stats chart that, assuming it has not been altered, sure makes the assertion look true. If I'm wrong, please correct me. -- Marie

Beth Reinhard of the Washington Post: "A battle-tested D.C. bureaucrat and self-described Christian nationalist is drawing up detailed plans for a sweeping expansion of presidential power in a second Trump administration. Russ Vought, who served as the former president's budget chief, calls his political strategy for razing long-standing guardrails 'radical constitutionalism.' He has helped craft proposals for Donald Trump to deploy the military to quash civil unrest, seize more control over the Justice Department and assert the power to withhold congressional appropriations -- and that's just on Trump's first day back in office. Vought, 48, is poised to steer this agenda from an influential perch in the White House, potentially as Trump's chief of staff.... Vought aims to harness what he calls the 'woke and weaponized' bureaucracy that stymied the former president by stocking federal agencies with hardcore disciples who would wage culture wars on abortion and immigration."

Benjamin Brown, et al., of CNN: "Four hostages have been freed in a special operation in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, Israel’s military says, as Palestinian officials reported more than 100 people killed in strikes in the same area. Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv, were rescued by the Israeli military, intelligence and special forces from two separate locations in Nuseirat, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Saturday. All four were kidnapped from the Nova music festival on October 7, according to the IDF."

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Cleve Wootson, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Biden returned to Normandy on Friday to hail the U.S. Army Rangers who scaled the cliffs of [Pointe du Hoc] eight decades ago in defense of freedom and democracy, part of a speech aimed at a U.S. audience that echoed the central themes of his reelection bid.... Biden leaned ... into one of the domestic aims of his visit to France: to draw a sharp contrast with his predecessor and chief political rival, Donald Trump.... 'They stormed the beaches alongside their allies. Does anyone believe these Rangers want America to go it alone today?' Biden said. 'They fought to vanquish a hateful ideology of the '30s and '40s. Does anyone doubt they would move heaven and earth to vanquish hateful ideologies of today?'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

Roger Cohen & Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Biden's five-day stay in France, an exceptionally long visit for an American president, especially in an election year, is a powerful testament to [international] friendship. But it illustrates its double-edged nature. French gratitude for American sacrifice as ever vies uneasily with Gaullist restiveness over any hint of subservience. Those competing strands will form the backdrop of a lavish state dinner at the Élysée Palace on Saturday, when [President Emmanuel] Macron will reciprocate the state visit that Mr. Biden hosted for him at the White House in December 2022, the first of his administration.... No recent French president has been as insistent as Mr. Macron in declaring Europe's need for 'strategic autonomy' and insisting that it 'should never be a vassal of the United States.' Yet he has stood shoulder to shoulder with Mr. Biden in seeing Ukraine's fight for freedom against Russia as no less than a battle for European liberty, an extension of the fight for freedom that led allied forces to scale the cliffs of the Pointe du Hoc in 1944." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I guess I wish American teevee news readers would at least try to say Pointe du Hoc as the French pronounce it ​(pwɛ̃t dy ɔk) instead of boldly announcing that President Biden was speaking at Point doo Hock.

** Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "The 80th anniversary of D-Day on Thursday provided the contrast that should define the election. President Biden went to Normandy and spoke about American greatness. Donald Trump went to Phoenix and called the United States a 'failed nation' and a 'very sick country.'... Biden hailed NATO, the 'greatest military alliance in the history of the world,' and vowed to defend Ukraine.... Trump hailed a modern-day tyrant, Hungary's Viktor Orban ('strong man, very powerful man'), complained about 'endless wars' and 'delinquent' Europeans, and vowed to 'spend our money in our country' -- including by 'moving thousands of troops, if necessary, currently stationed overseas to our own borders.'" Read on. (Also linked yesterday.)

** Joe Biden, the Greatest Oil Trader Ever. Thanks to NiskyGuy for the link: ~~~

It's Okay If You're a Republican. Roger Sollenberger of the Daily Beast, republished by Yahoo! News: "James Comer, chair of the powerful Republican-led House Oversight Committee..., has for months trafficked in innuendo that [Joe] Biden's use of email pseudonyms indicates an attempt to evade public records disclosure and hide wrongdoing -- particularly regarding a failed business deal ... Hunter Biden negotiated with a Chinese company after his father left the vice presidency in 2017 and before his White House run in 2020. But emails show that when Comer was a senior Kentucky state official, he used pseudonyms for government business -- including an industrial hemp pilot program involving Chinese seeds which later tested as illegal marijuana, The Daily Beast revealed this week.... Amye Bensenhaver, a former assistant attorney general with the state of Kentucky..., called Comer's denial [denial that he had used pseudonymous emails] a 'stupid thing to say, especially with proof that he did use the email,' adding that it gives the impression of 'subterfuge to avoid accountability.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Sollenberger doesn't mention it, but a quick check of the Googles brings up a Washington Post fact-checker investigation that awards Comer four Pinocchios for his claim that Joe Biden used email pseudonyms to send Hunter Biden coded messages Hunter could use to prop up his Ukraine business interests, so it seems likely that Comer's claim about Joe Biden using email aliases to prop up Hunter's Chinese business is equally false.

National Crime Blotter

Ben Protess & Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who prosecuted ... Donald J. Trump, agreed on Friday to testify before Congress as Republicans seek to discredit Mr. Trump's conviction. But Mr. Bragg suggested his testimony would need to wait until after Mr. Trump is sentenced next month. Mr. Bragg, who had previously resisted congressional involvement in the case, indicated his willingness to testify in a letter to Representative Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican who leads the House Judiciary Committee. Mr. Bragg's office said the district attorney wanted to speak first with House Republicans to 'better understand the scope and purpose of the proposed hearing.'" Jordan also wants one of the lead prosecutors, Matthew Colangelo, to testify. The Manhattan D.A.'s general counsel wrote that the office was "evaluating the propriety" of Colangelo's testimony.

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "Even as they proclaim Trump's innocence, Trump and his allies revel in the frisson of criminality.... [The MAGA movement is] adopting a sinister set of new, or newly resurrected [values].... Societies fetishize Mafiosi to the degree that they lose faith in themselves.... It's a sign that a culture is in the grip of a deep nihilism and despair when moblike figures become romantic heroes, or worse, presidents."

Danny Hakim & Rowan Gerety of the New York Times: "Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, pleaded not guilty on Friday in an Arizona election interference case, the latest development in the criminal prosecutions playing out in five battleground states over efforts to keep ... Donald J. Trump in power in 2020. Arizona is the second state, after Georgia, to charge Mr. Meadows in connection with his conduct after the 2020 election. He is accused of taking part in an effort to reverse Mr. Trump's loss in Arizona, and, like other defendants, faces charges of conspiracy, fraud and forgery." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Yvonne Sanchez of the Washington Post: Also pleading not guilty: Mike Roman, a Trump campaign aide "who ran the former president's Election Day operations in 2020.... After Trump's defeat, records show that Roman helped coordinate the alternate elector plan with Trump lawyers. He played a key role in helping organize the strategy and communicated about the Arizona plan with key Republicans in the state, including the state party chair and others, according to documents.... On Thursday, state Sen. Jake Hoffman (R) also pleaded not guilty."

~~~ Tracey Tully & Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "On Friday, [Jose] Uribe took the witness stand in Federal District Court in Manhattan and immediately said that he had bribed [Sen. Bob] Menendez. He said that he had given the senator's wife, Nadine Menendez, a Mercedes-Benz in exchange for gaining 'the power and influence' of Mr. Menendez.... Prosecutors with the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York say Mr. Uribe, a former insurance broker who worked in the trucking industry, sought the senator's help in quashing criminal investigations into two of Mr. Uribe's associates. In return, an indictment says, Mr. Uribe helped to buy Ms. Menendez, then the senator's girlfriend, a new Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible worth more than $60,000."

Eileen Sullivan, et al., of the New York Times: "Lawyers for Hunter Biden called his daughter Naomi to the witness stand on Friday as they sought to challenge the government's argument that he had lied about his drug use on a federal firearms application in 2018. It is part of the defense's broader effort to undercut the contemporaneous text messages, bank records as well as Mr. Biden's own words that prosecutors have introduced in an effort to show that his spiral into an unrelenting addiction to crack cocaine extended to the months and weeks before and after he bought the gun. But that strategy appeared to falter under cross-examination, with government lawyers eliciting anguished, and excruciating, details about their relationship at the time. After she left the stand, she briefly hugged Mr. Biden.... The defense argues that the question [on the firearms application] is worded in the present tense, and that the government cannot prove that on the day he acquired the gun, Oct. 12, 2018, Mr. Biden was using crack cocaine.... Even as the prosecution relied on Mr. Biden's former partners to detail a habit that spiraled into drug-fueled partying and a cross-country odyssey in faltering efforts to get sober, the women also acknowledged that neither had seen Mr. Biden in the month that he bought the gun." (Also linked yesterday.)


** Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: "Justice Clarence Thomas acknowledged on Friday additional luxury travel he had accepted from a conservative billionaire, amending a previous financial disclosure to reflect trips he had taken to an Indonesian island and a secretive all-male club in the Northern California redwoods. The trips, taken in 2019, were earlier revealed by ProPublica, but it is the first time that Justice Thomas has included them on his financial disclosures. Other Supreme Court justices chronicled their gifts, travel and money earned from books and teaching.... Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was granted an extension this year, said the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts... Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson reported receiving four concert tickets valued at about $3,700 from Beyoncé and $10,000 of artwork for her chambers from the Alabama artist and musician Lonnie Holley. The financial disclosures, released yearly, are one of the few public records available about the justices' lives, providing select details of their activities outside the court....

"When his form was released to the public, Justice Thomas included an unusual addendum, a statement defending his acceptance of gifts from Harlan Crow, a real estate magnate in Texas and a donor to conservative causes. He had 'inadvertently omitted' information on earlier forms, the statement said, which also sought to justify his decision to fly on private jets. He stated that he had been advised to avoid commercial travel after the leak of the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade." Politico's report was here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Thomas Continues to Hide Expensive Gifts, Breaking the Law. Joshua Kaplan, et al., of ProPublica: "Even after the new amendments, there are many gifts [Clarence] Thomas received that he has still not disclosed. As ProPublica previously reported, in 2019, Thomas flew to Indonesia on [Harlan] Crow's private jet for an extended island cruise on Crow's superyacht. If Thomas had chartered the plane and the yacht himself, it could have cost more than half a million dollars. Seven ethics-law experts said that Thomas appeared to have violated federal law by failing to disclose the free travel. Thomas did not mention the flight to Indonesia or the yacht trip in his new filing. However, he disclosed a previously unknown detail about the trip: that Crow and his wife paid for Thomas' stay at a hotel in Bali. Thomas acknowledged that he should have reported that. ProPublica also reported that Thomas had taken at least six undisclosed trips with Crow to the Bohemian Grove. Thomas' amendments to his reports include only one of those trips. Members typically must pay thousands of dollars to bring a guest to the retreat."

     ~~~ To: Administrative Office. From: Your Superiors Clarence & Sam: So we couldn't get our gift disclosure forms in on time -- including some stuff from five years ago -- because we were flying around the globe and stopping at luxury resorts, all paid for by billionaire buddies of ours who have business before the Court, and it's all necessary for our safety since there are some dangerous broads out there who are even meaner than Ginni & Martha-Ann just because we took away their rights to bodily autonomy, and we are advised they might be mean to us if they catch us at the commercial airport where the riffraff go. So maybe we'll tell you later about what fun we had with the globetrotting, and maybe we'll bring you a souvenir from our luxury travels if you like those shampoos in tiny plastic bottles.

Ann Marimow of the Washington Post: "A retired federal judge has delivered an unusually stark warning about the Supreme Court and the future of the planet and democracy, which he says is imperiled by a conservative majority that is amassing power for itself while weakening minority voting rights and making it harder for the federal government to protect the health and safety of Americans. In a memoir published this month, David Tatel joined other retired judges who have been publicly critical of the Supreme Court at a time when public opinion and confidence in the institution is at historic lows and as some justices have been consumed by ethics controversies.... The 82-year-old judge, a leading candidate for the high court during the Clinton administration, writes that he stepped down from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in January in part because he was tired of having his work reviewed 'by a Supreme Court that seemed to hold in such low regard the principles to which I've dedicated my life.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I would not be surprised if other judges retire (or have retired) because they're sick of having their well-wrought decisions overturned by a cabal of partisan hacks. That, too, is a danger to democracy.

Presidential Race

Lauren Egan of Politico: "President Joe Biden's campaign launched an attack ad against ... Donald Trump from France on Friday, placing Trump's past criticisms of members of the military against the image of the hallowed grounds of Normandy. The minute-long video -- which was shared on X after Biden concluded a speech at Pointe du Hoc -- went after Trump for reportedly disparaging service members, including calling them 'losers' and 'suckers.'" ~~~

Alex Seitz-Wald of NBC News: "... tens of thousands of signatures have been gathered on behalf of the famed left-wing academic [Cornel West] in key states thanks to self-organized grassroots volunteers -- and some help from outside operatives tied to a Republican consulting firm.... [For example,] emails from elections officials, obtained through a request under North Carolina's Public Records Law, show the pro-West Justice for All Party authorized three people to pick up and drop off signatures for them statewide -- and all three are current or past employees of a Colorado-based Republican political firm called Blitz Canvassing."

Chris Cameron of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump has in recent days been escalating his suggestions that he could prosecute his political enemies if elected in November. In interviews broadcast on Thursday and earlier this week, Mr. Trump's remarks demonstrated how he was trying to put his legal troubles on the ballot as a referendum on the American justice system and the rule of law. His allies in the Republican Party have also joined his calls for revenge prosecutions and other retaliatory measures against Democrats in response to his felony convictions by a jury in a New York court on 34 charges. Mr. Trump was offered several opportunities by sympathetic interviewers in recent days -- including an appearance with Dr. Phil McGraw, the television host -- to clarify or walk back his previous statements. Mr. Trump instead defended his position, saying at points that 'I don't want to look naïve' and that 'sometimes revenge can be justified.'" An ABC News story is here.

Jeff Stein & Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump is vowing to wrest key spending powers from Congress if elected this November, promising to assert more control over the federal budget than any president in U.S. history.... Depending on the response from the Supreme Court and Congress, Trump's plans could upend the balance of power between the three branches of the federal government.... On his campaign website, Trump has said he will push Congress to repeal parts of the 1974 law that restricts the president's authority to spend federal dollars without congressional approval. Trump has also said he will unilaterally challenge that law by cutting off funding for certain programs, promising on his first day in office to order every agency to identify 'large chunks' of their budgets that would be halted by presidential edict.... 'What the Trump team is saying is alarming, unusual and really beyond the pale of anything we've seen,' said Eloise Pasachoff, a budget and appropriations law expert at Georgetown Law School."

Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Biden administration on Friday tightened vehicle fuel mileage standards, part of its strategy to transform the American auto market into one that is dominated by electric vehicles that do not emit the pollution that is heating the planet. The new mileage standards announced by the Transportation Department are among several regulations the administration is using to prod carmakers to produce more electric vehicles. In April, the Environmental Protection Agency issued strict new limits on tailpipe pollution that are designed to ensure that the majority of new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States are all-electric or hybrids by 2032...."

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Arizona. Chris Cameron & Kellen Browning of the New York Times: "Kari Lake, the leading Republican candidate for Senate in Arizona, delivered a speech in front of a Confederate flag at a Trump-themed merchandise store in Show Low, Ariz., last week. Footage of the speech, which was obtained by The New York Times, showed Ms. Lake on May 31 repeating lies about the 2020 election's having been stolen from ... Donald J. Trump as she stood in front of a Confederate battle standard hanging in the store.... The store, known as the Trumped Store, sells a variety of pro-Trump and 2020 election-denier merchandise as well as the Confederate battle flag and the Confederate national flag." The Guardian's story is here.

Louisiana. Sydney Page of the Washington Post: "Elijah Hogan, a young man who lives in a New Orleans Covenant House homeless shelter for young people, just completed high school as valedictorian of his class.

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The New York Times' live updates of developments Saturday in the Israel/Hamas war are here.

Comments Off
Friday
Jun072024

The Conversation -- June 7, 2024

Cleve Wootson, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Biden returned to Normandy on Friday to hail the U.S. Army Rangers who scaled the cliffs of [Pointe du Hoc] eight decades ago in defense of freedom and democracy, part of a speech aimed at a U.S. audience that echoed the central themes of his reelection bid.... Biden leaned ... into one of the domestic aims of his visit to France: to draw a sharp contrast with his predecessor and chief political rival, Donald Trump.... 'They stormed the beaches alongside their allies. Does anyone believe these Rangers want America to go it alone today?' Biden said. 'They fought to vanquish a hateful ideology of the '30s and '40s. Does anyone doubt they would move heaven and earth to vanquish hateful ideologies of today?'" ~~~

~~~ ** Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "The 80th anniversary of D-Day on Thursday provided the contrast that should define the election. President Biden went to Normandy and spoke about American greatness. Donald Trump went to Phoenix and called the United States a 'failed nation' and a 'very sick country.'... Biden hailed NATO, the 'greatest military alliance in the history of the world,' and vowed to defend Ukraine.... Trump hailed a modern-day tyrant, Hungary's Viktor Orban ('strong man, very powerful man'), complained about 'endless wars' and 'delinquent' Europeans, and vowed to 'spend our money in our country' -- including by 'moving thousands of troops, if necessary, currently stationed overseas to our own borders.'" Read on.

Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: "Justice Clarence Thomas acknowledged on Friday additional luxury travel he had accepted from a conservative billionaire, amending a previous financial disclosure to reflect trips he had taken to an Indonesian island and a secretive all-male club in the Northern California redwoods. The trips, taken in 2019, were earlier revealed by ProPublica, but it is the first time that Justice Thomas has included them on his financial disclosures. Other Supreme Court justices chronicled their gifts, travel and money earned from books and teaching.... Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was granted an extension this year, said the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts... Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson reported receiving four concert tickets valued at about $3,700 from Beyoncé and $10,000 of artwork for her chambers from the Alabama artist and musician Lonnie Holley. The financial disclosures, released yearly, are one of the few public records available about the justices' lives, providing select details of their activities outside the court....

"When his form was released to the public, Justice Thomas included an unusual addendum, a statement defending his acceptance of gifts from Harlan Crow, a real estate magnate in Texas and a donor to conservative causes. He had 'inadvertently omitted' information on earlier forms, the statement said, which also sought to justify his decision to fly on private jets. He stated that he had been advised to avoid commercial travel after the leak of the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade." Politico's report was here. ~~~

     ~~~ To: Administrative Office. From: Clarence & Sam: So we couldn't get our gift disclosure forms in on time -- including some stuff from five years ago -- because we were flying around the globe and stopping at luxury resorts, all paid for by billionaire buddies of ours who have business before the Court, and it's all necessary for our safety since there are some dangerous broads out there who are even meaner than Ginni & Martha-Ann just because we took away their rights to bodily autonomy, and we are advised (passive voice!) they might be mean to us if they catch us at the commercial airport where the riffraff go. So maybe we'll tell you later about what fun we had with the globetrotting, and maybe we'll bring you a souvenir from our luxury travels if you like those shampoos in tiny plastic bottles. ~~~

     ~~~ ** Update. Gabe Roth of Fix the Court --the organization that yesterday reported that Clarence Thomas mostly likely has received about $4.2MM in gifts over the past two decades -- appeared on MSNBC Friday. Roth said that Thomas' amended financial disclosure is itself a violation of ethics rules because Thomas did not include any of the transportation -- yachts and private jets -- that got him to and from the exotic places he now finally has reported -- five years after the fact and after ProPublica exposed those particular luxury vacays.

Ann Marimow of the Washington Post: "A retired federal judge has delivered an unusually stark warning about the Supreme Court and the future of the planet and democracy, which he says is imperiled by a conservative majority that is amassing power for itself while weakening minority voting rights and making it harder for the federal government to protect the health and safety of Americans. In a memoir published this month, David Tatel joined other retired judges who have been publicly critical of the Supreme Court at a time when public opinion and confidence in the institution is at historic lows and as some justices have been consumed by ethics controversies.... The 82-year-old judge, a leading candidate for the high court during the Clinton administration, writes that he stepped down from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in January in part because he was tired of having his work reviewed 'by a Supreme Court that seemed to hold in such low regard the principles to which I've dedicated my life.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I would not be surprised if other judges retire (or have retired) because they're sick of having their well-wrought decisions overturned by a cabal of partisan hacks. That, too, is a danger to democracy.

Danny Hakim & Rowan Gerety of the New York Times: "Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, pleaded not guilty on Friday in an Arizona election interference case, the latest development in the criminal prosecutions playing out in five battleground states over efforts to keep ... Donald J. Trump in power in 2020. Arizona is the second state, after Georgia, to charge Mr. Meadows in connection with his conduct after the 2020 election. He is accused of taking part in an effort to reverse Mr. Trump's loss in Arizona, and, like other defendants, faces charges of conspiracy, fraud and forgery."

Eileen Sullivan, et al., of the New York Times: "Lawyers for Hunter Biden called his daughter Naomi to the witness stand on Friday as they sought to challenge the government's argument that he had lied about his drug use on a federal firearms application in 2018. It is part of the defense's broader effort to undercut the contemporaneous text messages, bank records as well as Mr. Biden's own words that prosecutors have introduced in an effort to show that his spiral into an unrelenting addiction to crack cocaine extended to the months and weeks before and after he bought the gun. But that strategy appeared to falter under cross-examination, with government lawyers eliciting anguished, and excruciating, details about their relationship at the time. After she left the stand, she briefly hugged Mr. Biden.... The defense argues that the question [on the firearms application] is worded in the present tense, and that the government cannot prove that on the day he acquired the gun, Oct. 12, 2018, Mr. Biden was using crack cocaine.... Even as the prosecution relied on Mr. Biden's former partners to detail a habit that spiraled into drug-fueled partying and a cross-country odyssey in faltering efforts to get sober, the women also acknowledged that neither had seen Mr. Biden in the month that he bought the gun."

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

~~~~~~~~~~

CNN is liveblogging today's events that follow up on yesterday's D-Day remembrances.

When Heroes Meet. Orlando Mayorquín of the New York Times: At Omaha Beach Thursday, "an American World War II veteran in a blue cap, seated in a wheelchair with a blue blanket draped over his lap, was introduced to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine by Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister. 'You’re the savior of the people,' the veteran, Melvin Hurwitz, 99, of Frederick, Md., told Mr. Zelensky after pulling the Ukrainian leader into an embrace. 'You bring tears to my eyes.' 'No, no, no, you saved Europe,' Mr. Zelensky responded.... Their embrace mirrored a connection that President Biden made explicit in his remarks at the ceremony, in which he cast the allied effort to repel the Russian invasion of Ukraine as an extension of the battle for freedom in Europe that unfolded on Normandy's beaches eight decades ago. 'We know the dark forces that these heroes fought against 80 years ago,' Mr. Biden said, addressing a crowd of thousands.... 'They never fade,' Mr. Biden added. 'Aggression and greed, the desire to dominate and control, to change borders by force -- these are perennial. The struggle between dictatorship and freedom is unending.'"

Stephen Collinson of CNN: "President Joe Biden is in Europe, warning of totalitarian evil and the dangers to democracy.... Donald Trump is back home, seeking a favor from Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, mulling revenge and trashing US elections. The former president is making his 2024 opponent's case -- that the West is being challenged by unprecedented threats to the rule of law from hostile forces outside and in. But Trump's strength also suggests that the centerpiece of Biden's trip -- an homage on Friday in Normandy to one of former President Ronald Reagan's greatest speeches -- may fall on many deaf ears back in America. The former president is showing in every speech and public appearance that the seduction of demagoguery, the demonization of outsiders and the language of extremism is as potent now as it was before World War II." ~~~

~~~ Stephen Collinson of CNN: "... at no point since June 6, 1944, has the unshakable US leadership of the West and support for internationalist values been so in question. Democracy is facing its sternest test in generations from far-right populism on the march on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.... Trump's 'America First' philosophy has taken deep root in the Republican Party that once prided itself on winning the Cold War. The ex-president tried to overturn US democracy to stay in power four years ago. And some GOP figures led by the ex-president now appear to have more empathy for Putin than liberal European democracies that the United States rebuilt after World War II. And the monthslong delay in funding Biden's most recent aid package for Ukraine raised doubts that Washington will always stand up for democracy in Europe and against aggression by autocrats." (Also linked yesterday.)

The Washington Post Editors note that a better way to deal with the border crisis than President Biden's executive order limiting grants of asylum was the bipartisan bill that Trump nixed. Biden agrees, though the Post editors don't say so.

They Never Stop. Lauren Gurley & Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "Conservative policymakers influential with ... Donald Trump are discussing how to use a little-known labor law to impose sweeping restrictions on private-employer-covered abortions.... The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has publicly called for using federal labor law to limit the ability of private employers to provide coverage that includes abortions in states with abortion restrictions. Trump insiders have also discussed these ideas, according to one person with direct knowledge of the talks. The proposed change could make it vastly more difficult for residents of states with abortion bans to obtain abortions by traveling out-of-state, legal experts say. This comes as out-of-state travel for abortions doubled between the first half of 2020 and the first half of 2023, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute...." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Let me think. Who will this hurt the most? The daughters of Trump's rich friends or poor &middle-class women? And how to Republicans get away with backing unpopular anti-abortion, even anti-contraception policies? Let's check. ~~~

~~~ Amanda Marcotte of Salon: "... as they learned from convicted felon Donald Trump, the way to hide what you're up to is simple: Lie. Lie a lot.... Republicans use two big, interlocking lies to conceal an anti-contraception agenda from the public. First, they deny they intend to take birth control away, by limiting their definition of 'birth control' to condoms and the rhythm method. To justify that shell game, they lie about how the most popular and effective forms of birth control work, claiming they are 'abortion.' They ping-pong between these two lies, so that the fact-checkers can never keep up."

National Crime Blotter

Tierney Sneed & Hannah Rabinowitz of CNN interviewed attorneys and consulted court dockets to develop a profile of Judge Aileen Cannon. She has "a penchant for letting irrelevant legal questions distract from core issues, a zero-tolerance approach to any technical defects in filings, and a struggle with docket management that allows the type of pretrial disputes that other judges would decide in weeks go unresolved for months. 'She is not efficient,' said one attorney who practices in south Florida. 'She is very form over substance.' Another attorney described her as 'indecisive.' A third attorney who's had cases before Cannon said, 'She just seems overwhelmed by the process.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Some attorneys described Cannon as excessively detail-oriented, but I don't know how detail-oriented a judge is who forgets to swear in prospective jurors or closes her courtroom to the public in violation of a defendant's constitutional right to a public trial. That's pretty basic stuff. I still blame the senior judge for the district for letting an inexperienced trial judge preside over a case of international significance where the defendant is a manipulative bastid. Cannon herself of course should have known she was not up to the job, but people -- especially Republican people -- are not always capable of self-evaluation.

Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Thursday ordered former Trump political adviser and right-wing podcaster Stephen K. Bannon to report to prison by July 1 to begin serving a four-month prison term for contempt of Congress after an appeals court in May upheld his conviction. Federal prosecutors had asked the judge to lift the hold on his sentence arguing that no substantial legal questions remain over Bannon's two-count conviction for refusing to provide documents or testimony to a House committee probing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack after a panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected Bannon's appeal on all grounds." The ABC News story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Looks as if Steve-o has devoted too much effort to fighting his conviction and not enough energy to finding out if he will be allowed to wear multiple shirts under that orange jumpsuit. But yes, yes, of course I'm sad and the prisons are overcrowded and this was a nonviolent crime and so on and so forth. ~~~

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Former President Trump on Thursday fumed over a federal judge ordering his longtime ally Steve Bannon to report to prison, calling for members of the House panel that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, riot to be indicted. Trump called it a 'Total and Complete American Tragedy' that Bannon and Peter Navarro, another former aide, have been ordered to prison for separately refusing to comply with the congressional investigation led by the now-disbanded House Jan. 6 committee. The former president claimed in a Truth Social post that members of the House panel had committed crimes, asserting they 'deleted and destroyed all material evidence.' 'The unAmerican Weaponization of our Law Enforcement has reached levels of Illegality never thought possible before,' Trump posted. 'INDICT THE UNSELECT J6 COMMITTEE FOR ILLEGALLY DELETING AND DESTROYING ALL OF THEIR "FINDINGS!"'"

The Difference Between a President & a Crime Boss. Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "President Biden said on Thursday that he would not grant Hunter Biden a pardon if he was convicted in his felony gun trial, a rare comment from Mr. Biden about the legal troubles facing his son. When asked during an interview with ABC News whether he would accept the outcome of the trial of his son, who faces charges including lying on an application to obtain a gun in October 2018, Mr. Biden said, 'Yes.'... When the topic turned to ... Donald J. Trump and his recent felony conviction, Mr. Biden said his opponent needed to 'stop undermining the rule of law.'" The ABC News story is here. MB: When he was posing as president, Trump pardoned a number of his partners in crime, notably Paul Manafort, Roger Stone & Steve Bannon, even though none of them met the standards for pardons. ~~~

~~~ Glenn Thrush, et al., of the New York Times: "Hallie Biden, a former girlfriend of Hunter Biden and widow of his brother, Beau, took the stand on Thursday, telling jurors that she saw him buy, stash and smoke vast amounts of crack cocaine in the fall of 2018 when he claimed to be drug-free on a firearms application.... Ms. Biden said she discovered the gun at the center of the case when she was rifling through Mr. Biden's vehicle the morning after he showed up at her house.... Prosecutors then showed surveillance video of her tossing the gun only to return later and frantically try to recover it.... The sheer amount of unflattering evidence assembled by [special prosecutor David] Weiss is intended to prove that Mr. Biden knowingly lied when he claimed not to be taking drugs when he bought the handgun. But it has, in the view of even some Biden family critics, moved far beyond that goal -- into a publicly humiliating trial of the president's troubled son for an offense that, while a crime, is seldom prosecuted as a stand-alone charge for someone with no prior criminal record who has been sober for years." (Also linked yesterday.)

Presidential Race

Jay Root & Rebecca O'Brien of the New York Times: "A group aligned with President Biden is challenging Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s New York ballot petition, saying his campaign lied about his New York residency. The group, Clear Choice, says he long ago moved to the West Coast and has virtually no connection to the address listed on his petitions -- an address of a longtime friend, where Mr. Kennedy's independent presidential campaign acknowledges he has never actually lived.... He has used the same address in a number of other states where he is filing to run.... A Board of Elections spokeswoman, Kathleen McGrath, said a determination of residency would be 'outside the ministerial scope' of the board's review of petitions.... Mr. Kennedy's running mate, Nicole Shanahan, also lists California as her home.... Under a Constitutional quirk, presidential and vice-presidential candidates who hail from the same state are ineligible to receive its electoral votes."

Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump said Wednesday that seeking prosecutions of his political opponents would be 'wrong' but that he also would have 'every right' to do so if reelected, the latest way Trump has lashed out since a jury convicted him on 34 felony counts ... last week.... 'Look, when this election is over, based on what they've done, I would have every right to go after them,' he added. 'And it's easy because it's Joe Biden and you see all the criminality.'"

Vermont. Jane Timm of NBC News: "The Vermont Republican Party is prohibited from backing a candidate with a felony conviction, according to the party's publicly posted rules. That is now a bit of a problem.... According to the Internet Archive, the posted rules were changed by March 2022 to allow the state committee to exempt a candidate from the rule by majority vote.... Former U.N Ambassador Nikki Haley won all of Vermont's delegates but suspended her campaign in March; she has since endorsed Trump. The party rules dictate that delegates to the RNC are not bound if a candidate withdraws or suspends their campaign.... In a statement, the Democratic National Committee suggested Vermont Republicans instead support President Joe Biden in November." MB: A good solution.


Gabriel Cortez & Kevin Breuninger of CNBC: "Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accepted millions of dollars' worth of gifts over the past two decades on the bench, a total nearly 10 times the value of all gifts received by his fellow justices during the same time, according to a new analysis. Thomas received 103 gifts with a total value of more than $2.4 million between 2004 and 2023, the judicial reform group Fix the Court said in a report Thursday. In contrast, Thomas' fellow justices over the same period accepted a total of just 93 gifts worth a combined value of only about $248,000.... Samuel Alito accounted for the lion's share of that value.... Fix the Court identified another 101 'likely gifts' -- with a total estimated value of almost $1.8 million that Thomas received in the form of free trips and lodging.... Counting those gifts, Thomas' total two-decade haul is valued at nearly $4.2 million."

Time for Our Macroeconomics Refresher Class. Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "The United States government is more than $34 trillion in debt.... First, while $34 trillion is a very large figure, it's a lot less scary than many imagine if you put it in historical and international context. Second, to the extent debt is a concern, making debt sustainable wouldn't be at all hard in terms of the straight economics; it's almost entirely a political problem. Finally, people who claim to be deeply concerned about debt are, all too often, hypocrites -- the level of their hypocrisy often reaches the surreal.... Today, debt as a percentage of G.D.P. isn't unprecedented, even in America: It's roughly the same as it was at the end of World War II.... Governments, unlike individuals, never have to pay off their debt. How did we pay off the debt from World War II? We didn't. Federal debt when John F. Kennedy took office was slightly higher than it had been in 1946. But debt as a percentage of G.D.P. was way down, thanks to growth and inflation." Read on.

Oliver Darcy of CNN: "Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Thursday moved to liquidate his personal assets, agreeing to demands from the families of Sandy Hook victims whom he owes more than $1.5 billion in damages over his lies about the 2012 school massacre. The seismic move paves the way for a future in which Jones no longer owns Infowars, the influential conspiracy empire he founded in the late 1990s. Over the years, Jones has not only used the media company to poison the public discourse with vile lies and conspiracy theories, but also to enrich himself to the tune of millions of dollars.... His lawyers said in a filing that there was 'no reasonable prospect for a successful reorganization' and that continuing down the path would only result in additional expenses incurred by Jones." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So Alex Jones may soon pay a portion of what he owes to victims of his cruelty, Steve Bannon is going to jail and Felonious Don can't shoot anyone on Fifth Avenue. It looks as if we're in a moment when the bad guys have to pay at least a tiny price for their misdeeds. And yet. And yet. Their accomplices keep on keepin' on, plotting to avenge the villains and making new and unconscionable mischief, leaving us with no choice but to be the heroes of our own fates.

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

Sarah Ellison & Elahe Izadi of the Washington Post: "Washington Post Publisher and CEO William Lewis is drawing scrutiny after press reports described him as attempting to dissuade journalists -- including those at The Post -- from covering his involvement in a long-running British phone-hacking lawsuit. The accounts emerged following the abrupt resignation of The Post's executive editor, Sally Buzbee, who, after three years in the job, stepped down Sunday without public explanation, and Lewis's announcement of a major restructuring of the newsroom. Reports about his involvement with news coverage at The Post -- which Lewis denied sparked concern for the appearance of violating traditional firewalls that keep corporate media bosses from influencing decisions made by news editors."

Yeah, the Guy's a Jerk. Katie Robertson & Benjamin Mullin of the New York Times: "Will Lewis, the chief executive of The Washington Post, repeatedly offered an exclusive interview to an NPR reporter if the reporter agreed not to write about allegations against Mr. Lewis in a phone-hacking scandal in Britain, according to an account by that reporter published on Thursday. David Folkenflik, a veteran media reporter for NPR, wrote that a spokesperson for Mr. Lewis confirmed the offer in December. That spokesperson declined to comment when approached again Thursday, according to NPR. 'In several conversations, Lewis repeatedly -- and heatedly -- offered to give me an exclusive interview about the Post's future, as long as I dropped the story about the allegations,' Mr. Folkenflik wrote." ~~~

~~~ David Folkenflik of NPR: "The Washington Post has written twice this spring about allegations that have cropped up in British court proceedings involving its new publisher and CEO, Will Lewis. In both instances Lewis pushed his newsroom chief hard not to run the story." ~~~

~~~ Marie: Hmmm, it looks as if it's kind of difficult to engineer a cover-up when you work for, you know, a journalistic enterprise. Being called out on the front page of your own paper would be a case in point.

~~~~~~~~~~

California. Jillian Sykes & Jeffrey Kopp of CNN: "A California judge on Thursday dismissed multiple state charges -- including attempted murder -- against David DePape, who was sentenced in federal court last month for a violent 2022 attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi.... DePape was previously convicted in federal court of one count of assault on the immediate family member of a federal official, and a second count of attempted kidnapping of a federal official. DePape's defense team previously argued that he should not be charged twice for the same acts, saying that would amount to double jeopardy."

Florida, Where DeSantis Rules. AP: "Florida's highest court on Thursday rejected an effort by a suspended state attorney to get reinstated after she was removed from office last year by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in his second suspension of a Democratic prosecutor. Supreme Court justices voted 6-1 to deny a petition from suspended State Attorney Monique Worrell of the 9th Judicial Circuit, which serves metro Orlando. The majority of justices said they disagreed with her arguments that DeSantis' reasons for suspending her were too vague or that the suspension infringed on her lawful exercise of prosecutorial discretion. DeSantis claimed Worrell failed to prosecute crimes committed by minors and didn't seek mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes, putting the public in danger in her central Florida district." ~~~

~~~ Chris Geidner, the Law Dork: "On a 6-1 vote Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court gave its governor all-but-unfettered power to remove locally elected prosecutors -- a power that could quickly render Floridians' 'freedom' to 'vote' for a prosecutor a fiction unless federal courts step in.... Voters still elect prosecutors in Florida. That is the law. But, under Thursday's ruling, the governor is free to overturn that on a whim."

Florida. Noreen Marcus of the Florida Bulldog: DeSantis loyalists appear to be guiding [a Tampa grand jury] to make a case against the federal government's pandemic policies.... In a report filed on May 21, the ... grand jury investigating 'any and all wrongdoing related to the COVID-19 vaccine' tags federal public health officials with responsibility for an unspecified number of drug overdoses. The drug in question is Ivermectin, a parasite-fighting paste for animals that, according to the jury's unnamed sources, was 'well-tolerated by most patients' though ineffective for treating the novel coronavirus.... The grand jury report makes this bizarre, convoluted argument: Early in the pandemic, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases rejected Ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment; some desperate sufferers believed it was a 'miracle drug' the government was lying about; because most doctors didn't dare prescribe Ivermectin, patients obtained it on their own but didn't know how to use it. Some of them overdosed. Therefore, the jury concluded, public health officials who trashed Ivermectin caused the overdoses." The grand jury's target appears to be Dr. Anthony Fauci, who headed the NIAID and whom Gov. Ron DeSantis has vilified. Thanks to RAS for the link.

New York. Corey Kilgannon of the New York Times: "Rex Heuermann, who was arrested last summer and has been accused of murdering four women in the Gilgo Beach serial killings on Long Island, was indicted Thursday on murder charges in the deaths of two more women. Mr. Heuermann, 60, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges in connection with the first four women's deaths, has remained in jail for nearly a year awaiting trial. In the meantime, investigators turned to the six other victims -- four women, a man and a toddler -- whose remains, like those of the first four women, were found along Ocean Parkway by Gilgo Beach." (Also linked yesterday.)

How low can they go? It may surprise you. ~~~

~~~ Pennsylvania. Leo Sands of the Washington Post: "Two former law enforcement officers who defended the U.S. Capitol from rioters during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection were jeered by state GOP lawmakers as they visited Pennsylvania's House of Representatives on Wednesday, according to several Democratic lawmakers present. Former U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and former sergeant Aquilino Gonell were introduced on the floor Wednesday as 'heroes' by House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D) for having 'bravely defended democracy in the United States Capitol against rioters and insurrection on Jan. 6.' As the two men -- both of whom were injured by rioters on Jan. 6 -- were introduced, the House floor descended into chaos. According to Democratic lawmakers, several GOP lawmakers hissed and booed, with a number of Republicans walking out of the chamber in protest." (Also linked yesterday.)

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U.K. I'd Rather Be on Teevee. Noah Keate of Politico: "Rishi Sunak apologized after he ditched D-Day commemorations in France to do a TV interview instead -- sparking a furious backlash. The Conservative prime minister, who is fighting to stay in office ahead of a July 4 general election, said he regretted allowing the event to be 'to be overshadowed by politics' and admitted it was a 'mistake' to hop back across the Channel early. The prime minister attended Thursday's memorial event at Ver-sur-Mer in northern France -- but did not take part in the late afternoon ceremony at Omaha beach, instead leaving Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Defense Secretary Grant Shapps to represent the British government. Labour Leader Keir Starmer -- battling to replace Sunak in the election -- was in attendance."

News Lede

CNBC: "The U.S. economy added far more jobs than expected in May, countering fears of a slowdown in the labor market and likely reducing the Federal Reserve's impetus to lower interest rates. Nonfarm payrolls expanded by 272,000 for the month, up from 165,000 in April and well ahead of the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 190,000. At the same time, the unemployment rate rose to 4%, the first time it has breached that level since January 2022."

Comments Off
Wednesday
Jun052024

The Conversation -- June 6, 2024

Stephen Collinson of CNN: "... at no point since June 6, 1944, has the unshakable US leadership of the West and support for internationalist values been so in question. Democracy is facing its sternest test in generations from far-right populism on the march on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.... Trump's 'America First' philosophy has taken deep root in the Republican Party that once prided itself on winning the Cold War. The ex-president tried to overturn US democracy to stay in power four years ago. And some GOP figures led by the ex-president now appear to have more empathy for Putin than liberal European democracies that the United States rebuilt after World War II. And the monthslong delay in funding Biden's most recent aid package for Ukraine raised doubts that Washington will always stand up for democracy in Europe and against aggression by autocrats."

Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Thursday ordered former Trump political adviser and right-wing podcaster Stephen K. Bannon to report to prison by July 1 to begin serving a four-month prison term for contempt of Congress after an appeals court in May upheld his conviction. Federal prosecutors had asked the judge to lift the hold on his sentence arguing that no substantial legal questions remain over Bannon's two-count conviction for refusing to provide documents or testimony to a House committee probing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack after a panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected Bannon's appeal on all grounds." The ABC News story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Looks as if Steve-o has devoted too much effort to fighting his conviction and not enough energy to finding out if he will be allowed to wear multiple shirts under that orange jumpsuit. But yes, yes, of course I'm sad and the prisons are overcrowded and this was a nonviolent crime and so on and so forth.

Glenn Thrush, et al., of the New York Times: "Hallie Biden, a former girlfriend of Hunter Biden and widow of his brother, Beau, took the stand on Thursday, telling jurors that she saw him buy, stash and smoke vast amounts of crack cocaine in the fall of 2018 when he claimed to be drug-free on a firearms application.... Ms. Biden said she discovered the gun at the center of the case when she was rifling through Mr. Biden's vehicle the morning after he showed up at her house.... Prosecutors then showed surveillance video of her tossing the gun only to return later and frantically try to recover it.... The sheer amount of unflattering evidence assembled by [special prosecutor David] Weiss is intended to prove that Mr. Biden knowingly lied when he claimed not to be taking drugs when he bought the handgun. But it has, in the view of even some Biden family critics, moved far beyond that goal -- into a publicly humiliating trial of the president's troubled son for an offense that, while a crime, is seldom prosecuted as a stand-alone charge for someone with no prior criminal record who has been sober for years."

New York. Corey Kilgannon of the New York Times: "Rex Heuermann, who was arrested last summer and has been accused of murdering four women in the Gilgo Beach serial killings on Long Island, was indicted Thursday on murder charges in the deaths of two more women. Mr. Heuermann, 60, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges in connection with the first four women's deaths, has remained in jail for nearly a year awaiting trial. In the meantime, investigators turned to the six other victims -- four women, a man and a toddler -- whose remains, like those of the first four women, were found along Ocean Parkway by Gilgo Beach."

How low can they go? It may surprise you. ~~~

~~~ Pennsylvania. Leo Sands of the Washington Post: "Two former law enforcement officers who defended the U.S. Capitol from rioters during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection were jeered by state GOP lawmakers as they visited Pennsylvania's House of Representatives on Wednesday, according to several Democratic lawmakers present. Former U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and former sergeant Aquilino Gonell were introduced on the floor Wednesday as 'heroes' by House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D) for having 'bravely defended democracy in the United States Capitol against rioters and insurrection on Jan. 6.' As the two men -- both of whom were injured by rioters on Jan. 6 -- were introduced, the House floor descended into chaos. According to Democratic lawmakers, several GOP lawmakers hissed and booed, with a number of Republicans walking out of the chamber in protest."

The New York Times' live updates of developments Thursday in the Israel/Hamas war are here.

~~~~~~~~~~

Cleve Wootson, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Biden will join world leaders in Normandy on Thursday to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day, a somber setting where he plans to draw a link between the historic fight to defeat the Nazis and the modern-day battles against authoritarianism.... While Biden is not likely to name Trump during his remarks, he plans to offer an unequivocal endorsement of the global order that the Republican front-runner has trashed.... Such a message is particularly relevant given the war in Ukraine, said national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who pointed out that the NATO alliance has expanded during Biden's term.... The president, who arrived in Paris on Wednesday morning and spent the day behind closed doors, began his visit to Normandy by greeting World War II veterans who participated in the D-Day landings, including some who are more than 100 years old. He will also give brief remarks at the D-Day Anniversary Commemoration Ceremony, where he plans to compare World War II's fight against tyranny to the modern-day effort to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin's assault on Ukraine. Later Thursday, Biden will join first lady Jill Biden for a wreath-laying at the Normandy American Cemetery. Finally, the Bidens will attend the International Ceremony at Omaha Beach, where several top dignitaries ... are also expected to pay tribute to the troops who helped carry out the largest naval, air and land assault ever." ~~~

     ~~~ The AP has live updates of events here. CNN has live updates here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: D-Day coincided with the U.S.'s becoming recognized as the "leader of the free world" and of the country's striving to be worthy of its position. It is quite possible that this 80th anniversary of D-Day will mark the end of that era. We can save ourselves this November, or we can implode into the narrow bigotry and autosarcophagy of Trumpism. I don't know what's going to happen. For some of us, 2024 is the cliffhanger of our lives.

Valerie Gonzalez & Elliot Spagat of the AP: A "sense of uncertainty prevailed among many migrants [attempting to enter the U.S. illegally] after [President] Biden invoked presidential powers to stop asylum processing when arrests for illegal crossings top 2,500 in a day. The measure took effect at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Wednesday because that threshold was met. Two senior Homeland Security Department officials confirmed the first deportations under the new rule took place Wednesday.... Migrants who express fear for their safety if they are deported will be screened by U.S. asylum officers but under a higher standard than what's currently in place.... Mexico has agreed to take back migrants who are not Mexican, but only limited numbers and nationalities. And the Biden administration doesn't have the money and diplomatic support it needs to deport migrants long distances, including to Ecuador and India."

Annie Karni of the New York Times: "Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked action on legislation to codify the right to contraception access nationwide, a bill Democrats brought to the floor to spotlight an issue on which the G.O.P. is at odds with a vast majority of voters. All but two Republicans present -- Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine -- voted against advancing the legislation. Democrats, who unanimously supported it, were left nine votes short of the 60 they would need to take up the bill, which would protect a reproductive health option that many voters worry is actively at risk of being stripped away." CNN's report is here.~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said, "... Democrats ... are fear-mongering in the name of politics." Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), appearing on MSNBC, said what Ernst means is that Republicans' contraceptive policies are so scary that any efforts to highlight those frightening policies amount to fear-mongering. BTW, for once, the headlines are along the lines of "Senate GOP blocks bill to guarantee access to contraception," as opposed to the usual, "Senate Democrats fail to pass bill to guarantee access to contraception."

Marie: A number of GOP senators pretend to be stupid, posing as ignoramuses when it comes to basic economics, science, public policy issues, international relations and even common tenets of decency. Their pretenses are necessary in order to advocate for laws that help their client-masters (at least in the short term) but hurt the rest of us. Sen. Potato Head is not like these hypocritical senators. Nope. He's genuinely stupid: ~~~

     ~~~ Isaac Schorr of Mediaite: "Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) made the incredible claim that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin 'doesn't want Ukraine' on Steve Bannon's War Room Wednesday, exclaiming that Putin already has 'enough land' to be satisfied.... When Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022, he was explicit about his desire to absorb Ukrainian territory."

Nicholas Liu of Salon: "GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson, placating Donald Trump and the right-wing of his caucus, appointed Scott Perry, R-Pa., and Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, to fill two open slots on the House Intelligence Committee, granting MAGA loyalists regular access to sensitive, highly classified government material. The selection of Perry, who is the target of a federal investigation over his and Trump's attempts to subvert the 2020 election, has set off alarms even among Republican politicians who see him as spoiled goods. Five anonymous lawmakers who opposed Perry's appointment told Politico that he was 'all but ineligible,' especially in light of the lawmaker's efforts to block the FBI from probing his phone records. The Intelligence Committee has oversight over the FBI.... In 2022, a Department of Defense investigation found that [Jackson] had gotten regularly drunk and abused subordinates during his service as rear admiral. Although the Navy demoted him to captain, Jackson continues to refer to himself as an admiral on his official bio." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: These two jokers could not get security clear to be night watchmen at a landfill. They are walking national security risks who should never be given access to U.S. and our allies' secrets. Our intel agencies do require oversight. But the decision-makers inside those agencies likely are smart enough not to cooperate with subversives like Perry and Jackson. ~~~

     ~~~ Maegan Vazquez of the Washington Post: "Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), who sits on the House Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees..., told MSNBC on Wednesday that Johnson's appointment was 'a very bad decision for our country' that shows the speaker is 'pandering to the right.... Neither of these two gentlemen is qualified for the intelligence committee. Neither should ever be near the intelligence committee. And it's going to make cooperation between our counterintelligence operations and the intelligence services and the Congress much more complicated.'..."

Marianna Sotomayor of the Washington Post: "A trio of GOP-led House committees wrote to the Justice Department on Wednesday recommending that President Biden's son Hunter and brother James be charged for making false statements to Congress during Republicans' long-running impeachment inquiry into the president. In a 65-page letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Republican chairmen of the House Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means committees -- Reps. James Comer (Ky.), Jim Jordan (Ohio) and Jason T. Smith (Mo.), respectively -- outlined what they say is 'overwhelming evidence' that Hunter Biden and James Biden should be prosecuted for false statements and perjury about their business dealings while Joe Biden was vice president.... The criminal referrals are likely to be the culmination of a years-long investigation by House Republicans, who have tried and failed to prove that Biden was involved in and personally benefited from his son's and brother's foreign business dealings while he was vice president.... House Republicans returned to Washington this week promising to more aggressively target the Biden administration after a New York jury found [Donald] Trump guilty last week of falsifying business records...." ~~~

~~~ ** Jonathan Swan, et al., of the New York Times: "Republican allies of Donald J. Trump are calling for revenge prosecutions and other retaliatory measures against Democrats in response to his felony conviction in New York.... Prominent G.O.P. leaders in and out of government have demanded that elected Republicans use every available instrument of power against Democrats, including targeted investigations and prosecutions.... Stephen Miller, a former senior adviser to Mr. Trump who still helps guide his thinking on policy, blared out a directive on Fox News after a jury found Mr. Trump guilty.... Stephen K. Bannon, the former chief strategist to Mr. Trump, said in a text message to The New York Times on Tuesday that now was the moment for obscure Republican prosecutors around the country to make a name for themselves by prosecuting Democrats.... And Senator Marco Rubio of Florida ... wrote on X that President Biden was 'a demented man propped up by wicked & deranged people' and it was now time to 'fight fire with fire' -- using flame emojis to represent the fire....

"On social media, there has been an explosion of violent rhetoric and threats against the judge in the New York criminal case, Juan M. Merchan, and the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, who brought the charges against Mr. Trump.... Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a close Trump ally who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter this week demanding testimony by Mr. Bragg and one of his top trial lawyers in the case, Matthew Colangelo.... Mr. Jordan this week also proposed barring federal law enforcement grants from going to Mr. Bragg's office and to the office of the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga.... But the more extreme calls for not just oversight scrutiny and political obstructionism but revenge prosecutions are coming from former senior Trump administration officials and people close to the former president who are expected to play even larger roles in a potential second term. Their message is often apocalyptic.... Jeff Clark, a former Trump Justice Department official who has been indicted in the Georgia election case..., has called for 'brave' district attorneys in conservative areas to file lawsuits in federal court against people involved in criminal cases against Mr. Trump, under federal laws that allow people to seek monetary damages from government officials who violate their constitutional rights." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Obviously, they see nothing wrong with what they're saying. These are very warped human beings.

Brakkton Booker of Politico: "Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) was on the defensive on Wednesday as Democrats attacked him for comments he'd made the night before praising Black families under the era of racial segregation in America. 'During Jim Crow the Black family was together,' Donalds said during a Black GOP outreach event in a gentrifying part of Philadelphia on Tuesday, and criticized decades-old policies from former Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson for promoting a culture of dependence. 'During Jim Crow, more Black people were -- not just conservative, because Black people always have always been conservative-minded -- but more Black people voted conservatively.' The remarks prompted a blitz of attacks from Biden allies.... 'It has come to my attention that a so-called leader has made the factually inaccurate statement that Black folks were better off during Jim Crow,' Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in remarks on the House floor, listing other aspects of that era -- from lynching to the suppression of the Black vote. 'How dare you make such an ignorant observation? You better check yourself before you wreck yourself.'" Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: One would think that if Byron found himself a'wondering how fine life was under Jim Crow laws, he might have asked his parents or other elders in his own family about it before waxing nostalgic about the horrors and suppression he never had to endure. Nitwit. But GOP veep candidate? Perfect.

National Crime Blotter

Trump Can No Longer Shoot Someone on Fifth Avenue. Lola Fadulu & William Rashbaum of the New York Times: "The Police Department is seeking to revoke ... Donald J. Trump's license to carry a concealed weapon after his conviction in his New York hush-money case.... Mr. Trump had a concealed carry permit in New York and had three pistols registered under the permit.... Two of them were turned over to the Police Department's License Division around the time Mr. Trump was charged in April 2023 with 34 counts of falsifying business records.... The third pistol had already been legally transferred to Florida. It is unclear whether it is still in Mr. Trump's possession. Under federal law and state law in New York and Florida, people with felony convictions are barred from possessing a firearm. The Police Department will complete an investigation that is likely to lead to the revocation of Mr. Trump's concealed carry permit...." CNN's report is here.

** Georgia Court Halts Election Interference Case. Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "The Georgia Court of Appeals on Wednesday stayed the criminal election interference case against ... Donald J. Trump until an appellate panel could resolve the matter of whether the district attorney in Fulton County should be disqualified from prosecuting the case based on a conflict of interest. In a one-page order, the court stated that any movement at the trial-court level pertaining to Mr. Trump and eight other defendants who have appealed a ruling allowing the prosecutor, Fani T. Willis, to remain on the case was 'stayed pending the outcome of these appeals.' Earlier this week, the appellate court set a tentative date for oral argument of Oct. 4. Legal experts expect the appeals will take months to resolve." (Also linked yesterday.)

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "The federal judge overseeing ... Donald J. Trump's classified documents case abruptly changed the proceeding's schedule on Wednesday, reshuffling the timing for hearings on an array of important legal issues. The move by the judge, Aileen M. Cannon..., reflected the substantial number of unresolved legal motions she is juggling. Last month, Judge Cannon scrapped the case's trial date.... Judge Cannon kept in place a hearing she had set for June 21 to discuss a motion by Mr. Trump's lawyers to dismiss the indictment on the grounds that Jack Smith, the special counsel named to oversee the prosecutions of Mr. Trump, was illegally appointed to his job. Similar motions have been rejected in cases involving other special counsels, including Robert S. Mueller III, who investigated connections between Russia and Mr. Trump's 2016 campaign, and David C. Weiss, who has brought two criminal cases against Hunter Biden, President Biden's son."

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: Donald Trump's "lies about the F.B.I. being prepared to kill him during the search of Mar-a-Lago took his attacks on the justice system and the rule of law to another level.... According to court papers, there was little drama as they hauled away a trove of boxes containing highly sensitive state secrets in three vans and a rented Ryder box truck.... Even though the court-authorized warrant was executed while he was more than 1,000 miles away in the New York area, the former president in recent weeks has repeatedly promoted the blatantly false narrative that the agents had shown up that day prepared to kill him, when the instructions in fact laid out strict conditions intended to minimize any use of deadly force.... Mr. Trump's warped version of the Mar-a-Lago search has also triggered a new legal battle between his lawyers and prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith.... It remains unclear how Judge [Aileen] Cannon will rule on Mr. Smith's request [to rein in Mr. Trump]. In a prickly preliminary ruling, she temporarily rejected the move on procedural grounds last week. Mr. Smith then refiled his request to her after going through the necessary procedural steps. He repeated his assertion that Mr. Trump had lied and that 'the F.B.I. took extraordinary care to execute the search warrant unobtrusively and without needless confrontation.'... [Trump's] mischaracterizations provoked the ire of Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, who rarely inserts himself into the cases filed by Mr. Smith...." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Good News! The New York Times lets on that Donald Trump is liar.

Tracey Tully & Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times report on the latest developments in the federal bribery case against Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.). Wednesday, an F.B.I. agent testified about a flurry of text messages and other communications among the senator's wife Nadine Menendez and a couple of New Jersey businessmen, culminating in a seven-minute phone call between Sen. Menendez and one of the businessmen. The prosecution attempted to show through the testimony & exhibits that the senator was involved in trying to quash a fraud investigation against the businessmen and negotiating bribes for his efforts. The payoff: a Mercedes for Mrs. Menendez who had wrecked her own vehicle when she struck and killed a pedestrian.

Eileen Sullivan, et al., of the New York Times: "Two of Hunter Biden's former romantic partners, his ex-wife and an ex-girlfriend, provided vivid and gut-wrenching testimony on Wednesday about his out-of-control addiction to crack in the weeks and months before he claimed to be drug-free on a federal firearms form. Relaying their divergent experiences with President Biden's son, the two women -- Kathleen Buhle, his wife of 24 years, and Zoe Kestan, whom he met in 2017 -- painted a composite portrait. They depicted a family man who was both falling into an abyss of addiction and living a lavish, party-hopping high life in New York and Los Angeles." ~~~

~~~ New York Times reporters liveblogged developments Wednesday in Hunter Biden's criminal trial in Delaware. NBC News live updates are here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "For nearly four years, Republicans have delved into the darkest corners of Hunter Biden's life, seeking to tie his troubles to his father, President Biden. But as the younger Biden stands trial in Delaware on gun charges, the case's glaring political contradictions have rendered the G.O.P. largely mute, from ... Donald J. Trump on down.... The baseless claim that the Biden Justice Department is running a political persecution of Mr. Trump is somewhat undermined by the department's prosecution of the president's son. It is also hard to make much of allegations that Hunter Biden lied about his drug use to purchase a handgun when your party is sponsoring legislation to ease gun-purchasing restrictions for veterans struggling with mental illness, not to mention the case before the Supreme Court that could allow domestic abusers to buy firearms." (Also linked yesterday.)

Presidential Race

Yes He Can. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump says he is prepared to prosecute his political enemies if he is elected this fall.... Mr. Trump, if he wins the presidency again, would gain immense authority to actually carry out the kinds of legal retribution he has been promoting. The Justice Department is part of the executive branch, and he will be its boss. He will be able to tell its officials to investigate and prosecute his rivals, and Mr. Trump, who has made no secret of his desire to purge the federal bureaucracy of those found insufficiently loyal to his agenda, will be able to fire those who refuse.... Mr. Trump's musings on his planned prosecutions ... have the effect, partly incidental and partly calculated, of undermining faith in the integrity of the criminal justice system, a development that could have profound effects in a nation where the rule of law has been foundational.... In effect, Mr. Trump's candidacy is becoming a referendum on what kind of justice system the country believes it has now and wants to have in the future."


Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "The chief of staff to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will step down, the Pentagon said Wednesday, months after she drew criticism for not informing the White House and Congress of Austin's emergency hospitalization last winter. Kelly Magsamen will depart at the end of June, Austin said in a statement expressing gratitude for her service over 3½ years. She has served beside him since the beginning of his tenure.... Austin called her 'the chief architect of every initiative I have launched.' His statement did not indicate why Magsamen, who was traveling with Austin in France on Wednesday, was leaving."

Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday proposed limits on the use of N-Methylpyrrolidone, a solvent in many products used by both consumers and workers, ranging from arts and crafts supplies to paint remover, that is linked to serious health effects. The chemical, also known as NMP, is used to make semiconductors and lithium ion batteries, and is also found in plastics, paints and consumer cleaning products. It has been found to cause miscarriages, reduced male fertility and damage to the liver, kidneys and immune and nervous systems. If finalized, the E.P.A.'s rule would ban some commercial uses of NMP, such as in automotive and cleaning products, and limit the concentration of NMP allowed in some consumer products, such as glue. It would also establish safeguards, including requirements for protective equipment, for workers exposed to NMP." (Also linked yesterday.)

Justin Jouvenal of the Washington Post: Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's "successive explanations -- in a statement, an interview with Fox News and letters to Congress -- have raised additional questions, and in some cases conflicted with known facts. Alito has yet to fully explain some key aspects of the controversy.... Here are the major discrepancies in Alito's telling and what he still has not fully answered." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: "It's quite [something] to get scooped when the story has sat in your notebook for 3½ years.... This very scenario played out in recent weeks for The Post.... Nine days [after Jodi Kantor of the New York Times reported to the Alito family's flying an upside-down U.S. flag at their home in support of the insurrection], The Post disclosed that then-Supreme Court reporter Robert Barnes, who has since retired from The Post..., spoke to Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, about the flag.... 'I was not aware that an upside-down flag was a symbol of "Stop the Steal,"' recalls Barnes.... [Still,] the Alitos received deference to which they were not entitled." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Wemple points out that "Barnes started working as The Post's Supreme Court reporter in 2006, joining a group of D.C. journalists -- holders of the court's 'hard passes' -- who have been criticized as institutionalists prone to cozying up with the ultra-powerful people they cover." However, Wemple argues that "Barnes broke free of the tyrannical high court docket to do accountability stories"; i.e., actual reporting. In his critique, Wemple does point to a number of mitigating factors that work toward acquitting Barnes and his editors of journalistic malpractice, but it seems clear to me -- as it seems to be to Wemple -- that Barnes was far too willing to take the Alitos' word for the cause and meaning of the upside-down flag, without even contacting the neighbors with whom they said they were spatting. If that's journalism, then those winger "journalists" who "reported" that Joe Biden had tried to assassinate Donald Trump during the Mar-a-Lago search should get awards.

Christian Davenport of "the Washington Post: "Boeing's Starliner spacecraft finally carried a pair of astronauts into orbit Wednesday, a key milestone in the company's troubled quest to provide NASA with a spacecraft capable of flying crews to the International Space Station. An Atlas V rocket, operated by the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, lifted off from its pad at 10:52 a.m., lighting up the sky of Florida's Space Coast in what was heralded as a triumphant beginning to a test of how the spacecraft operates with a crew on board." (Also linked yesterday.)

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Why That Didn't Work Out. Benjamin Mullin & Katie Robertson of the New York Times: "Weeks before the embattled executive editor of The Washington Post [Sally Buzbee] abruptly resigned on Sunday, her relationship with the company's chief executive became increasingly tense. In mid-May, the two clashed over whether to publish an article about a British hacking scandal with some ties to The Post's chief executive, Will Lewis, according to two people with knowledge of their interactions.... The interaction over the [hacking case] was not the primary reason for her resignation. Ms. Buzbee had already been mulling her future at The Post because of a plan by Mr. Lewis to reorganize the newsroom that he laid out to her in April, the people said." MB: Lewis came from the Rupert Murdoch School of "Journalism," so it's hardly surprising that he couldn't abide a real journalist.

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Georgia. Khristopher Brooks of CBS News: "The Georgia plant where General Mills produces cereal and trail mix is run by a 'Good Ole Boy' network of White men who have spent decades wrongfully demoting and hurling racial slurs at Black workers, eight current and former employees allege in a federal lawsuit filed this week.  The class-action suit, filed in the Northern District of Georgia in Atlanta, accused General Mills of violating federal civil rights laws, as well as state and federal racketeering laws."

~~~~~~~~~~

Israel/Palestine, et al. Wafaa Shurafa & Samy Magdy of the AP: "An Israeli strike early Thursday on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in central Gaza killed more than 30 people, including 23 women and children, according to local health officials. The Israeli military said that Hamas militants were operating from within the school.... Witnesses and hospital officials said the predawn strike hit the al-Sardi School, run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees known by the acronym UNRWA. The school was filled with Palestinians who had fled Israeli offensives and bombardment in northern Gaza, they said."

Ukraine, et al. AP: "Ukrainian drones struck an oil refinery and a fuel depot in Russian border regions, officials in the targeted areas said Thursday, in Kyiv's ongoing effort to disrupt the Kremlin's war machine and as Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sought further Western support in Europe's biggest conflict since World War II. Zelenskyy was due to join world leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, at D-Day commemorations in France on Thursday. On Friday, he was due to meet with French officials. Zelenskyy's trip came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Russia could provide long-range weapons to other countries so that they could strike Western targets. That threat came after NATO allies said they would allow Ukraine to use weapons they deliver to Kyiv to attack Russian territory."

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