August 28, 2022

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "Ironic that Friday was Women's Equality Day, designated so by Congress in the '70s. At a time when women all over the world should be blossoming, we're seeing stunning setbacks. There's a bizarre trend of punishing women, Saudi-style, for their sexuality. Sanna Marin, Finland's 36-year-old prime minister, is under fire for dancing with her friends in a country that always gets named 'the happiest country in the world' in the United Nations-sponsored World Happiness Report. What a grim, still-sexist world this is, when Marin is forced to tearfully apologize -- and take a drug test -- after video leaked of her letting loose.... The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, was cheered for chugging beers at a public concert while Marin was under fire for dancing at a private party."

Smooth Sailing. AP: "The U.S. Navy sailed two warships through the Taiwan Strait on Sunday, in the first such transit publicized since U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan earlier in August, at a time when tensions have kept the waterway particularly busy. The USS Antietam and USS Chancellorsville are conducting a routine transit, the U.S. 7th Fleet said. The cruisers 'transited through a corridor in the Strait that is beyond the territorial sea of any coastal State,' the statement said."

Alan Feuer & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "A federal judge in Florida gave notice on Saturday of her 'preliminary intent' to appoint an independent arbiter, known as a special master, to conduct a review of the highly sensitive documents that were seized by the F.B.I. this month during a search of Mar-a-Lago..., Donald J. Trump's club and residence in Palm Beach. In an unusual action that fell short of a formal order, the judge, Aileen M. Cannon of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida, signaled that she was inclined to agree with the former president and his lawyers that a special master should be appointed to review the seized documents.... Judge Cannon, who was appointed by Mr. Trump in 2020, set a hearing for arguments in the matter for Thursday in the federal courthouse in West Palm Beach -- not the one in Fort Pierce, Fla., where she typically works." The Hill's report is here.

Does This Orange Jumpsuit Make Me Look Fat? Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Since the release of the search warrant [on Mar-a-Lago], which listed three criminal laws as the foundation of the investigation, one -- the Espionage Act — has received the most attention. Discussion has largely focused on the spectacle of the F.B.I. finding documents marked as highly classified and Mr. Trump's questionable claims that he had declassified everything held at his residence. But by some measures, the crime of obstruction is as, or even more, serious a threat to Mr. Trump or his close associates. The version investigators are using, known as Section 1519, is part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a broad set of reforms enacted in 2002.... The heavily redacted affidavit [released Friday] provides new details of the government's efforts to retrieve and secure the material in Mr. Trump's possession, highlighting how prosecutors may be pursuing a theory that the former president, his aides or both might have illegally obstructed an effort of well over a year to recover sensitive documents that do not belong to him.... Section 1519's maximum penalty is 20 years in prison, which is twice as long as the penalty under the Espionage Act." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Jeremy Herb & Annie Grayer of CNN: "Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has sent a letter to the House Intelligence and House Oversight committee chairs, saying the intelligence community is conducting a damage assessment of the documents taken from ... Donald Trump's home in Mar-a-Lago, according to a letter obtained by CNN.... Several members of Congress have called for an intelligence damage assessment of the documents." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Notes from the Scene of the Crime. Niall Stanage of the Hill: "One of former President Trump's main claims about the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago is being undermined by Friday's release of a key affidavit. Trump has pushed the narrative that he and his lawyers were cooperating with the Department of Justice's (DOJ) inquiries about documents from his time in the White House. This, he claims, means that the Aug. 8 raid on his Florida estate was gratuitous.... Even in heavily redacted form, the affidavit points out that there was a prolonged process lasting around seven months in 2021 before Trump's team coughed up any documents at all.... [For instance,] according to a Trump legal filing earlier this week, one of the FBI agents, having been shown the storage room in which some documents were held, purportedly said, Now it all makes sense.' The same Trump filing refers to a June 8 letter in which the DOJ 'requested, in pertinent part, that the storage room be secured' -- a request that is implied to have been met when Trump told staff to put a second lock on the door. By contrast, the DOJ's affidavit quotes a letter on the same date -- presumably the same letter -- reiterating to a Trump lawyer that there was no 'secure location authorized for the storage of classified information' anywhere at the resort. The letter makes clear that the DOJ's request was not some generalized security check-up but a demand for the 'preservation' of the storage room in its 'current condition until further notice' -- phrasing that is far more redolent of an investigation of a possible crime scene than a friendly chat about padlocks." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Steve Benin of MSNBC: "The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Organized Crime Corruption and Reporting Project published a stunning report [Friday] on a young woman named Inna Yashchyshyn, who presented herself as Anna de Rothschild.... The report notes that this woman -- with a fake identity and shadowy background' -- allegedly bypassed the security at Mar-a-Lago with relative ease[.] The FBI has reportedly begun an inquiry into the matter.... Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who actually chaired the Senate Homeland Security Committee for six years, downplayed the seriousness of Trump's scandal last week because, as the Wisconsinite put it, Mar-a-Lago is 'a pretty safe place' and 'a secure location.'... There's overwhelming evidence to the contrary."~~~

     ~~~ A related straight news story by Edward Helmore of the Guardian is here. Yashchyshyn is the daughter of an Illinois truck driver.

Jacqueline Alemany, et al., of the Washington Post: "In the nearly three weeks since the FBI searched ... Donald Trump's Florida home to recover classified documents, the National Archives and Records Administration has become the target of a rash of threats and vitriol.... Following the Aug. 8 FBI search, Trump and his allies unleashed a torrent of attacks on one of the most apolitical arms of the federal bureaucracy.... Trump's recent actions have whipped his followers into a fervor against the Archives, and he has empowered some of his most politically combative allies to represent him in negotiations with the agency.... In June, around the time the Justice Department stepped up its hunt for documents at Mar-a-Lago, Trump assigned two new Archives representatives who focused on pubicizing documents they claimed would vindicate Trump and damage the FBI: Kash Patel and John Solomon.... NARA's motto, Littera Scripta Manet, translates from Latin to 'the written word remains.' But in Trump's White House, the written word was often torn, destroyed, misplaced or hoarded.... Some NARA officials believe that there might still be more records missing, according to a person familiar with the matter." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I doubt that anyone who decides to embark upon a career as an archivist thinks, "Wow, this job is going to be fun. I'll be wrangling with presidents* & be in danger at every moment."

Emily Peck & Sara Fischer of Axios: "The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) refused Donald Trump's application for a trademark for 'Truth Social,' the name of his social media company earlier this month.... The USPTO found two other companies who already use the Truth Social wording, which would create what's known as 'likelihood of confusion' if Trump also got the mark. Typically, when a company files for a trademark -- the distinct brand-name it wishes to use exclusively -- lawyers vet the term to make sure there's no conflicts.... Trump can appeal, which trademark lawyers believe is likely.... The trademark refusal is just the latest setback for the former president's social media app and its parent company, which have been beset by a raft of issues over the past few months." MB: You might think Trump would have hired a patent attorney who knew how to apply for a patent, but I suppose he couldn't find any who would work for him without demanding a huge retainer. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Drew Harwell of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump's Truth Social website is facing financial challenges as its traffic remains puny and the company that is scheduled to acquire it expresses fear that his legal troubles could lead to a decline in his popularity. Six months after its high-profile launch, the site -- a clone of Twitter, which banned Trump after Jan. 6, 2021 -- still has no guaranteed source of revenue and a questionable path to growth, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings from Digital World Acquisition, the company planning to take Trump's start-up, the Trump Media & Technology Group, public. The company warned this week that its business could be damaged if Trump 'becomes less popular or there are further controversies that damage his credibility.' The company has seen its stock price plunge nearly 75 percent since its March peak and reported in a filing last week that it had lost $6.5 million in the first half of the year.” (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Jared's Dilemma: "There's Different Words." Annie Karni & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Making the rounds promoting his new memoir, Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of ... Donald J. Trump, this week ... [was asked] Did he agree with Mr. Trump's false claim that the 2020 election was stolen? 'I think that there's different words,' Mr. Kushner told the talk show host Megyn Kelly during a friendly interview.... Pressed to say whether Mr. Trump lost, Mr. Kushner demurred. 'I believe it was a very sloppy election,' he said. 'I think that there's a lot of issues that I think if litigated differently may have had different insights into them.' In reality, the words that election officials have used to describe the 2020 contest are 'the most secure in American history,' and judges across the country rejected nearly all of the several dozen lawsuits that allies of Mr. Trump filed alleging fraud. Mr. Kushner's reluctance to concede as much reflected the contortions he is now attempting as he tries to sell a book whose success hinges on his close ties to Mr. Trump. At the same time, he is seeking to keep his distance from the lies and misdeeds that paved the way for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Like the memoir itself, titled 'Breaking History,' the task involves a highly selective narrative that casts Mr. Kushner as a young star getting things done in the White House without getting his hands dirty." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Yeah, it depends upon what the meaning of "lost" is. What a nitwit. Karni & Haberman have fun tearing into Jared in this straight news story.

Beyond the Beltway

Utah. Jim Acosta of CNN: "Utah independent Senate candidate Evan McMullin has accused a motorist of brandishing a firearm and pointing it at him and his wife as the couple was driving home from a campaign event in April. The allegation is described in a 'victim impact statement' filed by McMullin in the District Court for Utah County, Utah, this week.... In the filing, McMullin accused the motorist, Jack Aaron Whelchel, of making unprovoked threats that included forcing the couple's car into oncoming traffic, before aiming a firearm in a threatening manner. Whelchel was indicted in April on misdemeanor charges of making a threat with a dangerous weapon and disorderly conduct. Whelchel pleaded not guilty to both charges. McMullin testified as a witness during a preliminary hearing in July, at which he identified Whelchel as the motorist, but the candidate has not publicly mentioned the incident.... [Whelchel's attorney] said he expects the case to go to a jury trial after a scheduled hearing next month.... Whelchel's Facebook page features several far-right memes."

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Sunday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Sunday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Sunday are here: "Local authorities in Zaporizhzhia are distributing potassium iodide tablets in case of a leak of radioactive material , and residents are lining up. The tablets helps counteract the effects of radioactive exposure by blocking the body's absorption of the radioactive form of iodine.... The [U.S.] State Department confirmed another U.S. citizen has died but did not identify them.... Vladimir Putin has ordered payments and welfare benefits be made to Ukrainians arriving in Russia, according to a law signed this weekend."

Pakistan's "Climate Catastrophe." Zarar Khan of the AP: "Deaths from widespread flooding in Pakistan topped 1,000 since mid-June, officials said Sunday, as the country's climate minister called the deadly monsoon season 'a serious climate catastrophe.' Flash flooding from the heavy rains has washed away villages and crops as soldiers and rescue workers evacuated stranded residents to the safety of relief camps and provided food to thousands of displaced Pakistanis. Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority reported the death toll since the monsoon season began earlier than normal this year -- in mid-June -- reached 1,033 people after new fatalities were reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southern Sindh provinces."

News Lede

Washington Post: "Four people were dead after a man set a residence on fire, shot at people fleeing and was then killed by a police officer early Sunday in Houston, authorities said. Just after 1 a.m., the city's police and fire departments received calls about a fire and shooting at a house used as a rental facility, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said at a news conference. Firefighters arrived first but had to take cover when the gunman opened fire, although it was not clear if he was firing at them. Soon after that, police officers got to the scene and found the shooter in a parking lot across the street from the house. An officer shot and killed the man, who was dressed in black and armed with a shotgun, Finner said. Two residents were pronounced dead at the scene, and a third died at a hospital."

Comments

[Ken Winkes]

Another Sunday, another sermon:

I don’t need the barrage of back-to-school advertisements to remind me that another school year is about to begin. After all my years in classrooms, the September to June school calendar is in my bones to stay.

As summer wanes, my thoughts inevitably turn to what millions of students will experience this coming year, to teachers’ frustrations and joys, to how seriously students will engage in what’s placed before them, and how much they will learn or not learn along the way. Mostly I think of the astonishing ways in which their brains and bodies will grow in the next nine months. I’ve seen the progress students make, or heartbreakingly fail to make, thousands of times before.

What I can’t see clearly is exactly what this year’s lessons will consist of. There are the verities, of course: The reading, writing and arithmetic, the history, literature, and science we studied and may have forgotten. But I know teaching methods and even some subject matter has changed since I haunted classrooms. In a changing world, schools naturally change, too, and each change invites and deserves discussion.

Discussion, however, is not the same as denial. Some so dislike certain social changes they insist that their schools don’t address them. Instead, they want schools to present only what they wish were true: That the United States does not have a history of racism, or that our immensely complicated sexual natures and mores are really very simple. Or that democracy doesn’t require tolerance and cooperation. Or that facts are simply a matter of opinion. In short, they would have schools limit their students’ world, rather than expand it.

If we truly wish our children to grow, we must accept changes. A child’s very development assumes and requires it.

As does ours.

[Forrest Morris]

This looks bigly suspicious to me:

1. 7/31/2019: Trump spoke with Putin (NYT)

2. 8/2/2019: Trump issued a request for a list of top US spies (The
Daily Beast)

3. 10/5/2021: CIA admits to losing dozens or informants (NYT)

If I were a patent attorney I would advise trump to forget Truth
Social and try something like Lies Unlimited.

[P.D. Pepe]

Ken: Joe has been retired for more than 20 yrs. and still feels the tension he once felt every school opening and he still says, once in awhile on Sunday nights––-"We ( I retired at the same time as he) don't have to go to school tomorrow!" We are grateful we do not have to teach in this vituperative age––me especially since I was always eager to teach the little buggers facts and figures that sometimes were absent in their texts.

We are in a serious situation as you point out and I fear for the kind of education many of our kids will receive. One again the words of Reinhold Niebuhr need attention:

"The world is full of dangerous ideas and if we set out to protect young people against them we will produce gullible innocents, not tough minded realist who know what they believe because they have faced the enemies of their beliefs."

And since it's Sunday let's praise, not some lord, but those teachers who persevere and pass them the ammunition they need to succeed.

[Marie Burns]

@Forrest Morris: Those are some really damning "coincidences" you cite. I hadn't heard of that before. Maybe somebody should check Trump's bank account from around then for a $10MM check signed "V. Putin." And it's beginning to look like Trump needs to spend a good bit of that hypothetical $10MM on a defense lawyer who specializes in treason cases.

It will be interesting to find out -- if we ever do find out -- what type of classified information Trump stole from the White House and what type he held back when he turned in that first set of 15 boxes to the Archives. Did he keep stuff he could sell? Was it the type of info that U.S. enemies would love to get their hands on?

I would be pretty surprised if it turns out the FBI has found all the docs Trump squirreled away here and there. It's not like Trump doesn't have access to a copy machine and many, many places to stash the copies. (I can just see him going berserk & kicking the machine when it jams with some of his precious spy docs caught in the works.) I don't think this is just a matter of Trump's acquisitive nature; I think he intends to market (or already has marketed) that stuff, & he doesn't care who-all in what "shithole countries" die because of it. The FBI & the CIA & whoever else should be looking at him not as an accidental spy, who because of his sloppiness & stupidity let slip some U.S. secrets, but as a purposeful one. He's as slimy and greedy as they come.

[Bobby Lee]

A snide question that was posed yesterday: Will Trump be tried as an adult?

[Marie Burns]

@Ken Winkes & @P.D. Pepe: It is heartening to read about your interest in actually teaching the kiddies something. A friend of mine just wrote about how nervous her daughter -- a 4th-grade teacher -- was about the new school year. She will have 19 kids in her class this year, the most ever, and four teaching assistants.

Here's the when-I-was-a-girl part. The ideal number of kids in a grade-school classroom was 30, but I lived in a part of South Florida that was growing fast, and the number of kids in my class was often more like 40. The teachers did not earn a living wage, so some had to take second jobs and their interest in teaching was low. There were no teachers' aides. A kid had to be self-motivated or else. Naturally, there was no one-on-one teaching. Our classrooms, till I was in the middle of the 5th grade, were wooden portable buildings set on cinder blocks. They may have been WWII surplus; the school looked more like a concentration camp than a school. I never went to a public school that had A/C -- even though the classrooms in South Florida got really hot for several months a year. And of course we had those Southern-style textbooks -- oh, and no black kids in our school even though I was graduated years after Brown v. Board of Education.

[Marie Burns]

@Bobby Lee: Yes, but with a diminished-capacity defense. Before any trial, expect to see photos of him roaming around Mar-a-Lardo & his golf resorts in his bathrobe accompanied by a nurse whom he cannot be dissuaded from calling "my negress."

[Jeanne]

The pundits and the talkers and the commenters seem to be missing the point about indicting Dumpie Don. The point is that he has a past of kissing up to tyrants and enemies of the state, and he STOLE the damn papers, regardless of whether there is "evidence" of damage done by filching the unsecured boxes of classified stuff. I wish that would be stressed in the circus of recounting the tale. The point is that he committed treason, not for the first time, and his followers and he are cleaning up in the PR game. Oh, and he caused the government to be attacked. Gosh, do they remember that at all?! Can I have a cocktail even though it is 9:30 in the morning?

[Forrest Morris]

@Jeanne: Yes, it's cocktail time somewhere in the world. That's
always my reasoning.

[Akhilleus]

Marie,

Regarding the (very real) possibility that Trump has used US government national security secrets as leverage to get something for himself…

Consider: Trump has always sought out short cuts to get what he wants, he lies, he scams the IRS and banks, he signs agreements and contracts he has no intention of fulfilling, he stiffs contractors, he uses other human beings as fodder for his own celebrity, he has been taught by crooks and bigots and con men his whole life. He believes that everything is there for him: my papers, my generals, my Kevin…only I can do it…it’s solipsism on a galactic scale.

Then suddenly, he has access to a goldmine of information he can use for his own purposes, information that could get people killed. Does that bother the guy who took out a full page as in the papers to demand the execution of innocent kids? So HE could look important? Hell no. It’s always all about the Donald.

He has always surrounded himself with shady characters and dirty tricksters (Roy Cohn, Roger Stone, etc) who see information as just another form of capital, the more sensitive, the more valuable. Think any of them taught him about honor? Ethics? Common decency?

If you’re Trump, why would you not take advantage of such a windfall? Why? You think he took boxes of top secret documents as mementos? Keepsakes? “Hey, honey, remember that time I used this piece of paper to stop a war? Those were the days, right?” Certainly not.

Those docs were (are) worth millions to a grifting, greedy crook like Trump. Does he have copies? Maybe, sure. But can those charged with National security trust that all those secrets are safe? Absolutely not. Trump has never cared about the nation’s security. He comes across a cool secret, he blabs it out to the Russians to make himself look smart and in the know. The value of such secrets, for Trump, is what he can get out of them.

You think he gets inaugurated and suddenly becomes a responsible guy?

Forrest’s timeline is shocking, even for someone like Trump. But when you consider all of the above, it shouldn’t surprise anyone.

As I mentioned yesterday, we should consider everything in those documents to be compromised, if not completely blown.

Treason, for Trump, is not a crime; it’s another way for him to get something just for the Donald, because he deserves it. Everything else (patriotism, honor, oath of office) is just annoying noise unless it can be monetized somehow.

[Akhilleus]

Bobby Lee,

And the next question: do federal penitentiaries have kid sized jump suits that will fit that fat ass?

[Ken Winkes]

Akhilleus,

And not only that, but I can see the Pretender very angry at a nation that rejected him...

Betraying the country as revenge would suit him to a "T"--for the "Traitor" he is.

After all, during his four years as pretend president everyone who criticized him was a traitor...we heard it a hundred times.

[RAS]

The intelligence community was worried early on about Trump outting their sources. In 2017 the US extracted a highly placed Russian spy near Putin because of Trump leaking sensitive information to Lavrov in the Oval Office.
"Washington CNN —
In a previously undisclosed secret mission in 2017, the United States successfully extracted from Russia one of its highest-level covert sources inside the Russian government, multiple Trump administration officials with direct knowledge told CNN.

A person directly involved in the discussions said that the removal of the Russian was driven, in part, by concerns that President Donald Trump and his administration repeatedly mishandled classified intelligence and could contribute to exposing the covert source as a spy."

[Forrest Morris]

I'd like to know, as would many others, what the Saudis got from
Jared Kushner for that 2 billion dollars they loaned (gave?) him.

Was it a box of papers from that broom closet at Marred-a-Lardo?

Inquiring minds want to know

[Bobby Lee]

MARIE: This comment has been removed. The writer has contacted me & provided a screenshot of the original Telegram message, which "looks authentic" and which claims to come from the Telegram account of @realDonaldTrump.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think the Telegram account is fake. Because of that, I am not going to re-post the comment, which claims Donald Trump made some extremely incendiary remarks. However, I think the writer of the Realty Chex comment wrote in good faith. If I'm wrong about the fake Telegram account, we'll hear about it soon enough from legitimate news outlets.

[Akhilleus]

I see where a Trumpy judge has kowtowed to Fatty’s demand for a special master. No doubt Trump, based on learned advice from his coven of creeps who either aren’t lawyers or, if they are, register around the same level as “Hurt in a wreck?” ambulance chasers, believes that “special master” means “works for Donald”.

Nonetheless, as we approach critical mass in the avalanche of legal investigations into the Fat Fascist’s plethora of criminal schemes, we are about to see if, when, and how, the many Nazi-Trumpy judges now embedded like diseased ticks into the justice system will rise to the occasion and do the job they were elevated to perform: save Fatty’s bacon from any and all legal consequences.

I can see this case of the pilfering of top secret documents wending its way to the Alito-Thomas-Phony Barrett-Beery Bart “Supreme” court. Father Alito will dismiss all charges, saying that he found no mention of a presidential records act in the Constitution, and absolutely no rule against a president (or president*) grabbing any documents he could lay his hands on as he exited the premises. Not only that, we will be scolded for thinking that Publius might have written about something as ridiculous as “secure compartmented intelligence”. Have we never read the Federalist Papers?

Then the court will simply install Trump as president by fiat as compensation for all his troubles. They did it before, they can do it again.

Nothing like a judge with “Bought and paid for” stamped on his ass.

[Akhilleus]

Bobby Lee,

Telegram is the messaging app of choice for violent extremists and white supremacy terror groups. It is highly encrypted and largely invisible to law enforcement. That’s why they use it.

This is not bombast, although much of Trump’s blatherings are pure bombastic bullshit. This is Trump doubling down on treason and violence to serve his own purposes. He has been warming up the crazies with screams of “raid” and “attack” and his drooling sycophants have been calling for the murder of any who dare to challenge him. This is him turning up the heat. He doesn’t care who gets hurt, arrested, beaten up, or killed as long as it benefits him. He has entered a far more dangerous, deranged, and violent period in his crooked life.

Biden was right to call out these people. But he got one thing wrong. There’s no “semi” here. This is full on fascism.

[Marie Burns]

@Bobby Lee: Your last comment makes a serious charge. Can you point me to any print articles to back it up? I tried a couple of quick Google searches & found nothing.

If you can't help me out, I'll have to remove the comment.

Thanks.

[Forrest Morris]

I googled Telegram Channel. There is a list of the top 1,000
telegram channels. One thousand top ones. So there must be
thousands more.
How would you ever find the one you want?

[Marie Burns]

@Forrest Morris: It isn't necessary to comb through the Telegram channels. If Donald Trump had made the remarks Bobby Lee cites, it would surely be a top news story. It is possible that a fake Donald Trump Telegram channel -- apparently there is at least one -- has published the statements in Bobby Lee's comment, but I find it implausible that Trump himself actually made such threats. I'm giving it a little while before I take down the post.

In the meantime, readers should take the comment with a boatload of salt. Seems to me news commentators would be hyperventilating if Trump had really threatened to "destroy Joe Biden."