The Commentariat -- June 16, 2021

Afternoon Update:

Jonathan Lemire, et al., of the AP: "President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin concluded their summit on Wednesday with an agreement to return their nations' ambassadors to their posts in Washington and Moscow and a plan to begin work toward replacing the last remaining treaty between the two countries limiting nuclear weapons. But the two leaders offered starkly different views on difficult simmering issues including cyber and ransomware attacks originating from Russia. Putin insisted anew that his country has nothing to do with such attacks, despite U..S. intelligence that indicates otherwise. Biden, meanwhile, said that he made clear to Putin that if Russia crossed certain red lines -- including going after major American infrastructure -- his administration would respond and 'the consequences of that would be devastating[.]'"

Rachel Siegel & Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "The Federal Reserve expects inflation will climb to 3.4 percent this year, higher than the central bank's previous forecasts, while also projecting for the first time that there could be two interest rate hikes in 2023. As recently as March, the Fed predicted inflation would be 2.4 percent for this year. Earlier estimates didn't project an initial rate hike until 2024. Fed leaders also moved up estimates for when interest rates could rise from near zero. Projections released after the Fed's two-day policy meeting showed that the Fed now expects to make two rate increases by the end of 2023, sooner than previously expected." The AP's story is here.

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The New York Times is liveblogging the meeting today between President Biden & Vladimir Putin. The Washington Post's liveblog is here. MB: Unless the two get in an armed duel that spills out into the hall, I don't see what there is to blog about. According to what I read/heard yesterday, Biden & Putin were supposed to meet for four or five hours behind closed doors.

David McCabe & Cecilia Kang of the New York Times: "President Biden named Lina Khan, a prominent critic of Big Tech, as the chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission, the White House said on Tuesday, a signal that the agency is likely to crack down further on the industry's giants. Earlier in the day, the Senate voted across party lines, 69 to 28, to confirm Ms. Khan as a commissioner. The president may name any commissioner to lead the agency, which investigates antitrust violations, deceptive trade practices and data privacy lapses in Silicon Valley and throughout corporate America. Ms. Khan, 32, was sworn in on Tuesday, making her the youngest chair in the F.T.C.'s history." The AP's story is here.

Tyler Pager of the Washington Post: "President Biden announced his first slate of political ambassadors Tuesday, selecting longtime Washington hands for key foreign postings. Biden will nominate Thomas R. Nides, a former State Department official, to serve as the ambassador to Israel; Julie Smith, a former Biden national security adviser, as the ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; and Ken Salazar, the former secretary of the interior and senator from Colorado, as the ambassador to Mexico.... Biden also will nominate C.B. 'Sully' Sullenberger III,who safely landed a plane on the Hudson River after a dual engine failure in 2009, as the ambassador to the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization and Cynthia Ann Telles, a UCLA professor of psychiatry, to serve as ambassador to Costa Rica."

Adrian Blanco of the Washington Post: "President Biden and the Democrat-led Senate have moved quickly to boost minority and female representation on the federal courts following Donald Trump's four-year push to remake the judiciary, in which he nominated a large share of White, male justices. Biden's early judicial slate represents a departure from his recent predecessors; his initial picks are more diverse, and Biden rolled out more nominations earlier in his presidency than others.... In his first four months, Biden nominated as many minority women to the federal bench as Trump had confirmed in his entire four years. A Washington Post analysis of Federal Judicial Center data shows all women, regardless of race or ethnicity, are underrepresented on the judiciary."

Cleaning Up After Betsy. Collin Binkley of the AP: "The U.S. Education Department said Wednesday it's erasing student debt for thousands of borrowers who attended a for-profit college chain that made exaggerated claims about its graduates' success in finding jobs. The Biden administration said it is approving 18,000 loan forgiveness claims from former students of ITT Technical Institute, a chain that closed in 2016 after being dealt a series of sanctions by the Obama administration. The new loan discharges will clear more than $500 million in debt. The move marks a step forward in the Biden administration's effort to clear a backlog of claims in the borrower defense program, which provides loan forgiveness to students who were defrauded by their colleges. Claims piled up during the Trump administration, which stalled the program and only started processing claims after a federal court demanded it. There are now more than 100,000 pending claims."

Andrew Desiderio & Marianne Levine of Politico: "Hill Democrats are intensifying pressure on Attorney General Merrick Garland to clean house at the Justice Department following revelations that Donald Trump's DOJ secretly seized communication records belonging to Democratic lawmakers, congressional staffers and journalists. Garland, who served as a federal judge for two decades, has worked to reassure Democrats that he's taking the issue seriously and pledged to support an independent inspector general's investigation into the matter. But Democrats are quickly growing impatient and already taking matters into their own hands -- opening a formal probe this week to determine who was responsible and hold them accountable." ~~~

~~~ Rip Van Garland. Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: "After days of tumult following revelations that the Trump administration deployed warrants to investigate news reporters and members of Congress in leak investigations, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a tepid response on Monday.... Garland entered office without a clear commitment to investigate all problematic conduct in the prior administration.... He has also never indicated as to whether, now that ... Donald Trump is out of office, the department would follow up on alleged illegal conduct examined by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III (e.g., obstruction of justice, perjury, witness tampering).... Garland seems to be operating as though we had not undergone four years of the Justice Department running afoul of ethical standards and department policy -- or worse, of the law."

Documents obtained by the Committee ... show that in December 2020 and early January 2021, President Trump, his Chief of Staff, and outside allies repeatedly put pressure on senior DOJ officials to challenge the results of the presidential election and advance unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud, with the apparent goal of keeping President Trump in power despite losing the 2020 election. -- House Oversight Committee ~~~

~~~ digby publishes the full Oversight Committee release. It's not that long, and it is worth reading. And digby lays out the simple truth of the current situation: "They're all getting away with plotting a coup. Nothing is happening to any of them." (Why is that? See also Jennifer Rubin's WashPo column on Garland, linked above) ~~~

~~~ "Pure Insanity." Whitney Wild, et al., of CNN: "... a batch of emails released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday ... show how Trump's White House assistant, chief of staff and other allies pressured the Justice Department to investigate claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election -- and how Trump directed allies to push [Acting AG Jeffrey] Rosen to join the legal effort to challenge the election result.... The emails also provide new detail into how Mark Meadows, then-White House chief of staff, directed Rosen to have then-Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark -- who reportedly urged Trump to make him acting attorney general instead of Rosen -- investigate voter fraud issues in Georgia before the US attorney there resigned in January. Amid the pressure, Rosen said he refused to speak to Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani about his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.... When Meadows sent Rosen a YouTube video link about Italian satellites, Rosen forwarded it to Donoghue, who responded, 'Pure insanity.'" ~~~

~~~ Washington Post Editors: "Many Republicans want the nation to ignore and forget ... Donald Trump's poisonous final months in office -- the most dangerous moment in modern presidential history, orchestrated by the man to whom the GOP still swears allegiance. Yet the country must not forget how close it came to a full-blown constitutional crisis, or worse. Tuesday brought another reminder that, but for the principled resistance of some key officials, the consequences could have been disastrous. The House Committee on Oversight and Reform on Tuesday released emails showing that the White House waged a behind-the-scenes effort to enlist the Justice Department in its crusade to advance Mr. Trump's baseless allegations of fraud in the 2020 election.... The country cannot forget that Mr. Trump betrayed his oath, that most Republican officeholders remain loyal to him nonetheless -- and that it could be worse next time." ~~~

~~~ Rick Hasen of Election Law Blog: "... let's not let the ludicrous nature of [a legal] complaint ... -- [which] cites debunked conspiracy theories and dubious legal theories and the Epoch Times as authority ... -- overshadow how dangerous this was: here is the President of the United States directing a lawyer to pressure the Department of Justice into filing a brief in the Supreme Court that would have enjoined the appointment of presidential electors by 5 states that Biden won (and that had already appointed electors pursuant to legal state process). This is nothing less than an attempt to use the courts to steal the election. It is brazen, and dangerous, and an affront to the rule of law. We are lucky that enough election administrators, elected officials, judges, governors and members of Congress blocked these attempts from going forward." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: And let us not rest on the pleasant notion that there were always be honorable officials to thwart Trump or the next Trumpian would-be dictator. Republicans around the country are working hard to put corrupt elections officials into office, curb the powers of honest officials & give state politicians the power to arbitrarily decide election results. MEANWHILE, more Trump-compliant DOJ officials were waiting in the wings, and the next Trump will likely try to make sure corrupt lawyers make the decisions at the DOJ. ~~~

~~~ Scott Lemieux in LG&$: "Let us be clear that Trump was dead serious about stealing the 2020 election, and he'll have a lot more allies if he tries it again in 2024[.]... This seems like an appropriate time to revisit the definitive stooge amongst Republican elite: '"What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change," said one senior Republican official. "He went golfing this weekend. It's not like he's plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on Jan. 20. He's tweeting about filing some lawsuits, those lawsuits will fail, then he'll tweet some more about how the election was stolen, and then he'll leave."' Of course, a big reason we're in this place is that this was the attitude of most of the political press toward Trump throughout the 2016 election cycle."

Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "The F.B.I. is pursuing potentially hundreds more suspects in the Capitol riot, the agency's director told Congress on Tuesday, calling the effort to find those responsible for the deadly assault 'one of the most far-reaching and extensive' investigations in the bureau's history. 'We've already arrested close to 500, and we have hundreds of investigations that are still ongoing beyond those 500,' Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, told the House Oversight Committee.... [Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.)] confronted Mr. Wray with messages from the social media site Parler, which she said referred threats of violence to the F.B.I. more than 50 times before the attack on Jan. 6. One message, which Ms. Maloney said Parler had sent to an F.B.I. liaison on Jan. 2, was from a poster who warned, 'Don't be surprised if we take the Capitol building," and "Trump needs us to cause chaos to enact the Insurrection Act.'... [Wray said,] 'I'm not aware of Parler ever trying to contact my office.'... At one hearing, Ms. Maloney presented her committee's research..., which showed that the Capitol Police and Washington officials made 12 'urgent requests' for their support and that Army leaders told the National Guard to 'stand by' five times as the violence escalated." ~~~

~~~ Dan Lamothe, et al., of the Washington Post: "Army generals involved in the maligned federal response to the attack on the Capitol cast the violence on Tuesday as a chaotic event requiring an 'unforeseen' change in their mission that came only after they received a panicked request for National Guard support. Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt told the House Committee on Oversight and Reform that Army officials 'all immediately understood the gravity of the situation' after receiving a request in a conference call for 'urgent and immediate support' at the Capitol, but that they still needed to develop a plan. Officials on the other end of the phone accused Piatt of denying their requests, he recalled, but he did not have the authority to approve them.... Piatt, the director of Army staff, testified along with Gen. Charles Flynn [Michael Flynn's brother,] who was then a three-star general and Army deputy chief of staff, and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray." Politico's report is here.

Annie Grayer & Kristin Wilson of CNN: "Five months after the January 6 insurrection, the House and Senate have come to an agreement that will award the Congressional Gold Medal to the officers who defended the Capitol. But 21 House Republicans refused to support the legislation, the latest reminder that members of Congress still cannot agree on the facts of the deadly Capitol Hill riot. The final vote in the House on Tuesday was 406-21. The number of House Republicans voting against the bill nearly doubled since the first time a version of the bill came to the House floor, as the vote when the bill first passed the House in March was 413-12."

Mike DeBonis & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "The Senate on Tuesday unanimously passed a measure that would establish a federal holiday for Juneteenth, the day that marks the end of slavery in the United States. The bill now heads to the Democratic-led House, where it is likely to be approved, although the timing remains uncertain. Unanimous Senate passage was an anticlimactic culmination to a long effort to commemorate Juneteenth, the day that enslaved Black people in Galveston, Tex., received news on June 19, 1865, that they had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation -- more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln had signed it." An NPR story is here. ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE, Down Alabamy way, Kyle Whitmire, a columnist with the Alabama Media Group, was wondering just what critical race theory was. "So I did what middle-aged white men are prone to do -- I asked another middle-aged white man.... I called an Alabama lawmaker, state Rep. Chris Pringle, R-Mobile, who wants to make it illegal to teach critical race theory in Alabama." According to Pringle, all his bill says is '... you can't teach critical race theory in K-12 or higher education in the state of Alabama.' About the most Whitmire "learned" from Pringle was this: "These people, when they were doing the training programs — and the government -- if you didn't buy into what they taught you a hundred percent, they sent you away to a reeducation camp." Apparently those who would be sent to re-education camps were "white male executives." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I myself am a little confused as to how teaching history to K-12 kids would land "white male executives" in forced re-education camps. Maybe all the white male K-12 kids in Alabama are above average and they're already executives???

Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "A federal judge in Louisiana has blocked the Biden administration's suspension of new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters, in the first major legal roadblock for President Biden's quest to cut fossil fuel pollution and conserve public lands. Judge Terry A. Doughty of the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana granted a preliminary injunction Tuesday against the administration, saying that the power to pause offshore oil and gas leases 'lies solely with Congress' because it was the legislative branch that originally made federal lands and waters available for leasing.... A spokeswoman for the Interior Department, which manages federal oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters, said in a statement that the administration was reviewing the ruling and would comply with it.... Congressional Democrats said they would move forward with legislative efforts to limit oil drilling on public lands."

William Rashbaum, et al., of the New York Times: "The Manhattan district attorney's office appears to have entered the final stages of a criminal tax investigation into Donald J. Trump's long-serving chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, setting up the possibility he could face charges this summer, according to people with knowledge of the matter. In recent weeks, a grand jury has been hearing evidence about Mr. Weisselberg, who is facing intense scrutiny from prosecutors as they seek his cooperation with a broader investigation into Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization, the people with knowledge of the matter said. The prosecutors have obtained Mr. Weisselberg's personal tax returns.... The investigation into Mr. Weisselberg focuses partly on whether he failed to pay taxes on valuable benefits that Mr. Trump provided him and his family over the years...."

Nicholas Kulash & David Gelles of the New York Times: "Thanks to the soaring value of [Amazon] stock, [MacKenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos' former wife,] is accumulating wealth faster than she can give it away. Though she has donated more than $8 billion over the past 11 months, primarily through direct gifts to nonprofits, today she is richer than ever, worth some $60 billion, according to Forbes. In 2020, a year of incredible need, Ms. Scott gave away nearly $6 billion to 500 organizations. Now, for the third time in under a year, Ms. Scott has announced a new round of grants, worth a combined $2.74 billion, demonstrating that her dedication to rapidly disbursing her fortune has not abated." ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE. Jodi Kantor, et al., of the New York Times: "When the coronavirus shut down New York last spring, many residents came to rely on a colossal building they had never heard of: JFK8, Amazon's only fulfillment center in America's largest city. What happened inside shows how Jeff Bezos created the workplace of the future and pulled off the impossible during the pandemic -- but also reveals what's standing in the way of his promise to do better by his employees.... Amid the pandemic, Amazon's system burned through workers, resulted in inadvertent firings and stalled benefits, and impeded communication.... Amazon continued to track every minute of most warehouse workers' shifts, from how fast they packed merchandise to how long they paused.... If productivity flagged, Amazon's computers assumed the worker was to blame.... Amazon acknowledged some issues with inadvertent firings, loss of benefits, job abandonment notices and leaves, but declined to disclose how many people were affected." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Gosh, MacKenzie, maybe you can give away some of those billions to, you know, mistreated Amazon workers.

Just Right-Wing, Not "Far"-Right-Wing. Sarah Bailey of the Washington Post: "The Southern Baptist Convention elected Ed Litton as its president on Tuesday, signaling a defeat for the hard right within the nation's largest Protestant denomination. Litton narrowly defeated Mike Stone, the favored candidate of the far right. For the past few years, the convention has been mired in debates over racism, politics and sexual misconduct that mirror many of the same debates in the Republican Party. The election took place at the convention's annual meeting in Nashville."

Way Beyond the Beltway

Israel/Palestine. Not a Good Start. Patrick Kingsley, et al., of the New York Times: "The Israeli military said early Wednesday that it had conducted airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, after officials said that the militant group Hamas had sent incendiary balloons into southern Israel from Gaza, in the first eruption of hostilities since an 11-day air war between Israel and Hamas ended last month. The Israeli military said that it 'struck military compounds belonging to the Hamas terror organization, which were used as facilities and meeting sites for terror operatives in Hamas' Khan Yunis and Gaza Brigades.' Palestinian news reports said that one of the strikes caused property damage, but there were no immediate reports of casualties in Gaza, a densely populated urban strip. The day of rising tensions was the first test of a new Israeli coalition government just three days into its term. It started when the government permitted a far-right Jewish march to pass through Palestinian areas of Jerusalem on Tuesday night, over the objections of Arab and leftist parties in the coalition, and despite threats from Hamas that it would retaliate." An AP story is here.

The Commentariat -- June 15, 2021

The Washington Post is live-updating President Biden's meetings with E.U. leaders.

The Amazing Presidency of Joe Biden, Ctd. Steven Erlanger & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Biden on Tuesday announced the end of a bitter, 17-year dispute with the European Union over aircraft subsidies for Boeing and Airbus, suspending the threat of billions of dollars in punitive tariffs on each other's economies for five years. The breakthrough came as Mr. Biden prepared to meet top European leaders in a U.S.-E.U. summit meeting. European officials said that two days of negotiations in Brussels between Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, and Valdis Dombrovskis, the E.U. trade commissioner, had finally produced an agreement that member countries approved overnight. In a briefing for reporters, Ms. Tai said that both sides had agreed to extend a suspension of tariffs for another five years while working together to counter China's investment in the aircraft sector."

Michael Birnbaum, et al., of the Washington Post: "NATO leaders on Monday agreed to pivot their alliance to a more confrontational stance toward China, a landmark shift as President Biden sought to boost and reorient the organization after the eruptions and conflict that marked the Trump era. Biden, in public comments and private meetings at the midway point of his first overseas trip as president, worked to reassure dubious allies that America is back and to rally like-minded democracies in what he repeatedly cast as an existential battle against the world's autocracies. Monday's discussion was a sharp expansion of NATO's efforts to confront Beijing after years when China was outside the focus of the defensive alliance. The allies agreed in their closing communique that 'China's stated ambitions and assertive behavior present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order.'"

David Smith of the Guardian: "The White House has published its first ever national strategy for countering domestic terrorism five months after a violent mob stormed the US Capitol in Washington. The framework released on Tuesday by the National Security Council describes the threat as now more serious than potential attacks from overseas but emphasises the need to protect civil liberties. Anticipating Republican objections that Joe Biden could use counterterrorism tools to persecute supporters of Donald Trump, the strategy is also careful to state that domestic terrorism must be tackled in an 'ideologically neutral' manner." The New York Times story is here.

Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "Attorney General Merrick Garland said Monday that the Justice Department would beef up its policies for obtaining lawmakers' records and vowed 'strict accountability' for officials who let politics affect their work, issuing a lengthy statement amid a metastasizing controversy over department efforts during the Trump administration to obtain the data of congressmen, journalists and even the White House counsel. Garland said in the statement that he had directed his deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco, to 'evaluate and strengthen the department's existing policies and procedures for obtaining records of the Legislative branch,' and he noted that she was 'already working on surfacing potentially problematic matters deserving high-level review.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Michael Balsamo of the AP: "The Justice Department's top national security official is resigning from his position after revelations that the department under ... Donald Trump secretly seized records from Democrats and members of the media. John Demers, a Trump appointee, will leave by the end of next week, a Justice Department official told The Associated Press on Monday. Demers, who was sworn in a few weeks after the subpoena for the Democrats' records, is one of the few Trump appointees who has remained in the Biden administration. He had planned for weeks to leave the department by the end of June, a second person familiar with the matter said.... Demers' resignation comes amid questions about what he knew about the Justice Department's efforts to secretly seize the phone data from House Democrats and reporters as part of the aggressive investigations into leaks." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Katie Benner of the New York Times: "Mr. Demers and his top counterintelligence deputies in the division would typically be briefed and updated on ... efforts ... to secretly gather records from the press and lawmakers.... Mark J. Lesko, the acting top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, will replace Mr. Demers on an interim basis...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has advised President Biden to restore sweeping environmental protections to three major national monuments that had been stripped away by ... Donald J. Trump. In a report sent to the White House earlier this month that has not been made public, Ms. Haaland recommended that Mr. Biden reinstate the original boundaries, which included millions of acres at Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante, two rugged and pristine expanses in Utah defined by red rock canyons, rich wildlife and archaeological treasures."

Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "The Senate confirmed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson on Monday to the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, giving President Biden his first pick on an appeals court even as the Senate Republican leader threatened future roadblocks for Biden administration judicial nominees. Following her approval by a bipartisan vote of 53 to 44, Judge Jackson, who served as a federal district judge, will join the court regarded as the second highest in the land, and considered an incubator for Supreme Court justices. She is widely considered a potential nominee for the Supreme Court should a vacancy occur during the tenure of Mr. Biden, who has promised to appoint the first African-American woman as a justice." A CBS News story is here. ~~~

~~~ Just a reminder to anybody Joe Manchin who wants to play fair with Mitch & the Gang is a fool Joe Manchin: ~~~

~~~ Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) signaled Monday that Republicans, if they win back control of the upper chamber, wouldn't advance a Supreme Court nominee if a vacancy occurred in 2024, the year of the next presidential election.... [After axing all consideration of President Obama's nominee Merrick Garland throughout 2016 & early 2017,] Republicans subsequently confirmed Amy Coney Barrett, then-President Trump's third Supreme Court nominee, in 2020.... The move, which sparked howls from Democrats, set a new record for how closely before a presidential election a Senate has confirmed a Supreme Court nominee." MB P.S. Wake up, Justice Breyer. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) According to Carl Hulse's report, linked directly above, McConnell said he might even block a Biden nominee in 2023.

Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Monday visited the Holocaust Museum and apologized for previously comparing coronavirus face-mask policies to the Nazi practice of labeling Jews with Star of David badges. But the Georgia Republican declined to walk back other controversial statements she has made, including one in which she compared the Democratic Party to Hitler's party, the National Socialist German Workers' Party. Greene's latest remarks come days before a fellow House member, Rep. Bradley Schneider (D-Ill.), is set to introduce a resolution to censure her over the Holocaust comparison." A CNN story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Justin Rohrlich of the Daily Beast: Greene suddenly discovered that the Holocaust was really bad: after visiting Washington, D.C.'s Holocaust Museum, she said, in part, "It happened, you know, over 6 million Jewish people were murdered.... The horrors of the Holocaust are something that some people don't even believe happened, that some people deny, but there is no comparison to the Holocaust. There are words that I have said, remarks that I've made, that I know are offensive. And for that I want to apologize." ~~~

~~~ William Bredderman of the Daily Beast: "Rep. Louie Gohmert celebrated New Year's Eve 2020 by dropping several thousand dollars into the coffers of a vitriolically homophobic and antisemitic pastor, federal records indicate. But his office insists the whole thing was just a giant mistake. Team Gohmert claims it hired a Christian singer named Steve Amerson from Granada HIlls, California, but accidentally reported to the Federal Election Commission that the cash went to the Tempe, Arizona address of the Faithful Word Baptist Church, led by the infamous Pastor Steve Anderson. Yes, the pastor happens to embrace a more extreme form of Gohmert's homophobic rhetoric. And yes, the money was earmarked as a 'donation.' But it wasn't meant for Anderson, and wasn't a donation at all, in Team Gohmert's telling. They just screwed up the name, purpose, and address of the recipient of their largesse. Oops."

** How Trump Tried to Use the DOJ to Overturn the 2020 Election. Katie Benner of the New York Times: "An hour before ... Donald J. Trump announced in December that William P. Barr would step down as attorney general, the president began pressuring Mr. Barr's eventual replacement [Jeffrey Rosen] to have the Justice Department take up his false claims of election fraud.... [A series of] emails, turned over by the Justice Department to investigators on the House Oversight Committee..., show[s] how Mr. Trump pressured Mr. Rosen to put the power of the Justice Department behind lawsuits that had already failed to try to prove his false claims that extensive voter fraud had affected the election results.... The documents dovetail with emails around the same time from Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump's chief of staff, asking Mr. Rosen to examine unfounded conspiracy theories about the election.... Much of the correspondence also occurred during a tense week within the Justice Department, when Mr. Rosen and his top deputies realized that one of their peers had plotted with Mr. Trump to oust Mr. Rosen and then try to use federal law enforcement to force Georgia to overturn its election results."

Zachary Cohen & Whitney Wild of CNN: "The FBI has warned lawmakers that online QAnon conspiracy theorists may carry out more acts of violence as they move from serving as 'digital soldiers' to taking action in the real world following the January 6 US Capitol attack. The shift is fueled by a belief among some of the conspiracy's more militant followers that they 'can no longer "trust the plan"' set forth by its mysterious standard-bearer, known simply as 'Q,' according to an unclassified FBI threat assessment on QAnon sent to lawmakers last week, which was obtained by CNN. But the report suggests the failure of QAnon predictions to materialize has not led to followers abandoning the conspiracy. Instead, there's a belief that individuals need to take greater control of the direction of the movement than before."

Julian Barnes of the New York Times: "Reality L. Winner, a former National Security Agency contractor who was the first person prosecuted during the Trump administration on charges of leaking classified information, has been released to a halfway house, her lawyer announced on Monday. Ms. Winner's case was the subject of an intense public campaign to win her a pardon or clemency. But it was her good behavior in prison, not the outside advocacy or a compassionate release process, that shortened her 63-month sentence, her lawyer said." An NBC News story is here.

Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "The Vatican has warned conservative American bishops to hit the brakes on their push to deny communion to politicians supportive of abortion rights -- including President Biden, a faithful churchgoer and the first Roman Catholic to occupy the Oval Office in 60 years. But despite the remarkably public stop sign from Rome, the American bishops are pressing ahead anyway and are expected to force a debate on the communion issue at a remote meeting that starts on Wednesday." MB: These celibate old men, not content with trying to control the lives of sexually-active young women, also want to curtail the religious liberty of everyone who supports these women.

The Pandemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Tuesday are here.

Dan Keating, et al., of the Washington Post: "States with higher vaccination rates now have markedly fewer coronavirus cases, as infections are dropping in places where most residents have been immunized and are rising in many places people have not, a Washington Post analysis has found. States with lower vaccination also have significantly higher hospitalization rates, The Post found."

Covid Keeps Making You Sick. Pam Belluck of the New York Times: "Hundreds of thousands of Americans have sought medical care for post-Covid health problems that they had not been diagnosed with before becoming infected with the coronavirus, according to the largest study to date of long-term symptoms in Covid-19 patients. The study, tracking the health insurance records of nearly 2 million people in the United States who contracted the coronavirus last year, found that one month or more after their infection, almost one-quarter -- 23 percent -- of them sought medical treatment for new conditions. Those affected were all ages, including children."

Georgia. A Mask, a Gun, a Murder. Azi Paybarah of the New York Times: "A customer who argued about wearing a face mask at a [Decatur,] Georgia supermarket shot and killed a cashier on Monday and wounded a deputy sheriff working off duty at the store, law enforcement officials said. The gunman was shot by the deputy, and both are expected to survive their injuries, according to law enforcement officials. A suspect, identified as Victor Lee Tucker Jr., 30, of Palmetto, Ga., was arrested by DeKalb County Police Department officers 'as he was attempting to crawl out the front door of the supermarket,' according to a statement from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation." MB: I lived in Florida. It's just as bad as Georgia. Stories like this one are why I don't believe the South can be saved. There are too many Southerners who are irredeemable -- and inherently dangerous. This story is more evidence of Abe Lincoln's Huge Mistake.

South Dakota. Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "A federal judge leveled criminal contempt charges Monday against senior federal law enforcement officials in a long-simmering standoff in South Dakota over the judge's insistence that he needs to know whether deputies guarding his courtroom have been vaccinated against the coronavirus. U.S. District Judge Charles Kornmann who sits in Aberdeen, tore into the U.S. Marshals Service for nearly an hour over their reaction to his decision at a hearing last month to question the deputy marshal in attendance about whether she had been vaccinated. The deputy marshal, according to the judge, refused to answer the question, at which point he ordered her out of his courtroom. The marshals, in turn, took three of the defendants scheduled for hearings that day out of the courthouse. That infuriated the judge, who describes that act as a 'kidnapping' that obstructed the work of the court."

Beyond the Beltway

Minnesota. Kim Bellware of the Washington Post: "One woman was killed and three people were injured after a man plowed his car into a group of protesters in Minneapolis late Sunday. The suspect is in police custody after demonstrators pulled him from his vehicle following the crash, police said.... Minneapolis police spokesman John Elder said that 'preliminary investigation indicates that the use of drugs or alcohol by the driver may be a contributing factor in this crash.' 'Based on the information available, it does not seem possible at this time to say if the crash was accidental or intentional,' Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender ... said in a newsletter to constituents Monday. 'This stretch of road, like many in our community, is one of the highest crash corridors in the City.'"

The Commentariat -- June 14, 2021

Afternoon Update:

Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "Attorney General Merrick Garland said Monday that the Justice Department would beef up its policies for obtaining lawmakers' records and vowed 'strict accountability' for officials who let politics affect their work, issuing a lengthy statement amid a metastasizing controversy over department efforts during the Trump administration to obtain the data of congressmen, journalists and even the White House counsel. Garland said in the statement that he had directed his deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco, to 'evaluate and strengthen the department's existing policies and procedures for obtaining records of the Legislative branch,' and he noted that she was 'already working on surfacing potentially problematic matters deserving high-level review.'" ~~~

~~~ Michael Balsamo of the AP: "The Justice Department's top national security official is resigning from his position after revelations that the department under ... Donald Trump secretly seized records from Democrats and members of the media. John Demers, a Trump appointee, will leave by the end of next week, a Justice Department official told The Associated Press on Monday. Demers, who was sworn in a few weeks after the subpoena for the Democrat' records, is one of the few Trump appointees who has remained in the Biden administration. He had planned for weeks to leave ... by the end of June, a second person familiar with the matter said.... Demers' resignation comes amid questions about what he knew about the Justice Department's efforts to secretly seize the phone data from House Democrats and reporters as part of the aggressive investigations into leaks." ~~~

     ~~~ Katie Benner of the New York Times: "Mr. Demers and his top counterintelligence deputies in the division would typically be briefed and updated on ... efforts ... to secretly gather records from the press and lawmakers.... Mark J. Lesko, the acting top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, will replace Mr. Demers on an interim basis...."

Just a reminder to anybody Joe Manchin who wants to play fair with Mitch & the Gang is a fool Joe Manchin: ~~~

~~~ Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) signaled Monday that Republicans, if they win back control of the upper chamber, wouldn't advance a Supreme Court nominee if a vacancy occurred in 2024, the year of the next presidential election.... [After axing all consideration of President Obama's nominee Merrick Garland throughout 2016 & early 2017,] Republicans subsequently confirmed Amy Coney Barrett, then-President Trump's third Supreme Court nominee, in 2020.... The move, which sparked howls from Democrats, set a new record for how closely before a presidential election a Senate has confirmed a Supreme Court nominee." P.S. Wake up, Justice Breyer.

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The New York Times is live-updating developments at the NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium: "New United States presidents traditionally get an early, brief NATO summit meeting, as President Biden is on Monday in a session lasting less than three hours. Few involved with NATO can forget the last time a new American president paid an inaugural visit. It was May 2017, and Donald J. Trump took the opportunity to deride the new $1.2 billion headquarters building as too expensive, and refused, despite the assurances of his aides, to support NATO's central tenet of collective defense, the famous Article 5 of the founding treaty. Mr. Biden, by contrast, is a longstanding fan of NATO and of the trans-Atlantic alliance it defends, so simply showing up with a smile and warm compliments for allies will go a long way to making his first NATO summit as president smooth and even unmemorable. He drove that point home upon arriving at the summit on Monday morning in a brief greeting with Jens Stoltenberg, NATO's secretary-general -- saying that the alliance was 'critically important for U.S. interests' and pointing to Article 5 as a 'sacred obligation." ~~~

     ~~~ Kate Sullivan & Kevin Liptak of CNN: "President Joe Biden has arrived at his first in-person North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit Monday, vowing to reaffirm the United States' commitment to a military alliance his predecessor viewed with disdain. 'I want to make it clear: NATO is critically important for US interests in and of itself. If there weren't one, we'd have to invent one,' he said shortly after arriving during a meeting with NATO's secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg. 'I just want all of Europe to know the United States is there.'" An AP report is here.

David Sanger & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Biden and fellow Western leaders issued a confrontational declaration about Russian and Chinese government behavior on Sunday, castigating Beijing over its internal repression, vowing to investigate the pandemic's origins, and excoriating Moscow for using nerve agents and cyberweapons.... But they disagreed about crucial issues, from timelines for halting the burning of coal to committing tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to challenge Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative, China's overseas investment and lending push. Still, as they left Cornwall, where they had met at a resort overlooking rocky outcroppings in England's far west, almost all the participants welcomed a new tone as they began to repair the breaches from four years of dealing with Mr. Biden's predecessor....

~~~ Here's the full 2021 G7 communique, published by the European Council, in English. (It's quite long.) A summary press release, in English, is here. ~~~

~~~ Karla Adam, et al., of the Washington Post: "As Group of Seven leaders wrapped their three-day summit [in Cornwall, England,] on Sunday, President Biden said democratic governments face a defining challenge: to show they can meet tests such as global health crises and climate change better than autocracies such as China and Russia. 'I think we're in a contest, not with China per se, but a contest with autocrats, autocratic governments around the world, as to whether or not democracies can compete with them in a rapidly changing 21st century,' Biden told reporters during the first news conference of his first foreign trip as president. He singled out China and Russia for reprobation after working here to enlist U.S. allies in what he has repeatedly cast as the existential battle of the 21st century.... In the summit-concluding communique issued Sunday, the leaders said they would work together to challenge China's 'non-market policies,' and they called on Beijing to respect human rights in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, pushed for greater transparency on the origins of the coronavirus and raised concerns about tensions in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. The language fell short of an explicit condemnation of China's human rights practices." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Jordyn Phelps of ABC News: "President Joe Biden declared that 'America is back at the table' Sunday as he concluded his first Group of Seven summit on his first overseas trip as president and prepared to head for Brussels for another round of talks with top allies at a NATO summit. 'America's back in the business of leading the world alongside nations who share our most deeply held values,' Biden said during a press conference at the conclusion of the G-7 summit. 'I think we've made some progress in re-establishing American credibility among our closest friends,' Biden continued, in an indirect reference to his predecessor...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

To Windsor, to Windsor, to Visit the Queen. Karla Adam of the Washington Post: "President Biden and first lady Jill Biden met Queen Elizabeth II for tea at Windsor Castle on Sunday, concluding the U.K. leg of their first overseas presidential trip.... The monarch greeted the Bidens in the castle's quadrangle. Assembled soldiers gave a royal salute, which was followed by the American national anthem. There was then an inspection of the Honour Guard, though the queen didn't walk with President Biden, as she did in 2019 with ... Donald Trump, who was accused of breaking protocol by walking in front of her. Instead, the queen, 95, stayed with Jill Biden on the dais, which shielded them from the sun. This is the queen's first prominent weekend since the funeral of her husband, Prince Philip, and she was seen managing her duties as she always has." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ The story has been updated: "After the meeting with Elizabeth, Biden, 78, told reporters that the 95-year-old monarch reminded him of his mother. 'I don't think she'd be insulted, but she reminded me of my mother, the look of her and just the generosity,' he said. He also said that she had asked him, while they sipped tea, about China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin. 'She's extremely gracious. That's not surprising, but we had a great talk,' he told reporters on the tarmac at London's Heathrow Airport before departing for Brussels for a NATO summit.... It's highly unusual to get a glimpse into conversations between the British monarch and world leaders." The AP report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I don't know why so many news stories describe Trump as having "broken protocol" by walking in front of Elizabeth. Any idiot knows you don't try to outpace your hostess at a reception, and you certainly don't race to outrun an elderly lady, much less a head of state. Trump didn't "break protocol"; he behaved like the bumptious, rude rube he is.

AP: "Churchgoers in a seaside resort in England say they have been left 'gobsmacked' when U.S. President Joe Biden and the first lady Jill Biden dropped in for a Sunday service.... On Sunday morning, ahead of the summit's conclusion, they were seen attending mass at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in St. Ives.... [Parishoner] Gayle Wood, 63, said Biden appeared to make a 'very generous donation' to the church before leaving." (Also linked yesterday.)

Paul McLeary of Politico: "When President Joe Biden meets his Turkish counterpart President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday, the two leaders will be looking to repair a long alliance as pressure from China and Russia looms over Europe. And they'll be doing it despite a history of insults, political threats, economic sanctions, obstruction and canceled fighter jet contracts.... The problems are significant, but the Biden administration is looking for an ally that will continue to help with the Syrian refugee crisis while playing a more positive role in regional tensions.... To this point in his presidency, Biden has given Erdogan the diplomatic cold shoulder, only making his first phone call in April, which was merely to inform the Turkish leader of his decision to recognize the 1915 Armenian genocide, the first time a U.S. president has done so. The decision sparked outrage in Ankara, and Erdogan said the decision caused a 'deep wound' in the U.S./Turkey relationship." ~~~

~~~ Losing Trump Makes Erdogan a Better NATO Ally. Carlotta Gall of the New York Times: "For the last four years, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has brazenly crushed his opponents at home and cozied up to Moscow, while showering his allies with sweetheart government contracts and deploying troops regionally wherever he saw fit. And for the most part..., Donald J. Trump's administration turned a blind eye. But as Mr. Erdogan arrives in Brussels for a critical NATO meeting on Monday, he is facing a decidedly more skeptical Biden administration, as are other strongmen leaders once enabled by Mr. Trump.... Thanks to both the coronavirus pandemic and his mismanagement of the economy, [Erdogan] is now facing severe domestic strains, with soaring inflation and unemployment, and a dangerously weakened lira that could set off a debt crisis. So he has dialed back his approach, already softening his positions on several issues in the hope of receiving badly needed investment from the West -- something Russia cannot provide."

Systemic Racism, Military Edition. Kat Stafford, et al., of the AP: "In interviews with The Associated Press, current and former enlistees and officers in nearly every branch of the armed services described a deep-rooted culture of racism and discrimination that stubbornly festers, despite repeated efforts to eradicate it. The AP found that the military's judicial system has no explicit category for hate crimes, making it difficult to quantify crimes motivated by prejudice. The Defense Department also has no way to track the number of troops ousted for extremist views, despite its repeated pledges to root them out. More than 20 people linked to the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol were found to have military ties. The AP also found that the Uniform Code of Military Justice does not adequately address discriminatory incidents and that rank-and-file people of color commonly face courts-martial panels made up of all-white service members, which some experts argue can lead to harsher outcomes."

Joe Davidson of the Washington Post: "House Democrats are pushing legislation designed to overturn the lasting legacies of institutional racism that were embedded in a key New Deal law.... But the law is now seen in a broader context -- one that does not diminish its accomplishments, but addresses its exclusions. To secure the votes needed to pass the bill, [President Franklin] Roosevelt agreed to certain exemptions for farmworkers, domestic workers and others that led to generational financial injury for Black and Brown people.... Democrats hope to correct those situations with three bills facing Republican opposition. Each was previously sponsored or co-sponsored by Vice President Harris when she was a senator.... President Biden backs all three bills.... The law's exclusions were not racist in name, but in design, implementation and impact. The maids, caretakers and nannies 'were largely women, largely women of color,' [Rep. Pramila] Jayapal [D-Wash.] said in an interview Wednesday."

     ~~~ Marie: Of course Republicans oppose correcting the legacy of systemic racism. First, they favor racism. It's a vote-getter for them. Second, they pretend systemic racism doesn't exist.

Michael Schmidt & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Apple told Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel to ... Donald J. Trump, last month that the Justice Department had subpoenaed information about an account that belonged to him in February 2018, and that the government barred the company from telling him at the time, according to two people briefed on the matter. Mr. McGahn's wife received a similar notice from Apple.... It is not clear ... [that] Mr. McGahn was [the FBI's] specific focus.... Gag orders for subpoenas may be renewed for up to a year at a time, suggesting that prosecutors went to court several times to prevent Apple from notifying the McGahns earlier." In January 2018 -- just prior to the DOJ's issuing the McGahn subpoenas to Apple -- the NYT reported that Trump had tried to get McGahn to order the firing of Robert Mueller, then demanding that McGahn deny Trump had ordered Mueller's firing. Trump then blew up at McGahn & called him "a liar and a leaker." Schmidt & Savage say it's unlikely there a connection because a leak from McGahn to the press about the attempted Mueller firing would not be illegal. MB: Sorry, I think the time is not coincidental. Thanks to RAS for the link. An AP story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Just as there was a certain cachet to making Nixon's "enemies list," I suspect that among some of Washington's elite, a secret Trumpy subpoena will become a point of pride.

Lying About Lying. Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "The White House press secretary turned Fox News contributor Kayleigh McEnany has claimed she 'never lied' while speaking for Donald Trump.... The press has questioned the veracity of McEnany's claims. So have political factchecking sites. For instance, Politifact gave McEnany a 'pants on fire' rating last September after she told reporters: 'The president never downplayed the virus.'... When she was press secretary, even Fox News cut away from her remarks when she advanced Trump's lie that his defeat by Biden was the result of electoral fraud."

Bob Brigham of the Raw story: "Despite violent rhetoric from her family inciting the January 6th insurrection, Lara Trump suggested vigilante violence against people perceived to be from south of the southern border during a Saturday night appearance with Fox News personality Jeanine Pirro.... '... I don't know what you tell the people that live at the southern border,' she said. 'I guess they better arm up and get guns and be ready -- and maybe they're going to have to start taking matters into their own hands.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Stupidest U.S. Senator Is Also Delusional. Katherine Huggins of Mediaite: "Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) reiterated his belief Sunday that the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was a 'non-violent' gathering.... He referenced an eyewitness account, saying the vast majority were 'in a jovial mood,' and while 'they were serious, they weren't violent.... They weren't rioting. It doesn't look like an armed insurrection when you have people that breach the Capitol, and I don't condone it, but they're staying within the roped lines in the Rotunda. That's not what armed insurrection would look like.'"

** Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post: "Like termites, destructive but largely unseen, anti-democracy forces around the country are gnawing at the foundations of America's free and fair elections. State by state, the termites are trying to change the rules to allow Donald Trump or someone like him to succeed in 2024 where Trump tried and failed in 2020: to steal an election that he lost. In April, a report by three nonprofit organizations documented how Republicans in dozens of state legislatures were pursuing a strategy 'to politicize, criminalize, and interfere in election administration.' Now, less than two months later, this 'Democracy in Crisis' report has an update, and it is alarming. The number of bills raising red flags has grown from 148 in 36 states to 216 in 41 states -- and 24 of them have become law.... Anti-democrats are working to improve their odds next time around. They are trying to replace the honest officials with peddlers of Trump's lie.... They are subjecting election officials to criminal penalties for actions they may take in the course of performing their duties. Potentially most dangerous, legislatures are giving themselves the right to interfere in vote-counting and election disputes while tying the hands of secretaries of state to rule impartially or even in some cases to seek legal advice.&"

Gilded Age II, Ctd. Andrew Sorkin, et al., of the New York Times (June 11): "Six of the 10 largest executive pay packages of all time were awarded last year. This and other findings come from a new survey of the 200 highest paid C.E.O.s at public companies conducted for The Times by Equilar, a consulting firm. 'Even in a gilded age for executive pay, 2020 was a blowout year,' writes The Times's Peter Eavis. The spike is due in large part to linking C.E.O.s' pay to stock prices. This 'pay-for-performance' structure is intended to align managers' incentives with those of the company's owners, the shareholders. But it also raises questions about how much credit executives deserve for rising stock prices, and whether the performance conditions attached to stock awards are suitably tough.... C.E.O.s in the survey received 274 times the pay of the median employee at their companies, up from 245 times in the previous year.... Eight C.E.O.s received pay packages last year worth more than $100 million."

The Pandemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Monday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Monday are here.

Carl Zimmer of the New York Times: "Novavax, a small American company buoyed by lavish support from the U.S. government, announced on Monday the results of a clinical trial of its Covid-19 vaccine in the United States and Mexico, finding that its two-shot inoculation provides potent protection against the coronavirus. In the 29,960-person trial, the vaccine demonstrated an overall efficacy of 90.4 percent, on par with the vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, and higher than the one-shot vaccine from Johnson & Johnson. The Novavax vaccine showed an efficacy of 100 percent at preventing moderate or severe disease. Despite these impressive results, the vaccine's future in the United States is uncertain and it might be needed more in other countries. Novavax says it may not seek emergency authorization from the Food and Drug Administration until the end of September." A Politico story is here.

Beyond the Beltway

New York City. Emma Fitzsimmons of the New York Times: "This is the first time that New Yorkers can vote early in a mayoral election. Voters were sparse on Saturday and Sunday, and lines at polling stations were much shorter than during the presidential election last year. Early voting will last from June 12 to June 20. The primary election is on June 22. But it is also the first time the city will be using ranked-choice voting -- a factor that has added a significant measure of unpredictability into the mayor's race. Interviews with dozens of voters across the city over the weekend, from the Grand Concourse in the Bronx to Flushing in Queens, revealed that the Democratic primary for mayor was still very much up for grabs, and that most voters were taking advantage of being able to rank up to five candidates out of the field of 13."

Way Beyond

China. Zachary Cohen of CNN: "The US government has spent the past week assessing a report of a leak at a Chinese nuclear power plant, after a French company that part owns and helps operate it warned of an 'imminent radiological threat,' according to US officials and documents reviewed by CNN. The warning included an accusation that the Chinese safety authority was raising the acceptable limits for radiation detection outside the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant in Guangdong province in order to avoid having to shut it down, according to a letter from the French company to the US Department of Energy obtained by CNN. Despite the alarming notification from Framatome, the French company, the Biden administration believes the facility is not yet at a 'crisis level,' one of the sources said."

Israel. Ilan Ben Zion of the AP: "For the first time in 12 years, Israelis on Monday woke up to a new government and a new prime minister, after Naftali Bennett secured the backing of parliament and ousted longtime leader Benjamin Netanyahu. The two were slated to hold a handover meeting later in the day, but without the formal ceremony that traditionally accompanies a change in government.... David Bitan, a Likud lawmaker, told Kan public radio that Netanyahu was not holding the formal ceremony with Bennett because he feels 'cheated' by the formation of the Bennett-Lapid government and 'doesn't want to give even the slightest legitimacy to this matter.'... The new government was sworn in late on Sunday and set to work Monday morning, with ministers announcing appointments of new ministry directors." ~~~

~~~ Steve Hendrix & Shira Rubin of the Washington Post: "For the first time in 12 years, Israeli lawmakers voted Sunday to install a government led by someone other than Benjamin Netanyahu, breaking a two-year electoral deadlock, marking a likely shift toward the political center and ending -- for now -- the reign of the country's longest-serving prime minister, and one of its most consequential." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Exit, Stage Right. David Halbfinger of the New York Times: Benjamin Netanyahu, "Israel's longest-serving leader..., [inspired] such admiration that supporters likened him to the biblical King David. His political agility got him out of so many tight spots that even his detractors called him a magician. He presided over an extraordinary economic turnaround, kept the perennially embattled country out of major wars and kept casualty tolls to historic lows. He feuded with Democratic American presidents, then capitalized on a symbiosis with the Trump administration to cement historic gains, including the opening of a U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.... He struck watershed accords with four Arab countries that had long shunned Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians.... Mr. Netanyahu ... was ousted as prime minister on Sunday.... He compartmentalized the Palestinian conflict, snubbing the endless peace talks that had stymied his predecessors, unilaterally expanding the Jewish presence in the occupied West Bank and treating Palestinians largely as a security threat to be contained." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Myanmar. Shibani Mahtani of the Washington Post: "Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's deposed civilian leader, appeared in court on Monday for the start of a weeks-long trial that is almost certain to find her guilty of politically motivated charges. The 75-year-old is now facing a predicament worse than her 15 years under house arrest, persecuted by a military junta that is determined to keep her isolated as anger and protests rage across the country." The AP's report is here.