;)
April 8, 2023
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Biden administration is planning some of the most stringent auto pollution limits in the world, designed to ensure that all-electric cars make up as much as 67 percent of new passenger vehicles sold in the country by 2032, according to two people familiar with the matter. That would represent a quantum leap for the United States -- where just 5.8 percent of vehicles sold last year were all-electric -- and would exceed President Biden's earlier ambitions to have all-electric cars account for half of those sold in the country by 2030. It would be the federal government's most aggressive climate regulation and would propel the United States to the front of the global effort to slash the greenhouse gases generated by cars, a major driver of climate change."
Richard Fawcett & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "While nothing is certain, there are numerous signs that [Fulton County, Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis] may go big, with a more kaleidoscopic indictment charging not only [Donald] Trump, but perhaps a dozen or more of his allies.... Nearly 20 people are already known to have been told that they are targets who could face charges, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump's former personal lawyer, and David Shafer, the head of the Georgia Republican Party.... The wide scope of the investigation has been evident for months, and Ms. Willis has said that seeking an indictment under the state's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, statute is an option that she is considering.... Ms. Willis has extensive experience with racketeering cases...." ~~~
~~~ The Race to Indict. Glenn Thrush, et al., of the New York Times: "The Fulton County district attorney's investigation into ... Donald J. Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia is nearing a decision point, posing fresh challenges for federal prosecutors considering charging him in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.... Both [investigations] rely on similar documentary evidence, some of the same criminal targets and a small, shared pool of witnesses with knowledge of the former president's actions and intent.... The federal investigation into Jan. 6 focuses on several charges, according to two law enforcement officials: wire fraud for emails sent between those pushing the false electors scheme; mail fraud for sending the names of electors to the National Archives and Records Administration; and conspiracy, which covers the coordination effort. (A fourth possible charge, obstruction of an official proceeding before Congress, has been used in many cases brought against participants in the Capitol attack.)... The Atlanta case has put additional pressure on [federal special prosecutor Jack] Smith. Justice Department officials have said they wanted to make charging decisions in the spring or summer, before the 2024 election kicks into high gear -- which raises the question of whether Mr. Smith will try to bring charges before Ms. Willis does."
Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "Enrique Tarrio, then chairman of the far-right extremist group [Proud Boys], repeatedly shared outlines of members' plans in D.C. and elsewhere at the request of Shane Lamond, a 22-year veteran of the D.C. police department, according to text exchanges read by Tarrio's defense in his trial on seditious conspiracy charges with four other Proud Boys leaders. Tarrio argues that his relationship with Lamond showed there was no Proud Boys conspiracy to oppose police or federal authority, or plan to disrupt Congress's confirmation of Joe Biden's 2020 election victory on Jan. 6. But prosecutors say the bulk of the exchanges occurred long before the alleged conspiracy.... U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly has previously said in court that other conversations between the officer and Tarrio cited by prosecutors revealed a 'closeness' and 'inappropriateness' that undercut Tarrio's defense.... Lamond remains under federal investigation for his exchanges with Tarrio."
From the original ProPublica report on Clarence Thomas and billionaire Harlan Crow: "On the weekend of Oct. 16, 2021..., Thomas and Crow traveled to a Catholic cemetery in a bucolic suburb of New York City. They were there for the unveiling of a bronze statue of the justice's beloved eighth grade teacher, a nun, according to Catholic Cemetery magazine." Crow & his wife paid for the statue. Marie: Turns out the Crows are right fond of sweet commemorative statues: ~~~
~~~ The Company He Keeps. Sylvie McNamara of the Washingtonian: "When Republican megadonor Harlan Crow isn't lavishing Justice Clarence Thomas with free trips on his private plane and yacht..., he lives a quiet life in Dallas among his historical collections. These collections include Hitler artifacts -- two of his paintings of European cityscapes, a signed copy of Mein Kampf, and assorted Nazi memorabilia -- plus a garden full of statues of the 20th century's worst despots.... Among the figures in the 'Garden of Evil' are Lenin Stalin, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, and Yugoslav dictator Josip Broz Tito.... Crow has said that [the statues are] bona-fide artifacts from public squares across Europe and Asia that citizens toppled at the end of dictatorial regimes.... [The] collections caused an uproar back in 2015 when Marco Rubio attended a fundraiser at Crow's house on the eve of Yom Kippur. Rubio's critics thought the timing was inappropriate given, you know, the Hitler stuff."
Ukraine, et al. The Washington Post's live updates of developments Saturday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "President Volodymyr Zelensky and top military and intelligence officials have discussed ways to 'prevent the leakage of information regarding the plans of the defense forces of Ukraine,' a government statement said, without giving further details. The discussions came shortly after the unauthorized release of classified Pentagon documents that appear to detail Ukraine's combat capabilities and Western support.... Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak asserted that the leaked documents contained largely 'fictitious information' and had 'nothing to do with Ukraine's real plans.'... Moscow's fighters appear to have made further gains in the city center [of Bakhmut], the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank reported Friday evening.... Russian attempts to 'severely degrade' Ukraine's energy infrastructure have 'likely failed,' Britain;s Defense Ministry said in an update Saturday."
Carlotta Gall, et al., of the New York Times: "In the 13 months since [Russia's] invasion [of Ukraine], thousands of Ukrainian children have been displaced, moved or forcibly transferred to camps or institutions in Russia or Russian-controlled territory, in what Ukraine and rights advocates have condemned as war crimes. The fate of those children has become a desperate tug of war between Ukraine and Russia, and formed the basis of an arrest warrant issued last month by the International Criminal Court accusing President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Maria Lvova-Belova, his commissioner for children's rights, of illegally transferring them.Once under Russian control, the children are subject to re-education, fostering and adoption by Russian families.... In March ... a group of women assisted by Save Ukraine completed a nerve-wracking, 3,000-mile journey through Poland, Belarus and Russia to gain entry to Russian-occupied territory in eastern Ukraine and Crimea to retrieve ... [16] children. Then they had to take another circuitous journey back ... [although the children were] only a few hours away by car but in territory closed off by the war." Several charity groups are helping mothers get their children home. The report features some individual stories.
~~~~~~~~~~
The Fascist Insurrection Rolls On
** In Texas and Across the Nation ... the War on Women. Pam Belluck of the New York Times: "A federal judge in Texas issued a preliminary ruling invalidating the Food and Drug Administration's 23-year-old approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, an unprecedented order that -- if it stands through court challenges -- could make it harder for patients to get abortions in states where abortion is legal, not just in those trying to restrict it. The drug will continue to be available at least in the short-term since the judge, Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, stayed his own order for seven days to give the F.D.A. time to ask an appeals court to intervene. Less than an hour after Judge Kacsmaryk's ruling, a judge in Washington state issued a ruling in another case, which contradicted the Texas decision, ordering the F.D.A. to make no changes to the availability of mifepristone in the 18 states that filed that lawsuit. The conflicting orders by two federal judges, both preliminary injunctions issued before the full cases have been heard, appear to create a legal standoff likely to escalate to the Supreme Court.... On Friday night, the Justice Department filed a notice that it is appealing the Texas ruling.... [Attorney General Merrick Garland] said the department is reviewing the ruling in the Washington case."
~~~ CNN's report is here. Politico's story is here. ~~~
~~~ Amy Walker, et al., of the New York Times: "More than 100 scientific studies, spanning continents and decades, have examined the effectiveness and safety of mifepristone and misoprostol, the abortion pills that are commonly used in the United States. All conclude that the pills are a safe method for terminating a pregnancy. ~~~
~~~ President Joe Biden, in a statement: "Today a single federal district judge in Texas ruled that a prescription medication that has been available for more than 22 years, approved by the FDA and used safely and effectively by millions of women here and around the world, should no longer be approved in the United States. The Court in this case has substituted its judgment for FDA, the expert agency that approves drugs. If this ruling were to stand, then there will be virtually no prescription, approved by the FDA, that would be safe from these kinds of political, ideological attacks.... The lawsuit, and this ruling, is another unprecedented step in taking away basic freedoms from women and putting their health at risk.... If [the] stands, it would prevent women in every state from accessing the medication, regardless of whether abortion is legal in a state. It is the next big step toward the national ban on abortion that Republican elected officials have vowed to make law in America. My Administration will fight this ruling.... The only way to stop those who are committed to taking away women's rights and freedoms in every state is to elect a Congress who will pass a law restoring Roe versus Wade."
In Tennessee and Elsewhere ... the War on Minorities & Free Speech. Liz Goodwin & Matthew Brown of the Washington Post: "Vice President Harris led a chorus of Democratic outrage raining down on Tennessee Republicans on Friday, making a surprise visit to greet the state Democratic lawmakers who were kicked out of their posts by their GOP colleagues on Thursday for protesting in the statehouse for gun control laws.... 'That is not a democracy,' Harris said of the move to expel the lawmakers in a speech to Fisk University students after she met with [Justin] Jones and [Justin] Pearson.... It's a debate national Republicans appear to want no part in, however, as they largely stayed silent while Democrats ranging from former president Barack Obama to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) loudly condemned the votes. 'This nation was built on peaceful protest,' Obama said in a statement. 'No elected official should lose their job simply for raising their voice -- especially when they're doing it on behalf of our children.' Ocasio-Cortez said Republicans are 'radicalizing and awakening an earthquake of young people' who would demand change and vote them out." ~~~
~~~ Eliza Fawcett & Rick Rojas of the New York Times: "Expelled by their Republican colleagues for an act of protest, Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson were no longer members of the Tennessee House of Representatives on Friday.... But instead of sidelining the Democratic lawmakers, the expulsions have sparked outrage and galvanized national support within their party, and the two young Black lawmakers are poised to return to the state legislature -- as soon as next week -- with a platform and profile far surpassing what they had just days ago. On Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris made a hastily arranged visit to Nashville to meet with the state lawmakers, and President Biden, who described the Republicans' actions as 'shocking' and 'undemocratic,' called the ousted Democrats to offer his support and invite them to the White House." Local boards may return both men to the legislature within the next few weeks. ~~~
~~~ Rose Horowitch & Megan Lebowitz of NBC News: "A majority of members of the Nashville Metropolitan Council will vote to reinstate Justin Jones to the Tennessee state Legislature after he was expelled from the House of Representatives on Thursday over his protests on the chamber floor against gun violence. Twenty-three members of the 40-seat Metropolitan Council confirmed to NBC News or on social media that they plan to vote to reinstate Jones to the Legislature. The council, which currently has 39 members, will hold a special meeting Monday to discuss an interim replacement for Jones' seat. Vice Mayor Jim Shulman said he expects the council will take action to suspend the rules at the meeting to vote on a successor to fill Jones' seat instead of holding a monthlong nomination period. In interviews with NBC News, members expressed outrage at Jones' expulsion and said hundreds of constituents have reached out to demand that he be reinstated." ~~~
~~~ Dean Obeidallah in a Substack post: "... the Tennessee GOP succeeded where Trump and his followers failed. They successfully overturned an election in order preserve white supremacy. We can expect going forward from the GOP a combination of legal and violent efforts to preserve white right supremacy. This is both our nation's history and -- tragically --; its future." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Annie Gowen & Tim Craig of the Washington Post: "Tennessee Republicans’ dramatic expulsion of two Democrats who agitated for gun control in the state Capitol after a mass killing is the latest move by Republican state leaders around the country to stifle dissent and expand their power base, free speech experts say. In Montana, Texas, Florida, Virginia and elsewhere, Republicans have moved in other ways to silence opposition in recent months, actions that might ultimately erode the country's democratic ideals, they said.... According to some who have studied authoritarian behavior, it has already come to some states.... 'This Tennessee case is an example of norm-eroding legislative tactics that will further disrupt a healthy political system,' said Jake Grumbach ... [of] the University of Washington. The expulsion of the legislators is a 'more extreme version' of earlier GOP tactics, such as recent restrictions Republicans placed on incoming Democratic governors in Wisconsin and, to a lesser degree, Michigan, he said." Read on. The reporters cite Ron DeSantis & Florida's legislature as an example of a state that has "unapologetically" curtailed free speech. ~~~
~~~ MEANWHILE. Kimberly Kindy of the Washington Post: "As Republican lawmakers nationwide have pushed a historic wave of legislation targeting LGBTQ rights this year, Tennessee is in the vanguard of the movement after years of passing similar legislation and emerging as one of the most restrictive states in the nation on the issue. This week, Tennessee was set to become the first state to enforce wide-ranging restrictions on drag performances while nearly a dozen other states consider similar bills, before a federal judge temporarily blocked the law. Since 2015, Tennessee has enacted at least 13 laws that restrict LGBTQ rights -- the most in the nation in that time frame, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from two groups that track such legislation. Georgia and Arkansas enacted at least nine similar laws in the same time frame, followed by Alabama with six laws."
Clarence the Corrupt. Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: "Justice Clarence Thomas said on Friday that he had followed the advice of 'colleagues and others in the judiciary' when he did not disclose lavish gifts and travel from a wealthy conservative donor. In a statement released by the Supreme Court, the justice said that he had followed guidance from others at the court and that he believed he was not required to report the trips. 'Early in my tenure at the court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the court, was not reportable,' Justice Thomas said. 'I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines.'... The vacations are at odds with the justice's public portrayal of himself as a man of the people. 'I prefer the R.V. parks I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There's something normal to me about it,' Justice Thomas said in a documentary about his life. 'I come from regular stock, and I prefer that -- I prefer being around that.'" The Huffington Post report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
~~~ Shorter Clarence: If Nino & Ruth hadn't told me to hide my free half-million-dollar vacations, I'd have reported them. Especially since I would have preferred to be hanging out with Ginni and the poors in a camper parked at an Alabama Walmart. MB: Totally credible. ~~~
~~~ Joshua Kaplan, et al., of ProPublica: Clarence Thomas's "statement Friday did not dispute ProPublica's reporting about his trips. It also did not address broader criticisms from ethics experts and other judges that by repeatedly accepting such trips, he broke long-standing ethical norms for judges' conduct.... Seven legal ethics experts consulted by ProPublica ... said the law clearly requires that gifts of transportation, including private jet flights, be disclosed. If Thomas is arguing otherwise, the experts said, he is incorrect.... A law passed in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the Ethics in Government Act, requires Supreme Court justices and many other federal officials to report most gifts to the public. Justices are generally required to report all gifts worth more than $415.... There are exceptions, and experts parsing the legality of Thomas' failure to disclose the travel have been focused on a carve-out known as the 'personal hospitality' exemption.... [But] all [seven experts] said that the law's language clearly requires that gifts of transportation, such as private jet travel or cruises on a yacht, be disclosed and said Thomas appears to have violated the law by failing to report them." ~~~
~~~ Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post parses Clarence Thomas's "carefully-worded statement," "[Thomas said,] 'Harlan and Kathy Crow are among our dearest friends, and we have been friends for over twenty-five years.' Thomas was appointed to the Supreme Court 32 years ago, so this friendship between the justice and Harlan Crow developed after he joined the court.... [Thomas said,] 'As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips....' [One of those trips] ... would have cost Thomas more than $500,000 if he had funded it himself.... Notably, Thomas's statement does not address his use of Crow's private plane for other reasons. [Thomas' statement that advisers told him the gifts were 'not reportable'] is vague.... [Thomas says Crow never had any cases come before the Supreme Court, but ] the statement ... sidesteps the question of whether Crow puts Thomas in contact with people who might have pending matters before the court." ~~~
~~~ Chris Geidner of Lawdork makes an extensive and similar analysis to Kessler's. Geidner concludes, "In the coming months, as the Supreme Court term comes to a close, Thomas will continue -- as he has for more than 30 years -- to be one of nine people writing the rules for the rest of us. With his Friday statement, however, Justice Clarence Thomas has made clear that he does not believe the rules apply to him."
Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "A felony statute criminalizing obstruction of government proceedings can be used to prosecute members of the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The decision empowers prosecutors pursuing hundreds of cases involving participants in the Capitol riot, while blessing an interpretation of the law that both judges and lawmakers have argued applies to ... Donald Trump. But it also split the three-judge panel and left key questions open for future court challenges. Judge Florence Y. Pan, a President Biden appointee, and Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, ruled together for the government, despite a partial disagreement. Judge Gregory G. Katsas, also a Trump appointee, dissented. While federal guidelines generally call for far lower sentences, obstruction of an official proceeding carries a potential penalty of up to 20 years in prison. A misdemeanor conviction for trespassing or illegally demonstrating in the Capitol garners a sentence of a year at most."
Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Swan of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump has told aides to hire Laura Loomer, a far-right and anti-Muslim activist with a history of expressing bigoted views, for a campaign role, according to four people familiar with the plans. Mr. Trump met with Ms. Loomer recently.... On Tuesday, after Mr. Trump's arraignment in Manhattan, Ms. Loomer attended the former president's speech at Mar-a-Lago.... Ms. Loomer has not yet been hired, the people familiar with the discussions said.... She once described Islam as a 'cancer' and tweeted under the hashtag '#proudislamophobe,' and she has celebrated the deaths of migrants crossing the Mediterranean." MB: Hey, there are good people on both sides. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) A Guardian story is here. ~~~
~~~ Filip Timotija of Mediaite: "Controversial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) went off on Twitter regarding new reporting that ... Donald Trump wants to add far-right activist Laura Loomer to his 2024 campaign staff. In her Twitter post, the Republican firebrand slammed Loomer as 'mentally unstable' and a 'documented liar.'" And so forth.
Elon Goes to War. Taylor Lorenz of the Washington Post: "On Wednesday, Substack announced that it would be releasing Notes, which looks like Twitter and functions almost identically to it. The platform had been testing it for weeks, wooing high-profile figures away from Twitter. On Thursday, Substack writers discovered that they were no longer able to embed tweets in their Substack posts.... On Friday morning, Twitter began blocking users from retweeting, liking or engaging with posts that contained links to Substack articles. Users also could not pin posts containing links to Substack to the top of their profiles. On Friday evening, Twitter began marking links to Substack as 'unsafe.' Even Substack's corporate Twitter account was restricted.... Twitter had been a primary driver of traffic and growth for many large Substack writers, and many independent journalists were left reeling from the news Friday.... Matt Taibbi, who was chosen by Twitter owner Elon Musk to write segments of the controversial 'Twitter Files,' announced Friday that he's quitting the platform to protest new restrictions to links to Substack.... In December, Musk temporarily banned links to all other social media platforms.... He quickly rolled back the policy after backlash from large creators and the discovery that such a rule could violate European law." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Maybe in the past few months you have come to the conclusion that the richest man in the world doesn't know WTF he's doing. You would be right. He makes sweeping decisions to which he has given little thought, then (usually) reverses them when they prove to be ridiculous or counterproductive.
From the "This Could Happen to You" File. Daniel Wu of the Washington Post: "Army special operators and FBI agents closed in on a 15th-floor hotel room in downtown Boston on Tuesday night. As part of a training exercise, they entered the room and detained their target. The team handcuffed and interrogated the man in a bathroom for 30 minutes.... Then the group realized .... the soldiers and federal agents ... had the wrong room. They'd expected to detain and interrogate a role player posing as a target -- but they'd been given the wrong room number at the Revere, an upscale hotel in downtown Boston.... Instead, they shook down a ... Delta Air Lines pilot who happened to be staying at the hotel, according to [Boston news channel] WCVB.... Boston Mayor Michelle Wu told reporters on Thursday that city officials expect a thorough investigation." A hotel security person called 911 to report that that "people claiming to be FBI agents barge[d] into their room and handcuff them to the bathroom." An Army Special Ops Command spokesman said ... "We're extremely apologetic about it." ~~~
~~~ Marie: It's hard to exaggerate how stupid this failed "training" operation was. These commandos didn't just get the wrong room; they didn't even share their plans to invade a privately-operated hotel with the hotel's security staff or local authorities, much less seek approval to conduct a military-style raid in a facility housing hundreds of civilian guests. By chance, their victim was an airline pilot, who would have been trained to handle highly-stressful situations -- though not this one. The invaders might have traumatized a more feeble guest.
Beyond the Beltway
North Dakota. Conover Kennard of Crooks & Liars: "In a stunning act of hypocrisy, the North Dakota Senate approved legislation to increase the amount of money that lawmakers and other state employees receive in meal reimbursements just after they voted against hungry kids getting free lunch at school. Late last month, North Dakota State Sen. Mike Wobbema said that hungry children are not their problem. 'I can understand kids going hungry, but is that really the problem of the school district?' he asked. 'Is that the problem of the state of North Dakota? It's really the problem of parents being negligent with their kids if their kids are choosing to eat in the first place.'" MB: Yeah, Mike, I can understand lawmakers get hungry, but is that really the problem of North Dakota taxpayers? Maybe ask your spouse to slip a baloney sandwich into a brown bag and STFU. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Way Beyond
Mexico. Maria Abi-Habib & Galia Palafox of the New York Times: Gustavo Ángel Suárez Castillo, an American citizen, was traveling with friends in his pickup truck with Texas plates when "four vehicles filled with armed men began chasing and firing at them. The pickup truck crashed and as the passengers tumbled out, the armed men threw some to the ground, shooting one in the back, survivors told The New York Times. One recounted how he watched his brother slowly stop breathing while the assailants blocked medics from arriving. When it ended, five of the men, including Mr. Suárez, were dead and the other two severely injured. The attackers? Uniformed Mexican soldiers.... The episode ... underscores what human rights advocates and analysts say is a dangerous flaw in Mexico's governing system: one of the country's most powerful institutions operates with little oversight." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Ukraine, et al.
Helene Cooper, et al., of the New York Times: "A new batch of classified documents that appear to detail American national security secrets from Ukraine to the Middle East to China surfaced on social media sites on Friday, alarming the Pentagon and adding turmoil to a situation that seemed to have caught the Biden administration off guard. The scale of the leak -- analysts say more than 100 documents may have been obtained -- along with the sensitivity of the documents themselves, could be hugely damaging, U.S. officials said. A senior intelligence official called the leak 'a nightmare for the Five Eyes,' in a reference to the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the so-called Five Eyes nations that broadly share intelligence. The latest documents were found on Twitter and other sites on Friday, a day after senior Biden administration officials said they were investigating a potential leak of classified Ukrainian war plans, include an alarming assessment of Ukraine's faltering air defense capabilities." ~~~
~~~ Dan Lamothe, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the leak of classified Pentagon documents appearing to detail Ukraine's combat capabilities, its potential vulnerabilities and NATO's broad efforts to help repel Russia's invasion, the agency said Friday, as the U.S. government raced to determine how the material surfaced online and what value it may hold for the Kremlin.... Earlier Friday, The Washington Post obtained dozens of what appeared to be photographs showing classified documents, dating to late February and early March, that range from worldwide intelligence briefings to tactical-level battlefield updates and assessments of Ukraine's defense capabilities.... The materials also reference highly classified sources and methods that the United States uses to collect such information, alarming U.S. national security officials who have seen them." ~~~
~~~ A Clue for the Investigation. Lara Seligman, et al., of Politico: "A tranche of leaked documents that detail plans about Ukraine's spring military offensive circulated online as early as March -- a month earlier than previously reported, according to researchers with Bellingcat and a review of social media postings. The batch includes more pages than originally known and also outlines sensitive information about other global hotspots. The Ukraine-specific documents ... date from the end of February to the end of March -- around the same time as senior American generals hosted the Ukrainian military at a U.S. base in Germany to wargame the spring operation. The materials that circulated in early March were uploaded on a Discord, an encrypted messaging app. They appear to be photos of slide deck printouts that were folded up and then smoothed out again. They have since been posted on other social media websites, including Twitter and Telegram."
Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times: "Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal correspondent jailed in Moscow, was formally charged with espionage on Friday, according to Russian state media.... The official charge had been expected ever since the American reporter was detained last week in the central Russian city of Yekaterinburg and brought to the Lefortovo prison in Moscow. The Russian authorities accused him of espionage, allegations that The Journal and U.S. officials have vehemently rejected.The arrest of Mr. Gershkovich, the American-born son of Soviet émigrés and a reporter for The Journal since January 2022, brought relations between the United States and Russia to a new low." ~~~
~~~ Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "In a rare joint statement, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Friday demanded the immediate release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been detained in Russia since he was arrested during a reporting trip last month. 'We strongly condemn the wrongful detention of U.S. citizen and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, and demand the immediate release of this internationally known and respected independent journalist,' Schumer and McConnell wrote, noting that Gershkovich had been accredited to work as a journalist in Russia by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs."
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Reader Comments (19)
Army special ops people engaged in an interrogation of a US Person in a US hotel?
Someone needs a court martial.
I found the story Patrick mentioned––-as terrible as it is–--hilarious, like a slap stick comedy Marx might do. Another fuck-up happened in Farmington N.M. when police responded to the wrong house re: spouse abuse and killed the home owner. In ordinary times ( and I'm trying to remember when that was) these stories would be more prominent than they are now because we have so much else happening that demands full attention. An artist might depict this country sitting on a hill but we see burned fragments falling from its face.
In his salesmen play Arthur Miller had the grieving wife plead for her husband's dignity––-:Attention must be paid!" We are at this point where we need that cry to be loud and consistent–--we can not allow these shallow fellows to strip us of our rights and hang us out to dry. NEVER!
Old Dog. Old Trick. He Old Dog never learns...
Last night sent on my RC comment on the Texas judge's mifepristone decision to to NYTimes.
"Missing from this article is the scientific rationale for the Texas judge's ruling. I imagine it was extensive and well-founded."
The following ensued.
"@Ken Winkes Any extensive and well founded scientific evidence would have been taken into account by the FDA during the approval process. It's part of the original legislation establishing the FDA and is an essential part of research guidelines when companies submit a new drug for approval. This judge doesn't have the professional knowledge to evaluate the medical research. His bailiwick is simply judicial, not a critic of pharmaceutical research that offends his personal values."
My mea culpa:
"Apologies for hiding the intended sarcasm too well.
My penchant for snotty humor has gotten me in trouble before.
I'll try to do better."
More than one reader took me to similar task...Ah well.
Exchange on NPR last night, with a Tennessee representative who voted to expel the two men but not the woman representative:
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/07/1168728769/tennessee-gop-rep-barrett-on-why-he-voted-to-expel-two-colleagues-but-not-the-th
"KELLY: A lot of people, as you'll know, have been pointing out that the two ousted lawmakers, Mr. Jones and Justin Pearson, are both Black - that the only Democrat who survived last night's vote was Gloria Johnson, who is white. Was race a factor here?
"BARRETT: Well, no. And I am a member who voted for the expulsion of the two younger gentlemen and did not vote for the expulsion of Ms. Johnson, and it had absolutely nothing to do with race.
"KELLY: But you did not vote to expel, as you say, Representative Johnson. Why not? What was the difference?
"BARRETT: Well, I'm an attorney, and Ms. Johnson was the only representative that showed up with legal counsel. And their legal counsel made an opening statement, pointing out deficiencies in the resolution that had been filed that we were voting on. And once those deficiencies were pointed out, in my view as an attorney, then it was incumbent upon the debate to present evidence to correct that and to establish clearly what it was that Ms. Johnson did to rise to the level of expulsion. I just don't think that we established that during the debate."
=========================================
If you listen to it, barrett sounds less and less sure of himself as he goes along.
Having decided that the attorney for the third representative raised valid points, did it occur to barrett to go back and reconsider his vote on the first two people charged? It seems as if it occurred to him halfway through his answer.
@Ken Winkes: I understood your meaning, even though I'm a skimmer, not a careful reader. Those commenters can't read.
"Missing from this article is the scientific rationale for the Texas judge's ruling." I guess a more clear sentence construction would have been, "Missing from the judge's ruling is any scientific rationale for his decision." It isn't the article that's missing the judge's scientific rationale; it's the ruling itself.
In fairness to the clueless NYT readers, perhaps one has to be familiar with your writing to get the sarcasm of the second sentence.
Anyhoo, no apology needed here. We got the smarter readers.
@NiskyGuy: It strikes me that Barrett uses the words "the two younger gentlemen" in the same way police use them in press conferences or court proceedings to describe criminal suspects. The cops pretend in public comments to show polite respect for people they are damned sure are degenerate thugs.
I suspect that if Justin Jones caught a ride home from Barrett, Barrett would help Jones into the vehicle by holding Jones' head. "Watch your head, boy." With the phrase "two younger gentlemen," he betrayed the racism that determined his vote.
Ken,
Yeah, I got the joke right away. No additional snottification required. Readers who couldn’t see the raised eyebrows in your comment likely miss a lot of points that aren’t strictly literal. No worries.
I'm convinced that the abortion/morning after pill, etc. won't be
solved until such time men can become pregnant, which I take to
mean, never.
Discrimination in Tennessee is probably no worse than anywhere
else. I had a friend (now deceased) who lived about an hour east of
Nashville. Mother owned a clothing store in town. Sign on the door
read 'blacks need not enter', And if they dared, mother would yell
and scream until they left. This wasn't that long ago.
And when I sold my house in a Grand Rapids Mi suburb a few years
back, it was a totally white suburb. The buyers were black, which I
didn't know until the signing.
We had a community pool two lots down from my house. I stopped
to visit the buyers a few months later to see how things were going.
Low and behold, the community voted to close the pool and sell the
lot to a builder. Coincidence? Methinks not.
@P.D.Pepe: Yeah, as an outsider looking in, I guess it's easy to find the Boston screw-up hilarious. But I wouldn't think it was funny if it had happened to me, and evidently the pilot didn't see the humor in it, either. In fact, the way the security person described it to the 911 operator, it would seem the Army & FBI didn't convince the pilot they were who they said they were after they realized their mistake.
Decades ago, the police questioned me about a crime that took place at my place of work. They didn't chain me to the toilet, and they were very polite in their questioning. Moreover, I wasn't entirely surprised I would be questioned because there were already rumors around the office that I had committed the crime -- stealing a 600-pound safe and its contents, which included cash. I had the (literal) receipts to prove I was a hundred miles away at the time the crime was committed, and the fact that the safe was found in the opposite direction from where I was at the time meant I "got off" easily. But the whole experience was unsettling. Being Mirandized and interrogated, even nicely, wasn't fun. Being chained in a bathroom and yelled at by a bunch of people, some in uniform, I imagine, when you have no expectation of such a thing happening, has to be a pretty awful experience, no matter how level-headed you are. As @Patrick writes, the "sorry, wrong number" incident merits a court martial.
About a year after I was questioned all those years ago, some information came out about the financial straits the owner of the business was in, and I called the police to tell them about it. They said, yeah, they had always "liked" the owner for the theft, but they couldn't prove it. Sure enough, as I had suspected, the owner was the person who had fingered me as the perp.
Ms. Johnson was the second person whose expulsion they voted on. That means Barrett heard the attorney's compelling arguments for not expelling Johnson and then later decided that Pearson still had to go. But please believe him that race played no factor in his decision. As Elie Mystal was yelling at the time, "Tennessee is giving a more abject lesson in Critical Race Theory than any AP History course possibly could."
Akhilleus,
If I had to guess, I'd say that while conservatives and liberals each have their distinctive traits, the ability to detect (and appreciate?) irony and its ne'er-do-well stepbrother, sarcasm, is one of them.
I'd guess that even if I didn't have to.
Marie’s story about her encounter with John Law brought back the memory of something I hadn’t thought about in years. While in college, I was hired for the summer by a contractor who was doing work in an old church in Boston to restore (more like repaint) a series of murals on the ceiling bays.
One morning a couple of cops came into the church and spoke with the foreman. I was then called to climb down the staging to talk to them. An older guy in our crew followed us outside. On the front steps of the church were two more cops and a woman. The cops told me to stand still, then asked me to say a few words. The woman watched intently. I had no clue what was going on, but my coworker knew right away that I was being checked out for a possible or actual crime. The woman, at one point, looked at the cop in charge and seemed to nod her head. All the cops moved toward me with hands on their weapons. Then the woman said “No. it’s not him.”
We found out that this woman had been followed by someone wearing white painter’s coveralls who fit my general description. This guy was apparently wanted for several assaults and rapes in that area.
After the inspection ended, I went back inside with my friend. As weird as that experience was, I wasn’t too concerned but the older guy was clearly very worried. “If she had told those cops that she thought it might be you, you’d already be in handcuffs headed downtown for a very bad time.” I hadn’t realized that. The whole thing cast a pall over the rest of the day, and for the rest of that summer, I felt uneasy about walking into that church.
In the years since, many times I’d read a story about someone being wrongly convicted and incarcerated because of a misidentification, and I’d think “there but for fortune…”
These days, as we’re inundated from the right with whining about a police state I think, you assholes have no idea what a police state really is. Back then, despite that woman’s decision that I wasn’t her guy, had one of those cops taken a disliking to me, my entire life might have been changed.
Jessica Valenti has some thoughts on Kacsmaryk's ruling and how "we’ve ended up with the dregs of humanity robbing us of our own."
I hope I'm still around to see it:
That conservative jurisprudence has to reach so deep into the past to find its precedents for its abortion decisions--into English Common Law for Dodd, into our own dim past to the 150 year old Comstock Act--should tell us something, many somethings, none of them good.
Bringing forward precedents from pre-Enlightenment English Law, when kings still reigned, peasants worked the soil, human slavery was acceptable, the franchise, what there was of it, was limited, when woman had no voice and in many jurisdictions couldn't even inherit property, all beg the question: Why abortion only? Why not the rest of the social/legal/economic/package?
Oh, but that's exactly what is happening. All the laws passed to cut democracy off at its voting roots. All the money allowed in politics. The growing between rich and poor. The entire movement in the direction of autocracy.
Will this reach into the deep past be too much for Americans who pride themselves on possessing all those freedoms that go beyond the reentry granted freedom to arm themselves to the teeth rebel?
That's what I hope to live long enough to see.
Slow at most things these days, but hit send prematurely. Sorry. Let me fix it.
I hope I'm still around to see it:
That conservative jurisprudence has to reach so deep into the past to find its precedents for its abortion decisions--into English Common Law for Dodd, into our own dim past to the 150 year old Comstock Act--should tell us something, many somethings, none of them good.
Bringing forward precedents from pre-Enlightenment English Law, when royalty still reigned, peasants worked the soil, human slavery was acceptable, the franchise, what there was of it, was limited, when woman had no voice and in many jurisdictions couldn't even inherit property, churches held their believers in thrall, all beg the question: Why abortion only? Why not the rest of the social/legal/economic/political package?
Oh, but that's exactly what is happening. All the laws passed to cut democracy off at its voting roots. All the money allowed in politics. The growing gulf between rich and poor. The entire movement in the direction of theocratic autocracy.
Will this reach into the deep past by today's conservatives be too much for Americans who pride themselves on possessing all those freedoms that go beyond the recently granted freedom to arm themselves to the teeth? Will we rebel?
That's what I hope to live long enough to see.
If we don't rebel, maybe I don't want to live all that long.
Ken: Irony and Sarcasm died 25 years ago. They had been to see "Thelma and Louise" and were so taken by the ending that they decided cliff diving was an attractive way to end careers that had begun millenia ago somewhere in the eastern Med. They both have been replaced by writers using a backslash ess, which seems to be the character equivalent of a rimshot. The backslash looks sort of like a leaning "I". \s .
Their request to be interred on the Washington Mall was denied by the USPPC, but their ashes were scattered in the hyena compound at the National Zoo, with no ceremony or marker.
MARIE: You were suspected of kiting a 600 lb safe??!! Wow. And wow!!
Patrick,
Now I'm wondering if the death of irony and sarcasm preceded fact's decease.
Let's see, "Thelma and Louise" came out in 1991. Karl Rove, that wannabe architect of empires, made his remark about creating realities to suit in 2004.
It would seem then that irony's death came first. Fact followed. And, of course, it was the four Pretender years that utterly killed comedy. \s.
@Patrick: Notes on a slash: one of the many cool language tricks I never heard of is the "\s". So I looked it up. According to a couple of sites, it is not "\s" that denotes sarcasm but "/s".
Yes, I always wondered how I was supposed to have lifted a 600-pound safe. Moreover, why would I have carried it out of the building and dumped it on the side of a highway ten miles or so away? Wouldn't it have been a tad easier to crack the safe while it was in place? I guess I would have been deemed the dumbest -- and strongest -- crook in town if I had been charged.
Once I realized who had likely emptied the safe, I did figure out why the safe was moved. The only person (or one of two people) who had the combination to the safe was the business's owner. So if he were planning to rob the safe's contents, he would be the obvious suspect if the safe were opened normally while in situ. And because the business was in a commercial area, he probably didn't dare try to sledge-hammer it open, which would have made a lot of noise. He wouldn't have wanted to use explosives and mess up the building, again making a racket & maybe blowing himself to kingdom come. So somehow or the other, he (allegedly!) stole the safe and dropped it off elsewhere, perhaps banging it up a little to make it look as if it had been literally "broken" into. (I never heard about the condition of the safe when it was found by the road.)
Evidently, his plan was to cart the safe away late in the evening, so he called the office after quitting time to make sure the coast was clear. As it turned out, it was not clear, because I answered the phone. I had had to stay late to write up a press release from info I had received right before the office closed. He asked me if anyone else was there, and I said there was not. That made me the perfect patsy. I was as low on the totem pole as can be, and I hadn't worked there long. That "hadn't worked there long" turned out to be a good thing for me, because I had never locked up before, so I made doubly sure I had securely locked the doors when I left, which is what I told the cops. And there was no damage to the building's doors after the burglary, so the perp was likely somebody with a key to the building. (I don't think I had a key.)
This all took place in Chapel Hill, North Carolina (actually, in Carrboro, which is butt-up against Chapel Hill) on a Thursday night. Immediately after I closed up, I drove home and picked up my husband, and we drove straight to Charlottesville, Virginia, where my husband was filling in for a professor on sabbatical. He conducted two seminars every Friday. He had to keep his travel receipts to collect expenses, so we had time-dated receipts for gas & a meal 100 miles from Carrboro while my boss was (allegedly!) lugging the safe around.
On top of that, there were quite a few disinterested people who saw us in Charlottesville. We stayed in the university's faculty club, where I imagine we signed in. This was a wonderful place to stay. It was the first building erected on the Lawn. Jefferson designed it (it has later additions). Jefferson attended the ceremony with James Madison to see then-U.S. President James Munroe lay the cornerstone. (None of them, however, was my witness. But, gosh, they would have been good ones! Unimpeachable, you might say.)
Marie,
You might think Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe would be unimpeachable, but not for the current Party of Traitors. They’d have no problem impeaching them or expelling them from the Founders Club if they didn’t go along with their high crimes and misdemeanors.