;)
June 1, 2022
Morning/Afternoon Update:
Reid Epstein & Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "This spring, when Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama was fighting to win over conservatives in his campaign for Senate, he ran a television ad that boasted, 'On Jan. 6, I proudly stood with President Trump in the fight against voter fraud. But when Mr. Brooks placed second in Alabama's Republican primary last week, leaving him in a runoff, he said he was not concerned about fraud in his election.... Many ... Republicans [who objected to the 2020 presidential results] are accepting the results of their primaries without complaint.... This phenomenon was on clear display in 2020, when scores of Republicans who repeated allegations about a 'rigged' presidential race accepted their own victories based on the same ballots."
Democratic Voters Steal Elections; Republican Voters Are as Pure as the Driven Snow. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "... many of the same Republicans who insisted that 'voter fraud' cast doubt on Donald Trump's 2020 loss mysteriously don't see fraud at play in elections that they win.... [This] embodies an actual principle of sorts: that when Republicans lose elections, the voting can be presumed illegitimate or suspect, and when Republicans win them, the voting can be presumed legitimate and above suspicion entirely.... Rep. Mo Brooks has now stepped forward to confirm this.... When the Times [story linked above] questioned Brooks..., he essentially gave away the game: 'Mr. Brooks offered a simple answer to why he's not worried about his race: There's no fraud in Republican primaries, he said.'... Pressed further by the Times, Brooks blithely suggested that in Alabama, the fraud took place 'in predominantly Democrat parts of the state.'... [Brooks' assertion is] meant to give some kind of patina of a public rationale for naked efforts to subvert election losses.... And the Alabama Republican's corroboration is noteworthy in light of emerging details [link is to Politico story by Heidi Przybyla, also linked below] about a complex new GOP plan to make this principle actionable in future elections."
Dennis Aftergut in the Bulwark: "John Durham, the special counsel appointed days before the 2020 election by Donald Trump's attorney general William Barr, just lost the only trial he has brought to date in his long tenure.... Durham's loss was one more egg laid in the fetid henhouse where Barr first enlisted Durham to nest in May 2019, tasking him with proving the truth of a lie -- Donald Trump's favorite disinformation campaign at the time, that the FBI's 2016 Trump-Russia investigation was a 'witch hunt.'... As some commentators noted, the indictment [of Michael Sussmann] reeked of non-prosecutorial goals: It seemed that Durham was trying to justify the public money he'd wasted boosting Trump's false narrative that it was the big, bad Clinton campaign behind the Trump-Russia investigation.... Shoddy decisions and the paucity of results characterize Durham's whole tenure. Yet there are no signs that he intends to close up shop anytime soon."
Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Biden announced new shipments of baby formula from Europe on Wednesday as he prepared to meet with top officials from five baby food companies amid an ongoing shortage that has left parents desperately searching for ways to feed their infants. Enough Kendamil formula to make about four million bottles will be flown to locations across the United States during the next three weeks, White House officials said in a statement. The statement said that United Airlines had agreed to transport the formula from Heathrow Airport in London free of charge for purchase by parents at retail stores.... Two weeks ago, the president responded to severe shortages of baby formula by invoking the Defense Production Act and promising to use the military to speed delivery of baby formula from overseas. Since then, officials said the administration has flown the equivalent of 1.5 million eight-ounce bottles into the United States. Wednesday's announcement is set to more than double that amount, officials said."
Forgot this one this morning: MSNBC: "President Biden met with New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at the White House and praised her for efforts on climate change and combatting gun violence and stressing the important role they play as allies on the global stage." ~~~
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Josh Boak, et al., of the AP: "Focused on relentlessly rising prices, President Joe Biden plotted inflation-fighting strategy Tuesday with the chairman of the Federal Reserve [Jerome Powell], with the fate of the economy and his own political prospects increasingly dependent on the actions of the government's central bank. Biden hoped to demonstrate to voters that he was attuned to their worries about higher gasoline, grocery and other prices whiles still insisting an independent Fed will act free from political pressure. Like Biden, the Fed wants to slow inflation without knocking the U.S. economy into recession, a highly sensitive mission that is to include increasing benchmark interest rates this summer. The president said he would not attempt to direct that course as some previous presidents have tried." (This is an update of a story linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Tyler Pager & Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "The White House launched a new push Tuesday to contain the political damage caused by inflation after President Biden complained for weeks to aides that his administration was not doing enough to publicly explain the fastest price increases in roughly four decades. Aiming to demonstrate to the public that it is responding to its concerns, Biden met with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell in the Oval Office, wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about inflation and sent top aides across major networks to push the administration's economic message. The flurry of activity comes after Biden has privately grumbled to top White House officials over the administration's handling of inflation, expressing frustration over the past several months that aides were not doing enough to confront the problem directly, two people familiar with the president's comments said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations." ~~~
~~~ Kevin Liptak & Paul LeBlanc of CNN: "US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admitted Tuesday that she had failed to anticipate how long high inflation would continue to plague American consumers as the Biden administration works to contain a mounting political liability. 'I think I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take,' Yellen told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on 'The Situation Room' when asked about her comments from 2021 that inflation posed only a 'small risk.' The admission was the latest indication that the administration's expectations of a normalizing economy were thrown into disarray by the continuing pandemic and the war in Europe." MB: I blame the oil industry. Executives here and abroad are natural enemies of Democratic administrations, plus, of course, they have the overarching goal of keeping oil prices high all the time. You aren't just paying for the industry's incentives when you go to the gas pump. Everything from refrigerators to diapers costs more when haulers have to pay higher transportation costs to get raw materials to manufacturers, then get the finished goods to you. The oil industry has turned lemons -- the pandemic, the Ukraine war, etc. -- into lemonade.
Adam Cancryn of Politico: "The White House's focus on gas prices is bred from two sobering political conclusions top officials have made. The first is that they have little control over the problem. The second is that as prices rise at the pump, so do Democrats' odds of a midterm wipeout -- especially as the average U.S. gallon of gas hits fresh record highs.... In a frantic effort to try to slow gas prices that have risen by a dollar per gallon in just the last three months, Biden aides have internally debated a host of ideas.... The deliberations say they've snagged, in part, because each option comes with complicated tradeoffs and drawbacks...."
Sneaky Pete. Tim Stelloh & Gemma DiCasimirro of NBC News: "A local police chief in Uvalde, Texas, hasn't responded for a follow-up interview in a state investigation into the law enforcement response to an elementary school massacre..., an official said Tuesday. Peter Arredondo, the police chief of Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, participated in an initial interview but has not yet answered requests for follow-ups made two days ago, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety said.... Arredondo is said to be the incident commander who incorrectly believed the gunman to be a barricaded suspect and ordered officers to remain outside during the shooting. After more than an hour, federal agents disobeying the chief's orders entered the school and fatally shot the gunman. On Tuesday, Arredondo was sworn in as a newly elected member of the Uvalde City Council, Mayor Don McLaughlin [R] said in a statement. Officials canceled a ceremony for the event 'out of respect for the families who buried their children today, and who are planning to bury their children in the next few days,' McLaughlin said. But he added that all members, including Arredondo, who was elected this month, were sworn in Wednesday per the city charter." ~~~
~~~ Marie: If you will recall, in a previous statement, McLaughlin left the impression that the swearing-in would be postponed. But, as Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC pointed out last night, the city held the administration of the oath in secret and only revealed it, via a statement from the mayor, after the fact. So it appears that McLaughlin can find Arredondo, but Chief Pete is in hiding from Texas law enforcement officials who want to clarify whatever self-serving bull he gave them in his initial interview. I hope the town recalls both McLaughlin & Arredondo. ~~~
~~~ Josh Margolin & Aaron Katersky of ABC News: "The Uvalde Police Department and the Uvalde Independent School District police force are no longer cooperating with the Texas Department of Public Safety's investigation into the massacre at Robb Elementary School and the state's review of the law enforcement response, multiple law enforcement sources tell ABC News.... According to sources, the decision to stop cooperating occurred soon after the director of DPS, Col. Steven McCraw, held a news conference Friday during which he said the delayed police entry into the classroom was 'the wrong decision' and contrary to protocol."
Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "Four days after saying that the gunman who massacred children in a Uvalde, Tex., elementary school had gotten inside through a door 'propped open by a teacher,' the state agency investigating the massacre now says the educator had closed the door.... On Friday, Steven C. McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, seemed to suggest that an employee error played a critical role, saying that the unnamed teacher had previously propped open a door used as an 'access point' by the gunman. 'That back door was propped open,' McCraw said Friday. 'It wasn't supposed to be propped open; it was supposed to be locked.' In an interview with the San Antonio Express News, an attorney who said he represents the teacher ... said the educator had called 911 to report the gunman crashing his vehicle nearby and closed the door while still on the phone.... [Texas Public Safety spokesman Travis] Considine told The Washington Post that investigators had reviewed additional video evidence that let them 'determine that the teacher did indeed remove the rock from the door when she went back into the school, and shut the door.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: This teacher might have been the first person in the school to alert police that the gunman was on the scene. So instead of praising her/him for warning them, officials try to finger her as the person who let the gunman into the school. Apparently, s/he had to hire a lawyer to defend her against the accusation.
Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post: "Although candidates in both parties have long used guns as a campaign prop, the images have in recent years become more prevalent, and intentionally provocative, in Republican advertising, holidays greetings and other forms of communication with the public. Such placements convey a cultural and political solidarity with conservatives more powerfully than most anything else, according to Republican strategists and aides.... 'These ads create a dangerous impression that firearms, and assault-style firearms specifically, are casual tools rather than dangerous weapons,' said Kris Brown, the president of Brady, a gun violence prevention organization. 'To use them to grandstand and to provocate is dangerous.'"
Ha! Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Michael Sussmann, a prominent cybersecurity lawyer with ties to Democrats, was acquitted on Tuesday of a felony charge that he lied to the F.B.I. about having no client in 2016 when he shared a tip about possible connections between Donald J. Trump and Russia. The verdict was a blow to the special counsel, John H. Durham, who was appointed by the Trump administration three years ago to scour the Trump-Russia investigation for any wrongdoing. The case centered on odd internet data that cybersecurity researchers discovered in 2016 after it became public that Russia had hacked Democrats and Mr. Trump had encouraged the country to target Hillary Clinton's emails. The researchers said the data might reflect a covert communications channel using servers for the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, a Kremlin-linked bank. The F.B.I. briefly looked at the suspicions and dismissed them.... ~~~
~~~ "Mr. Durham [whom AG Bill Barr appointed] used the case to put forward a larger conspiracy: that there was a joint enterprise to essentially frame Mr. Trump for collusion with Russia by getting the F.B.I. to investigate the suspicions so reporters would write about it -- a scheme involving the Clinton campaign; its opposition research firm, Fusion GPS; Mr. Sussmann; and a cybersecurity expert who brought the odd data and analysis to him. That insinuation thrilled supporters of Mr. Trump who share his view that the Russia investigation was a 'hoax,' and have sought to conflate the actual inquiry with sometimes thin or dubious allegations developed by private citizens. In reality, the Alfa Bank matter was a sideshow and tangent...." The AP report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Twump Is Vewy, Vewy Upset. "... Donald Trump took to his social media platform on Tuesday to rage against Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann being acquitted of lying to the FBI. 'Our Legal System is CORRUPT, our Judges (and Justices!) are highly partisan, compromised or just plain scared, our Borders are OPEN, our Elections are Rigged, Inflation is RAMPANT, gas prices and food costs are "through the roof," our Military "Leadership" is Woke, our Country is going to HELL, and Michael Sussmann is not guilty,' raged Trump. 'How's everything else doing? Enjoy your day!!!'" MB: The not-guilty verdict, of course, took the air out of the giant Trump-Barr-Durham hoax balloon. The effort to prove the Mueller investigation was a hoax has gone on for more than three years, and about the only thing they have to show for it is a not-guilty verdict on a single charge of lying to the FBI. ~~~
~~~ digby: "Waaaaaaah! Durham struck out and Trump is having a good old-fashioned cry. The problem here is that for his cultists, every time he loses (which is constantly), it just proves how rigged it is." digby points to several examples of the group complaint. MB: Mostly, they blame the "D.C. jury," which is to say, Black people. ~~~
~~~ Paul Waldman & Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "To appreciate the significance of this moment, you have to remember that Trump and Republicans have spent years working to show that there was never any serious cause for concern about the idea that Russia went to extraordinary lengths to try to swing the 2016 election to Trump.... Durham's flop is only the latest in a long string of failures. 'The Durham probe has turned into what conservatives always accused the Mueller probe of being: a politically premised fishing expedition that has failed to discredit its original target, namely the Russia investigation,' prominent national security lawyer Bradley Moss told us. None of these efforts have been able to disappear a fundamental truth: The stubborn facts show that Russiagate actually was an extraordinarily grave and disturbing scandal."
Another Trumpy Conspiracy Theory Flops. Jason Leopold & Ken Bessinger of BuzzFeed News: "A Justice Department probe found that members of the Obama administration did not seek to reveal the identity of General Michael Flynn 'for political purposes or other inappropriate reasons,' a newly disclosed report reveals. The document details the results of a months-long investigation into the so-called 'unmasking' of Flynn, who briefly served as National Security Advisor to ... Donald Trump.... Republicans later accused officials in the Obama administration of using their positions to reveal anonymized names in classified documents ... in order to target individuals in Trump's orbit. In May 2020, Trump's Attorney General, William Barr, ordered an investigation into the practice of unmasking.... The probe was one of several ordered up by Barr scrutinizing the origins of federal investigations into ties between Trump and the Russian government." The results of the DOJ report have been publicly reported before, but this is the first time the report itself has been made available.
Speaking of Flops. Larry Neumeister of the Huffington Post: "The judge who presided over Sarah Palin's libel case against The New York Times denied her request Tuesday for a new trial, saying she failed to introduce 'even a speck' of evidence necessary to prove actual malice by the newspaper. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff made the assertion in a written decision as he rejected post-trial claims from Palin's lawyers. Her attorneys had asked the judge to grant a new trial or disqualify himself as biased against her, citing several evidentiary rulings by Rakoff that they said were errors."
DOJ Hints It's Investigating Trump. Hugh Lowell of the Guardian: "Peter Navarro, a top White House adviser to Donald Trump, is being commanded by a federal grand jury subpoena to turn over to the justice department his communications with the former president, the former president's attorneys and the former president's representatives.... Certain elements [of the subpoena] appear to suggest that it is related to a new investigation examining potential criminality by the former president.... The confounding aspect of this grand jury subpoena, according to three former assistant US attorneys..., is that targets of investigations are rarely subpoenaed. And 'process' charges such as contempt do not require subpoenas for documents. But the fact that Trump is specifically named in the subpoena -- a reference that the justice department would not have made lightly -- and the specific requests for Navarro's communications with Trump could indicate that this is a criminal investigation examining Trump."
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked a Texas law that would ban large social media companies from removing posts based on the views they express. The court's brief order was unsigned and gave no reasons, which is typical when the justices act on emergency applications. The order was not the last word in the case, which is pending before a federal appeals court and may return to the Supreme Court. The vote was 5 to 4, with an unusual coalition in dissent. The court's three most conservative members -- Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch -- filed a dissent saying they would have let stand, for now at least, an appeals court order that left the law in place while the case moved forward. Justice Elena Kagan, a liberal, also said she would have let the order stand, though she did not join the dissent and gave no reasons of her own."
The GOP Is Putting Ops in Place to Overturn 2022 Elections. >Heidi Przybyla of Politico: "Video recordings of Republican Party operatives meeting with grassroots activists provide an inside look at a multi-pronged strategy to target and potentially overturn votes in Democratic precincts: Install trained recruits as regular poll workers and put them in direct contact with party attorneys."
Kate Brumback of the AP: "Electronic voting machines from a leading vendor used in at least 16 states have software vulnerabilities that leave them susceptible to hacking if unaddressed, the nation's leading cybersecurity agency says in an advisory sent to state election officials. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, or CISA, said there is no evidence the flaws in the Dominion Voting Systems' equipment have been exploited to alter election results. The advisory is based on testing by a prominent computer scientist and expert witness in a long-running lawsuit that is unrelated to false allegations of a stolen election pushed by ... Donald Trump after his 2020 election loss.... Amid a swirl of misinformation and disinformation about elections, CISA seems to be trying to walk a line between not alarming the public and stressing the need for election officials to take action." MB: Expect the right to go nuts anyway.
Breaking: Margie Greene Is Still Remarkably Stupid. Jeremy Fuster of the Wrap: "First there was 'gazpacho' police. Now Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has made another equally as amusing vocabulary flub in an attempt to get across her latest conspiratorial claim about Democrats and 'fake meat,' which she says is manufactured in a 'peach tree dish.' On the far-right Georgia congresswoman's most recent broadcast of 'MTG Live,' the streaming broadcast that airs on her social media page, Greene claimed that the government wants 'surveillance on every part of your life,' including on when people are eating a cheeseburger. 'Which is very bad because Bill Gates wants you to eat this fake meat that grows in a peach tree dish so you'll probably get a little zap inside your body that'll say "No, don't eat a real cheeseburger, you need to eat the fake burger,"' Greene said with conviction." MB: I'll never forget when I was in the seventh grade, my science teacher made me put a peach pit in a little flat plastic dish & before that pit even looked like a peach tree it went & zapped me inside like I was Ben Franklin with the key & the kite or something. Science is dangerous. And I think the gazpacho should have arrested the science teacher.
Julia Jacobs of the New York Times: "The actor Kevin Spacey said on Tuesday that he will voluntarily travel to Britain to face criminal sexual assault charges, allowing the authorities there to formally charge him without having to pursue extradition proceedings. Last week, Britain's Crown Prosecution Service announced that law enforcement had authorized the charges, of four counts of sexual assault against three men, as well as one charge of 'causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.' But Mr. Spacey, 62, cannot be formally charged unless he enters England or Wales." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here.
Benjamin Mueller & Eleanor Lutz of the New York Times: "Despite strong levels of vaccination among older people, Covid killed them at vastly higher rates during this winter's Omicron wave than it did last year, preying on long delays since their last shots and the variant's ability to skirt immune defenses. This winter's wave of deaths in older people belied the Omicron variant's relative mildness. Almost as many Americans 65 and older died in four months of the Omicron surge as did in six months of the Delta wave, even though the Delta variant, for any one person, tended to cause more severe illness. While overall per capita Covid death rates have fallen, older people still account for an overwhelming share of them." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
Pennsylvania. Ariane de Vogue of CNN: "Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito agreed Tuesday to temporarily block a lower court decision that allows the counting of undated ballots in Pennsylvania in a case that could directly tip a judicial race and also impact the commonwealth's Republican US Senate primary. Alito, who has jurisdiction over the lower court involved in the case, issued an administrative stay in the case to give the justices more time to consider the issue.... At issue is a federal appeals court decision ordering the state to count undated mail-in ballots that were initially set aside. David Ritter, a Republican state judicial candidate in Lehigh County, wants the Supreme Court to block the appeals court decision, arguing that if the ballots were counted, he would lose his election to Democratic rival Zachary Cohen. How the justices decide the case in the under-the-radar-race could also impact more high-profile contests including the Republican Senate primary between David McCormick and Mehmet Oz, which has gone to a recount. Oz is currently leading by roughly 900 votes."
Virginia. Steve Descano, Fairfax County prosecutor, in a New York Times op-ed: "Almost two and a half years ago, I took my oath of office as prosecutor, and swore to protect my community from those who broke the law. The real threat, I now realize, may stem from those who write the law. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, the rights of thousands of Virginian women will be thrown into question.... Our governor has said that he is 'staunchly, unabashedly' against abortion and fully committed to 'going on the offense' against abortion rights in our legislature.... So when the court's draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked earlier this month, I committed to never prosecute a woman for making her own health care decisions. That means that no matter what the law in Virginia says, I will not prosecute a woman for having an abortion, or for being suspected of inducing one.... I hope prosecutors across the country will join me in choosing to lead on behalf of the women we represent." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Way Beyond
Ukraine, et al.
The New York Times' live updates of developments Wednesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "The United States is sending advanced rocket systems to Ukraine, the most significant weapons that President Biden has sent since the start of the war, fulfilling a longstanding demand from the Ukrainians and appearing to dismiss concerns that it would be seen by Russia as a provocation.... The head of Ukraine's regional military administration, Serhiy Haidai, said late Tuesday that Russian troops had taken over most of [Sievierodonetsk]. About 12,000 civilians, out of a prewar population of about 100,000, remain in the city, according to an aid group.... Russia is blocking the shipment of 22 million tons of grain in Ukraine, bombarding houses where wheat is stored and mining crop fields, said Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission." ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Wednesday are here: "Meanwhile, Russia's Defense Ministry said Wednesday that its strategic missile forces -- responsible for nuclear deterrence and the Yars intercontinental ballistic missile -- were conducting exercises northeast of Moscow. The Kremlin has warned that any country providing advanced weaponry to Ukraine will face harsh repercussions. ~~~
~~~ The Guardian's live updates for Wednesday are here.
President Biden, in a New York Times op-ed, outlines U.S. goals in Ukraine & lays out what the U.S. is or will be doing to aid Ukraine. ~~~
~~~ Peter Beaumont of the Guardian: "Joe Biden has confirmed he will send more advanced rocket systems to Kyiv, a critical weapon that Ukrainian leaders have been asking for as they struggle to stall Russian progress in the Donbas region. The medium-range high mobility artillery rocket systems are part of a new $700m tranche of security assistance for Ukraine from the US that will include helicopters, Javelin anti-tank weapon systems, tactical vehicles, spare parts and more, according to two senior administration officials. The weapons package will be formally unveiled on Wednesday. In a New York Times guest essay published on Tuesday, Biden said Russia's invasion of Ukraine will end through diplomacy but the United States must provide significant weapons and ammunition to give Ukraine the highest leverage at the negotiating table."
Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "The Russian military, beaten down and demoralized after three months of war, is making the same mistakes in its campaign to capture a swath of eastern Ukraine that forced it to abandon its push to take the entire country, senior American officials say. While Russian troops are capturing territory, a Pentagon official said that their 'plodding and incremental' pace was wearing them down, and that the military's overall fighting strength had been diminished by about 20 percent. And since the war started, Russia has lost 1,000 tanks, a senior Pentagon official said last week.... Vladimir V. Putin of Russia appointed a new commander, Gen. Aleksandr V. Dvornikov, in April in what was widely viewed as an acknowledgment that the initial Russian war plan was failing."
Alan Rappeport & David Sanger of the New York Times: "The devastation in Ukraine brought on by Russia's war has leaders around the world calling for seizing more than $300 billion of Russian central bank assets and handing the funds to Ukraine to help rebuild the country. But the movement, which has gained momentum in parts of Europe, has run into resistance in the United States. Top Biden administration officials warned that diverting those funds could be illegal and discourage other countries from relying on the United States as a haven for investment.... Internally, the Biden administration has been debating whether to join an effort to seize the assets, which include dollars and euros that Moscow deposited before its invasion of Ukraine. Only a fraction of the funds are kept in the United States; much of it was deposited in Europe, including at the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland. Russia had hoped that keeping more than $600 billion in central bank reserves would help bolster its economy against sanctions. But it made the mistake of sending half those funds out of the country."
Viktor 
Vlad. Victoria Kim of the New York Times: "The European Union's long-delayed deal to embargo Russian oil, finalized late Monday, effectively exempts Hungary from the costly step the rest of the bloc is taking to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. While Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, has cast his weekslong opposition to the deal as purely about shielding his country's economy, it was also the latest step in what has been a decade-long turn of Hungary's leadership toward closer alignment with Russia, at times at the expense of relations with its fellow members of the European Union and NATO. The pivot has occurred despite deep-seated suspicion in Hungary of Russian power and influence based on the history of Russian and Soviet troops brutally cracking down on Hungarian uprisings in 1848-49 and in 1956." (Also linked yesterday.)
Mali. Elian Peltier, et al., of the New York Times: "Mali has been fighting armed militants for the past decade, initially with the help of French and later European forces. But as the relationship has deteriorated between France and the Malian military junta, which seized power last year, French forces are withdrawing from Mali, and the [Russian] Wagner Group has moved in -- a step denounced by 15 European countries and Canada, as well as the United States.... [In March, in the central Malian town of Moura,] Malian soldiers and their Russian allies looted houses, held villagers captive in a dried-out riverbed and executed hundreds of men.... Both Malian soldiers and foreign mercenaries killed captives at close range, often without interrogating them, based on their ethnicity or clothes, according to witnesses. The foreigners marauded through the town, indiscriminately killing people in houses, stealing jewelry and confiscating cellphones to eliminate any visual evidence."
News Lede
New York Times: "A jury in Virginia on Wednesday found that the actor Johnny Depp had been defamed by his ex-wife Amber Heard in a 2018 op-ed, a verdict that handed the actor a victory in his long, messy battle over domestic abuse allegations. But the jury's decision was split, also finding that one of the three statements at the center of Ms. Heard's lawsuit, by one of Mr. Depp's lawyers at the time, had been defamatory. The jury awarded Mr. Depp $15 million in compensatory and punitive damages, but the judge capped the punitive damages total in accordance with legal limits, resulting in a total of $10.35 million. The jury awarded Ms. Heard $2 million in damages. The jury's decision came after a six-week trial that transfixed the nation...." MB: Count me as not transfixed. A CNN report is here.
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Reader Comments (11)
I’m so tired of reading about Biden is a loser who can’t get anything done. He can’t things done because half the Congress is comprised of sniveling, self-serving traitors. Jesus.
Akhilleus,
Share your frustration this morning.
Let's see now, what did TFG accomplish in the four interminable years he began by inheriting a growing economy?
Oh yeah, right off, there was that tax cut, a flurry of executive orders that imposed random cut off our nose to spite our face tariffs and set aside environmental and work safety concerns, a lot of self-dealing for the Pretender and his cronies, a succession of loud foreign policy flatulence, months of immensely deadly Covid buffoonery, and let's not forget--that tax cut.
But he did make it clear there are good people on both sides, that every time he loses he really won, that every criticism lodged against him is a hoax or a witch-hunt. and in the midst of all that--wonder of wonders-- he still had time to save Christmas.
How can the media avoid making the contrast between Biden and TFG clear every hour, every day?
MTG's peach tree inevitably called to mind the old SNL Dan Ackroyd-Jane Curtain Point-Counterpoint sketches.
"MTG, you ignorant slut." It rolls off the tongue.
AK: Here's another example of "Let's get them that's doing their best and continue to sling arrows into their vests."
"San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin, a progressive prosecutor, faces a rare recall vote in the majority Democratic city, jeopardizing his mission of criminal reform." He was elected in 2019 as part of a movement of progressive prosecutors across the country–-like Larry Kresner in Philly. Take a guess who is behind this recall. Yup! you didn't hesitate, got it right off the bat!
The recall is being funded by wealthy Republican donors otherwise known as their cousins in Congress––the S.S. T's as you have so well described.
"Life is like a dice game/One roll could land you in jail
or cutting cake/
blowing kisses in the rice rain." Jay Electronics
Here's the link: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/san-francisco-da-chesa-boudin-recall-vote_n_6286c386e4b01a50ab55eee7
Ken: The SNL skit––perfect! That this shoddy, dotty piece of work sits in Congress still sets me off screaming. We need more Dans and Janes to put the play in place––-no more mincemeat–- bring on the poison pudding!!!
@Ken Winkes: Or Gilda Radner's Emily Litella, of roughly the same period, who kept misunderstanding supposed on-air editorials and would come on -- because of the Fairness Doctrine -- to present an opposing view. According to Wikipedia,
"The news anchor would interrupt Litella to point out her error, along the lines, 'That's death penalty, Ms. Litella, not deaf ... death.' Litella would wrinkle her nose, say something like, 'Oh, that's very different,' then meekly turn to the camera and say, smiling, 'Never mind!' When Litella played against news anchor Chevy Chase (whom she often called 'Cheddar Cheese'), he would be somewhat sympathetic to her. But when Jane Curtin took over the anchor role, she would scold Litella, 'Every week you come on and you get it wrong,' to which Litella would reply, 'Bitch!'"
The essential difference between Margie & Emily is that Emily admits her mistake when it's pointed out to her. Not Margie. As far as we know, she's still raising about the gazpacho police.
"O’Rourke did not politicize the shooting. The circumstances that make a mass murder of fourth graders possible are inherently political. The legal access to the weaponry involved is political. The most visible people refusing to see these things as political happen to be elected to political office. But O’Rourke was only partially right. Some of this is on Second Amendment fundamentalists and the politicians who translate their zealotry into law—the rest is on every one of us who has yet to find the courage, the creativity, or the resolve to stop it." ♦ Jelani Cobb
Take heed Akhilleus! "David Simon and Ed Burns discuss the legacy of [The Wire] and why the systemic decay it depicted has become only more profound."
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/arts/television/david-simon-ed-burns-the-wire-anniversary.html?smid=url-share
"It's hard to get your head around just how debased the political culture is now because of Trump.'
"If truth is no longer a metric, then you can't govern yourself properly."
P.D.
As a wise (sorry, forgot who) RC commenter once memorably said, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it."
And you surely can't measure it if you deny its existence.
PD,
Both of those guys know whereof they speak.
Branding “urban types” as the enemy (ie, not salt of the earth, good ol, country folk, Trump voting’, ‘mericans, ie, blacks and browns) by confederates has provided the impetus to largely defund any programs designed to improve cities.
The result is the sort of systemic decay discussed by Burns and Simon. But, as usual, a “big win” for the right (destruction of city support systems) results in huge problems stemming from lack of education, nutrition, effective medical care (see, they have no problem with more and more unwed mothers who are denied care because they don’t give a shit about the mother or the babies after birth, praise Jesus, they won!) employment beyond minimum wage, all of which brings with it waves of economic inequality, depression, and often violence.
But they did their jobs! Harrumph!
‘Merica first!