October 2, 2022

Afternoon Update:

The Party of Psychopaths. Joshua Zitser of Insider, republished by Yahoo! News: "Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene ... claimed at a rally for ... Donald Trump in Warren, Michigan, on Saturday that Democrats are murdering Republicans. 'I'm not going to mince words with you all,' Greene said. 'Democrats want Republicans dead. They've already started the killings.' Greene, who has repeatedly spread bizarre conspiracy theories, went on to reference two local news stories to support her baseless claim that Democrats are hunting down GOP voters.... 'Joe Biden has declared every freedom-loving American an enemy of the state,' she said. It was Trump who used this specific terminology, referring to President Joe Biden as an 'enemy of the state' during a rally in Pennsylvania last month. 'We will take back our country from the communists who have stolen it and want us to disappear,' she continued. 'We will expose the unelected bureaucrats, the real enemies within, who have abused their power and have declared political warfare on the greatest president this country has ever had.'"

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Michael Shear & Farnaz Fassihi of the New York Times: "Seven Americans who had been held captive in Venezuela for years were on their way home Saturday after President Biden agreed to grant clemency to two nephews of Cilia Flores, Venezuela's first lady, officials said. The men had been sentenced in 2017 to 18 years in prison for conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the United States. At the same time, Iran on Saturday released Siamak Namazi, a 51-year-old dual-national Iranian American businessman who had been jailed since 2015, on a temporary furlough and lifted the travel ban on his father, Baquer Namazi, an 85-year-old former official for the United Nations, according to the family's lawyer." An AP story on the Venezuelan exchange is here.

Annie Karni of the New York Times: "In its final vote before lawmakers left Washington for November's midterm elections, the House on Friday overwhelmingly passed bipartisan legislation that would authorize $2.7 billion in compensation payments to the families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. The bill passed 400 to 31, with just one Democrat, Representative Kurt Schrader of Oregon, opposing it. It was to go next to the Senate..., where its prospects are uncertain. The bill would direct the money to be used for lump-sum payments to immediate family members of Sept. 11 victims who have been barred from receiving money from the U.S. Victims of State-Sponsored Terrorism Fund."

Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post: "The National Archives has told the House Oversight Committee that it has not yet recovered all of the records from Trump administration officials that should have been transferred under the Presidential Records Act. The Archives will consult with the Department of Justice 'on whether "to initiate an action for the recovery of records unlawfully removed," as established under the Federal Records Act,' acting archivist Debra Steidel Wall said in a letter sent on Friday to the committee's chairwoman, Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.). Steidel Wall added that the Archives has been unable to obtain federal records related to 'non-official electronic messaging accounts that were not copied or forwarded into their official electronic messaging accounts.'... Under the Presidential Records Act, the immediate staff of the president, the vice president and anyone who advises the president must preserve records and phone calls pertaining to official duties." A CNN story is here.

Trump Knocks McConnell, Makes Racist Remark(s) about Chao. Asawan Suebsaeng & Nikki Ramirez of Rolling Stone, republished by Yahoo! News: "'He has a DEATH WISH,' Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social of Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, while also adding a racist dig at McConnell's wife Elaine Chao, who is Asian American and a former member of Trump's own cabinet. 'Must immediately seek help and advise [sic] from his China loving wife, Coco Chow!' Chao was born in Taiwan.... The screed came after President Joe Biden signed into law a bill to fund the US government until Dec. 16 to avoid a shut down at midnight." MB: Chao was an ineffectual Transportation Secretary, except when it came to carrying out her corrupt projects (which is befitting of any post in a Trump administration), but no one should make racist remarks about her. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post writes that "many" people thought Trump's suggestion that McConnell had a "death wish" was a threat. But Arnsdorf doesn't cite any people who expressed that view. MB: So the report is just as convincing as one of Trump's "many people say..." remarks. IMO, saying someone has a death wish does not invite other people to fulfill that wish. A reference to a death wish seems out-of-place and inappropriate, but it may just be a reflection of Trump's limited vocabulary. He may mean something like McConnell is engaging in self-sabotage or his actions are self-defeating or self-destructive. Or he may just mean that McConnell is ineffectual. Or maybe that he's filled will self-loathing. No way to know, because Trump probably doesn't know, either. More generally, I think Trump often makes incendiary remarks because he doesn't know any other words or terms. Superlatives impress him so he can remember them. He discards terms with a little more nuance because they don't shock the conscience so he can't remember them. ~~~

     ~~~ A great deal of Trump's bad behavior can be explained by "He's just not all that bright," and the corollary, "And he knows it."

Mary Jordan of the Washington Post:"Former president Jimmy Carter is celebrating his 98th birthday Saturday by seeing family members and taking calls in his modest living room in Plains, Ga., the small town where he began his improbable campaign for the nation's highest office nearly half a century ago." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Beyond the Beltway

Maryland Gubernatorial Race. Washington Post Editors endorse Democrat Wes Moore for governor of Maryland: "The candidates are not merely a study in policy contrasts. They exist in different worlds. Mr. Moore has staked out the aspirational high ground as a liberal intent on tackling high crime, unaffordable housing, child poverty, and the racial wealth and opportunity gaps. [Republican Dan] Cox's political views are rooted in hard-right resentment -- at President Biden's 2020 victory, which he falsely denies; at pandemic mask and vaccine mandates, which saved countless lives; at critical race theory, a chimera wielded to stoke racial anger; at climate change forecasts, which he regards as phony." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al.

The New York Times' live updates in developments Sunday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live updates of developments Sunday are here: "Western countries cast Russian troops' withdrawal from Lyman, a key supply hub in eastern Ukraine, as a strategic victory that could undermine Russia's effort to control the Donetsk region.... The United Nations' nuclear watchdog called for Russian forces to release the director of the Zaporizhzhia power plant, Europe's largest nuclear facility."

Thomas Gibbons-Neff, et al., of the New York Times: "Russian forces retreated from the strategic eastern Ukrainian city of Lyman on Saturday, a humbling setback for President Vladimir V. Putin just one day after he illegally declared the surrounding region to be part of Russia. The Ukrainians' assault on Lyman, a rail hub leading into the mineral-rich Donbas region, underscored their resolve to attack in territory Mr. Putin now claims sovereignty over -- raising the stakes in a war in which a nuclear-armed Russia has declared it would use 'all available means' to defend land it considers its own."

Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post: "Prominent Republicans are digging in against American support for Ukraine despite Russia's threats to use nuclear weapons and evidence of mass graves and war crimes facilitated by Moscow. The Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday tweeted -- and then hours later deleted -- a message that called on Democrats to 'end the gift-giving to Ukraine' while featuring a fluttering Russian flag. The tweet also referred to 'Ukraine-occupied territories,' appearing to legitimize ... Vladimir Putin's claims to annex provinces based on a referendum that the U.S. and allies view as illegal. CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp on Saturday said the tweet did not clear the normal approval process because he was traveling for a conference in Australia.... CPAC has repeatedly flirted with pro-Putin views in recent years, including hosting pro-Russian Hungarian prime minister Victor Orban at a Dallas conference in August." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: There's nothing wrong with opposing U.S. wars or similar foreign entanglements, but there's plenty wrong with supporting dictators, war criminals & imperialist aggressors.

Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "Alex Drueke and Andy Tai Huynh evaded Russian forces for hours, slogging through pine forests and marshes in Ukraine to avoid detection. The U.S. military veterans were left behind -- 'abandoned,' they said -- after their Ukrainian task force was attacked, and determined that their best chance of survival was to hike back to their base in Kharkiv. What followed was an excruciating, often terrifying 104 days in captivity. They were interrogated, subjected to physical and psychological abuse, and given little food or clean water, Drueke and Huynh recalled. Initially, they were taken into Russia, to a detention complex dotted with tents and ringed by barbed wire, they said. Their captors later moved them, first to a 'black site' where the beatings worsened, Drueke said, and then to what they called a more traditional prison run by Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.... [The two men were] freed on Sept. 21 as part of a sprawling prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine."

News Ledes

New York Times: "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Svante Pääbo, a Swedish geneticist, on Monday for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution.... 'Through his pioneering research, Svante Pääbo ... accomplished something seemingly impossible: sequencing the genome of the Neanderthal, an extinct relative of present-day humans,' the Nobel committee said in a statement. Pääbo's discoveries have generated new understanding of our evolutionary history,' the statement said, adding that this research had helped establish the burgeoning science of 'paleogenomics,' or the study of genetic material from ancient pathogens." The Guardian report is here.

New York Times: "Hurricane Orlene, a Category 2 storm, approached western Mexico early Monday and threatened the region with significant wind, storm surge and rainfall, forecasters said. Storm preparations were underway in at least three Mexican states. The storm was about 15 miles north of Las Islas Marías, an archipelago of four islands, and was moving north, the National Hurricane Center said on Monday in a 2 a.m. Eastern advisory. Orlene had maximum sustained winds of about 105 miles per hour, with higher gusts."

New York Times: "Sacheen Littlefeather, the Apache activist and actress who refused to accept the best actor award on behalf of Marlon Brando at the 1973 Oscars, drawing jeers onstage in an act that pierced through the facade of the awards show and highlighted her criticism of Hollywood for its depictions of Native Americans, has died. She was 75."

Comments

[Akhilleus]

On one hand, you might think that Party of Traitor traitors love Putin only because Biden is helping Ukraine. The enemy of my enemy thing.

But no. They really ARE completely enthralled with murderous, mendacious, scheming, authoritarian strong men, and very much in opposition to democracy.