;)
Tuesday
Jan102023
January 10, 2023
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: "Allen H. Weisselberg, once one of Donald J. Trump's most loyal lieutenants, was sentenced on Tuesday to five months at the Rikers Island jail complex for his role in a tax fraud scheme that led to the conviction of the Trump Organization last year. A state court judge handed down the sentence after Mr. Weisselberg, 75, who worked for the Trump family for the past half-century, testified as the prosecution's star witness at the trial of the company. Mr. Weisselberg, its former chief financial officer, had been facing years in prison. Under a plea deal, he agreed to testify truthfully in exchange for a punishment that, with good behavior, might last no more than 100 days."
Hugo Lowell of the Guardian: "The US justice department is intensifying its investigation of Donald Trump's unauthorized retention of national security materials as it prepares to question the people who searched the former president's properties at the end of last year and found more documents with classified markings. The department was given a general explanation from Trump's lawyers at the time about who conducted the search.... But the department, unsatisfied with that accounting, last week convinced a federal judge in a sealed hearing to force Trump's lawyers to give the names of the people who retrieved the documents with an intent to question them directly.... The pattern of prosecutors now seeking judicial intervention at every turn signals an aggressive posture from the special counsel Jack Smith...." ~~~
~~~ Yeah But. Whaddaboud Joe? ~~~
~~~ Marcy Wheeler writes a post on the Biden confidential documents in which she calls out "insanely bad reporting, including this article from the NYT -- with four reporters bylined and two more contributing." That's the same NYT article linked below. In addition to other faults Wheeler finds with the Times reporters, she says they fail to "note that Biden is not complaining that this is under investigation, whereas Trump has never shut up about it. Indeed, a key part of Trump's defense has been that NARA had no authority to refer the matter for investigation. So Trump's embrace of this investigation eliminates a claim he has been relying on in his own defense. Another amusing difference is that for the entirety of the Trump Administration, Biden continued to have clearance; Biden decided not to continue intelligence briefings for Trump shortly after he launched a coup attempt.... But there's something else missing from the coverage so far: it's not even clear that the documents had been in Biden's possession, as opposed to another of his former staffers at the Obama White House. As CBS noted [also linked below], Tony Blinken was the Managing Director at the start, followed by Steve Richetti.... In other words, it might not even be a Biden thing." ~~~
~~~ Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: "Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough did an extended comedy bit mocking comparisons between President Joe Biden's self-reported and immediately-returned classified documents and the criminal probe into ... Donald Trump over classified docs." Video & transcript of route included. ~~~
~~~ Jamie Gangel & Marshall Cohen of CNN have an update on information about the documents found in President Biden's private office at U. Penn. MB: IMO, the opportunities for innocent explanations abound as to how those docs got there & stayed there, as long as Biden doesn't suddenly have a Trumpertantrum & declare, "It's not theirs; it's mine."
George Santos really likes the new House rules package that severely weakens the House ethics committee.
~~~~~~~~~~
Marie: Sorry for all the late entries. My computer would not wake up this morning, and every little entry took at least 20 minutes to post. I'll try again a little later. Fighting with an inanimate object has worn me out.
Michael Shear & Natalie Kitroeff of the New York Times: "President Biden was under growing political pressure Monday to confront the surge of undocumented migrants at the southern border as he began two days of diplomacy in Mexico City intended to secure more help from Mexico to stem the tide of people fleeing toward the United States. Mr. Biden is also looking for more cooperation from Mexico in the fight against drug trafficking, and for the resolution of a dispute over the Mexican government's financial support for its energy industries. He began those conversations on Monday evening with a one-on-one meeting with the country's president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the second time that the two leaders have met in person since Mr. Biden took office two years ago."
Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "House Republicans on Monday pushed through an overhaul of operating rules for the new Congress, overcoming the concerns of some rank-and-file members about concessions that Speaker Kevin McCarthy made to the hard right last week in the desperate and drawn-out process of securing his job.... On Monday, he was already confronting his first challenge, uncertain whether he would have the votes even to approve the rules that would allow the House to begin legislative business. In the end, a handful of holdouts dropped their opposition and supported the measure...." ~~~
~~~ Carl Hulse & Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "The set of new rules Republicans pushed through the House on Monday make it easier to remove their own speaker, establish new investigatory committees, and make it harder to raise taxes or spend federal money, and could potentially slow ethics investigations. The package, backed by the House on a mostly party-line vote, does not detail all of the concessions made by Kevin McCarthy to nail down the votes he needed to be elected speaker -- such as the allocation of prime committee assignments -- some of which were handshake deals or would require further action by House Republicans."
~~~ Marie: Rachel Maddow said Monday night on-air that she was concerned the most consequential "new rule" may be the one that sets of a committee, headed by Jungle Gym Jordan, to run "oversight" of "ongoing Justice Department investigations." If Congress is able to prevail over the DOJ, which certainly will tell the boys to butt out, that would mean Jordan & others would not only be snooping into, and possibly aborting, investigations of Donald Trump, but also investigations of themselves & other insurrectionists. For instance, Scott Perry, who wants to be on the committee, is already under investigation. Later, on Lawrence O'Donnell's show, Andrew Weissmann & Neal Katyal agreed that this was something up with which no reputable attorney general would put. ~~~
~~~ Hugo Lowell of the Guardian: "House Republicans moved to pre-emptively kill any investigations against its members as it curtailed the power of an independent ethics office just as it was weighing whether to open inquiries into lawmakers who defied subpoenas issued by the House January 6 select committee last year.... The rules package first undercut the ability of the office of congressional ethics (OCE) to function.... The changes to the OCE are twofold: reintroducing term limits for members of the bipartisan board, which would force out three of four Democratic-appointed members, and restricting its ability to hire professional staff in the first 30 days of the new congressional session.... In essence, the changes mean that by the time the OCE has a board, it may have run out of time to hire staff, leaving it with one counsel to do possible investigations into the new House speaker Kevin McCarthy and other Republican lawmakers who defied January 6 select committee subpoenas. There would also only be that one counsel to investigate Republican congressman George Santos...."
Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "Fulfilling their 2022 election pledge to take aim at President Biden's economic agenda, House Republicans late Monday voted to strip roughly $71 billion from the Internal Revenue Service, targeting money Congress approved last year to help the agency find and pursue tax cheats. The 221-210 outcome marked the first major legislative effort by a new GOP majority now under the leadership of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)." MB: Besides being Kevin's first bill, it is also his first bill designed to harm ordinary Americans. The noble idea here is to make sure that rich people don't have to pay their fair share & you have to wait on the phone for hours if you call the IRS. Fortunately, should the bill pass the Senate, which is unlikely, President Biden will veto it.
Peter Baker, et al., of the New York Times: "President Biden's lawyers discovered 'a small number' of classified documents in his former office at a Washington think tank last fall, the White House said on Monday, prompting the Justice Department to scrutinize the situation to determine how to proceed. The inquiry, according to two people familiar with the matter, is a type aimed at helping Attorney General Merrick B. Garland decide whether to appoint a special counsel, like the one investigating ... Donald J. Trump's hoarding of sensitive documents and failure to return all of them. The documents found in Mr. Biden's former office, which date to his time as vice president, were found by his personal lawyers on Nov. 2, when they were packing files at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, according to the White House.... The White House said in a statement that the White House Counsel's Office notified the National Archives and Records Administration on the same day the documents were found 'in a locked closet' and that the agency retrieved them the next morning.... The discovery was not in response to any prior request from the archives, and there was no indication that Mr. Biden or his team resisted efforts to recover any sensitive documents. Mr. Garland has assigned John R. Lausch Jr., the U.S. attorney in Chicago who was appointed by Mr. Trump, to look into the matter...." The CBS News story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: In case you are of the misapprehension that this is "just like" the Mar-a-Lago thing, it isn't. One of these things is not like the other. Biden's own lawyers & his own White House counsel's office immediately notified the Archives about the documents & immediately turned them over to the Archives. After the Archives discovered Trump had retained hundreds of classified documents & thousands of presidential records, Trump refused to turn them over and used his lawyers to obfuscate & withhold the purloined papers for more than half a year. The contrast could hardly be starker.
Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "Rudolph W. Giuliani, the lawyer who oversaw ... Donald J. Trump's legal challenges to the 2020 election, has received a grand jury subpoena for records related to his representation of Mr. Trump, including those that detailed any payments he received, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday. The subpoena, which was sent in November, bore the name of a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office in Washington. It predated the appointment of Jack Smith, the special counsel chosen to take over the Justice Department's investigation of the roles that Mr. Trump and several of his aides and lawyers played in seeking to overturn the results of the election. It remained unclear, however, if Mr. Smith and his team have assumed control of the part of the inquiry related to Mr. Giuliani. As part of its investigation, the special counsel's office has been examining, among other things, the inner workings of Mr. Trump's fund-raising vehicle, Save America PAC. The records subpoenaed from Mr. Giuliani could include some related to payments made by the PAC...." NEW. CNN's report is here.
Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "A special grand jury investigating ... Donald J. Trump and his allies for possible election interference in Georgia after the 2020 contest has concluded its work, according to Judge Robert McBurney of the Superior Court of Fulton County, who oversaw the grand jury.... The report has not been publicly released, so it is not clear what the grand jury recommended [or].... A hearing will be held on Jan. 24 to determine whether the report will be made public, as the grand jury is recommending, according to the judge's order. Any criminal charges would have to be sought from one of the regular grand juries that consider criminal matters in the county." CNN's story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Keith Alexander of the Washington Post: "The D.C. Court of Appeals on Tuesday will hear arguments on whether Donald Trump was acting within his job as president when he denied a writer's allegation that he sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s -- a legal question that is key to whether the writer's defamation lawsuit against Trump can move forward. Lawyers for the New York-based writer E. Jean Carroll argue that Trump acted as a private citizen when he denied raping Carroll, and therefore can be sued like anyone else. Trump's lawyers argue that his responses were made as part of his job as president -- which would effectively end Carroll's case against him."
Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: "A complaint filed Monday with the Federal Election Commission accused Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), who has admitted to fabricating key details of his biography, of wide-ranging campaign finance violations. The alleged wrongdoing includes masking the true source of his campaign's funding, misrepresenting his campaign's spending and using campaign resources to cover personal expenses. The complaint, filed by the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, could propel a formal investigation into Santos by the federal regulator, the latest chapter in a saga testing the boundaries of political falsehood. Santos has been revealed to have lied about his heritage, education and professional qualifications during his campaign for Congress last year."
Benjamin Wiser & Lola Fadulu of the New York Times: The trial began Monday of "Sayfullo Saipov, the man accused of driving a rental truck down [Lower Mahattan's Hudson River bike] path, killing eight people and wounding more than a dozen others, all in the name of the Islamic State.... Mr. Saipov is the first person to face a death penalty trial during the administration of President Biden, who had campaigned against capital punishment.... [Donald Trump's] attorney general ... authorized prosecutors in the Southern District of New York to seek Mr. Saipov's execution if he was convicted [after Trump tweeted, 'SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!']. Mr. Saipov's lawyers last year asked the Justice Department under President Biden to withdraw the death penalty request, but Attorney General Merrick B. Garland refused."
Beyond the Beltway
Arkansas. Jonathan Edwards of the Washington Post: "On Thursday, [Arkansas Judge Thomas] Carruth, 63, was arrested on accusations that he solicited sex in exchange for judicial favors and then lied about it to the FBI. A federal grand jury in the U.S. District of Eastern Arkansas has indicted him on three counts of honest services wire fraud, three counts of using a facility in interstate commerce in furtherance of unlawful activity, one count of bribery, one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice.... Carruth resigned his position as judge in August before successfully running for city attorney of Clarendon, a town of about 1,500 in Monroe County, Ark., according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette." In 2018, the state's Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission admonished him for the same type of conduct. According to the federal indictment, in 2018, Carruth "had solicited sexual favors from women appearing before him as a judge." ~~~
~~~ Marie: One would think that the people of a small town like Clarendon would know what a slimeball Carruth (allegedly!) is. But they elected him to a position of responsibility anyway.
New Mexico. Jesus Jiménez & April Rubin of the New York Times: "The authorities in Albuquerque announced Monday that a suspect in the recent shootings at the homes or offices of a half-dozen Democratic elected officials was in custody on unrelated charges and that they had recovered a gun used in at least one of the shootings. Officials did not release information on the suspect other than to say that he is a man under 50; nor would they say what the unrelated charges were.... The authorities have not definitively tied the shootings to politics or ideology."
Virginia. Justin Jouvenal, et al., of the Washington Post: "Abigail Zwerner was teaching a lesson Friday at a Virginia elementary school when a 6-year-old student pulled out a 9mm handgun he had brought from home, pointed it in her direction and fired a single shot, police said Monday. The bullet tore through the teacher's raised hand and hit her chest, but despite the grievous wound, the 25-year-old managed to usher 16 to 20 students to safety from her Richneck Elementary School classroom in Newport News, police said.Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew credited Zwerner with saving lives Monday, after watching the aftermath of the shooting unfold on school surveillance video.... The boy's mother had purchased the gun legally, Drew said.... The motive for the shooting remains under investigation, but Drew said it was not preceded by any kind of altercation, as police had previously indicated. They are still investigating how the boy got the gun from his home."
Way Beyond
Ukraine, et al. The Washington Post's live briefing of developments Tuesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "Fighting has intensified around Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region, Kyiv warned Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russian forces 'have concentrated their greatest efforts' on Soledar, a salt mining town just three miles from Bakhmut, where the land is 'covered with the corpses of the occupiers and scars from the strikes.' A senior Ukrainian defense official said Russian forces had regrouped and launched a powerful assault on Soledar over the weekend. The recent fighting has been 'really savage,' including 'thousands upon thousands of artillery rounds that have been delivered between both sides,' a senior U.S. defense official said Monday.... Russian forces and hired fighters from the Wagner Group are likely in control of most of [Soledar], Britain's Defense Ministry said Tuesday.... Iran could be contributing to war crimes in Ukraine by providing military support to Russia, the White House said Monday. Russia has used hundreds of Iranian attack drones to target civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials."
Brazil, U.S. Miriam Berger, et al., of the Washington Post: Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro's "tenure in [Florida], where some analysts believe he's hoping to stay clear of possible legal trouble back home, could be limited. If he entered the United States on a diplomatic visa, he would have to depart by the end of the month or apply for a different status, the State Department said Monday, amid calls by some lawmakers to extradite the far-right leader. The United States requires all visitors from Brazil to acquire a visa. But Bolsonaro's legal status remains murky. Both the White House and the State Department have refused to comment on his visa status, citing the need to protect individual confidentiality.... The White House said that while it had not yet received any requests from Brazil regarding Bolsonaro's 'visa status,' it would 'treat seriously' any inquiries to review or revoke it." ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post is live-updating developments related to the riots in Brazil's capital. ~~~
~~~ Michael Luciano of Mediaite: "Tucker Carlson baselessly claimed Brazil's presidential election was rigged and said rioters who stormed government buildings in the capital city have reason to be angry.... On Monday, Carlson, who conducted a softball interview with Bolsonaro in June, told his audience unequivocally that Brazil's election was 'very clearly. stolen.... [Carlson] went on to allege [current President] Lula 'has eliminated [the rioters'] most basic civil liberties,' though he did not explain how."
>News Ledes
New York Times: "Blake Hounshell, an influential political journalist who was managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine and a top editor at Politico before joining The New York Times and overseeing its popular newsletter 'On Politics,' died on Tuesday in Washington. He was 44."
"The Forger." New York Times: Adolfo "Kaminsky died on Monday at his home in Paris, his daughter Sarah Kaminsky said. He was 97.... Kaminsky's talent was as banal as could be: He knew how to remove supposedly indelible blue ink from paper. But it was a skill that helped save the lives of thousands of Jews in France during World War II. He had learned how to remove such stains as a teenager working for a clothes dyer and dry cleaner in his Normandy town. When he joined the anti-Nazi resistance at 18, his expertise enabled him to erase Jewish-sounding names like Abraham or Isaac that were officially inscribed on French ID and food ration cards, and substitute them with typically gentile-sounding ones. The forged documents allowed Jewish children, their parents and others to escape deportation to Auschwitz and other concentration camps, and in many cases to flee Nazi-occupied territory for safe havens." ~~~
~~~ You can watch the New York Times' award-winning 2016 documentary about Kaminsky here. (NYT link.)
New York Times: "Charles Simic, the renowned Serbian-American poet whose work combined a melancholy old-world sensibility with a sensual and witty sense of modern life, died on Monday at an assisted living facility in Dover, N.H. He was 84."
Washington Post: "Heavy rain will continue to fall over California on Tuesday, weather officials said, as the ongoing bout of strong storms ravages the state, causing flash flooding, toppled trees, at least 14 fatalities and sweeping away a 5-year-old boy who remains missing."
Share Article
Comments for this entry have been disabled. Additional comments may not be added to this entry at this time.
Reader Comments (11)
Eat up!
Newly neutered Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, as one of the dozens of onerous and nation destroying concessions to the risibly named Freeeedom Cock-us, has announced that the House dining hall has supplanted all breakfast offerings in favor of TOTALitartian cereal.
TOTALitarian cereal offers 100% of daily requirements of all infectious, malignant, and pestilential pathogens necessary to undermine democratic institutions, halt ethics investigations into Republican shenanigans, cut funding to the IRS, DoJ, FBI and any other governmental bodies looking into treasonous activities past, present, or future, warp higher brain functions, and promote growth of the unhealthiest of tumors deadly to the ethical operation of good government, observation of the (whole) Constitution, and fulfillment of oaths of office.
Sure to be a hit with growing authoritarians.
Marie,
Thanks for your heroic fight against mindless obduracy. It does wear one out.
Imagine that the Dems in the House will share that same feeling for much of the next two years.
Marie: Sorry you are having problems with your computer––I am also–-must be the minions in the muddle over at RNC headquarters that continue to mess with us "truth seekers" otherwise known as "sooth sayers"–––so thanks for your efforts!
A happy story about a 11 year old autistic boy gifted a grand piano and lessons after a piano tuner saw a local news segment about how the boy was a natural on his electric keyboard.
RAS,
Great story. It’s important to be reminded that in a world that seems dominated by crooks and wretched liars like Trump and KKKarlson and Freeeedom Cock-us fascists, there are plenty of wonderful people with hearts and souls intact. The unalloyed joy of little kids is one of life’s greatest gifts to all of us.
Marie,
Back in high school, we had an old locker room radio that was on non-stop when we were working out. Except when it wasn’t. Whenever it quit, someone would smack it or drop a weight on it. That never failed to revive it. Not sure that’ll work on a computer, but plenty of times I’ve wanted to test it out.
@Akhilleus: Great advice, I'm sure! In fact, I do have some weights that I keep beside my computer so I can do light exercises while I'm waiting for the computer to "do something." Next time, I'll try dropping the weights on the computer.
After I gave my computer a rest late this morning, I decided to take a break & phone Verizon because I was having trouble with my new cellphone, a phone I had to buy because my old one was so antiquated that Verizon would no longer support it. Well, hahahahaha. Verizon is one of the many large companies that never allow you to talk to a real person.
After trying several different tacks (one of which included yelling at my landline - a phone that works -- for now), I discovered I could solve part of one of my cellphone problems on the Verizon Website. But that was in reality only half a solution, so I decided to see if I could get to the whole solution (to this one problem of several) by going through their automated "help" (again, hahahaha) menu. Well, they must have one actual person handling their millions of queries, and by accident or by some cock-up in their system, I got her, and she solved all my problems (or at least all of the ones I know about now).
So it was just a technological meltdown kind of morning. I'm thinking carrier pigeons.
Carrier pigeon sounds good. Please let us know how well it works. However I imagine keeping the cote clean isn't much fun. Most technology from 2000 on has escaped me. I'm just hoping Apple's Procreate is easier than Photoshop or I'll go with the children books illustrator and writer, Grace Lin, who says she always uses layers ie tracing paper when working can a drawing. Old fashion paper, pencils, and dial up telephones are really user friendly.
Marie,
I deal with AT&(fucking)T. A few years ago my wife and I found ourselves at a party where couples were asked questions to see how well they knew each other. My wife was asked what she thought I hated most in the world. Since I was surrounded by Trump voters, I decided not to say “Donald Trump” or “the Republican Party”, so I said “AT&T”. She got it right. I guess my frequent shouting at computerized “help menus” gave it away.
Speaking of Republicans and homicide inducing automated “help menus”, the instant attack on the IRS by the fascist controlled House, guarantees plenty of expletive laden phone calls as the likes of sexual abuse supporter Gym Jordan take a blowtorch to the single most important entity supporting the government’s ability to help non-rich Americans.
Another much despised governmental agency (by R’s), Medicare, as well as Medicaid, will certainly come in for similar treatment. No doubt, the excuse will be trying to make hated guv’mint services be more like “bidness”, like, for instance AT&(fucking)T.
But a few weeks ago, I had some questions about so-called Medicare Advantage plans. I called Medicare and after waiting an entirely reasonable 10 minutes, spoke to not one, but two, smart, lovely ladies who spent the best part of an hour patiently answering all my questions. One lady was so funny. She said “Well, honey, I can’t tell you what to do about advantage plans, but this one (one I was looking at) comes in for more complaints than airlines that lose your bags before you’re buckled in”. Haha!
I’m sure Gaetz will make sure that wonderful and incredibly helpful employees like this lady will be let go for dissing one of his donors.
Nothing like talking to a human. Especially a smart one.
A number of the IRS agents being hired are supposed to be customer service reps to help the regular Joes deal with their questions. So, as usual the Wingers are helping the rich and hurting everyone else. But that is what these people signed up for.
RAS,
And here’s another problem. The problem with a lot of these service reps is that they tend to be newbies. Questions beyond basic problems might be over their heads. It’s not unlike the reason (well, one reason) the IRS never finished a Trump audit. Because their guys can’t compete with Fatty’s army of experienced tax cheat attorneys. This is why John and Mary Doe get audited but Trump and the Kochs and Elon Musk never do.
The ladies I spoke with at Medicare were outstanding. I’ve spoken with too many help desk types over the years who will pause when asked a detailed question, hem and haw, say they’ll have to ask a superior about this cuz they’ve never heard of anything like it, then hang up. Not those Medicare ladies. And if they weren’t sure anout something, they said so, instead of bullshitting me.
These are the people that the traitors in the House want—NEED—to get rid of. Good information, truth, facts, are their enemies.
And they know it.