;)
December 23, 2022
Afternoon/Evening Update:
Robert Draper & Luke Broadwater take a deep dive for the New York Times Magazine into the workings of the House January 6 Select Committee. With somber black-and-white photos to make it all look more paper-of-record weighty.
The January 6 committee has published transcript of interviews of 46 (if I counted right) more witnesses. The committee page that links to the interviews is here.
Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "Congress on Friday cleared a roughly $1.7 trillion government funding package that would provide significant increases to national security and domestic spending and billions of dollars to aid Ukraine, sending the measure to President Biden's desk for his signature. The bill was the last major legislative accomplishment of the 117th Congress and set aside $858 billion in funds for the military that Republicans pushed for and more than $772 billion for the education, health and veterans programs Democrats have championed. The measure, approved just before Christmas Eve, is the second major government funding bill passed during the Biden administration and served as the final opportunity for congressional Democrats to shape the federal budget while they retain control of both chambers."
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "Remember this moment: It might be the last time you see a competent government for at least two years. This will all come crashing down when -- if -- [Kevin] McCarthy assumes the speakership on Jan. 3. McCarthy himself is trying to make sure dysfunction will dominate. Not only is he fighting to defeat the bipartisan omnibus spending bill, but he has threatened that any bill sponsored by any lawmaker who votes for the omnibus -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- will be 'dead on arrival.'... McCarthy's threat would essentially shut down the House for two years and eventually bring the government to a halt.... Jewish lasers and phony credentials: For House Republicans, it's going to be a truly fabulist year."
Michael Gold & others at the New York Times report on what Rep.-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.) was really doing in the years he told voters he was a college grad & financial whiz kid.
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Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "Declaring that the central cause of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was 'one man,' the House committee investigating the assault delivered its final report on Thursday, setting out in extensive detail how ... Donald J. Trump had carried out what it called 'a multipart plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election' and offering recommendations for steps to assure nothing like it could happen again.The release of the full report was the culmination of the panel's 18-month inquiry.... The report was largely an expanded version of the panel's widely watched set of hearings this summer, with its chapter topics mirroring the themes of those sessions.... The committee on Wednesday and Thursday also released more than 40 witness testimony transcripts, which showed nearly two dozen witnesses invoking their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. More of them, as well as attachments, will be released before the end of the year."
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post notes some key findings here. "One of the most striking new revelations is a text message from a Trump aide, Robert Gabriel. At 2:49 p.m., as the Capitol was under siege, Gabriel texted, 'Potus im sure is loving this.'... White House aide Sarah Matthews has said White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told her that Trump resisted calling on the rioters to be 'peaceful' in a tweet.... The committee also detailed new evidence linking [Rudy] Giuliani, [Donald] Trump and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to the early fake-elector effort. Trump campaign lawyer Joshua Findlay testified that 'it was my understanding that the President made' the decision to have someone look into the feasibility of appointing alternative electors around Dec. 7 or 8."
Politico republishes the full committee report here.
On Thursday, the January 6 committee released the transcripts of the testimony of 34 witnesses. Links, via the committee, to these transcripts is here.
Eric Tucker of the AP: "Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson told the House Jan. 6 committee that her first lawyer advised her against being fully forthcoming with the panel, telling her it was acceptable to testify that she did not recall certain events when she actually did and that 'the less you remember, the better,' according to a transcript of one of her interviews released Thursday. The lawyer, Stefan Passantino, denied the allegations, saying in a statement that he had done nothing wrong and had acted 'honorably, ethically, and fully consistent with her sole interests.'... The committee released a copy of Hutchinson's interview on Thursday." MB: Yo, Stefano, you might want to study up on "obstruction of justice" and "witness tampering." (Also linked yesterday.)~~~
~~~ Update. Luke Broadwater & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide who was a standout witness of the House Jan. 6 committee investigation, told the panel in an interview in September that [] a lawyer aligned with ... Donald J. Trump had tried to influence her testimony, the latest example of what the committee says was an effort to stonewall its inquiry. 'We just want to focus on protecting the president,' Ms. Hutchinson recalled Stefan Passantino, a former Trump White House lawyer who represented her during her early interactions with the committee, telling her. 'We all know you're loyal,' she said Mr. Passantino told her. 'Let's just get you in and out, and this day will be easy, I promise.'... She told the committee that on the night before her initial interview, another aide to Mr. Meadows, Ben Williamson, called her with a message. 'Mark wants you to know that he knows you're loyal and he knows you'll do the right thing tomorrow and that you're going to protect him and the boss,' she quoted Mr. Williamson as saying, in an apparent reference to Mr. Trump. 'You know, he knows that we're all on the same team and we're all a family.'... After [her first committee interview, while Mr. Passantino was representing her,] Ms. Hutchinson said, Mr. Passantino told her that he would help her get her 'a really good job in Trump world.'" ~~~
... it's just a good reminder that the boss [i.e., Trump] does read transcripts.... And we want to make sure that, like, whatever he's reading isn't going to put you in a bad situation. -- Stefan Passantino, to Cassidy Hutchinson, according to her testimony
Nice little life you've got there, Sweetheart. Wouldn't want anything bad to happen to you. ~~~
~~~ Jacqueline Alemany, et al., of the Washington Post: "In addition to her own lawyer, Hutchinson claimed that Trump's former campaign lawyer, chief of staff, White House lawyers and other close confidants to the former president showered her with praise and promised that her loyalty would be rewarded.... She said she started hearing from multiple people in Trump's orbit about potential employment opportunities soon after Passantino started representing her. Those communications escalated on the eve of her March 7 interview with the committee, Hutchinson testified. Hutchinson said she received texts from Justin Clark, a former Trump campaign lawyer, on 10 different days in March, beginning four days ahead of her scheduled testimony. She also testified that Jason Miller, another Trump loyalist and chief executive of the social media platform Gettr, arranged a job interview for her with one of his executives there on March 8 -- the day after one of her committee interviews.... Pam Bondi, Florida's former attorney general, even let Hutchinson know one night in March that she had been the topic of conversation during a dinner with Trump himself in which a job working with a Republican heavyweight was discussed.... 'Pam texted me that night and said something to the effect of: "Susie, Matt Schlapp, and I had dinner with POTUS at Mar-a-Lago tonight. Call Matt next week. He has a job for you that we all think you'd be great at...."'" ~~~
~~~ Lawrence O'Donnell said on-air Thursday that Stefan Passantino has resigned from his law firm & is being investigated by his local bar association. MB: I can't find a print story on this, but if and when I do, I'll link it. Passantino -- who had been "a top Trump ethics lawyer" (ha ha) -- took a leave of absence from his firm earlier this week when news surfaced of his efforts to silence Hutchinson.
~~~ Alex Seitz-Wald of NBC News on how Cassidy Hutchinson decided to cooperate with the January 6 committee.
~~~ The January 6 committee released Cassidy Hutchinson's attorney. The links, via the committee, are here. ~~~
~~~ The January 6 committee released the testimony of five additional witnesses. The links, via the committee, are here.
Links to all of the committee's press releases begin here.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), in a New York Times op-ed: "... one line of effort to overturn the election is given scant attention, and that involved the willingness of so many members of Congress to vote to overturn it. Even after Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police put down the insurrection at great cost to themselves, the majority of Republicans in the House picked up right where they left off, still voting to overturn the results in important states."
Emily Brooks of the Hill: "A 'shadow committee' of the five House Republicans who were originally nominate to sit on the House Jan. 6 select committee released a counter-report about security failures on Wednesday, ahead of the official select committee's final report. The report focuses on changes to Capitol Police intelligence protocols in the run-up to Jan. 6, constraints on the House Sergeant at Arms, and communications between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) office and the House Sergeant at Arms. It is based on already-public documents and news reports, interviews with Capitol security officials and rank-and-file Capitol Police officers, and documents provided to the House Administration Committee Republican staff by the House Sergeant at Arms in January 2022.... House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had nominated Republican Reps. Jim Banks (Ind.), Rodney Davis (Ill.), Jim Jordan (Ohio), Kelly Armstrong (N.D.), and Troy Nehls (Texas) to sit on the Jan. 6 select committee last year. But after Pelosi vetoed the appointment of Banks and Jordan, McCarthy pulled the rest of his picks." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: I'm pretty sure a "report" one of Jungle Gym Jordan's unpaid interns ripped from the headlines of the Washington Star opinion page is quite valuable. I hope no trees died for this effort.
Alan Rappeport of the New York Times reports on the IRS's failure to examine Donald Trump's tax return, which the agency blames on understaffing. "After he left office, the I.R.S. said it was beefing up the audit team, [from one] to three.... The [House Ways & Means C]ommittee reports released this week highlight how depleted the I.R.S. has become in the last decade, as Republicans starved it of funding. They also show how the agency has become increasingly unable to crack down on wealthy taxpayers who push the legal limits to lower their tax bills and have the means to fend off audits if they get caught. That has led to a $7 trillion 'tax gap' of revenue over a decade that is owed but goes uncollected, in many cases from superrich taxpayers such as Mr. Trump, who has boasted that he fights to pay as little tax as possible.... Republicans have for years accused the I.R.S. of political bias and unfairly targeting conservatives. For that reason, they have fought to cut the agency's funding or, in some cases, called to abolish it altogether. The spending package that Congress is voting on this week reduces the base funding levels for the I.R.S. by $275 million to $12.32 billion, which Republicans hailed as a victory. However, that does not account for the $80 billion in supplemental funding that the I.R.S. was granted through the Inflation Reduction Act this year...."
Andrew Blankstein & Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "A man who carried what appeared to be a hammer at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, got into a standoff Thursday with the FBI for hours before special agents arrested him for his role in the riot, law enforcement officials said. The FBI arrested Eric Christie on Thursday after several hours in which he refused to cooperate with authorities after they arrived at a home in Sherman Oaks, California. Two law enforcement officials confirmed his arrest."
Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "The Senate on Thursday approved a roughly $1.7 trillion spending package that would fund the federal government into next fall and send another round of financial assistance to Kyiv, a day after lawmakers welcomed President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to Capitol Hill. Approval of the sprawling package came less than three days after it was unveiled, as lawmakers raced to avert a government shutdown and codify dozens of fiscal and legislative priorities. Mr. Zelensky's daring decision to visit Washington intensified the pressure to act on the measure, which includes nearly $50 billion in assistance to Ukraine. The Senate voted 68 to 29 to send the legislation to the House, which is set to take it up on Friday. Once it passes the House, President Biden is expected to sign the measure." (This is an update of a story linked yesterday.) An NBC News report is here.
Amy Wang & Liz Goodwin of the Washington Post: "A bipartisan bill that would change how members of Congress could object to electoral votes -- Congress's response to the Jan. 6 insurrection -- passed the Senate on Thursday as part of sweeping spending bill to fund the government.The Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act, sponsored by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), would amend the Electoral Count Act of 1887 and reaffirm that the vice president has only a ministerial role at the joint session of Congress where electoral college votes are counted. The measure also would raise the threshold necessary for members of Congress to object to a state's electors. The bill was driven by the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol...."
Aishvarya Kavi of the New York Times: "Congress gave final approval on Thursday to a bill to expand the U.S. government's power to prosecute international war crimes suspects who are in the United States, allowing them to be tried in a federal court regardless of the nationality of the victim or the perpetrator, or where the crime was committed. Experts say the legislation, shepherded by a bipartisan group of lawmakers amid reports of Russian forces committing war crimes in the brutal conflict in Ukraine, brings the U.S. legal code in line with international law and prevents the United States from being seen as a potential haven for war criminals. The bill, called the Justice for Victims of War Crimes Act, now goes to President Biden. It sped through the Senate and then the House in the hours surrounding a congressional address on Wednesday night by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who condemned President Vladimir V. Putin's Russia for targeting civilians and urged the United States to continue sending financial and military aid amid a winter assault."
Farnoush Amiri of the AP: "The House unanimously passed a bill Wednesday to posthumously award the Congressional Gold Medal to Emmett Till, the Chicago teenager murdered by white supremacists in the 1950s, and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. The bill, which passed the Senate in January, is meant to honor Till and his mother -- who had insisted on an open casket funeral to demonstrate the brutality of his killing -- with the highest civilian honor that Congress awards. The medal will be given to the National Museum of African American History where it will be displayed near the casket Till was buried in." (Also linked yesterday.) The New York Times report is here.
Matt Levietes of NBC News: “The New York attorney general's office said it is 'looking into a number of issues' surrounding Rep.-elect George Santos, who was the subject of a bombshell New York Times investigation that questions whether the incoming Republican lawmaker fabricated much of his biography, including his education, work history and financial dealings. The office, however, did not confirm whether it had opened an official investigation into Santos and declined to comment further on the matter.... 'To the people of #NY03 I have my story to tell and it will be told next week. I want to assure everyone that I will address your questions and that I remain committed to deliver the results I campaigned on; Public safety, Inflation, Education & more,' [Santos tweeted Thursday]."
~~~ Bryan Metzger of Insider, republished by Yahoo! News: George Santos (R-N.Y.) "Santos is the first non-incumbent out gay Republican ever elected to Congress.... The Daily Beast reported on Thursday that Santos divorced a woman named Uadla Santos in 2019, just two weeks before launching his ill-fated 2020 congressional campaign against Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi. The outlet was also unable to obtain records of his marriage to his husband. While it's possible that Santos is, in fact, gay, the marriage complicates public statements that Santos has made about his own sexuality. 'I'm a gay married man,' Santos told USA Today in October of this year. 'I am openly gay, have never had an issue with my sexual identity in the past decade, and I can tell you and assure you, I will always be an advocate for LGBTQ folks.' Santos never publicly disclosed his marriage to the woman." (Also linked yesterday.)
Rohan Goswami of CNBC & Marlene Lenthang of NBC News: "FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried will be released on $250 million bail, a federal judge in New York ruled Thursday. The 30-year-old appeared in court one day following his extradition from the Bahamas, where he was arrested on Dec. 12 following his indictment on a slew of charges related to the collapse of the crypto currency exchange. The $250 million bail is part of a deal designed by federal prosecutors and Bankman-Fried's defense attorneys, CNBC reported. His parents, both Stanford Law professors who were present in the courtroom, will put up the equity in their home to partially satisfy bail conditions." The rich are different from you and me. (Also linked yesterday.)
Robert Gebeloff & Dana Goldstein of the New York Times: "The pace of population growth picked up in the United States this year, driven primarily by immigration, but it remains near historically low levels, according to new estimates released on Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The population as of July 1 stood at 333.3 million, up about 0.4 percent compared with 12 months earlier, the biggest single-year increase since 2019 but still one of the slowest growth rates in the nation's history. The nation grew by less than 0.2 percent in 2021, which was the lowest one-year increase on record."
Beyond the Beltway
Florida. Maya Yang of the Guardian: "Florida's rightwing Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has appointed a judge who was previously ousted over a controversial ruling where he denied a teenager an abortion, citing her school grades. DeSantis appointed Jared Smith to the newly established sixth district court of appeal, an appointment which will begin on 1 January 2023. Smith previously served as a judge on the Hillsborough county court until he was ousted in August after his decision on the abortion-related case.... An appeals court eventually overturned the ruling. In August, Smith lost his re-election bid against Nancy Jacobs, a Tampa criminal defense and family law attorney."
New York. Kashmir Hill & Corey Kilgannon of the New York Times: "MSG Entertainment, the owner of [Madison Square Garden] and Radio City Music Hall, has put lawyers who represent people suing it on an 'exclusion list' to keep them out of concerts and sporting events.... [The company's] chief executive, James L. Dolan, is a billionaire who has run his empire with an autocratic flair, and his company instituted the ban this summer not only on lawyers representing people suing it, but on all attorneys at their firms. The company ... is enforcing the list with the help of [facial recognition] computer software.... Facial recognition technology is legal in New York, but lawyers have sued MSG Entertainment, saying the exclusion list is forbidden. The use of facial recognition technology to enforce it has raised an outcry not just from people turned away from Knicks games, but from civil liberties watchdogs, who called it a startling new frontier that demonstrated why the federal government should regulate the technology."
Way Beyond
Ukraine, et al.
The New York Times' live updates of developments Friday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Friday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Friday are here: "North Korea's foreign ministry on Friday denied providing weapons to Russia, following a Japanese newspaper report that North Korea had shipped munitions to Russia, and recent White House claims that North Korea has been covertly supplying Russia with artillery rounds.... The White House has accused North Korea of secretly transferring artillery shells to aid Russia, and of making a separate sale and delivery of missiles to Russia's Wagner group for use in Ukraine.... Wagner forces have been particularly active in and around the city of Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, National Security Council Lohn Kirby said Thursday, adding that 40,000 of the estimated 50,000 Wagner forces fighting in Ukraine are convicts directly recruited from Russian prisons.... Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a video of himself back in his office in Kyiv Friday, following his visit to Washington D.C.... Zelensky met with President of Poland Andrzej Duda for two hours on his way back from his trip to the United States.... A suspected spy who is an employee of Germany's foreign intelligence agency was arrested in Berlin after an internal investigation alleged he was sharing state secrets with Russia, according to German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.... The United States Senate unanimously agreed to a plan that would use some assets seized from Russian oligarchs to support Ukraine. The amendment, which is linked to the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill that is up for a vote in the House on Friday, is expected to bring billions of dollars to Ukraine."
Mary Ilyushina of the Washington Post: "After nearly 10 months of war, but referring to the brutal invasion of Ukraine instead as 'a special military operation,' Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday finally called it a 'war' for the first time, setting off an uproar among antiwar Russians who have been prosecuted for merely challenging the Kremlin-approved euphemism. 'Our goal is not to spin this flywheel of a military conflict, but, on the contrary, to end this war,' Putin said during a televised news conference following a government meeting on Thursday."
The New York Times has the full transcript of President Zelensky's speech before the Congressional joint meeting Wednesday evening. (Also linked yesterday.)
Reuters, via the Guardian: "Volodymyr Zelenskiy's surprise visit to Washington ... started with a secretive train ride to Poland late on Tuesday. The next morning he arrived in the southern Polish city of Przemysl, where he was spotted at the train station, according to footage from private broadcaster TVN, along with the US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, who accompanied him. Zelenskiy's visit had been planned for days and organised in secret because of concerns about his safety, but details were tweeted on Tuesday by a reporter from US-based newsletter Punchbowl News. In Poland, Zelenskiy boarded a US government plane which landed at about noon EST on Wednesday at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland near Washington. He traveled by motorcade to Blair House, the presidential guest house along Pennsylvania Avenue...."
China. Good Grief! Al Jazeera: "Nearly 37 million people in China may have been infected with COVID-19 on a single day this week, the Bloomberg news agency has reported, citing minutes from an internal meeting of the country's National Health Commission held on Wednesday. In all, the report which was published on Friday said about 18 percent of the country's population -- 248 million people -- are likely to have contracted the virus in the first 20 days of December. China is witnessing a dramatic surge in coronavirus cases since it dropped its controversial zero-COVID policy following widespread protests in recent weeks."
News Ledes
The Washington Post is live-updating developments in the winter storm that is pummeling much of the country. The New York Times' live updates are here.
Guardian: "More than 200 million people in nearly every US state are under various winter weather alerts, including for wind chill, ice and heavy snow, as a huge winter storm system threatens travel chaos and one of the coldest Christmas days on record. The coast to coast alerts extend as far south as Florida, with blizzard conditions expected in the Great Lakes region, up to 2in (5cm) of rain and a flash freeze on the East Coast, and wind gusts of 60 miles (100 km) an hour on the Mexican border.... The National Weather Service (NWS) said it expected a weather phenomenon known as a bomb cyclone -- a rapidly strengthening storm that drops 24 millibars of pressure within 24 hours -- to develop as it moves into the Great Lakes on Friday.... 'This is not like a snow day, when you were a kid, this is serious stuff,' the president, Joe Biden, said on Thursday."
New York Times: "A 69-year-old man was taken into custody on Friday in connection with shootings at a Kurdish community center, a hair salon and a restaurant in central Paris that left at least three people dead. Three other people were wounded, one of them seriously, according to the Paris prosecutor, in the attack shortly before noon on Rue d'Enghien a narrow street in the 10th Arrondissement of the French capital. Later on Friday, sadness in the local community turned to anger, and chaotic clashes between protesters and the police engulfed some streets in the area."
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Reader Comments (9)
Adam Schiff on not forgetting about Republican Congressmen: an essay in the Times:
"The Constitution cannot protect us if the people who swore to uphold it do not give meaning to their oath of office, if that oath is not informed by ideas of right and wrong and if people are unwilling to accept the basic truth of things. None of it will be enough."
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/22/opinion/adam-schiff-jan-6-committee-report-referrals.html
And Cassy H. should be given the gold star for thruthiness and courage.
I heard something on the teevee this morning that you might find useful. I have always believed that the idea that cold weather can make you sick was an old wives' tale. I heard it, read it, a renowned surgeon once told me that, too.
But this morning CNN reported that a recent study showed that cells in the nose that normally help fight off invasive beasties can stop working in cold weather, thus making you more susceptible to air-borne illnesses.
I'm thinking that wearing those N-95 masks I normally don as I walk into a public place might help outside, too, inasmuch as they do keep my nose warmer. I think I'll start putting them on in the car instead of as I walk into a store or office.
Marie,
A warmer nose would have suited me perfectly this morning. My walk with Rocket was performed in -26 degrees (-4 with wind chill). Multiple layers are helpful but it’s hard to do multiple layers on the schnozz. Luckily my old Eastern Mountain Sports winter parka has a hood that allows for a semi enclosure of the face, so it wasn’t instant frostbite. Nonetheless, I expect the usual shouts from the ignorant mouth breathers that cold snaps prove there is no global warming.
Or will we hear, at some point, from Sean Hannity, et al, that they never believed for a second that proof of a warming planet was all a hoax.
Nevertheless, our afternoon walk will be scheduled while temps are still on the positive side (trip to the mailbox: 1 degree).
Might try a mask though. Can’t hurt.
In my younger days I used to do a fair amount of snowshoeing, x-country skiing, and winter camping using both modes of transport. One of my most prized piece of winter apparel was my soft wool balaclava. Roll it up when warm, pull it down when cold. It was critical during my sub-zero (°F) escapades in the snowy wilderness. Just break off the icicles that form on the outside of it.
@unwashed: Good idea. But these days, if I saw you coming in a balaclava, I'd assume you were a winger come to shoot me dead. For voting or something.
This Floridian is fixing to freeze in temperatures that you people would gladly trade for. All I can do is wish that the cold would freeze abdominal fat instead of glutal.
@Marie, I understand the current sentiment but at that time I would have had a difficult time shooting anyone with a ski pole while wearing a 60 lb. backpack. Getting shot by anybody was never a concern back then. Doubtful, too, that others would be outside with me at -20°F while I'm snuggled up in my sleeping bag cozy as a pig in warm shit.
p.s. I've never worn camo.
Unwashed,
I’ve done plenty of winter backpacking and skiing (mostly downhill), but for some reason never used a balaclava past about 8th grade (back before global warming, when we had piles of snow in the winter).
My brother and I always took along things like space blankets stuffed in the bottom of our packs just in case. We got to use them when caught in an ice storm while climbing mountains in West Virginia one year, but kinda gave them up after two weeks in Baxter State Park in upstate Maine during a February trek. A ranger we ran into told us that the year before, rescue workers found the bodies of two very experienced backpackers. They were caught in the middle of an open field during a white out. The wind was so strong they couldn’t set up a tent and their space blankets were shredded. They were frozen solid when the rangers found them.
Don’t know if balaclavas would have helped, but we decided not to find out. We stuck to late fall expeditions after that.
Oh, and during that WV trip, once we finally got our tent set up and tied our food up in a tree, we had a visit from a black bear. He was moving around our campsite pissed off because our food pack was twenty feet up on a thin branch. He waltzed around our tent smacking the sides with his paws. My brother suggested that we be quiet because maybe he didn’t know we were there. I said “He knows. He just doesn’t give a shit.”
Thim was the days, as the old Mick used to say.