The Washington Post offers tips on how to keep your EV battery running in frigid temperatures. The link at the end of this graf is supposed to be a "gift link" (from me, Marie Burns, the giftor!), meaning that non-subscribers can read the article. Hope it works: https://wapo.st/3u8Z705
Monday
Aug262019
The Commentariat -- August 27, 2019
Afternoon Update:
David Lynch of the Washington Post: "The Federal Reserve should stop trying to offset the economic costs of President Trump's trade war and instead force him to bear the consequences of the most aggressive use of tariffs since the 1930s, according to the former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. 'Officials could state explicitly that the central bank won't bail out an administration that keeps making bad choices on trade policy, making it abundantly clear that Trump will own the consequences,' William C. Dudley, who stepped down last year after nine years as the head of the New York Fed, wrote in an opinion column for Bloomberg. In an extraordinary broadside, Dudley said the Fed also should consider how its actions will affect the 2020 presidential election since, 'Trump's reelection arguably presents a threat to the U.S. and global economy, to the Fed's independence and its ability to achieve its employment and inflation objectives.'" ...
... Dudley's Bloomberg opinion piece is here.
Conor Finnegan & Trish Turner of ABC News: "Two U.S. senators say that they were denied visas as part of an official delegation to Russia for talks with their counterparts in the country's parliament.... Republican Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut were scheduled to leave on their trip next week, according to aides, with stops in Ukraine, Kosovo, and Serbia as well." Related story linked below. Mrs. McC: I guess we can believe Johnson over the Russian Embassy, after all.
Benjamin Weiser, et al., of the New York Times: "Judge Richard M. Berman had scheduled [a] hearing on Tuesday after federal prosecutors wrote to him last week, saying that in light of [Jeffrey] Epstein's death, they planned to drop the criminal charges against him -- a decision that requires a judge's approval.... Judge Berman said in the order that he wanted to hear from the prosecution and the lawyers who had been representing Mr. Epstein, and he also invited Mr. Epstein's accusers and their lawyers to address the court if they wished to..... One by one, the women walked up to a podium ... Tuesday...." The AP story is here.
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Bret Stephens Is a Vindictive Whiney-baby. Tim Elfrink & Morgan Krakow of the Washington Post: David Karpf, a professor at George Washington University, "took a story that bedbugs had infested the New York Times newsroom as an occasion to dig at ... the conservative columnist Bret Stephens. 'The bedbugs are a metaphor,' Karpf wrote on Monday. 'The bedbugs are Bret Stephens. The tweet got nine likes and zero retweets, Karpf said." Stephens emailed Karpf, copying GWU's provost: "I'm often amazed about the things supposedly decent people are prepared to say about other people -- people they've never met -- on Twitter. I think you've set a new standard. I would welcome the opportunity for you to come to my home, meet my wife and kids, talk to us for a few minutes, and then call me a "bedbug" to my face. That would take some genuine courage and intellectual integrity on your part.' "The exchange quickly went viral after Karpf posted Stephens's full email to Twitter, leading to waves of backlash against a columnist whose contrarian takes on climate change and race have prompted canceled subscriptions and pointed questions for his editors in the past.... Stephens also deactivated his Twitter account on Tuesday, writing that the platform 'is a sewer.'" ...
... Reed Richardson of Mediaite: "New York Times columnist and ostensible free speech champion Bret Stephens wrote a vaguely threatening email to an associate professor at George Washington University -- and cc'ed the university provost -- who had jokingly referred to the op-ed writer as a 'bedbug' on Twitter.... Stephens' over-the-top response to a Tweet that notably did not use his Twitter handle, as well as the not-so-subtle attempt to get [David] Karpf in trouble with the professor's boss at the college, seemed to run counter to the proclaimed free speech champion's disgust with thin-skinned 'PC culture' and societal 'safe spaces' where no one has a sense of humor anymore." Read on Mrs. McC: An associate professor does not have tenure; Stephens was apparently trying to get Karpf fired. ...
... Scott Lemieux in LG&$ has an appropriate response to Stephens, too. His post is titled, "Today in the Robust Public Discourse With Bret 'Bedbug' Stephens." Mrs. McC: Expect a bad note from Bret, Scott.
Never Mind. Marina Lopez & Terrence McCoy of the Washington Post: "Brazil's president Tuesday retreated from his country's initial rejection of a $22.2 million package from the Group of Seven nations to help fight fires sweeping through the Amazon rainforest. But President Jair Bolsonaro said any consideration of the aid remained tied up in his dispute with French President Emmanuel Macron -- even as officials in the fire-stricken regions spoke of negotiating directly with other countries for help if needed. Bolsonaro said he wouldn't make a final decision until Macron apologized for remarks that Bolsonaro considered a challenge to his credibility and an attack on Brazil's sovereignty. Before speaking or accepting anything from France, even if it comes from the best possible intentions, he must retract his words. Then we can talk,' he told journalists." This is an update of the story linked below. The NBC News story is here. Mrs. McC: Bolsonaro is definitely South America's Trump. ...
... Ryan Grim of the Intercept: "Two Brazilian firms owned by a top donor to ... Donald Trump and ... Mitch McConnell are significantly responsible for the ongoing destruction of the Amazon rainforest, carnage that has developed into raging fires that have captivated global attention. The companies have wrested control of land, deforested it, and helped build a controversial highway to their new terminal in the one-time jungle, all to facilitate the cultivation and export of grain and soybeans.... The Amazon terminal is run by Hidrovias do Brasil, a company that is owned in large part by Blackstone, a major U.S. investment firm.... Blackstone co-founder and CEO Stephen Schwarzman is a close ally of Trump and has donated millions of dollars to McConnell in recent years."
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Marina Lopez & Terrence McCoy of the Washington Post: "Brazil will reject a donation of $22.2 million to help fight the fires that have swept across the Amazon because it was not involved in the decision-making process, the country's ambassador to France said Tuesday. 'We refuse the aid because we see interference. [It's] help we did not ask for,' Luís Fernando Serra told French national television, adding that the terms of the offer were too 'ambiguous.' The decision escalates an international spat between Brazil's right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro and the European countries led by French President Emmanuel Macron, who have pledged to fight the Amazon fires but condemned Bolsonaro's lack of commitment to the environment. On Monday, Bolsonaro -- a climate change skeptic -- questioned the aid's 'colonial mentality.'" The BBC News story is here.
Idiot Abroad
** Michael Birnbaum & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "President Trump capped days of advocacy on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin by announcing ... Monday that he intends to invite the leader to the Group of Seven summit in 2020, which Trump will host in an election year amid warnings that Russia is actively trying to interfere again in the U.S. presidential election.... Trump said Putin would be welcome and even expressed sympathy for the awkwardness the Russian leader might feel over his banishment.... Trump's extraordinary promotion of Putin proved to be the most tense disagreement over three days of contentious meetings at this year's G-7 in the French oceanside resort town of Biarritz. The U.S. leader's wish to restore Russia's legitimacy was in keeping with his long-standing role as a Putin cheerleader and apologist, but it was coolly received by other leaders at the gathering.... [The dinner Saturday night] went off the rails when Trump blasted leaders for not including Russia.... The pushback against him was delivered so passionately that the U.S. president's body language changed as one leader after another dismissed his demand.... Having such a forceful advocate for an authoritarian leader inside the room of democracies profoundly shaped the overall tone of the summit, one senior official said.” ...
... Inae Oh of Mother Jones: Trump's advocacy for Putin at his press conference "... follow a statement from European Council President Donald Tusk on Saturday when he categorically rejected the suggestion to invite Russia back. 'Under no condition can we agree with this logic,' Tusk said in a press conference." ...
... Jonathan Chait: "Trump mentioned Obama 18 times, repeating his charge that his predecessor was to blame for Russia's invasion of his neighbor. He repeatedly used the passive voice to describe Putin's invasion: 'It was sort of taken away from President Obama ... It was annexed during President Obama's term .. Crimea was annexed during his term.' Putin got no blame for invading a neighbor. Instead Trump gave him credit for outsmarting Obama.... It is a completely Orwellian spectacle for the president working to undo the response to Russia's attack blame the president who helped impose it for the invasion itself.... Remarkably, Trump's performance behind closed doors managed to go even farther [than his public comments] in pleading Putin's case."
Toluse Olorunnipa, et al., of the Washington Post: "A global summit between President Trump and other leaders ended [in Biarritz, France,] without significant progress on any of the world's most pressing issues, laying bare the widening gulf between the United States and other nations as they struggle to address issues like trade and climate change. French President Emmanuel Macron said leaders at the Group of Seven summit agreed to endorse just a one-page document of issues and then to continue working on a variety of other challenges that have proved elusive, including trade imbalances, climate change and Iran, among other things.... [Emmanuel Macron] said that the three days of talks here had a 'lot of tension and we had a lot of conflicts,' but he considered it a success that they were even able to produce a one-page document." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
Mrs. McCrabbie: After skipping the climate-change meeting, Trump said at his press conference he was an environmentalist. Oddly, the room did not break out in derisive laughter. I guess the world's press is accustomed to Trump's whoppers. ...
... From the Guardian's liveblog: "Throughout his press conference, Trump avoided offering details on a number of pressing issues, including the climate crisis, Iran and his trade war with China. On combating climate change, Trump dubiously argued that confronting the crisis would threaten the country's economy. 'I feel the US has tremendous wealth ... I'm not going to lose that wealth on dreams, on windmills - which, frankly, aren't working too well,' Trump said. He added, 'I think I know more about the environment than most.'... When asked about inviting Vladimir Putin to the G7 summit, Trump repeated the falsehood that the Russian president was previously excluded from the gathering because he 'outsmarted' Barack Obama. PBS Newshour's Yamiche Alcindor responded by correcting Trump that Putin was actually excluded after annexing Crimea, but the president stood by his original position. He also mentioned that he was sure Alcindor, who is black, did 'like' Obama.... One of the few matters where he did elaborate was on his Florida resort, Trump National Doral Miami, hosting the 2020 G7 summit. He went on at length about how the resort's 'magnificent buildings' and proximity to the airport made it the perfect site, while dismissing out of hand any implication that he could personally profit from holding the summit there." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Ed Mazza of the Huffington Post: "Even some of Trump's biggest supporters called him out over the obvious conflict of interest [of holding the 2020 G7 meeting at his Doral resort], including Rick Santorum, the former Republican senator from Pennsylvania. The two-time GOP presidential candidate said on Monday that Trump shouldn't use his own property to host next year's summit, calling it a 'violation of the law.... Walter Shaub, a former director of the Office of Government Ethics, called for an investigation into 'the very real possibility that a corrupting influence tainted the procurement process' for selecting Doral.... The Washington Post reported in May that Doral was in 'steep decline'; the club's net operating income had plunged 69% over two years."
... Zeke Miller & Darlene Superville of the AP: "Brushing off concerns about global economic instability..., Donald Trump defended the way he is trying to squeeze a trade deal out of China on Monday, saying it's a style that worked for him as a businessman. Trump was challenged on a negotiating style in which he praises Chinese President Xi Jinping one day and castigates him the next. Allies are complaining that that's contributing to instability problems for them and other nations, a reporter noted at a news conference closing out Trump's participation in the Group of Seven summit. Sorry, it's the way I negotiate,' he said. The president said layers of U.S. tariffs have hurt China so badly that it will have no choice but to make a trade deal with the United States. His trade war has been blamed for a global economic slowdown and has sown fears of an economic recession in the U.S.... 'What's bad for the world economy is uncertainty,' Macron said, speaking in English. 'The quicker an agreement is arrived at, the quicker that uncertainty will dissipate.'" Mrs. McC: Flailing around, lying, backtracking, threats, recriminations, etc., are such excellent negotiation tactics. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Monday claimed that first lady Melania Trump has 'gotten to know' North Korean leader Kim Jong Un prompting the White House to clarify that the two have never met. Trump made the comment at a news conference at the Group of 7 summit in Biarritz, France.... 'President Trump confides in his wife on many issues including the detailed elements of his strong relationship with Chairman Kim -- and while the First Lady hasn't met him, the President feels like she's gotten to know him too,' [Stephanie] Grisham said."; Mrs. McC: Grisham is spokesperson for both Donald & Melanie. I'm betting she issued this release "soon after" Trump made his false claim at the direction of Melanie Trump. Here's Politico's story. ...
... Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post analyzes Trump's remarks at Monday's press conference: "... for 68 minutes in a seaside auditorium, he offered a lens into his unorthodox mind, a range of false or dubious statements, and the myriad ways he has changed the presidency in 31 months.... He attacked former president Barack Obama's intellect while defending Putin for annexing part of Crimea -- a move that drove Russia's expulsion from what was then called the G-8.... Trump admitted no blunder in his escalating trade fight with China, even as his flummoxing moves have rattled the markets and his own aides.... His assertion that China is itching to strike a compromise has been contradicted by multiple reports and Chinese officials.... When Trump asked Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to back him up, Mnuchin would only say there had been 'communication,' avoiding the word 'call.'... Although he said French President Emmanuel Macron asked his permission to invite Iran's foreign minister to the G-7, Macron said that he simply 'informed' Trump in advance of his plan and that it was Macron's idea alone. At length, he boasted about his private properties.... He offered an unproven claim ... that the presidency has cost him $3 billion to $5 billion."
Mrs. McCrabbie: I think safari has found out what Trump was doing while the Amazon burned. Of course Trump didn't have time to go to a meeting about the climate-change hoax! ...
... Ben Mathis-Lilley of Slate: While "Donald Trump was in France for the G-7 summit..., [he] appeared to be self-soothing online. In one four-hour stretch on Sunday, Trump did nine consecutive reposts of tweets from the right-wing group Judicial Watch.... The topics he shared included a conspiracy theory about Rep. Ilhan Omar's personal life and various paranoid claims about the deep state, one of which featured a video involving, yes, Hillary Clinton's emails.... The Judicial Watch fixation was part of a Sunday/Monday spree — again, while he was supposed to be at a series of huge meetings -- during which he posted or retweeted others' posts 46 times." --s
Paul Krugman: "The 'very stable genius' in the Oval Office is, in fact, extremely unstable, in word and deed. That's not a psychological diagnosis, although you can make that case too. It's just a straightforward description of his behavior. And his instability is starting to have serious economic consequences..... Unstable, unpredictable trade policy ... suggest[s to businesses] that [they] should postpone [their] investment plans.... So everything gets put on hold -- and the economy suffers.... At that point you might expect an intervention from the grown-ups in the room -- but there aren't any.... Protectionism is bad; erratic protectionism, imposed by an unstable leader with an insecure ego, is worse."
Megan Specia of the New York Times: "President Hassan Rouhani of Iran said on Tuesday that he would not sit down for a meeting with President Trump until Washington had lifted all of its economic sanctions against Iran. His comment came a day after President Emmanuel Macron of France said he would try to arrange a meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Rouhani in the next few weeks, in an attempt to ease the strained relationship between their countries. Mr. Trump said he was open to the idea if the Iranians were 'good players.' Mr. Rouhani responded in kind." NPR's story is here.
Quint Forgey of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Monday dismissed as 'ridiculous' a report that he proposed detonating nuclear bombs inside hurricanes to weaken the storms before they make landfall along U.S shorelines. 'The story by Axios that President Trump wanted to blow up large hurricanes with nuclear weapons prior to reaching shore is ridiculous,' Trump tweeted.... 'I never said this. Just more FAKE NEWS!'" Reporters Jonathan Swan & Margaret Talev said they stood by every word their story. Mrs. McC: According to the Axios report, Trump brought up the matter during at least two formal meetings. I doubt Everybody But Trump is lying. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "American farmers have become collateral damage in a trade war that Mr. Trump began to help manufacturers and other companies that he believes have been hurt by China's 'unfair' trade practices. More than a year into the trade dispute, sales of American soybeans, pork, wheat and other agricultural products to China have dried up as Beijing retaliates against Mr. Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports.... For months, farmers have remained resolute, continuing to pledge support to a president who says his trade policies will help the agricultural industry win in the end. While there are few signs of an imminent blue wave in farm country, a growing number of farmers say they are losing patience with the president's approach and are suggesting it will not take much to lose their vote as well." Yahoo! News published a similar story August 25.
Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors in Washington appear to be in the final stages of deciding whether to seek an indictment of Andrew G. McCabe, the former deputy F.B.I. director and a frequent target of President Trump, on charges of lying to federal agents, according to interviews with people familiar with recent developments.... An indictment of a former top F.B.I. official is extremely rare and would be the latest chapter in the saga of Mr. McCabe, who was fired last year over the issue now under criminal investigation -- whether he failed to be forthcoming with internal investigators examining the F.B.I.'s dealings with the news media.... Prosecutors may face headwinds if a case were to go to trial. One prosecutor quit the case and has expressed frustration with how it was being managed, according to person familiar with her departure, and a key witness [Lisa Page] provided testimony to the grand jury that could hurt the government's case." Law & Crime has a related post here.
Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "... Rudy Giuliani promoted discredited conspiracy theories about murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich on Twitter early Monday morning, further fueling the baseless speculation that has anguished Rich's grieving family. Giuliani quote-tweeted a tweet from conspiracy theorist Matt Couch, whose fevered claims about Rich's 2016 murder provoked a defamation lawsuit from Rich's brother.... In text messages with The Daily Beast, Giuliani insisted his tweet wasn't meant to promote any conspiracy theories but merely to ask questions about Rich's murder, which has remained unsolved." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Dave Levinthal of the Center for Public Integrity: "Federal Election Commission Vice Chairman Matthew Petersen announced his resignation [Monday]. This means the agency that enforces and regulates the nation's campaign finance laws will effectively shut down -- something that hasn't happened since 2008 -- because it won't have the legal minimum of four commissioners to make high-level decisions. [The full contingent is six commissioners, half from each major party.] Petersen's resignation, first reported by the Washington Examiner, will throw the FEC into turmoil for weeks -- and perhaps months -- as the nation enters the teeth of 2020 presidential and congressional elections.... Trump in September 2017 nominated Petersen to a federal district judgeship, but Petersen withdrew in December 2017 after a disastrous confirmation hearing -- and has remained at the FEC until now.... The president of the United States alone has the power to nominate commissioners to the six-member FEC. Trump has so far made a single nomination: Trey Trainor, a Trump-supporting Texas attorney and Republican. Trump first nominated Trainor to the FEC in September 2017. Since then, Trump has twice renominated Trainor after the U.S. Senate failed to grant Trainor a confirmation hearing."
Lawsuits Can Be Funny (as long as you're not one of the litigants):
Devin's Lawyer Has a Cow. Lisa Needham of ShareBlue: "Earlier this year, [Rep. Devin] Nunes [R-Calif.] sued Twitter for a staggering $250 million, claiming the site broke the law by allowing two parody accounts — @DevinNunesMom and @DevinCow — to say mean things about him on Twitter. He did this even though the accounts are clearly parodies, which are protected by the First Amendment.... Nunes also named Republican strategist Liz Mair in the suit. When filing the suit, Nunes stated that the tweets were so mean that 'no human being should ever have to bear and suffer in their whole life.'... [In court, Nunes's attorney Steven] Biss told the court that giving Mair and the parody accounts Twitter access at all was akin to negligently giving them a gun. This is a particularly odd stance given Nunes's 'A' rating from the NRA and his full-throated defense of the right of everyone to carry guns, no matter how much harm they do.... Next, Biss asked the judge, 'What if you set a fire on your property and I told you it was choking my baby? You should have to put it out.'... About 20 supporters of the @DevinCow account showed up [at court] wearing cow-themed t-shirts, cow ears, and toting stuffed animals and signs."
Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said Monday that he was denied a visa to Russia for a visit as part of a bipartisan congressional delegation next week.... Johnson sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and is chairman of the panel's subcommittee on Europe and regional security cooperation. His office noted Monday that Johnson supported several pieces of legislation aiming 'to hold Russia accountable for its aggression in Ukraine and its targeting of dissidents.' In a statement published on Twitter early Tuesday, the Russian Embassy in Washington said the senator never asked it for a visa and hadn't informed the mission about his plans to visit." Here's the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's story. Mrs. McC: Hard to know whom to believe here.
Presidential Race 2020
Monmouth U. Polling Institute: "Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders [20%], Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren []20%, and former Vice President Joe Biden [19%] are currently bunched together in the national Democratic presidential preference contest. Movement in the latest Monmouth University Poll -- positive for Warren and Sanders, negative for Biden -- suggests the 2020 presidential nomination process may be entering a volatile stage. The poll results also suggest that liberal voters are starting to take a closer look at a wider range of candidates, while moderates are focusing on those with the highest name recognition." The poll "has a +/- 5.7 percentage point sampling margin of error" & a small sample of only 298 registered voters. Mrs. McC: That is, theoretically, Biden could be at about 25% & Warren & Sanders at about 14%. So far, this poll is an outlier.
Ben Schreckinger of Politico: "Joe Biden's younger brother [James Biden] told potential business partners that the former vice president would help their firm land business with court systems and would incorporate their health care model into his 2020 presidential campaign, according to new allegations made in a court filing in Tennessee.... The allegations come in sworn declarations made by executives at firms suing Biden's brother that were filed in federal court on Friday. They do not allege any wrongdoing by Joe Biden or indicate that the former vice president ha knowledge of his brother's alleged promises." --s
Matt Taiibi of Rolling Stone tries to explain Trump's appeal to rubes: "Two and a half years into his presidency, Trump has already staked a claim to a role in history usually reserved for hereditary monarchs at the end of a line of inbreeding.... Much of America loves its Mad King.... Ten years ago, an African American won the White House in a landslide; today, the president is somewhere between a Klansman and Jimmy the Greek.... We've gone from Trump being skeptical of Obama's citizenship to musing about 'very fine' neo-Nazis to a Twitter version of 'Go back to Africa.'... The average American likes meat, sports, money, porn, cars, cartoons, and shopping. Less popular: socialism, privilege-checking, and the world ending in 10 years. Ironically, perhaps because of Trump, Democratic Party rhetoric in 2020 is relentlessly negative about the American experience. Every speech is a horror story about synagogue massacres or people dying without insulin or atrocities at the border.... America's upper classes and their proxies in government and media have no capacity for self-reflection, and will make asses of themselves in a fight. This is where Trump makes his living, getting people who should know better to rise to his bait.... Trump offers permission to occupy the statistical American mean: out of shape, suffering from gas, poorly read, anti-intellectual, treasuring things above meaning, and hiding an awful credit history." Thanks to Keith H. for the link.
Congressional Races 2020
Politico: "Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) will resign from Congress at the end of September, the most recent in a string of Republicans who have decided against running for re-election. Duffy, who was elected in 2010 during a GOP wave, said he and his wife are expecting a child in late October who will 'will need even more love, time, and attention due to complications, including a heart condition.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
James Arkin of Politico: "Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy confirmed Monday he's considering running for Senate next year, setting up a potential blockbuster Democratic primary against Sen. Ed Markey." Mrs. McC: This is stupid; Kennedy should run for President Elizabeth Warren's unexpired Senate term. (Massachusetts' Republican governor will certainly seat a Republican, & -- tho the Massachusetts legislature keeps changing the terms of filling unexpired Senate terms to suit its political interests -- there would be a Senate election before 2024, when Warren's current Senate term ends. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Amanda Coletta & Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Monday made her first public appearance since completing radiation treatment for her latest bout with cancer.... The 86-year-old justice received an honorary degree [at the University at Buffalo's law school] in the morning and regaled a packed performing arts hall in the evening.... Ginsburg was escorted across the stage at the Kleinhans Music Hall on Monday night and earlier in the day at the university. But she spoke with a clear, strong voice at both events...." Here's the Buffalo News story. Mrs. McC: Seldom has so much been riding on one frail body & one strong mind.
Carol Leonnig & Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "At least one camera in the hallway outside the cell where authorities say registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself earlier thi month had footage that is unusable, although other, clearer footage was captured in the area, according to three people.... The footage is considered critical to [DOJ & FBI] inquiries, and the revelation of an unusable recording is yet another of the apparent failures inside the Metropolitan Correctional Center, the short-staffed Bureau of Prisons facility in downtown Manhattan that held Epstein." A Business Insider story is here.
Berkeley Lovelace of CNBC: “An Oklahoma judge on Monday ruled against Johnson & Johnson in the state's opioid case, forcing the company to pay $572 million in the first ruling in the U.S. holding a drugmaker accountable for helping fuel the epidemic. Calling the opioid crisis an 'imminent danger and menace,' District Judge Thad Balkman said, 'the state met its burden that the defendants Janssen and Johnson & Johnson's misleading marketing and promotion of opioids created a nuisance as defined by [the law],' including a finding that those actions compromised the health and safety of thousands of Oklahomans.... The ruling, which J&J intends to appeal, says that the company and subsidiary Janssen repeatedly downplayed the risks of addiction to opioids, training sales representatives to tell doctors the risk was 2.6% or less if the drugs were prescribed by a doctor. Physicians who prescribed a high amount of opioids were targeted as 'key customers.'" ...
... The New York Times story, by Jan Hoffman, is here. A related NYT story, also by Hoffman, is here.
Will Sommer: "The conservative op-ed website Quillette announced Monday night that controversial right-wing writer Andy Ngo is leaving his job as an editor at the site.... Ngo ... became a celebrity on Fox News and other pro-Trump media outlets after he was attacked by left-wing demonstrators at a Portland political rally in June. Ngo then became prominent as an opponent of political violence, with most of his criticism aimed at the left. But footage taken by an undercover liberal activist in May and described on Monday by the Portland Mercury showed Ngo witnessing activists from the far-right group Patriot Prayer planning a violent confrontation at a bar associated with left-wing activists. Ngo never reported on what he had seen the Patriot Prayer members planning, and some of the people involved in the attack at the bar now face felony riot charges.... Quillette editor-in-chief Claire Lehmann insisted ... that Ngo's exit had nothing to do with the ... undercover footage[.]" --s
Way Beyond the Beltway
China/Hong Kong. Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "Across the border from Hong Kong, the Chinese Communist Party screams its presence with banners and slogans on nearly every street. Yet in the former British colony, where China's ruling party confronts what it calls a 'life and death' struggle against a turbulent protest movement, it is invisible: It is not registered and has no publicly declared local members. But in Hong Kong, this officially nonexistent organization is in the vanguard of defending Chinese rule in the face of its biggest public resistance since the authoritarian leader Xi Jinping came to power in 2012. The party, operating in the shadows through individuals and organizations, is driving an increasingly firm pushback against the antigovernment protests, now in their 12th week."
News Lede
New York Times: "As Tropical Storm Dorian drew closer on Tuesday, Puerto Rico braced for the possibility that it would not just sideswipe the island but perhaps make landfall there. The authorities, acting under a state of emergency, closed schools early and prepared emergency shelter for tens of thousands of people." ...
... The Miami Herald story is here. The Herald has a hurricane tracker here, but it doesn't appear it's being updated. Consult the Herald's front page for links to the latest.
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Reader Comments (19)
@Procopius: The text you cite (unattributed) is an oversimplification. From Wikipedia: "In 1783, Crimea was annexed by the Russian Empire as the result of the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774). Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Crimea became an autonomous republic within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in the USSR. During World War II, Crimea was downgraded to the Crimean Oblast after its entire indigenous population, the Crimean Tatars, were deported to Central Asia, an act recognized as a genocide. In 1954, it was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR from the Russian SFSR.
"With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was reestablished as an independent state in 1991 and most of the [Crimean] peninsula was reorganized as the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, while the city of Sevastopol retained its special status within Ukraine. The 1997 Partition Treaty on the Status and Conditions of the Black Sea Fleet partitioned the former Soviet Black Sea Fleet and allowed Russia to continue basing its fleet in Crimea: both the Ukrainian Naval Forces and Russian's Black Sea Fleet were to be headquartered in Sevastopol. Ukraine extended Russia's lease of the naval facilities under the 2010 Kharkiv Pact in exchange for further discounted natural gas." And of course there's more.
Like many European regions, Crimea has been subjugated by various regimes -- usually as a result of war -- over the centuries. Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 was another act of war. Crimea probably should have autonomy, which was the general idea of the arrangement with Ukraine.
An observation:
Check these out. Three journalists' names from today’s featured news and opinions in the NY Times, WashPo and Mother Jones.
Dariush Mozaffarian
Inae Oh
Toluse Olorunnipa
And today was a slow day. Only three such names.
Whatever happened to good ole Charles Hartley, Jim Shepherd or Tom Trueblood (I made them up), the kind of typical American names you could trust?
No wonder the Pretender and his 'bots think the news is fake.
@Ken Winkes: As I've said before, everyone's name is an American name. I just have trouble spelling some of them.
Of course back in the day, immigrants often anglicized their names. Maybe Toluse Olorunnipa would be Tollie Ollie! My own family name is O'Beirne; legend has it that a U.S. customs agent changed it to Burns. Though I am seldom called Mary (except occasionally by native French speakers), people often call me Maria, which is fine with me unless it's going on an official or quasi-official document.
And then there's this:
"Why everything they say about the amazon is wrong..." Forbes
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/08/26/why-everything-they-say-about-the-amazon-including-that-its-the-lungs-of-the-world-is-wrong/#69a9a88c5bde
And this:https://www.salon.com/2019/08/27/how-do-we-recover-from-the-surreal-nightmare-of-this-presidency-it-will-take-some-work/ for Bob Cesca's take on post-Trump selection.
Bea,
Of course, immigrants (or the customs officers) anglicized thousands, more likely millions, of names when or soon after they arrived on the continent.
My own last name, Germanic in origin (tho' my sister who cares about such things believes it may be more Dutch than German) contented itself with only a simplified spelling soon after or upon arrival, but on my mother's side, also German, the immigrant parents who sported such first names as Gottlieb, hastened to give their children more American sounding first names like Theodore, Marvin and Elenore (correct spelling). By the third generation in my branch of the family, by now with a distinctly Catholic influence at work, we have a Kenneth, a Mary, and an Ann.
Meant to suggest only that now that people and their families do not hop on the Anglo-Saxon name train (a fact interesting in itself), because their names don't sound American, downright foreign in fact, those names have become another subtle "proof" for I don't know how many that the America they knew is being "lost."
BTW, here in the Age of the Pretender I can't think of a more genuinely American-sounding name than Bea McCrabbie.
What is an "American name"? This is.
@Ken Winkes: I see you still don't agree with me. There is no reason a name like Olorunnipa wouldn't "sound American," as you put it. It is true, however, that Olorunnipa doesn't "sound Anglo-Saxon." It isn't, though it wouldn't be a surprise if Olorunnipa immigrated to the U.S. from the U.K. (He didn't; he was born in Nigeria, once a British protectorate.)
On the other hand, I agree with Viet Thanh Nguyen (thank you, Rockygirl) that's it's practical for an immigrant to the U.S. -- to avoid life-long confusion -- to change a name from a country where the surname comes first, as Nguyen's parents changed his name from Nguyen Viet Thanh to Viet Thanh Nguyen. In Japan, that guy we call Shinzo Abe is Abe Shinzo. (For some reason, we don't seem to have a problem with Xi Jinping. Even Trump a/k/a Drumpf doesn't call him President Jinping.)
Regarding Procopius' attribution/association of Victoria Nuland: (more as to her role in warning Obama on Russian influence in the election than on Crimean annexation):
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/05/global-politico-victoria-nuland-obama-216937
I suspect the inference P wants us to draw is that Obama delayed or gave a tepid response to Crimean annexation similar to his delayed response to Russian hack of the DNC. Well yes. We all know he was given to over-thinking and taking a lot of time in coming around to a policy position. I'd take that any day to the anti-diplomat stable genius* lobbing cruise missiles at airstrips or threatening thermonuclear war.
I doubt that the western media was aware of all the events that led up to Putin's decision to take Crimea from Ukraine, but you can bet on Russia holding on to its geopolitical/military position by controlling Sevastopol and positively influencing Turkey and Syria to gain a foothold on the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Obama played some hard chess moves. Kicking Russia out of the G8 may have been the only sane move. von Clownstick would have been negotiating a deal to build resorts and golf courses on the Black Sea.
Alan Rappeport (NYTimes) Farmers’ Frustration With Trump Grows as U.S. Escalates China Fight " it's no joke" See Sonny Perdue's lame attempt at humor.
"Losing the world’s most populous country as an export market has been a major blow to the agriculture industry. Total American agricultural exports to China were $24 billion in 2014 and fell to $9.1 billion last year, according to the American Farm Bureau. Exports of farm products to China fell by $1.3 billion in the first half of the year, the agriculture group said this month.
That is a huge, huge drop in exports. Any farmer who votes for Trump again isn't of right mind. Same thing is happening with the lobster industry in Maine where exports have gone south.
Au contraire, Bea.
I believe we do agree, tho' we may be speaking just a tad past one another.
The issue I tried to raise relied on the tri-partite messaging paradigm proposed many years since by S.I. Hayakawa (whose first name was, interestingly enough, "Samuel"), that of sender-message-receiver.
I didn't want to make too much of the idea, but all I was proposing was my guess that many Trumpbots (the receivers I had in mind) don't like all those foreign-sounding names in the newspapers and on the TV screens which weren't so prevalent a generation ago, and that it is one of the changes to "their" America that make them uncomfortable and motivates them to batten down their political hatches.
Could we agree on that?
@Ken Winkes: Yes, we do agree on that. Usually the purpose of changing one's name is to sound more like that of many of the country's elites is to aid assimilation, and here I do think others' perceptions of you come into play. If you're always getting in scrapes because the other kids make fun of your name, it's harder to join the group. But a kid can accommodate the group by adopting a nickname that's easy to pronounce in any language. Barack Obama used to call himself Barry, for instance.
Of course, a kid can get stuck with an inconvenient nickname, and I had one. When I was in the 8th grade, we had a substitute teacher named, to us kids, "Mrs. Gulotta." The first time she subbed in my English class she read the roll, struggling over names. There were some giggles, but nobody could even figure out who "Maxie Beans" was, though it got a big laugh. Finally, it turned out that Mrs. Gulotta misread the "real teacher"'s "r" in my first name for an "x" & messed up the last name altogether. That got a bigger laugh. A few kids started calling me "Maxie Beans" because it was such a hilarious name, but I didn't think it would stick -- until Mrs. Gulotta came back a couple of months later & once again read off the roll as "Maxie Beans." So I was "Max" or "Maxie" or "Maxie Beans" till I was graduated from high school. Although I was pretty well-know in high school, a couple of students I didn't know well came up to me after the graduation ceremonies & said they were shocked & surprised to find out "Marie Burns" & "Maxie Beans" were the same person. So Tollie Ollie & I have quite a bit in common.
The name game brings to mind the story my mother-in-law told of when she was of elementary school age back in the late 1920's.
Her teacher asked the kids to choose the classmate who looked most American. They chose my mother-in-law, but the teacher overruled them, saying mu mother-in-law couldn't possibly look the most American because she was Jewish.
Sadly, I don't think that much has changed.
Bea,
Whew! Glad we agree.
I won't burden you all with some of the not-nice nicknames tossed my way, a kid who wore glasses in the first grade, read a lot of books, knew all the answers, was I'm sure often unbearable, and played sports only indifferently until high school when I got my growth and had some success in that arena. That success helped.
Kids do have a remarkable talent of creating and assigning nicknames, often uncomplimentary, but all things considered equally often right on the mark.
I observed it at play all the decades I spent in schools and considered it one of the wonders of human creativity.
Still do.
@Schlub: That teacher's unforgivable slap at a child caused a pain I imagine your mother-in-law bore all her life. If she sometimes gave you trouble, forgive her. She had to shoulder the ignorance & bigotry of people who should have been counselors & mentors.
Here's a bad or good piece of news about the closure of rural hospitals, depending on one's point of view: deaths go up in these areas by 5.6% - which is catastrophic of course. But on the other hand, virtually all of these dead people would be Trump supporters. So maybe the most efficient way to deal with rural people who vote for Trump is simply to close their local hospitals.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w26182
Bea,
Bolsonaro really is the South American Pretender. He's not there yet, but he's working on it.
If you don't make nice with me, he says, I'll continue to hold the world's largest rain forest and its indigenous peoples hostage, and by the way if you do make nice, I will take your money but likely won't say thanks.
Humpf!
@Mrs. Bea McCrabbie
I agree it's an oversimplification. It's the first few sentences from the Wikipedia article. I included the URL in the "cite" tag of the blockquote. It's been many years since I learned HTML and I mistakenly thought putting the citation there would make it visible to readers. In the future I'll add the citation more visible. My point is that it's more complicated than most MSM stories admit to. There was also a referendum. The 95% favorable vote (in favor of returning to Russia) is very suspicious, but there were UN observers there who said the referendum was not obviously rigged. I am grateful to you for the work you do bringing together these reports. I would not be able to find most of them on my own.