;)
September 30, 2022
Afternoon Update:
Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "Congress gave final approval on Friday to a short-term spending package that would keep the government open through mid-December, staving off a midnight shutdown and sending about $12.3 billion in military and economic aid to Ukraine. The House passed the measure less than 12 hours before funding was set to lapse, clearing it for President Biden's signature. It would keep the government open through Dec. 16, giving lawmakers time to iron out their considerable differences over the dozen annual spending bills. The package included a third tranche of aid to Ukraine for its battle with Russia, on top of a total of about $54 billion approved earlier this year. With the vote on Friday, Congress has now committed more military aid to Ukraine than it has to any country in a single year since the Vietnam War...."
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court, was welcomed by her colleagues on Friday at an investiture ceremony at the court that was attended by President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. The proceedings were 'purely ceremonial,' the court's public information office noted, as Justice Jackson has been a member of the court since she was sworn in on June 30. But the event was nonetheless stately and steeped in history." MB: Yeah, welcome to a hot mess.
Trump Legal "Team."Rosalind Helderman, et al., of the Washington Post: "... just a few weeks after ... Christopher Kise accepted $3 million to represent Donald Trump in the FBI's investigation of government documents stored at Mar-a-Lago..., he finds himself in a battle, trying to persuade Trump to go along with his legal strategy and fighting with some other advisers who have counseled a more aggressive posture. The dispute has raged for at least a week, Trump advisers say, with the former president listening as various lawyers make their best arguments.... [Kise] remains part of the team and will continue assisting Trump in dealing with some of his other legal problems..., but on the Mar-a-Lago issue, he is likely to have a less public role.... Trump seems, at least for now, to be heeding advice from those [lawyers] who have indulged his desire to fight."
Ukraine, et al. Vlad the Imperial. Mary Ilyushina of the Washington Post: "Amid patriotic pageantry hyped up by the fervor of war, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday proclaimed the annexation of four Ukrainian regions, a flagrant violation of international law that stands to escalate and prolong the military conflict in Ukraine, sharpen Moscow's confrontation with the West and add to the Kremlin's growing global isolation. At a ceremony in the gilded Grand Kremlin Palace, attended by senior political and military officials, members of parliament and even Russia war bloggers, Putin on Friday signed so-called accession treaties to absorb the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Patrioti music played ahead of the signing ritual, in which Putin sat at one white gold-trimmed desk and four proxy leaders of the occupied regions sat at another. Once the documents were signed, Putin and the four proxy leaders held hands and chanted 'Russia! Russia! Russia!' to cheers and applause from the audience." ~~~
~~~ MB: You can see where Trump was a failed wannabe Putin. He tried to annex Greenland by buying it from Denmark, when all he had to do was get "his" generals to drop a few bombs, then hold a ceremony in a room furnished with gaudy Trumpian furniture, sign an executive order & lead a chant of "USA! USA!" What a wimp! ~~~
~~~ Matthew Lee, et al., of the AP: "The United States and its allies hit back at Russia's annexation of four Ukrainian regions on Friday, slapping sanctions on more than 1,000 people and companies including arms supply networks as President Joe Biden warned Vladimir Putin he can't 'get away with' seizing Ukrainian land. The Russian annexation, though expected, escalated an already heated conflict that's become fraught with potential nuclear implications." ~~~
~~~ Isabelle Khurshudyan of the Washington Post: "Ukraine is applying for 'accelerated ascension' into NATO, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday, in an apparent answer to Russia's move to illegally annex four of the country's partially occupied regions. The remarks were more symbolic than practical: The speedy admittance of Ukraine to the alliance would require members to immediately send troops to fight Russia, under collective defense obligations."
U.K. A New King Is Minted. Karla Adam of the Washington Post: "King Charles III is depicted uncrowned and facing to the left on the first British coins featuring his image, unveiled by the Royal Mint on Friday. The first 50-pence coins featuring the king will start appearing in general circulation before Christmas. His portrait will also appear on a new 5-pound commemorative coin, which, on the reverse side, will feature two new portraits of Charles's mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II. That coin range will be released next week."
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Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "The Senate on Thursday approved a temporary spending package to keep the government funded past a Friday deadline and send another significant round of emergency aid to Ukraine in its war against Russia, punting negotiations on a longer-term funding measure until after the November elections. The legislation, which would extend government funding through Dec. 16, passed 72 to 25. That sent it to the House, which was expected to quickly pass the measure, sending it to President Biden for his signature before funding was scheduled to lapse at midnight Sept. 30." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Little Miss Trumpy Judge Steps in to Save Trump from His Lies. Charlie Savage & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Thursday eased several demands a special master had imposed on ... Donald J. Trump's lawyers in conducting a review of documents the F.B.I. seized from his residence last month, overruling an arbiter she had appointed herself. In a six-page order, Judge Aileen M. Cannon of the Southern District of Florida set aside requirements the special master, Judge Raymond J. Dearie, put in place in recent days that would have tested excuses Mr. Trump has made in connection with the trove of documents taken from his estate, Mar-a-Lago. Judge Cannon also rejected a swift timetable Judge Dearie had set to resolve the review of the documents, slowing the matter down.... The first provision Judge Cannon set aside was a measure that had asked Mr. Trump's lawyers to certify by Friday the accuracy of the F.B.I.'s inventory of the property it seized from Mar-a-Lago --and to indicate whether there was anything that agents did not take from the compound." An ABC News story is here.
Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Michael Kruse, in Politico Magazine, writes about reporter Maggie Haberman, who has been reporting on Donald Trump for decades.
Luke Broadwater & Stephanie Lai of the New York Times: "Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas and a conservative activist who pushed to overturn the 2020 election, told the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol that she never discussed those efforts with her husband, during a closed-door interview in which she continued to perpetuate the false claim that the election was stolen.... In her statement [which she read in the beginning of her testimony], a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, Ms. Thomas called it 'an ironclad rule' that she and Justice Thomas never speak about cases pending before the Supreme Court.... 'She answered all the committee's questions,' [her lawyer] said in a statement."
It goes without saying that everyone is free to express disagreement with our decisions and to criticize our reasoning as they see fit. But saying or implying that the court is becoming an illegitimate institution or questioning our integrity crosses an important line. -- Justice Samuel Alito, to the Wall Street Journal
Thank you, Kind Sir, for generously allowing us to disagree with your specious, 12th-century arguments depriving women of Constitutional rights. And you can imagine how heartily sorry I am for leaving the impression that I thought you had any integrity to question. Just to be on the safe side, I'll apologize for agreeing with Akhilleus, when he recently accused one of your fellow justices of being corrupt just because said justice's wife accepted bribes in a substantial amount, bribes which went into the family's joint account, bribes upon which the couple did not pay the taxes owing. I suppose we could be accused of questioning the justice's integrity. Oh, for shame. It does look as if we "crossed an important line" here, and I don't know what to do about it. Except maybe dig in and double down, you hateful, cruel, arrogant bastid. -- Marie ~~~
~~~ Steve Benen of MSNBC: "When Republican-appointed justices ignore precedents they'd previously said they'd uphold, it undermines the court's legitimacy. When Republican-appointed justices deliver overtly political speeches, it undermines the court's legitimacy. When Republican-appointed justices take aim at fundamental American principles, such as the separation of church and state, in displays of raw power, it undermines the court's legitimacy. Alito is apparently of the opinion that the current court's critics have crossed an important line. But in reality, if anyone's gone too far in an irresponsible direction, it's Alito." MB: And what about when a Republican-appointed justice sends his wife up to Capitol Hill to declare that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election?
Hailey Fuchs, et al., of Politico explore how Supreme Court justices, especially CJ John Roberts, Clarence Thomas & Amy Barrett, protect their spouses' substantial incomes from scrutiny, even though some of the sources of the spouses' incomes come from clients who pose conflicts of interest for the justices. For instance, "In the Supreme Court's notoriously porous ethical disclosure system, Barrett not only withholds her husband's clients, but redacted the name of [her husband's law firm] itself in her most recent disclosure." MB: IOW, "We're corrupt and there's nothing you can do about it."
Michael Stratford of Politico: "The Biden administration is scaling back its debt relief program for millions of Americans over concerns about legal challenges from the student loan industry as well as a new lawsuit from Republican-led states. In a reversal, the Education Department said on Thursday it would no longer allow borrowers who have federal student loans that are owned by private entities to qualify for the relief program. The administration had previously said those borrowers would have a path to receive up to $10,000 or $20,000 of loan forgiveness.... The student loans that are guaranteed by the federal government but held by private entities account for a relatively small, and shrinking, subset of all outstanding federal student debt.... The privately held federal student loans featured prominently in the new lawsuit filed by GOP attorneys general on Thursday." ~~~
~~~ Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Six Republican-led states took legal action Thursday to block President Biden from wiping away billions of dollars in student loan debt, even as the administration tried to avoid a court challenge by reducing the number of people eligible for relief. A lawsuit filed in federal court by Leslie Rutledge, the Republican attorney general of Arkansas, accuses Mr. Biden of vastly overstepping his authority last month when he announced the government would forgive as much as $20,000 per person in student loan debt, a far-reaching move that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated could cost $400 billion over the course of the next three decades." MB: Because it would be terrible if young people, especially those from poor families, didn't enter their adult lives with huge debt.
Laurie McGinley of the Washington Post: "The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday overcame doubts from agency scientists and approved a fiercely debated drug for ALS, a move that heartened patients and advocates who pushed for the medication but raised concerns among some experts about whether treatments for dire conditions receive sufficient scrutiny."
Holmes Lybrand of CNN: "A wife and husband from Maryland have been charged with conspiring to provide the Russian government with personal medical records from the US government and military, according to a newly unsealed federal indictment. Anna Gabrielian, an anesthesiologist practicing in Baltimore, along with her husband, Jamie Lee Henry, a major and doctor in the US Army, allegedly provided 'individually identifiable health information,' which is protected under federal law, to an FBI undercover agent posing as a Russian government employee." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
Florida. Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "As a freshman congressman in 2013, Ron DeSantis was unambiguous: A federal bailout for the New York region after Hurricane Sandy was an irresponsible boondoggle, a symbol of the 'put it on the credit card mentality' he had come to Washington to oppose.... Nearly a decade later, as his state confronts the devastation and costly destruction wrought by Hurricane Ian, Mr. DeSantis ...[went on Tucker Carlson's show [to outline] his request for full federal reimbursement up front for 60 days and [to urge] the Biden administration to do the right thing.... The present circumstances have inspired a less swaggering posture toward a leader whom Mr. DeSantis has long called 'Brandon' as a recurring troll, aimed at the man he might like to succeed.... 'Ironically,' said David Jolly, a former Republican congressman from Florida, 'there's nobody in America that Ron DeSantis needs more than Joe Biden.'"
Texas. David Goodman of the New York Times: "Two unauthorized migrants were shot, one of them fatally, by two men in a pickup truck that approached them as they walked along a roadway in West Texas, according to court documents filed on Thursday. After the shooting, which took place on Tuesday evening, the truck was found parked at a home in Hudspeth County, a rural area east of El Paso that runs from the border with Mexico to the state line of New Mexico. Two men were arrested in connection with the shooting, law enforcement officials said: Michael Sheppard, the warden at a local privately run detention center, and his twin brother, Mark Sheppard. Both men were charged with manslaughter, according to affidavits filed by investigators in the case." MB: Manslaughter? Sounds like cold-blooded murder to me. The article includes details of the circumstances in which one of the men shot the migrants. A Texas Tribune story is here. ~~~
~~~ Ryan Devereaux of the Intercept: "For Michael Sheppard, it was the latest in a string of allegations of violence against immigrants going back years, with claims so severe that a federal prosecutor at one point sought the attention of the FBI. As The Intercept reported in 2018, Sheppard, in his capacity as warden of ICE's Sierra Blanca facility, was accused of participating in and overseeing the sadistic abuse of group of African migrants and asylum-seekers. In interviews with legal advocates, 30 men from Somalia described a 'week of hell' in which they were pepper-sprayed, beaten, threatened, taunted with racial slurs, and subjected to sexual abuse by officials answering to Sheppard and in some cases by Sheppard himself.... The 2018 report was only the latest in a series to document highly abusive conditions in the Sierra Blanca facility under Sheppard's watch."
Way Beyond
Ukraine, et al. The Washington Post's live updates of developments Friday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here.: "... Vladimir Putin will formally move Friday toward annexing four regions in Ukraine, after staging referendums that were widely denounced as illegal. In a grand ceremony at the Kremlin, he is expected to sign so-called 'accession treaties' for parts of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Putin signed two decrees late Thursday recognizing occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as 'independent' territories, a step toward annexation. Moscow already recognizes the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine as independent republics. Russian officials have warned that once Russia absorbs the Ukrainian territories, it will use all means to defend them, including nuclear weapons." ~~~
~~~ The New York Times' live updates for Friday are here.
U.K. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "Queen Elizabeth II died of 'old age,' according to her death certificate, which was released on Thursday by the registrar general of Scotland. The certificate, which lists her occupation as Her Majesty the Queen, also notes that the queen died at 3:10 p.m. on Sept. 8 at Balmoral Castle.... The report offers no further details about the cause of her death, which came two days after she was photographed standing and smiling as she greeted Britain's new prime minister, Liz Truss. The time of death, just after 3 p.m., is more revealing, coming more than three hours before Buckingham Palace announced it at 6:30 p.m. That indicates none of her family saw the queen just before her death, aside from King Charles III and his sister, Princess Anne, who were both already in Scotland on official duties." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
News Lede
The Washington Post's live updates of developments Friday associated with Hurricane Ian are here. Access to the page is free to nonsubscribers. The New York Times' live updates for Friday are here.
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Reader Comments (18)
Sam (the Hit Man) Alito’s finger wagging about line crossing sounds every bit as faux regal as he seems to fancy himself, right down to his choice of an adverb. I read his use of “our” as a form of the royal we, as in “We are not amused that you filthy peasants are disparaging our decisions, but we shall allow you to live as long as your vile characterizations of our clearly superior thinking are tempered by the respect due yo our royal person. Now fuck off, peasants.
And talk about line crossing…harking back nearly 1,000 years to find a way to justify present day casuistry in order to replace settled law with personal religious peccadilloes crosses more lines than a five year old with a crayon and a coloring book. Or is that too disrespectful?
And wow, I’m so happy to hear that Gin-gin and Long Dong “never discuss cases before the Supreme Court”. I’m immediately reminded of that song from “HMS Pinafore”:
[CAPTAIN]
Bad language or abuse,
I never, never use,
Whatever the emergency;
Though “Bother it” I may
Occasionally say,
I never use a big, big D –
[ALL]
What, never?
[CAPTAIN]
No, never!
[ALL]
What, never?
[CAPTAIN]
Well, hardly ever!
[ALL]
Hardly ever swears a big, big D –
Then give three cheers, and one cheer more,
For the well-bred Captain of the Pinafore!
So, yeah. Hardly ever. Be that as it may, it still doesn’t relieve Long Dong of his ethical responsibility to recuse himself in cases that directly involve his wife’s interests. Interests for which she (they) have received substantial remuneration.
Corrupt is as corrupt does. And always, not hardly ever.
During coverage of Hurricane Ian, Fox “news” anchor Martha MacCallum seemed not to know that Puerto Rico is not a foreign country:
“You know you feel terrible for people in Puerto Rico who were just hit, in Cuba who were just hit. Thank God we have better infrastructure in our country,”
Dear Martha, Puerto Rico IS part of “our country”. I suppose after four years of the former guy treating it like a foreign nation she might be forgiven. After all, Fox doesn’t hire people for their IQs.
Waaay back in 1960 or so, lyrics from the “West Side Story” song “America”, acknowledged the problem:
Nobody knows in America
Puerto Rico’s in America
And that’s why, in fact, they actually do have a pretty crappy infrastructure. It needs to be a state. But the wingers will never allow it.
I’m guessing that since “Judge” Cannon had already set fire to whatever Lilliputian reputation she might have had, she figured “What the hell”. After all, she wasn’t elevated to be a real judge. She was installed by a traitor to be his toady. And what a superb example of that slithering species she is.
And perhaps after being roundly (and accurately) excoriated for her hyper partisanship and lack of basic knowledge of the law, she probably decided to fling some additional judicial jiggery-pokery against the wall as a great big FU to all the actual judges and attorneys out there who find her astonishingly terrible at the job.
So classy, so nasty, so devoid of legality,…so Trumpy.
Sorry…in my comment about Hit Man Sam, I meant to refer to his choice of a pronoun (the royal we), not an adverb, although I can think of plenty of good adverbs to describe his actions and his putrefied pronunciamentos.
Oh, one more thing…
Former NFL QB (who once sent a picture of his pee-pee to a woman not his wife) Brett Favre, who absconded with millions that should have gone to help the destitute and the homeless so he could build a volleyball stadium for his daughter, is a Trump supporter.
Big surprise, in’it? All of these entitled assholes have grifting and con artistry in their bones. Everyone is now saying, forget about Favre, look at the others in this grift. Can’t we do both? This asshole is worth $110 million! He could have built that stadium himself and never missed a penny. But no, not only did he scarf millions from the poor, he grabbed another cool million for himself. I guess for all his hard work.
Okay, I’m done.
Leave it to our main man here to break it down and sing its song of "jiggery-pokery" –---what a gas! Fine minds do this with aplomb cutting through all the hugger-muggery, presenting all the cockwombles and the hencackles in their naked display. How lucky we are to bask in his music and if we could make a damn good musical out of it.
I'm getting a kick out of DeSantis' need to bow a bit to Biden now that he needs the government's largesse. Eat crow, you bastid!
I'll bet the owners of Marred-a-Lardo are just exhausted from taking
in all those homeless people in Florida, all of those MAGAnuts who
sent them hard earned dollars for 4 years and prayed he'd be made
king of the nation for life.
After all, the place is huuuuuge. He could set up hundreds of cots.
"Melany, get in that kitchen and cook up some food for all these
hungry people, and after that, do their laundry, and maybe get out
your sewing machine and whip up some new clothes. Their clothes
smell like poor people."
Forrest,
Yeah, and if these people needed to use the facilities, they could read some top secret documents he left lying around in the bathrooms.
on the CBO score "The Republicans have made a huge deal of the fact that the Congressional Budget Office has “scored” the cost of President Biden’s student debt cancellation at $420 billion. But though CBO usually calculates the ten-year cost of an outlay, this widely quoted figure, oddly, is for 30 years. Divide by 30 and the average annual cost is less than $15 billion a year
And, as CBO admits, this scoring omits the benefits. Former students relieved of this debt burden will have more available money to purchase homes, start businesses, and otherwise thrive economically."
Russia laying claim to parts of Ukraine--now there's some serious voter fraud--and a mention on the BBC yesterday morning about the possibility of Ukrainian men now being "drafted" to fight in the Russian Army clanged a "plus ca change" bell for me.
Several years ago, I edited a memoir by a Ukrainian woman born in 1940. But the memoir was really about her father, born in 1900 in eastern Ukraine. During the 1917 Russian Revolution, soldiers in the Red Army rode into his little village just as the villagers were leaving church. The soldiers stood all the young men against the church wall and told them either to join their army or they'd be shot. He joined the army. Some time later, this Red Army band of soldiers lost in a battle to the White Army, and he was forced to switch sides (as if he cared at all).
Finally, he returned home, married, had children, survived Stalin's famine (although not everyone in his family did), and then World War II happened. He was "drafted" into the Soviet Army. When wounded, he deserted from the hospital and hid out at home. But then the German Army swept through, burning villages as it went and death-marching the inhabitants to labor camps in, I think, Romania.
Who are these people who recklessly wage war in order to grab power, who seem to take pleasure in subjugating others and destroying their lives? What does the warmonger ultimately achieve?
Elizabeth: good to hear from you again––I've missed you. Your question hangs like a spider web waiting for its prey. Yet we humans are not like spiders we say–––yet––there is something similar in the netting and the need.The spider needs to eat to survive; these warmongers need to consume their prey in the way of control and power play and relish their superiority––-they are the ones who perhaps never had a soft place to land and are still struggling. Or they are just dickheads who get off on other's suffering.
Thank you for telling us about that memoir you edited.
Of COURSE the traitors on the Supreme Court welcomed Ketanji Brown Jackson. They know her votes won’t make a bit of difference in their march back to the 18th century. John Roberts, who sez there is no racism anymore and we should all be colorblind to race, prob’ly wondered where she got that great tan.
I’m seeing where fascist creep Stephen Miller is demanding that Biden be put in a home for looking for a recently deceased member of Congress, Jackie Walorski.
Hey, at least she is recently deceased. Fatty thought Frederick Douglass, who’s been dead for over 120 years, is still alive.
AK: AND how bout them peoples who stood in line for hours waiting for JFK to descend –––twice they done it cuz when he didn't appear the first time they thought they done got the date wrong.
I think by now we can conclude that a whole bunch of Mericans are bat shit crazy and looks like Ginni Thomas is one of them––-that smile of hers sends shivers down my spine––-"why, no, I never have conversations with my hubby re: political endeavors–-we just discuss the weather and what we are going to have for dinner."
This team of crackpots have been on my radar for years and I'm waiting for their demise. Good luck with THAT!
A"surprisingly honest" Chevron ad from Adam McKay
Now that Ian has come ashore in South Carolina, will Aunt Pittypat be the next in line to go hat in hand to “Brandon”?