July 12, 2023

Afternoon Update:

Jeanna Smialek of the New York Times: "Inflation data released on Wednesday showed a pronounced cooling and offered some of the most hopeful news since the Federal Reserve began trying to tame rapid price increases 16 months ago. The Consumer Price Index climbed 3 percent in the year through June, less than the 4 percent increase in the year through May and just a third of its roughly 9 percent peak last summer. That overall metric catches big declines in gas prices and a few other products that could prove ephemeral, which is why policymakers closely watch a different measure: the change in prices after stripping out food and fuel costs. That measure, known as the core index, offered news that was even better than what economists had expected, sending stocks higher as investors bet that the news would allow the Fed to raise interest rates by less than they otherwise might have." This is part of a liveblog. ~~~

     ~~~ Emma Kinery of CNBC: "President Joe Biden on Wednesday celebrated new data that showed inflation cooling more quickly than expected. 'Good jobs and lower costs: That's Bidenomics in action,' Biden said in a statement. 'Today's report brings new and encouraging evidence that inflation is falling while our economy remains strong.'"

Julie Weil of the Washington Post: "About 10 million people type their personal financial information into H&R Block, TaxSlayer and TaxAct websites every year to prepare their taxes, trusting the companies to keep their information safe. Instead, the companies shared that personal information with Google and Facebook, some going as far back as 2011, members of Congress wrote in a new report.The congressional investigation, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), follows a report last year about such data-sharing with Facebook by the technology journalism website The Markup. Warren and six other lawmakers wrote to the Justice Department on Tuesday urging criminal charges against the companies for violating laws that prevent tax preparers from sharing their clients' personal information." CNN's report is here.

Adam Goldman & Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "Republicans bombarded Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, with criticisms about his role in the Trump documents investigation, efforts to address extremist violence and the bureau's surveillance practices during a grim and contentious House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday. Republicans on the committee, led by the chairman, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, treated Mr. Wray as if he were a hostile witness -- repeatedly interrupting his attempts to answer their rapid-fire queries. Most of the Republicans sought to portray the nation's premier law enforcement agency, and Mr. Wray, who was appointed by ... Donald J. Trump, as political tools of the Democrats.... Mr. Wray, a registered Republican, forcefully rejected accusations tha he had sought to protect President Biden, or his son Hunter Biden, or that he had targeted Mr. Trump -- describing the F.B.I.'s role in the search at Mar-a-Lago last August as lawful, restrained and prompted by a court order.... Anticipating the questioning to come, the top Democrat on the committee, Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, described the hearing as 'little more than performance art.'"

Mattew Chapman of the Raw Story: "Freshman Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) was booted off Wikipedia after violating guidelines by repeatedly editing the site's article about himself, reported The Daily Beast on Wednesday.... Lawler was elected in 2022 in an upset, defeating Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who served as the chair of the Democrats' congressional fundraising arm -- one of many casualties in New York, where Democrats suffered some of their heaviest losses of the cycle." MB: The edits cited seem fairly anodyne: "Among other things, Lawler added himself as a notable alumnus of Manhattan College, wrote that he 'serves as the Ranker of the Government Operations Committee and as a member of the Aging, Banks, Education, and Housing Committees,' and updated his name from 'Mike Lawler' to 'Michael V. Lawler' on one section."

Cat Zakrzewski & Caroline O'Donovan of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Tuesday allowed Microsoft to move forward with its $69 billion acquisition of video game maker Activision, in a resounding blow to U.S. regulators' efforts to block consolidation in the tech industry. The Federal Trade Commission had asked the court to intervene in the deal after it brought an administrative lawsuit last year that alleged the acquisition was anticompetitive.... In a 53-page redacted decision, Northern California District Court Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley said the FTC had not demonstrated it was likely to show that the deal would substantially limit competition." Corley is a Biden appointee.

Jeffrey Fisher in a New York Times op-ed: "Add this to the ways in which the Supreme Court is increasingly resembling just another political institution: Only one side of the ideological divide has the power to set the institution's agenda.... Under longstanding tradition, it takes four votes to put a case on the court's docket.... And the Democratic appointees now seem to find themselves one vote short in case after case.... For the court to reverse a lower court decision refusing to honor a civil liberty, the case first has to be put on its docket. And that seems no longer to be happening in cases involving established rights favored by the liberal wing of the court."

Presidential Race 2024. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) plans to headline an event in New Hampshire next week sponsored by the bipartisan group No Labels, a move that has stoked speculation that he could mount a third-party presidential bid in 2024 that Democrats fear could be damaging to President Biden. Manchin is scheduled to appear Monday at the group's 'Common Sense' town hall at St. Anselm College alongside former Utah governor Jon Huntsman (R). No Labels is eying a potential 'unity' ticket in 2024, though organizers say no decision has been made."

Georgia. Neil Vigdor of the New York Times: "A Democrat who represents part of Atlanta in Georgia's House of Representatives defected to the Republican Party on Tuesday, saying she was subject to a campaign of intimidation by onetime political allies after breaking with them on school vouchers, policing and prosecutorial oversight. Mesha Mainor, a two-term representative from the 56th District in Fulton County, announced she was switching parties during a news conference outside the Capitol in Atlanta. Republicans now have a 102 to 78 majority in the House."

Paul Sonne of the New York Times: "Gen. Sergei Surovikin of Russia, a onetime ally of the Wagner chief who hasn't been seen publicly since a short-lived mutiny last month, is 'taking a rest,' one of the country"s top lawmakers said Wednesday, when pressed by a reporter." MB: Golly, I wonder if he's taking that rest anywhere near a window in a high-rise building.

~~~~~~~~~~

The New York Times' live updates of developments Wednesday in the NATO summit & in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine is expected to meet with President Biden and join discussions with other NATO leaders on Wednesday, a day after the alliance confirmed eventual membership for Ukraine but without a timeline.... Pledges of new military aid also marked the first day of the two-day summit. Included among those was a promise from France of midrange missiles, which Russia called a mistake and warned of unspecified countermeasures.... Russian forces attacked the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, with drones early Wednesday for the second day in a row. Ukrainian officials said all of the drones were intercepted. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and President Biden met one on one on Tuesday, a day after Turkey dropped its objections to Sweden joining NATO." ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Wednesday are here: "As the second day of the NATO summit got underway, Ukraine's allies indicated that they would provide Ukraine with security guarantees to bolster the country's defenses in the long term.... The announcement came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized NATO leaders for failing to provide Ukraine with a clear timeline for membership in the alliance." ~~~

     ~~~ The Guardian's live updates for Wednesday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here.

Sean Lyngaas of CNN: "China-based hackers have breached email accounts at two-dozen organizations, including some United States government agencies, in an apparent spying campaign aimed at acquiring sensitive information, according to statements from Microsoft and the White House late Tuesday. The full scope of the hack is being investigated, but US officials and Microsoft have been quietly scrambling in recent weeks to assess the impact of the hack and contain the fallout."

Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., President Biden's choice to lead the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tangled with Senate Republicans on Tuesday as they peppered him with questions about China, Ukraine and Pentagon cultural policies denounced as 'woke' by critics on the right. From the testimony's outset, Brown sought to highlight his extensive experience leading U.S. troops and allies overseas, proudly telling members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that, as a general, he had spent less time in Washington than he had 'either in conflict or preparing for conflict.'... Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) accused Brown, who has led the Air Force since 2020, of suggesting there were 'too many White officers' in the military. Schmitt cited as evidence a memo that Brown signed last year setting aspirational diversity goals for Air Force applicants.... Even though Republicans and Democrats on the committee both voiced support for Brown's nomination, it is unclear how quickly the process can move. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), a member of the armed services committee, has placed a hold on the promotion of more than 250 senior military officers...."

Very White of You, Tommy. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), facing a barrage of criticism over a Monday night television interview in which he refused to say white nationalists are racists, relented Tuesday afternoon, acknowledging to reporters on Capitol Hill that they in fact are. 'White nationalists are racists,' Tuberville told reporters, after earlier exchanges with reporters in which he continued to insist that was a matter of opinion, a position that echoed his comments from an interview the night before.... Tuberville's remarks drew a sharp rebuke Tuesday from Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who urged Tuberville to apologize. 'The senator from Alabama is wrong, wrong, wrong,' Schumer said on the Senate floor. 'The definition of white nationalism is not a matter of opinion. White nationalism, the ideology that one race is inherently superior to others, that people of color should be segregated, subjected to second-class citizenship, is racist down to its rotten core. For the senator from Alabama to obscure the racist nature of white nationalism is indeed very, very dangerous.'... Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) didn't comment directly but said, 'White supremacy is simply unacceptable in our military and in our entire country.'"

Rick Maese of the Washington Post: "PGA Tour officials defended their shocking partnership with the Saudi Public Investment Fund during a Senate investigative subcommittee hearing Tuesday. But even as the hearing underscored the fragility of that relationship, a trove of documents released by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations showed the parties discussing several dramatic proposals that would significantly alter the pro golf landscape.... Tour executives made clear in the hearing that the sides still have wrinkles to work out..., and the exact size of the massive Saudi investment that tour officials say will help stabilize the fractured world of pro golf. 'There is no merger. There is no deal. There is simply an agreement to try to get to an agreement and settle lawsuits,' said Jimmy Dunne, the PGA Tour policy board member who helped broker the arrangement.... Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), chair of the subcommittee, was the most pointed lawmaker in his questioning of the PGA Tour representatives -- Dunne and Ron Price, the tour's chief operating officer...."

Karoun Demirjian of the New York Times: "Hard-right House Republicans are pushing to use the yearly bill that sets the United States military budget and policy as an opportunity to pick fights with the Biden administration over abortion, race and transgender issues, imperiling its passage and the decades-old bipartisan consensus in Congress around backing the Pentagon. Republican leaders have scheduled votes beginning on Wednesday on the $886 billion measure, but as of Tuesday evening, they had yet to dissuade their ultraconservative colleagues from efforts to load it up with politically charged provisions to combat what the G.O.P. calls 'wokeness' in the military. Those proposals -- including rolling back a Pentagon policy providing service members access to abortions and defunding the military's diversity, equity and inclusion programs -- would alienate the moderate Republicans and Democrats whose votes would be needed to get the bill through the narrowly divided House." ~~~

     ~~~ Sarah Ferris & Jordain Carney of Politico: "Speaker Kevin McCarthy is working furiously to prevent another House floor takeover by his hardest-right conservatives as the GOP prepares to tackle some of the year's biggest bills. With the House back for a final stretch before its August recess, McCarthy on Tuesday afternoon summoned a group of leaders from multiple corners of his conference to shape a strategy for staving off further right-wing revolts -- which his team can't afford this summer. Underscoring the urgency of their task, the group of GOP lawmakers met in the shadow of what could become a new right-flank rebellion over the rule for debating a must-pass Pentagon policy bill." The meeting did not go especially well.

Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "The co-director of a Maryland-based research group who claims to have damaging information about Hunter Biden has been charged with arms trafficking, sanctions violations and acting as an unregistered agent for China, according to a federal indictment unsealed on Monday. In an eight-count indictment, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York accused Gal Luft, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, of violating the Arms Export Control Act and the Foreign Agents Registration Act in brokering arms deals between Chinese companies, Iran and countries in the Middle East. Mr. Luft, promoted by some congressional Republicans as a keystone witness in their efforts to show corruption by the Biden family, is a fugitive from justice.... Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, recently described Mr. Luft as a 'very credible witness on Biden family corruption' and said that he hoped to interview him, regardless of the government's allegations.... Democrats said that Mr. Comer and other Republicans have shown they are willing to go to any lengths to smear the Bidens, even to the point of accepting the word of a man accused of being a Chinese agent and illegal arms dealer over that of federal law enforcement officials." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Luft, IOW, is (allegedly!) guilty of anything he claimed Hunter Biden might have done -- and then some. He is the same supposed "whistleblower" whom Comer admitted on Fox "News" had gone "missing." He went missing, it turns out, because he was a fugitive from justice. Josh Kovensky of TPM has more: ~~~

     ~~~ Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "House Republicans on Tuesday said they still hope to call a man indicted on charges of arms trafficking and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Chinese entities as a witness in their investigations of President Biden and his son Hunter. Senior Republicans dismissed the importance of the charges against the fugitive defendant and instead accused the Justice Department, the FBI and other authorities of orchestrating a vast conspiracy on behalf of the first family, providing no documentation or other evidence to support their accusations." MB: I don't know how an old duffer like Joe Biden, who is apparently too addled to tie his shoes, or how a drugged-up Hunter Biden could have engineered this vast left-wing conspiracy. Maybe Joe just waved his "Article II" at DOJ lawyers and they worked it out. ~~~

     ~~~ Unfortunately, Marcy Wheeler points out another little flaw in the conspiracy theory: Luft "was charged before he started regaling dim-witted Chairmen about dirt on Hunter Biden. This prosecution can't be about retaliation for the conspiracy theories he told Comer -- the indictment precedes it all by months.... [And] well before Luft told Comer anything, he had been charged for lying at the very meeting [with DOJ investigators in Brussels, Belgium, in March 2019,] he's now claiming he was retaliated for. Comer was duped. Again. Given the precedent of Eric Swalwell, who was removed from the House Intelligence Committee after having been cultivated by a Chinese agent, Comer should be stripped of his gavel and referred to the ethics committee." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Jim Comer had a very bad Monday. Not only did his "star witness" against Hunter Biden turn out to be an (alleged!) international criminal & fugitive from justice, but also the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney who charged Hunter with misdemeanors refuted another fake whistleblower's claim that Merrick Garland had constrained his investigation & limited the charges he could bring against Hunter. Fortunately for Comer, he's such an inept comic figure and his party is in such disarray, that instead of being stripped of his committee assignment as Marcy Wheeler suggested, he's pressing forward with his fake "investigation."

Kate Brumback of the AP: "A grand jury that was sworn in Tuesday in Atlanta will likely consider whether criminal charges are appropriate for ... Donald Trump or his Republican allies for their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia." The article goes on to explain how Georgia's grand jury system works. ~~~

~~~ Marshall Cohen of CNN: "The Georgia grand jury that is expected to consider charges against ... Donald Trump and his Republican allies for trying to overturn the 2020 election is being selected Tuesday in Atlanta. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, an elected Democrat, launched the investigation in early 2021, after Trump tried to overturn his defeat in the Peach State with a public and private pressure campaign targeting Georgia election officials, the governor, lawmakers and prosecutors. A special grand jury previously heard testimony from 75 witnesses, including Trump advisers, his former attorneys, White House aides, and Georgia officials. That panel issued a redacted report with charging recommendations, which will soon be weighed by the new grand jury. Willis has indicated that final decisions could come next month." (Also linked yesterday.)

Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "The Justice Department has taken an unusual step in court to try to protect ... Donald Trump from testifying under oath in a lawsuit from former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. Lawyers from the federal agency are asking the federal appeals court in Washington, DC, to block an upcoming deposition of Trump, according to a new court filing on Tuesday. The DOJ has gone to the appeals court to try to correct what it believes was a mistake from a lower court, when Judge Amy Berman Jackson decided Trump could be deposed by Strzok's and Page's legal teams about Strzok being fired following his work on the Russia investigation."

Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department said Tuesday that it will no long seek to make the U.S. government the defendants in a lawsuit filed against Donald Trump by a writer who says the former president raped her several decades ago. The decision comes after three years in which the department, under both Republican and Democratic leadership, argued that Trump was acting within his presidential duties when he denied sexually assaulting columnist E. Jean Carroll. That determination made Trump, like other federal employees acting in their official capacity, totally immune from any liability. On Tuesday, a Justice Department leader said in a court filing that two things had changed since they first moved to intervene in the case. First, a D.C. court clarified the law around what qualifies as public work, saying that ... official responses to press questions didn't always qualify and that the professional purpose can be so 'insignificant' as to be irrelevant. Second, a jury in New York State Court found that Trump sexually abused and defamed Carroll, and he has been accused of defaming her again in response to that verdict. (The jury did not find that Trump raped her, and he has since accused Carroll of defamation for insisting he did)." CNN's story is here.

Brian Slodysko & Eric Tucker of the AP: "The Associated Press obtained tens of thousands of pages of emails and other documents that reveal the extent to which public colleges and universities have seen visits by [Supreme Court] justices as opportunities to generate donations -- regularly putting justices in the room with influential donors, including some whose industries have had interests before the court. The documents also reveal that justices spanning the court's ideological divide have lent the prestige of their positions to partisan activity, headlining speaking events with prominent politicians, or advanced their own personal interests, such as sales of their books, through college visits. The conduct would likely be prohibited if done by lower court federal judges.... 'The justices should be aware that people are selling access to them,' said University of Virginia law professor Amanda Frost, an ethics expert.... At least one justice, [Sonia] Sotomayor, seemed keenly aware of the peril of being in a setting with donors. Early in her Supreme Court tenure, she rejected a suggestion that she dine with major contributors to the University of Hawaii during a 2012 visit.... 'Canon 2(B) of the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges provides that a judge "should avoid lending the prestige of judicial office to advance the private interests of the judge or others,"' [her aide wrote]." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ BUT. Brian Slodysko & Eric Tucker of the AP: Justice Sonia "Sotomayor's staff has often prodded public institutions that have hosted the justice to buy her memoir or children's books, works that have earned her at least $3.7 million since she joined the court in 2009. Details of those events, largely out of public view, were obtained by The Associated Press through more than 100 open records requests to public institutions.... The documents reveal repeated examples of taxpayer-funded court staff performing tasks for the justice's book ventures, which workers in other branches of government are barred from doing. But when it comes to promoting her literary career, Sotomayor is free to do what other government officials cannot because the Supreme Court does not have a formal code of conduct.... Supreme Court staffers have been deeply involved in organizing speaking engagements intended to sell books.... None of the justices has as forcefully leveraged publicly sponsored travel to boost book sales as has Sotomayor, according to emails and other records reviewed by the AP....

"Sotomayor's publisher, Penguin Random House, also has played a role in organizing her talks, in some cases pressing public institutions to commit to buying a specific number of copies or requesting that attendees purchase books to obtain tickets, emails show. The publisher has had several matters before the court in which Sotomayor did not recuse herself." MB: Sotomayor's Supreme Court staff also have been telling the universities how many copies of her books they should purchase. Sometimes members of the public who want to meet Justice Sotomayor have to purchase copies of her book to get into the room. (Also linked yesterday.)

Stephanie Kirchgaessner of the Guardian: "Several lawyers who have had business before the supreme court, including one who successfully argued to end race-conscious admissions at universities, paid money to a top aide to Justice Clarence Thomas, according to the aide's Venmo transactions. The payments appear to have been made in connection to Thomas's 2019 Christmas party. The payments to Rajan Vasisht, who served as Thomas's aide from July 2019 to July 2021, seem to underscore the close ties between Thomas ... and certain senior Washington lawyers who argue cases and have other business in front of the justice.... Legal experts said the payments to Vasisht raised red flags."

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: "If you are concerned about contempt for precedent, partisan hackery and judicial hubris, take a look at what district court judges have been doing. There was U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk's atrocious ruling in April reversing the Food and Drug Administration's 2-decades-old approval of the abortion pill mifepristone.... And let's not forget the unsupportable ruling from U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon of Florida putting her finger on the scale to try to block the Justice Department from reviewing secret documents hoarded by ... Donald Trump.... But not to be outdone, U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty in Louisiana, in a case involving government contacts with social media companies, [ruled that government officials could not even speak to tech companies about moderating misinformation].... Trump populated the judiciary with underqualified ideologues, 10 of whom were rated unqualified by the American Bar Association. (In addition, they were overwhelmingly White and male; not a single African American judge was nominated to a circuit court.) Thanks to Ken. W. for the link. (Also linked yesterday.)

Presidential Race 2024. Shane Goldmacher & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: Donald Trump "lashed out at Iowa's popular Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, and then his campaign informed one of the state's politically influential evangelical leaders, Bob Vander Plaats, that the former president would skip a gathering of presidential candidates this week in Des Moines. The back-to-back moves on Monday -- which the campaign of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida labeled a 'snub of Iowa conservatives' in an email on Tuesday -- show the extent to which Mr. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, acts as if he is immune to traditional political pitfalls while he is also under indictment and his rivals are seeking to capitalize on some voters' fatigue with his antics." Politico's story is here.

Tory Newmyer of the Washington Post: "Bank of America will pay more than $250 million in refunds and fines after federal regulators found the company systematically overcharged customers, withheld promised bonuses and opened accounts without customer approval. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found the bank made 'substantial additional revenue' for years by repeatedly charging customers $35 overdraft fees on the same transaction. The bank also denied cash and points bonuses it had pledged to tens of thousands of credit card customers. And starting in 2012, Bank of America employees enrolled customers in credit card accounts without their approval, obtaining credit reports without permission to complete the applications, the bureau said."

Ben Sisario & Ryan Hooper of the New York Times: "More than four years of family conflict over the estate of Aretha Franklin ended Tuesday when a Michigan jury decided what her family could not -- which of two hand-scrawled wills represented the famed singer's true wishes for how to divide her estate. After a two-day trial in a probate court in Pontiac, Mich., a six-person jury decided after less than an hour of deliberation that a four-page document written by Franklin in 2014 -- and discovered under a couch cushion at her home, months after Franklin's 2018 death -- should serve as her will. The verdict resolved the biggest problem that had been hanging over Franklin's estate, and sets in motion a plan for how income and assets from her estate should be divided."

Beyond the Beltway

California. Derrick Taylor of the New York Times: "Leslie Van Houten, a former Charles Manson follower who played a role in the gruesome double murder of a Los Angeles couple in the summer of 1969, was released on parole on Tuesday after serving more than half a century in prison, according to her lawyer.... The office of California Gov Gavin Newsom said this month that it would not challenge her release. Mr. Newsom had reversed Ms. Van Houten's parole grant three times since taking office, most recently in March 2022" The AP's story is here.

Iowa. Emily Wax-Thibodeaux, et al., of the Washington Post: "Iowa's Republican-controlled legislature on Tuesday passed a bill banning most abortions after about six weeks. The legislation was passed during a rare one-day special session called by Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) for the 'sole purpose' of enacting new restrictions on abortion. Reynolds celebrated the bill's passage in a statement late Tuesday and said she will sign it on Friday.... Iowa's House and Senate passed the legislation along mostly partisan lines late Tuesday after hours of hearings and sometimes heated protests. It is expected to face legal challenges. Abortion is currently legal in Iowa up to 22 weeks of pregnancy." An NBC News story is here.

Pennsylvania. Joel Wolfram & Campbell Robertson of the New York Times: Philadelphia police officials describe "an apparent error of a 911 dispatcher that ... meant that ... deadly gunfire [in a home] was not known by authorities until the following night. By then, the man now suspected of having killed [the man in that home] had already carried out one of the city's deadliest mass shootings [the following day, July 3]." (Also linked yesterday.)

News Lede

New York Times: "Milan Kundera, the Communist Party outcast who became a global literary star with mordant, sexually charged novels that captured the suffocating absurdity of life in the workers' paradise of his native Czechoslovakia, died on Tuesday in Paris. He was 94.... His most enduringly popular novel [was] 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being.'"

Comments

[Akhilleus]

Only in dictatorships…oh, and America.

It’s taken as an accepted truism that Trump, if he successfully steals the next election, can presto-change-o! make all federal charges against him disappear. We’re talking specifically about charges of crimes that have triggered the Espionage Act, crimes against not the just the state, including flaunting top secret documents in front of staffers and outsiders with security clearance on a par with my dog, but unforgivably irresponsible acts that endanger America’s troops, agents of various intelligence services, and foreign allies.

This isn’t just tax evasion or sexual predation, as bad as that is. We’re talking crimes orders of magnitude worse.

How is it possible that one guy can wave his MAGA wand and say “No big deal, all charges against me are hereby dropped”? Rule of law is a nice idea, but it only pertains to those who can’t pull strings, bribe judges with expensive vacations, or win an election and flush some of the most serious charges covered by federal law down the toilet like torn up documents he doesn’t like.

Who gets to flout the law so easily and inconsequentially? Dictators. Despots. Crime bosses running failed states. And a corrupt American president who knows how to turn every systemic escape valve to his cynical benefit.

I’m not even gonna bother saying there’s something seriously fucked up about that.

Oh, sure there are state charges that can ostensibly go forward, but we all know how that will work. Trump will scream “election interference”! Fox and News-Ass and the WSJ editors and the entire rubber stamp House will screech alongside him and those trials will be delayed, meaning disappeared.

Given the reality of such a legally untenable and ridiculously porous and malleable system, the cream puff milquetoast scaredy-cat reticence of Merrick Garland waiting a year and a half to do anything approaches dereliction of duty on a cosmic scale.

But Garland’s weenie-ness aside, the real problem is a system that allows such sleazy avoidance of legal consequences in the first place.

[Marie Burns]

@Akhilleus: Couldn't agree more. I had MSNBC & CNN on much of the day yesterday, and I didn't hear a single "legal expert" voice my idea (not really an "idea" -- I think it's obvious) that if running for president* renders Trump -- AND his valet! -- "too busy" to participate in their own criminal trials, they have an out: nobody makes you run for president*. When you choose to run for political office, you may have to skimp on other things that filled your regular schedule, and if your candidacy poses too much of a burden on your other obligations, then you have to drop your political aspirations.

Of course, you've pointed out why Trump won't do that, but that's his POV. From the law's POV, Trump can free up his calendar and spend every day in a windowless SCIF reading some of the classified docs he stole. And Walt can pass Diet Cokes to him through a slot like the ones they have in jail cells. You know, it would be good practice for what we hope (perhaps futilely) will be Trump's ultimate fate.

[ForrestMorris]

I personally think trump belongs in a facility for the mentally
impaired. He's nuts. Or else he's brilliant and a great actor, but I
seriously doubt that.
If a peon like myself did 1/100th of the crap the trump crime family
has managed to get away with, I'd never again see the light of day, and
my trial wouldn't drag out for years.
But lets go after the Bidens. They must be hiding something from us.

[ForrestMorris]

Russian General Surovikin is taking "a rest".

Odd isn't it that they left out the r between "a" and "rest".

[Jeanne]

Yes yes yes yes yes to all comments. If he skates or gets “elected,” it will amount to the same thing. And we should jail the silly AG. I have no idea what his problem is.

It’s not too early to imbibe for lunch.

[Bobby Lee]

Trump would love this one. It's from Italy where a judge ruled on a groping case, that if it was under ten seconds, it was not a crime.

From the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66174352