August 29, 2022

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Hand Jive.Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story: According to a report from Rolling Stone..., Donald Trump has been alternately raging at and ridiculing Ron DeSantis (R-FL) as the Florida governor has been rising as his heir apparent. The former president, as well as his family, have been sniping at the Florida Republican by claiming he has been 'stealing' from Trump, by which they mean he has been appropriating Trump's mannerisms when giving speeches as he sets in motion his bid for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.... As one Trump associate told Rolling Stone, 'There was this time, maybe a year ago that I remember him making fun of [DeSantis] for doing similar hand gestures and motions. He called it "stealing" from him and [to paraphrase] described it as a lame impression of Trump.'... You can read more here [firewalled]." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Most people would find this purported emulation the sincerest form of flattery. Not Trump. He seems to think he can patent a gesture. Since I've never watched a DeSantis speech & seldom have seen much of a Trump speech, I have no idea if the Trump claim is true. But politicians do study successful politicians' style of speech & mannerisms. I recall reading that Bill Clinton practiced Ronald Reagan's style and even boasted once to Hillary that he had mastered a particular hand gesture that Reagan made. Clinton turned out to be one of the most effective American speakers of the 20th century, so the practice paid off. He is far better than Reagan, IMO, so there's more to it than mimicry.

Gwen Egan of Boston.com: Former Red Sox pitcher Curt "Schilling is facing Twitter's wrath after posting a critique of [President] Biden's student loan forgiveness plan. This digital anger was incited by Schilling's own business history. 'My body my choice? Your loan my responsibility? This isn't loan forgiveness, it's a generation of lazy unaccountable uneducated children being covered by hard working debt paying Americans,' Schilling wrote. Following that Aug. 24 tweet, repliers, and quote-tweeters were quick to remind Schilling about 38 Studios, his failed computer game venture. The company folded after the state volunteered $75 million in loan guarantees to the budding business." Here's some background, from a 2013 story by Matt Bai in the New York Times. Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. See also his comment below, which is more expansive and to-the-point than the Boston.com article.

Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "A former D.C. bartender and Proud Boy who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was sentenced to 55 months in federal prison on Monday. Joshua Pruitt, 40, pleaded guilty in June to obstruction of an official proceeding after he was caught on video joining a mob pursuing police officers and smashing a sign inside the U.S. Capitol. Two U.S. Capitol Police officers wrote victim impact statements in his case urging Judge Timothy J. Kelly to give Pruitt a severe sentence in the case. Ultimately, Kelly imposed a sentence that fell a few months short of the five years that prosecutors had requested.... Pruitt said that he apologized for his actions and he was 'not happy that Jan. 6 happened at all,' but said he still held onto his beliefs that Donald Trump actually won the election that he lost to President Joe Biden." Worth clicking on; scroll down the page a bit to see a photo of Pruitt. Would I cross the street if I saw this guy coming toward me? Yes I would.

Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "FBI agents have already finished their review of possibly privileged documents seized in an Aug. 8 search of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, according to a Justice Department court filing Monday that could undercut the former president's efforts to have a special master appointed to review the files. The 'filter team' used by the Justice Department to sort through the documents and weed out any material that should not be reviewed by criminal investigators has already 'completed its review,' the brief filed by Justice Department prosecutors says.... The new government filing says prosecutors will provide more information later this week. But in the meantime, it notes that even before the judge's weekend ruling, the filter team 'identified a limited set of materials that potentially contain attorney-client privileged information ... and is in the process of following the procedures' of the search warrant to handle any privilege disputes." ~~~

     ~~~ Glenn Thrush & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "A deeper 'classification review' of the intelligence implications of Mr. Trump's retention of government documents by the F.B.I. and the director of National Intelligence is continuing, the filing revealed.... On Tuesday, the department is expected to file a detailed inventory of the materials seized. But that list, which will go into greater depth than the nominal description in the search warrant that was unsealed this month, will be filed under court seal.... The judge herself will now have access to the government's own assessment of the materials, and could have the information needed to rule on requests by Mr. Trump's team to exclude individual documents[, thus eliminating the need for a special master]." CNN's report is here.

Georgia Judge Delay's Kemp Testimony. Amy Wang & Ann Marimow of the Washington Post: "The judge presiding over the Georgia grand jury investigation into possible election interference by Donald Trump and his allies on Monday denied a motion from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) to quash a subpoena requiring him to testify. However, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert C.I. McBurney also delayed Kemp's appearance before the grand jury until 'some date soon after' Election Day in November. Kemp, who is running for reelection against Democrat Stacey Abrams, has alleged that the investigation is politically motivated. In his six-page order, the judge rejected Kemp's request to toss the subpoena while recognizing the potential impact of the investigation on the upcoming Nov. 8 election." Politico's report is here.

Qassim Abdul-Zahra & Samya Kullab of the AP: "A hugely influential Shiite cleric announced Monday he would resign from Iraqi politics and his angry followers stormed the government palace in response, sparking fears that violence could erupt in a country already beset by its worst political crisis in years.... At least one demonstrator, a follower of an influential Shiite cleric, was killed in clashes with Iraqi security forces who used tear gas, gunfire and physically shoved back crowds after hundreds stormed the government palace on Monday. Three Iraqi officials confirmed the death in violence that broke out after the cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, announced he would resign from Iraq politics and his angry followers stormed the government palace in response."

~~~~~~~~~~

Trump & a Trumpy Judge Create Another Mess. David Nakamura & Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "A federal judge's indication that she is prepared to appoint a special master to review materials seized from Mar-a-Lago by federal agents could present new complications and unresolved legal questions in the federal government's high-stakes quest to wrest control of the documents from ... Donald Trump. U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon's two-page order issued on Saturday appeared unusual in that the judge has not yet heard arguments from the Justice Department, said former federal prosecutors and legal analysts on Sunday. Cannon, 41, whom Trump appointed to the bench in the Southern District of Florida in 2020, has also given federal officials until Tuesday to provide the court with a more detailed list of items the FBI had removed from Trump's Florida estate on Aug. 8.... Her ruling left unclear how a special master would operate and who might qualify to take on such a role in a case involving classified national security secrets."

Maggie Haberman & Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "Often tinged with Mr. Trump's own bombast and sometimes conflating his powers as president with his role as a private citizen, the legal arguments put forth by his team sometimes strike lawyers not involved in the case as more about setting a political narrative than about dealing with the possibility of a federal prosecution.... The former president has a history of approaching legal proceedings as if they are political conflicts, in which his best defense is the 74 million people who voted for him in the 2020 election."

Marie: This story from August 26 raises a question. Eric Tucker & Michael Balsamo of the AP: "Fourteen of the 15 boxes recovered from ... Donald Trump's Florida estate early this year contained classified documents, many of them top secret, mixed in with miscellaneous newspapers, magazines and personal correspondence, according to an FBI affidavit released Friday." Other reporting suggests Trump himself went through the boxes deciding what to send to the Archives. My question: Whether or not that is true, why would Trump or his staff send newspaper & magazine clippings to the National Archives? If some of the clippings had notes on them or attached to them, I can see that those could be considered presidential records. But a raw clipping? The only purpose to box those up could have been to spite the archivists. The fact that Trump's staff included no inventory of what-all was in the boxes supports that theory. And there's this from the story: "Douglas London, a former senior CIA officer..., said this showed Trump's lack of respect for controls. 'One of the rules of classified is you don't mix classified and unclassified so there's no mistakes or accidents,' he said."

Beyond the Beltway

Michigan Congressional Race. David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Michigan state Sen. Tom Barrett, a Republican congressional candidate, reportedly removed the 'values' section of his campaign website that revealed he opposes abortion rights. The Detroit News first reported over the weekend that Barrett's campaign had updated his website to remove the 'values' portion 'that touted his anti-abortion position and history with the pro-life movement.' In a statement to the paper, Barrett insisted that he continues to oppose abortion rights. 'I don't watch my own website every day, so I don't know,' Barrett [said]." He suggested his team "probably" just updated the Website to highlight "the most salient issues." MB: Right. Because depriving women of bodily autonomy is not "salient."

New Hampshire Senate Race. Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "Don Bolduc, a retired Army general who leads the Republican field in what should be a competitive race for the New Hampshire Senate seat held by Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat..., has said the state's popular Republican governor is 'a Chinese Communist sympathizer,' called for the repeal of the 17th Amendment allowing direct popular election of senators and raised the possibility of abolishing the F.B.I.... 'I signed a letter with 120 other generals and admirals saying that Donald Trump won the election and, damn it, I stand by' it, Mr. Bolduc said at a recent debate.... In the final competitive primary of the year, scheduled for Sept. 13, Republican officials in New Hampshire ... warn that grass-roots voters are poised to elect another problematic nominee, Mr. Bolduc, and jeopardize a winnable race against a vulnerable Democrat."

Texas Gubernatorial Race. Vimal Patel of the New York Times: Beto O'Rourke, the former congressman and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who is running to unseat Greg Abbott in the tightening race for Texas governor, said on Sunday that he would be sidelined from campaigning because of a bacterial infection. Mr. O'Rourke, 49, said on Twitter that he had gone to Methodist Hospital, in San Antonio, after feeling ill on Friday." Politico's report is here.

Way Beyond

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

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Monday are here: "A 'support and assistance mission' from the International Atomic Energy Agency is 'on its way' to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine, the head of the organization said Monday, after Russian forces struck perilously close to the plant, according to Ukrainian officials.... Ukrainian officials reported more strikes around the Zaporizhzhia plant. Ten people were injured Sunday, including four of the plant's workers, in shelling that hit the city of Enerhodar, where the facility is located and many of its workers live, according to Energoatom, the Ukrainian state nuclear power company."

Julia Mueller of the Hill: "A 24-year-old man from Memphis, Tenn., was the latest American killed in the conflict in Ukraine, according to reports that he died fighting Russian forces in the contested Donbas region.... [The State Department] State confirmed the death of an American to USA Today, but declined to confirm his identity."

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Today, [after many delays, a test rocket in NASA's Space Launch System] stands on Launch Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center, towering at 322 feet.... NASA is scheduled to make its first attempt to launch Monday at 8:33 a.m., a test flight that is meant to propel the Orion crew capsule, without any astronauts on board, into orbit around the moon. A successful launch will mark a major milestone in NASA's quest to return astronauts to the lunar surface under its Artemis program.' ~~~

     ~~~ Update. BUT. AP: "Fuel leaks and a possible crack discovered during final liftoff preparations threatened to delay the launch of NASA's mighty new moon rocket Monday morning on its shakedown flight with three test dummies aboard. As precious minutes ticked away, NASA repeatedly stopped and started the fueling of the Space Launch System rocket with nearly 1 million gallons of super-cold hydrogen and oxygen because of a leak. The fueling already was running nearly an hour late because of thunderstorms off Florida's Kennedy Space Center." ~~~

     ~~~ Update. NEW AP Lede: "Fuel leaks have forced NASA to scrub the launch of its new moon rocket on a no-crew test flight. The next launch attempt will not take place until Friday at the earliest."

New York Times: "Two people were shot and killed and a third was wounded at a shopping center in Bend, Ore., on Sunday, prompting law enforcement agencies to flood the area and enter a grocery store, where officers found the gunman dead from a gunshot wound, the authorities said."

Comments

[Bobby Lee]

They're going to play hell finding a "special master" to review all the papers TFG took to Florida. I'm betting that this was the purpose of getting this judge to appoint one. I'll bet there's not one judge in the system with TS/SCI clearance.

[Marie Burns]

@Bobby Lee: Yep. The purpose seems to be to delay. While there likely are not any sufficiently Trumpy former judges who have the highest-level security clearance, there are certainly some who could pass a background check -- a background check that normally takes months to complete.

[Akhilleus]

This special master bullshit will drag this thing out for years, which, of course is standard Trump practice. But more than that, the fact that this Trumpy judge made a decision without hearing from both sides (ie, listening only to Trump) gives us all another look at “justice” Republican style. The Trump-McConnell judges infesting the justice system will be with us for years. Most of them are shockingly unqualified, except for their loyalty to the extreme right wing.

And even if the government fights this bullshit, Trump and his half-assed lawyers will keep up the appeals process until it lands in the Supreme Court, in about three years, at which point that den of crooks will decide that there is nothing in the Constitution about national archives rules and Fatty is free to keep everything.

[Marie Burns]

@Akhilleus & @Bobby Lee: Now that I think about it, the government could and maybe should argue that a special master does not need to look at any of the classified documents. After all, these documents are the work product of many hands, and numerous people with top-security clearance would have access to any of them, at least on a need-to-know basis. Therefore, these docs cannot possibly enjoy the same "executive privilege" status that does, say, a note from Trump to his secretary that the Diet Coke red alert button is not working properly.

[Ken Winkes]

The problem we've created with all these rights and freedoms and the laws and institutions we've put in place to enforce and uphold them is that the necessary legal infrastructure attendant on those freedoms gets in the way of the point of creating them in the first place.

It's the old confusion of process and product.

Free speech is one example, a privilege regularly abused by the Right and occasionally by the Left. Racist rants and outright lies can be said to be protected speech, as can be the noise opponents mount to shout those speakers down. In either cases, there is no communication, no rational discussion of ideas, which would seem to be the primary point of the freedom to speak.

The Special Master case and all the other tactics the wealthy often employ to delay a conclusion are using the very systems designed to ensure justice to avoid it instead. It's what happens when we lose track of the point.

Call it what it is: An abuse, and treat it as such, I say.

A sign of my impatient nature maybe, but I've always been more of a product than a process guy and I wish the Law would be more like me.

[Akhilleus]

Marie,

Good point. That is, if in fact Trump and “his” judge allow the government to have a say in the matter.

But moreover, the salient point here is that none of these documents BELONG to Trump. There is no executive privilege here. He is a private citizen (one can argue that he isn’t in fact, a citizen, or much of one, being a traitor and all, but that’s for another day in court, perhaps in Fulton County) with no more executive privilege than the homeless people he spits at.

The special master can determine if evidence falls under attorney client privilege, but nothing marked “classified”, top secret”, “eyes only”, “SCI” or “No you don’t, not ever, so go the fuck away” (I’m assured that’s an actual category) falls under that heading. This is a classic Fatty delaying tactic. Nothing more. These documents are not his property, nor do they have any attorney client privilege attached to them. And as he is not himself an attorney, unlike Giuliani and Michael Cohen, with other clients, that sort of privilege does not obtain in this case.

This bullshit could, and should, be easily and quickly dispensed with so the XXXL jumpsuit fitting can proceed forthwith.

[Akhilleus]

And the snide, nasty little trick of mixing in assorted Fatty flotsam and jetsam with the plans for a nuclear counter attack against Russia (which I will bet have already been sold to Putin), demonstrates two things.

One: Trump knew these documents did not belong to him and expected that someone might someday come calling for them, ergo his “surprise” at the “raid” is just another Fatty canard.

And two: he’s a shabby, scrofulous, dishonorable little shit.

[Marie Burns]

And another thing. Nakamura & Wang wrote (linked above), "U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s two-page order issued on Saturday appeared unusual in that the judge has not yet heard arguments from the Justice Department, said former federal prosecutors and legal analysts on Sunday."

That's a tell, isn't it? It's as if the judge overseeing a murder trial ended proceedings as soon as the prosecution rested its case. "But, hey, if y'all want to present some stuff at the sentencing hearing about how the defendant was at his own wedding in front of 200 witnesses at the time the murder occurred, have at it."

[Forrest Morris]

We keep reading "politically motivated". Funny that didn't come up
with Hunter Biden's laptop or Hillary's server. Those weren't
politically motivated?
Hunter Biden didn't work in government. I actually don't know what
was on his laptop so can't say any more about it.
Hillary was questioned for hours and hours and as far as I know
nothing came of it.
I just seems like to me that a normal person would get it that no one
is supposed to remove secret or top secret or not for your eyes
documents from the government that were intended for the national
archives.
Of course, those 74 million trump-bots don't understand a lot of
things that normal people do.

[Akhilleus]

Lawyer Up

I’d like to pass along a neat resource to my brothers and sisters out here in RC World, a podcast I’ve only recently come across but which is chock full of good stuff.

It’s called Sisters-in-Law, a Politicon podcast featuring four distinguished and scarily experienced and smart ladies, all lawyers, whose bios are eye popping. The hosting crew includes Jill Wine-Banks who was the first woman to serve as a US prosecutor of organized crime. She was also the only woman on the team investigating Nixon’s coverup of the Watergate break-in, so she knows coverups.

These ladies unpack the latest legal issues on the front pages with devastating analyses, aplomb, wit, and a boatload of legal know-how. Every minute or so there’s a nice little pearl to put in your back pocket, and a whole bunch of “Wow, I never knew that” moments.

In this latest show they tackle the Marred-a-Lardo affidavit, dissect Bill Dis-Barr’s bullshit, review the latest Gretchen Whitmer kidnap plot trial, and expand on the aftermath of Dobbs.

One very useful section details the appropriate measures taken when reviewing top secret documents (Wine-Banks, as a former general counsel for the US Army, routinely examined such documents), and, no surprise, they don’t include scanning them while sitting on the toilet next to a stack of porn, after which the papers are tossed in a pile on the floor with empty Doritos bags.

Needless to say, none of these ladies have, as the pinnacle of their legal careers, the job of legal advisor for a parking garage.

Wicked good stuff, well worth your time. Good Q&A section at the end.

https://www.politicon.com/podcasts/the-affidavit/

[Akhilleus]

Well, well, well…

More reprehensible hypocrisy…

So here we have a former MLB pitcher, Curt Schilling, he of Bloody Sock Game fame. Oh yeah, he’s also a fan of Nazis (big collector of Nazi memorabilia) and Republican lies.

Just a few days late in jumping on the bandwagon with every other R whining about how terrible it is that Biden is offering loan forgiveness to certain college grads with heavy debt burdens. Schilling, as a good goose stepping winger hypocrite is outraged:

“My body my choice? Your loan my responsibility? This isn’t loan forgiveness, it’s a generation of lazy unaccountable uneducated children being covered by hard working debt paying Americans,”

Did you catch that dig at women who think can get away with shit without getting permission from the clergy on the Supreme Court? Nice.

But I digress…ol’ Curt here describes those released from having to pay back part of their school loans (note that most of these jamokes are saying that these people are getting a completely free ride; they’re not) as “lazy, unacceptable, and uneducated”.

More projection from an R asshole.

A little background: Schilling, using his fame in the New England area, weaseled a $75 million ($75 MILLION!!) loan out of the State of Rhode Island (lots of shekels for a small state) to allow him to start a computer game company that he promised would provide jobs and oodles of money for RI.

Not.

Schilling had no idea what he was doing (uneducated). He hardly ever showed up (lazy), then he crashed the company, fired everyone, and never repaid that $75 million (unaccountable). He stiffed the taxpayers of Rhode Island for 75 big ones, but now he’s attacking kids for having ten grand knocked off the books. In this case, Schilling was sticking it to “hard working debt paying Americans”, a group of which he is not a member.

Typical.

https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2022/08/28/twitter-ensured-curt-schilling-cant-forget-about-38-studios-following-his-student-debt-relief-commentary/?amp=1

[Akhilleus]

Margie the Moocher—debate club champion

The other day, after Mooching Marge was outed by Joe Biden for her hypocrisy in denouncing his loan forgiveness plan when she herself benefited to the tune of $188,000 in a loan she never repaid, struck back with a sharply crafted retort worthy of Pericles in his prime:

“Go to hell Joe!”

Ooooh…I bet that hurt. What, she wasn’t quick enough to think of “Your mother wears army boots”?

Hypocritical AND stupid. Good combo.

[unwashed]

@Marie, nice job on the stair rail. I'm impressed with your creativeness, skill, and attention to detail.

I'm sure that with a multimeter, gauge set, leak detector, and evac/recharge unit you could fix your own damn HVAC system! (Heat pump? Ducted/ductless?)