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INAUGURATION 2029

Commencement ceremonies are joyous occasions, and Steve Carell made sure that was true this past weekend (mid-June) at Northwestern's commencement:

~~~ Carell's entire commencement speech was hilarious. The audio and video here isn't great, but I laughed till I cried.

CNN did a live telecast Saturday night (June 7) of the Broadway play "Good Night, and Good Luck," written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, about legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow's effort to hold to account Sen. Joe McCarthy, "the junior senator from Wisconsin." Clooney plays Murrow. Here's Murrow himself with his famous take on McCarthy & McCarthyism, brief remarks that especially resonate today: ~~~

     ~~~ This article lists ways you still can watch the play. 

New York Times: “The New York Times Company has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant’s artificial intelligence platforms, the company said on Thursday. The multiyear agreement 'will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences,' the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement encompasses material from NYT Cooking, The Times’s food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is The Times’s first licensing arrangement with a focus on generative A.I. technology. In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by The Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I have no idea what this means for "the Amazon customer experience." Does it mean that if I don't have a NYT subscription but do have Amazon Prime I can read NYT content? And where, exactly, would I find that content? I don't know. I don't know.

Washington Post reporters asked three AI image generators what a beautiful woman looks like. "The Post found that they steer users toward a startlingly narrow vision of attractiveness. Prompted to show a 'beautiful woman,' all three tools generated thin women, without exception.... Her body looks like Barbie — slim hips, impossible waist, round breasts.... Just 2 percent of the images showed visible signs of aging. More than a third of the images had medium skin tones. But only nine percent had dark skin tones. Asked to show 'normal women,' the tools produced images that remained overwhelmingly thin.... However bias originates, The Post’s analysis found that popular image tools struggle to render realistic images of women outside the Western ideal." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The reporters seem to think they are calling out the AI programs for being unrealistic. But there's a lot about the "beautiful women" images they miss. I find these omissions remarkably sexist. For one thing, the reporters seem to think AI is a magical "thing" that self-generates. It isn't. It's programmed. It's programmed by boys, many of them incels who have little or no experience or insights beyond comic books and Internet porn of how to gauge female "beauty." As a result, the AI-generated women look like cartoons; that is, a lot like an air-brushed photo of Kristi Noem: globs of every kind of dark eye makeup, Scandinavian nose, Botox lips, slathered-on skin concealer/toner/etc. makeup, long dark hair and the aforementioned impossible Barbie body shape, including huge, round plastic breasts. 

New York Times: “George Clooney’s Broadway debut, 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' has been one of the sensations of the 2024-25 theater season, breaking box office records and drawing packed houses of audiences eager to see the popular movie star in a timely drama about the importance of an independent press. Now the play will become much more widely available: CNN is planning a live broadcast of the penultimate performance, on June 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern. The performance will be preceded and followed by coverage of, and discussion about, the show and the state of journalism.”

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. -- Magna Carta ~~~

~~~ New York Times: “Bought for $27.50 after World War II, the faint, water stained manuscript in the library of Harvard Law School had attracted relatively little attention since it arrived there in 1946. That is about to change. Two British academics, one of whom happened on the manuscript by chance, have discovered that it is an original 1300 version — not a copy, as long thought — of Magna Carta, the medieval document that helped establish some of the world’s most cherished liberties. It is one of just seven such documents from that date still in existence.... A 710-year-old version of Magna Carta was sold in 2007 for $21.3 million.... First issued in 1215, it put into writing a set of concessions won by rebellious barons from a recalcitrant King John of England — or Bad King John, as he became known in folklore. He later revoked the charter, but his son, Henry III, issued amended versions, the last one in 1225, and Henry’s son, Edward I, in turn confirmed the 1225 version in 1297 and again in 1300.”

NPR lists all of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize winners. Poynter lists the prizes awarded in journalism as well as the finalists in these categories.

 

Contact Marie

Email Marie at constantweader@gmail.com

Page Links

Constant Comments

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts. — Anonymous

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. — Edward R. Murrow

Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns

I have a Bluesky account now. The URL is https://bsky.app/profile/marie-burns.bsky.social . When Reality Chex goes down, check my Bluesky page for whatever info I am able to report on the status of Reality Chex. If you can't access the URL, I found that I could Google Bluesky and ask for Marie Burns. Google will include links to accounts for people whose names are, at least in part, Maria Burns, so you'll have to tell Google you looking only for Marie.

Friday
Aug252023

The Conversation -- August 26, 2023

Jack Shafer of Politico, in Politico Magazine, argues that [Donald] Trump's return to Twitter-currently-trying-to-be-known-as-X will prove he can never go home again. "Trump's [X-Twitter] post [of his mugshot], essentially concedes that his plan to build his own social media empire under the Truth Social banner is a bust.... But no man ever steps in the same river twice -- it's not the same river, and he's not the same man, as the sage said.... Thanks to inertia, changing technology, fickle tastes and Musk's determination to wreck it, the site has lost its cachet.... Trump became a Twitter star by two means. The first was the novelty of a presidential candidate popping off like a sloppy drunk at closing time.... [The second -- I guess, Shafer isn't clear -- is that journalists dutifully copied down & reported on Trump's tweets.] It's not the same press corps that transmuted his tweets into news stories back. They learned a lesson."

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "If there were any justice in the world, Donald Trump would have taken the Mug Shot of Dorian Gray. It should have shown Trump's corroding soul rather than his truculent face.... ... Trump has long felt that squinting or scowling is a good look for him.... Thursday night was performative for Trump: sweeping in with his private jet and giant motorcade that screamed two-tiered justice system, with law enforcement clearing the Atlanta streets, like centurions clearing the way for Caesar."

~~~~~~~~~~

Trump Family Crime Blotter

Inmate No. P01135809

Alex Gangitano of the Hill: "President Biden on Friday chimed in on former President Trump's mug shot.... When asked about the mug shot, Biden told reporters, 'I did see it on television. Handsome guy.'... Biden spoke to reporters while on vacation in Lake Tahoe, Nev." MB: Biden was smiling broadly when he weighed in on Trump's good looks.

Jennifer Behney of Mediaite: In a NewsMax interview Thursday night, Donald Trump said his booking in the Fulton County jail was a &"terrible experience." "'I came in, I was treated very nicely. But, it is what it is; I took a mugshot, which, I'd never heard the words "mug shot." They didn't teach me that at the Wharton School of Finance,' Trump said before railing about what he called 'election interference' by a 'radical-left district attorney.'" MB: So here's Trump, Leader of the People, portraying himself as superior to them. He's treated very nicely, implicitly because he's better than the usual inmate who would get roughed up or maybe even killed at the Fulton County Jail. He's never heard of mugshots because people in his rarefied circle have no occasion to discuss or even read about such things. He had a very fine education -- where professors are fastidiously silent on the travails of the "other" -- because he's a very fine person. Oh, and he showed up in Atlanta in his own jet plane and traveled to & from the jail with an entourage & an escort of maybe 100 law enforcement officers. I'm still waiting to learn how that happened.

Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "As of late Friday morning, all 19 defendants in the state election interference case involving ... Donald J. Trump had turned themselves in. Jeffrey A. Clark, the former high-ranking Justice Department official..., was booked at the Fulton County Jail early on Friday, a few hours after the former president's dramatic booking at the same Atlanta facility.... The last two defendants in the case, Trevian C. Kutti and Steven C. Lee, surrendered on Friday morning before noon, the deadline the Fulton County district attorney, Fani T. Willis, had set for them to appear at the jail before she would start to issue arrest warrants. All but one of the 19 defendants negotiated bail agreements with prosecutors ahead of time, and were released immediately after being processed at the jail. The one defendant [Harrison Floyd] who did not do so was still being held at the jail on Friday." (Also linked yesterday.)

Michael Conway, a House Judiciary Committee counsel during the Watergate investigation, in an MSNBC opinion piece: "... the felony charges against little-known Georgia residents [Scott] Hall, Cathy Latham and Misty Hampton -- who have been charged with conspiracy to commit election fraud, computer fraud, illegal access to voting machines and invasion of privacy -- reveal the extent of the Trump campaign's effort to overturn the election. Their brazen intrusion and the futility of their efforts recall ... the hapless criminal conduct of the White House's so-called Plumbers[, which] was a major element of the Watergate scandal that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation. Both Nixon's Plumbers and the Coffee County Three tried to seize sensitive information.... And it was the need to subsequently hide the existence of the Plumbers -- whose members, [Gordon] Liddy and [Howard] Hunt, oversaw the burglary -- that was a key factor in the Watergate cover-up.... The Trump loyalists who breached the voting machines in Coffee County, Georgia, made little effort to conceal their activities.... Just as the rule of law punished the guilty almost five decades ago, the prosecutions of those who broke the law to do Trump's bidding must succeed in order to preserve our democracy."

Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Attorney John Eastman, an architect of Donald Trump's last-ditch bid to subvert the 2020 election, may not postpone his ongoing disbarment hearings just because he's been indicted in Georgia, a California judge ruled Friday. Yvette Roland, a judge on the California State Bar Court, said Eastman had effectively waived any rights against self-incrimination by taking the stand in his disbarment proceedings in June -- even though he knew he could be indicted in either Washington, D.C., or Georgia."

MEANWHILE, in Arizona. Alex Henderson of Alternet: Rolling Stone reports, "'Investigators assigned ... by Arizona's Democratic attorney general Kris Mayes have recently asked potential witnesses and other individuals specific questions not only about [Rudy] Giuliani's behind-the-scenes [post-election activity], but that of other key Trump lieutenants at the time, as well.... Prosecutors appear particularly interested in a number of notable meetings and phone calls, including a late November 2020 meeting with members of Arizona's state legislature convened by the Trump legal team, which aired bogus claims of voter fraud and lobbied lawmakers to "take over" the state's selection of electors, the sources say.'... [Rolling Stone reporters Adam] Rawnsley and [Asawin] Suebsaeng report that Arizona investigators, sources say, 'have also at times inquired about [Donald] Trump's level of personal involvement in' the 'Arizona-focused pressure campaign....'"


Darlene Superville of the AP: "President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will observe Monday's 60th anniversary of the March on Washington by meeting with organizers of the 1963 gathering and relatives of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who delivered his 'I Have a Dream' speech at the Lincoln Memorial. The Oval Office meeting will be held six decades after President John F. Kennedy and King met at the White House on the morning of the march on Aug. 28, 1963.... Biden also will speak later Monday at a White House reception commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonpartisan, nonprofit legal organization that was established at Kennedy's request to help advocate for racial justice.... Black civil rights leaders and a multiracial, interfaith coalition of allies will gather in Washington on Saturday to mark six decades since the first march."

More Trouble in Winger World. Natalie Allison of Politico: "The vice chair of the Conservative Political Action Coalition has resigned from his longtime position on the organization's board and is calling for investigations into the group's top leader and its financial practices, among other issues. Charlie Gerow, an attorney and communications executive who has served on the board of CPAC and its parent organization, the American Conservative Union, for nearly two decades, submitted his letter of resignation on Friday.... Gerow's resignation follows months of turbulence at the prominent conservative organization, where Chair Matt Schlapp earlier this year was sued by a former Herschel Walker Senate campaign staffer over allegations of sexual assault. Board member and treasurer Bob Beauprez resigned from his position in May, citing concerns over the organization's financial reports, while Randy Neugebauer and Mike Rose also stepped down from the board earlier this year."

Matthew Chapman of the Raw Story: "Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) could face new corruption charges as prosecutors meet with lawyers to weigh a decision, reported the Wall Street Journal on Friday. According to the report, prosecutors are looking into whether he or his wife Nadine Arslanian sold political favors in exchange for gifts. They are also investigating how a New Jersey businessman became the sole certifier of Halal meat exported from the United States to Egypt one month after a meeting with Menendez. A report earlier this summer found that another person caught up in the probe, real estate magnate Fred Daibes, has ties to the mob."

Presidential Race 2024

Hannah Demissie & Laura Gersony of ABC News: "... over the past few weeks a growing body of conservative scholars have raised the constitutional argument that [Donald] Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election make him ineligible to hold federal office ever again ... [under] Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment.... On Tuesday, Bryant 'Corky' Messner, a lawyer who lives in New Hampshire, became the first person to announce concrete plans to ... keep Trump off the ballot.... New Hampshire's Secretary of State Office confirmed to ABC News that Messner met with Secretary of State David Scanlan Friday to discuss Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. 'Secretary Scanlan will be conferring with the New Hampshire Attorney General and other legal counsel on this issue; however, he believes any action taken under this Constitutional provision will have to be based on Judicial guidance,' Anna Sventek, communications director for Scanlan, told ABC News...." Two public advocacy organizations, CREW & Free Speech for People, also say they are pursuing efforts to keep Trump off state ballots.

Lisa Lerer & Nicholas Nehamas of the New York Times: Ron DeSantis is using an unverifiable story of a botched abortion that was supposed to have taken place in 1955 as his rationale for draconian anti-abortion laws. MB: That's pretty odd. There have been numerous verified stories about botched state-run executions, yet this year DeSantis made it easier to impose the death penalty.

News Lede

AP: "Multiple people were fatally shot Saturday inside a Jacksonville, Florida, Dollar General store, the city's mayor has told a television station. Mayor Donna Deegan told WJXT 'there are a number of fatalities' inside the store but didn't give a precise number." MB: Officials have released very little information about the shootings. ~~~

     ~~~ The story has been updated. New Lede: "A white man fatally shot three people inside a Jacksonville, Florida, Dollar General store on Saturday in a predominately Black neighborhood in an attack that the local sheriff called 'racially motivated.' The shooter then killed himself. 'He hated black people,' Sheriff T.K. Waters told a news conference. 'There is absolutely no evidence the shooter is part of any larger group.'"

Comments Off
Thursday
Aug242023

The Conversation -- August 25, 2023

Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "As of late Friday morning, all 19 defendants in the state election interference case involving ... Donald J. Trump had turned themselves in. Jeffrey A. Clark, the former high-ranking Justice Department official criminally charged in Georgia in connection with efforts to overturn Donald J. Trump's 2020 election loss in that state, was booked at the Fulton County Jail early on Friday, a few hours after the former president's dramatic booking at the same Atlanta facility.... The last two defendants in the case, Trevian C. Kutti and Steven C. Lee, surrendered on Friday morning before noon, the deadline the Fulton County district attorney, Fani T. Willis, had set for them to appear at the jail before she would start to issue arrest warrants. All but one of the 19 defendants negotiated bail agreements with prosecutors ahead of time, and were released immediately after being processed at the jail. The one defendant [Harrison Floyd] who did not do so was still being held at the jail on Friday."

Marie: Despite all his multi-million-dollars grifts, I'm not sure #BillionaireTrump is doing too well, money-wise. For one thing, he used a bail bondsman to post his bond in Fulton County. That cost him $20K out-of-pocket, where your "normal" richy-rich inmate would post his own bail and save the $20K -- assuming he was planning not to skip the country. Then there's this: ~~~

     ~~~ Susie Madrak of Crooks & Liars: "Well, well, well! According to British publication The Express, online property records show [Donald] Trump transferred the ownership of Mar-A-Largo to a corporation headed by Junior. 'Zillow, which claims to receive "information from the municipal office responsible for recording real estate transactions in your area", reports the property was sold for $422 million on August 4, 2023. A quick search of the website SunBiz ... (shows) that the current owner of Mar A Lago is a company called Mar A Lago, Inc. The owner of the company, and its registered agent, is Donald Trump Jr....'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Florida's bankruptcy laws are generous to residents who live in multi-million-dollar houses, allowing them to keep their luxurious residences even as they stiff all their creditors. But those laws may not apply to a "home" that's part of a for-profit resort hotel. Madrak suggests Trump the Elder is trying to protect his assets. That sounds mighty plausible. ~~~

     ~~~ OOPS! Update and correction: "'Zillow has since updated the posting to show that the property is not currently on the market and hasn't changed hands since 1995 when Trump turned the residence that he originally purchased in 1985 for $2 million into The Mar-a-Lago Club.' So apparently this was fake? Though Zillow hasn't said how that listing appeared." Thanks to Bobby Lee for the heads-up.

Marie: I have no idea if the video is real or fake (I'd guess fake). But whatever; it expresses my feelings. Thanks to RAS for the lead:

Marie: The Pulitzer committee is going to have to decide if the person who snaps mugshots at the Fulton County Jail is eligible for the news photography prize; after all, s/he has taken the picture of the year.

~~~~~~~~~~

Inmate No. P01135809

This photo of a man who resembles the movie thriller version of a villainous, scary character is the way Donald Trump wants to be -- and will be -- remembered for as long as human civilization continues. This is the first-ever mugshot of a U.S. president* (or president). ~~~

     ~~~ Jonathan Cooper of the AP: When the camera shutter blinked inside an Atlanta jail on Thursday, it both created and documented a tiny inflection point in American life. Captured for posterity, there was a former president of the United States, for the first time in history, under arrest and captured in the sort of frame more commonly associated with drug dealers or drunken drivers. The trappings of power gone, for that split second. Left behind: an enduring image that will appear in history books long after Donald Trump is gone."

~~~ Niha Masih of the New York Times: "... Donald Trump made a return to X...-Twitter, late Thursday, with his account sharing his mug shot and a link to his website hours after his surrender and subsequent release from an Atlanta jail on charges connected to his attempts to reverse the 2020 election results in Georgia." MB: Weirdly, Trump's caption for his mugshot included the admonition "NEVER SURRENDER!" Surrender is precisely what Trump did in Atlanta Thursday. According to Lawrence O'Donnell, the Biggest Grifter is hawking T-shirts emblazoned with his mugshot for $34 or $35. I guess he thinks his mugshot is a good look.

Marie: I heard on MSNBC that four or five more perps, including Jeffrey Clark, were booked this morning. Update: According to CNN's liveblog in an item posted later this morning, all but two of the gangsters have surrendered. The liveblog doesn't identify the two people who are still on the lam. According to an ABC News liveblog, "Out of the 19 total defendants, only Trevian Kutti and Stephen Lee have yet to turn themselves in as today's noon deadline approaches." Here's more on these two from Diane Pathieu of ABC-7 Chicago.

The New York Times liveblogged the Fulton County, Georgia, hoohah: "... Donald J. Trump was booked at an Atlanta jail on Thursday in his fourth criminal arrest this year, this time in a sweeping racketeering case accusing him and his allies of conspiring to reverse his 2020 election loss in Georgia. Mr. Trump flew to Atlanta in a private plane from Newark, N.J., and was whisked to the Fulton County Jail in a motorcade with a police escort, arriving at 7:35 p.m. He was then fingerprinted and photographed like other people accused of state crimes and released on bond. About 20 minutes later, he returned directly to the Atlanta airport, where he briefly spoke to reporters on the tarmac before boarding his plane. Saying he had done nothing wrong, he called the charges a 'travesty of justice' and added 'we have every right to challenge an election we think is dishonest.'... Mr. Trump was listed in the Fulton County booking system as having 'blonde or strawberry' hair, a height of 6 foot 3 inches and weight of 215 pounds. That weight is 24 pounds less than the White House doctor reported Trump weighed in 2018 [MB: and according to MSNBC, 25 pounds less than Mark Meadows weighed the same day. CNN said Trump was allowed to 'self-report']....

"Harrison Floyd III, a former 2020 Trump campaign staff member, remains in custody Thursday evening because he showed up to his booking without a lawyer, according to a person with knowledge of what took place. Unlike other defendants, he did not take up the district attorney's offer to work out a bond agreement ahead of time, meaning he could be in jail for several days....

"Donald Trump will use a commercial bondsman, Charles Shaw of Foster Bail Bonds, to post his bond in exchange for $20,000, the bondsman confirmed.... The 10 percent fee will be nonrefundable.... It's not only notable that the billionaire businessman is using a bail bondsman, but also that he's covering the percentage himself....

"A flurry of legal motions were filed on Thursday ahead of [Donald Trump's] appearance, with Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, asking a judge to set a trial date of Oct. 23 and Mr. Trump objecting to that timing, indicating that he wants to move more slowly. Mr. Trump's filing also said that he would seek to have his case severed from that of Kenneth Chesebro, a co-defendant who on Wednesday filed a speedy trial demand in state court. ...

"Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court approved the motion of Kenneth Chesebro, one of the defendants in the Georgia election interference case, for a speedy trial, setting a start date for Oct. 23....

"Trump is on Truth Social attacking Atlanta as crime-ridden as he heads to Fulton County for his arrest. It's unclear whether any of these posts will test the limits of his social media restrictions under his bond package....

Two more of his co-defendants turned themselves in on Thursday: Mark Meadows, his former White House chief of staff, and Harrison Floyd, a former campaign staffer." (Also linked yesterday.)

Politico publishes a rogues' gallery of all of the mugshots of the Trump gang which the Fulton County Jail had released as of early this morning. The accused must surrender by noon ET today.

Another Gangster Says "Trump Made Me Do It." Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Shawn Still, a Georgia Republican charged alongside ... Donald Trump..., says he signed false papers claiming to be a legitimate presidential elector at Trump's direction.... 'The president's attorneys instructed Mr. Still and the other contingent electors that they had to meet and cast their ballots on Dec. 14, 2020,' his attorney Thomas Bever argued Thursday in a court filing seeking to transfer the case against him to federal court.... [Still] contends that because Trump effectively instructed him to cast the ballot ..., he was acting with the imprimatur of the federal government.... [Similarly, former GOP chair David] Shafer's attorney wrote in a petition seeking to move the Fulton County case to federal court, 'Mr. Shafer and the other Republican Electors in the 2020 election acted at the direction of the incumbent President and other federal officials.... The arguments by Still and Shafer underscore the tensions and cracks likely to emerge among the 19 defendants."

Annie Grayer & Melanie Zanona of CNN: "The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee has opened a congressional investigation into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a development that was first reported by CNN and comes the same day [Donald] Trump is slated to surrender at the county jail after being charged for participating in schemes to meddle with Georgia's 2020 election results. The committee sent a letter to Willis on Thursday asking whether she communicated or coordinated with the Justice Department, who has indicted Trump twice on two separate cases, or used federal dollars to complete her investigation that culminated in the fourth indictment of Trump. The questions from Republicans about whether Willis used federal funding in her state-level investigation mirrors the same line of inquiry that Republicans used to probe Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who indicted Trump in New York earlier this year for falsifying business records to cover up an alleged hush money scheme." (Also linked yesterday.) The New York Times story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: In a Congress that refuses to fund the federal government, I am damned sick of their funneling millions of tax dollars into the line item "Trump Defense Expenditures."

Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "... it was a bit startling to see Trump propose, as he did last week on Fox Business, a 10 percent tariff on all U.S. imports, which he called a 'ring around the collar' of the U.S. economy. Before I get to why that would be a really bad idea, I can't help noting how remarkable it was to hear Trump using that phrase. It's an article of faith among many Republicans that President Biden is doddering and senile (even though he isn't, at all). What would they be saying if Biden were promoting one of his big policy ideas with a 55-year-old advertising slogan that was meant to describe something bad? (Wisk detergent was supposed to prevent ring around the collar.)... A tariff would, of course, be a tax -- a tax that would, whatever Trump may assert, fall on U.S. families, probably disproportionately hitting lower income households.... The geopolitical effects of such a tariff would be disastrous.... If America were to implement Trump's proposal for a unilateral, across-the-board tariff, it would in effect be seceding from the international order it did so much to create. The result would be a global wave not so much of retaliation -- although that too -- as of emulation, a free-for-all of tariffs imposed to cater to various interest groups."

Presidential Race 2024

Going to the candidates debate
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you've got to choose
Every way you look at this, you lose. ~~~

~~~ Amanda Marcotte of Salon: "Trump's power is entirely due to the vacuum created by the vapidity of Republican leaders. Watching this non-debate was mainly a reminder that none of these politicians possess anything resembling substance. Despite all the chatter from the punditry about 'policy,' the voters these candidates are trying to reach could not care less about the nuts and bolts of governance. The GOP exists mainly as a vehicle for the endless parade of unwarranted, incoherent grievances of the Republican base.... For a base that just wants to hear how they're the real victims here, Trump's 'woe is me' messaging and retribution-oriented rhetoric is political heroin straight into their MAGA veins. Wednesday night's debate was a painful illustration of this.... The party's base actively repels any discourse with real meaning.... There's no such thing as 'policy discourse' in a world built entirely around conspiracy theories." (Also linked yesterday.)

Not a Mugshot. Miranda Nazzaro of the Hill: "The U.S. Postal Service is set to unveil its new stamp honoring late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg this October. The Postal Service announced Thursday it will hold a first-day-of-issue ceremony in October for the new Forever stamp commemorating Ginsburg's legacy.... The stamp features an oil painting of Ginsburg wearing her black judicial robe and white collar."

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The Justice Department has accused Elon Musk's SpaceX company of violating federal law by refusing to hire foreign nationals who were granted U.S. work permits as asylum-seekers or refugees. In a complaint filed Thursday, DOJ officials claim SpaceX rebuffed applications from asylum-seekers and refugees from 2018 through last year.... The 13-page complaint filed with a unit of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review does not mention the outspoken Musk by name but does allege that as the company's CEO, he publicly advanced the incorrect claim that a green card or citizenship was necessary to work at the company."

~~~~~~~~~~

Russia. The New York Times liveblog of developments Thursday in Russia's war on Ukraine is here: "Here's the latest on the plane crash [that apparently killed Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and nine others]. U.S. and other Western officials said Thursday that preliminary intelligence reports led them to believe that an explosion on board likely brought down the aircraft in Russia, killing all the passengers aboard. And, for the first time, the Pentagon openly said it believed Mr. Prigozhin was dead. 'Our initial assessment is that it's likely Prigozhin was killed,' the Pentagon spokesman, Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, said on Thursday afternoon. There has been no official confirmation that Mr. Prigozhin was killed, but President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Thursday, in his first comments on the crash, spoke obliquely of his death, referring to him in the past tense. 'He made some serious mistakes in life, but he also achieved necessary results,' Mr. Putin said in a televised meeting." ~~~

     ~~~ An AP story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates of developments Friday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here.

News Lede

New York Times: "Authorities in Hawaii released a list late on Thursday naming 388 people who are still unaccounted for in the aftermath of the deadliest wildfires in America in more than a century, which killed at least 115 people. The fires devastated the coastal town of Lahaina on the island of Maui, as well as other areas of the island, more than two weeks ago. Search-and-rescue teams are still sifting through the last patches of ash and rubble looking for human remains.In publicizing the names, the authorities hope to narrow the tally of the missing." ~~~

     ~~~ The AP's story is here.

Comments Off
Wednesday
Aug232023

The Conversation -- August 24, 2023

The New York Times is liveblogging the Fulton County, Georgia, hoohah: "A flurry of legal motions were filed on Thursday ahead of [Donald Trump's] appearance, with Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, asking a judge to set a trial date of Oct. 23 and Mr. Trump objecting to that timing, indicating that he wants to move more slowly. Mr. Trump's filing also said that he would seek to have his case severed from that of Kenneth Chesebro, a co-defendant who on Wednesday filed a speedy trial demand in state court. ...

Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court approved the motion of Kenneth Chesebro, one of the defendants in the Georgia election interference case, for a speedy trial, setting a start date for Oct. 23....

Trump is on Truth Social attacking Atlanta as crime-ridden as he heads to Fulton County for his arrest. It's unclear whether any of these posts will test the limits of his social media restrictions under his bond package....

Two more of his co-defendants turned themselves in on Thursday: Mark Meadows, his former White House chief of staff, and Harrison Floyd, a former campaign staffer.

Going to the candidates debate
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you've got to choose
Every way you look at this, you lose. ~~~

~~~ Amanda Marcotte of Salon: "Trump's power is entirely due to the vacuum created by the vapidity of Republican leaders. Watching this non-debate was mainly a reminder that none of these politicians possess anything resembling substance. Despite all the chatter from the punditry about 'policy,' the voters these candidates are trying to reach could not care less about the nuts and bolts of governance. The GOP exists mainly as a vehicle for the endless parade of unwarranted, incoherent grievances of the Republican base.... For a base that just wants to hear how they're the real victims here, Trump's 'woe is me' messaging and retribution-oriented rhetoric is political heroin straight into their MAGA veins. Wednesday night's debate was a painful illustration of this.... The party's base actively repels any discourse with real meaning.... There's no such thing as 'policy discourse' in a world built entirely around conspiracy theories."

Annie Grayer & Melanie Zanona of CNN: "The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee has opened a congressional investigation into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a development that was first reported by CNN and comes the same day [Donald] Trump is slated to surrender at the county jail after being charged for participating in schemes to meddle with Georgia's 2020 election results. The committee sent a letter to Willis on Thursday asking whether she communicated or coordinated with the Justice Department..., or used federal dollars to complete her investigation that culminated in the fourth indictment of Trump. The questions from Republicans about whether Willis used federal funding in her state-level investigation mirrors the same line of inquiry that Republicans used to probe Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who indicted Trump in New York earlier this year for falsifying business records to cover up an alleged hush money scheme." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: In a Congress that refuses to fund the federal government, I am damned sick of their funneling millions of tax dollars into the line item "Trump Defense Expenditures."

     ~~~ Thanks to RAS for the links.

~~~~~~~~~~

Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "Lucrative new tax breaks and other incentives for advanced manufacturing that President Biden signed into law appear to be reshaping direct foreign investment in the American economy, according to a White House analysis, with a much greater share of spending on new and expanded businesses shifting toward the factory sector." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: That's very good news, but let's see if Biden rival Donald Trump has a better plan: ~~~

     ~~~ Jeff Stein of the Washington Post (Aug. 22): "Even in the face of growing personal legal peril, Donald Trump summoned his top economic advisers to his private golf club in New Jersey for a two-hour dinner last Wednesday night to map out a trade-focused economic plan for his presidential bid. Trump and top aides, including former senior White House officials Larry Kudlow and Brooke Rollins, as well as outside advisers Stephen Moore and former House speaker Newt Gingrich, spent the dinner discussing how Trump could attack President Biden in the 2024 election on the economy, amid a recent spate of positive economic news that has buoyed Biden's fortunes.... Among the ideas they discussed was Trump's plan to enact a 'universal baseline tariff' on virtually all imports to the United States, the people said. This idea ... could represent a massive escalation of global economic chaos, surpassing the international trade discord that marked much of his first administration.... On Fox Business on Thursday, the former president called for setting this tariff at 10 percent 'automatically' for all countries, a move that experts warn could lead to higher prices for consumers throughout the economy and could likely lead to a global trade war." Emphasis added. Case closed. Fucking dimwits.

Presidential Race 2024 -- "Debate" Nite

Shane Goldmacher, et al., of the New York Times: "... it was not [Donald] Trump's chief rival in the polls, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who emerged at the epicenter of the first Trump-free showdown on Wednesday, but instead the political newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy, whose unlikely rise has revealed the remarkable degree to which the former president has remade the party.... He hewed closely to Mr. Trump not just on substance but also on style. He stirred controversy to soak up screen time, and lobbed some of the evening's most strikingly personal slights.... All eight candidates mostly jostled for position among themselves, and few targeted the front-runner who is set to surrender on Thursday after his fourth criminal indictment.... Rivals mostly ignored [DeSantis]..., often relegat[ing] him to the sidelines.... More than any other issue, the question of America's role in Ukraine divided the candidates and presented two divergent visions for the Republican Party.... When the candidates were asked if they believed human behavior was causing climate change, most seemed to want nothing to do with the question. Only two were unequivocal: Mr. Ramaswamy, who called climate change a 'hoax,' and [Nikki] Haley, who said climate change was 'real.'... Her most aggressive moments came during an intense back-and-forth with Mr. Ramaswamy about Ukraine aid. She came charging at him: 'You have no foreign policy experience, and it shows.' Fox News panned out to show the crowd cheering....[Mike] Pence made the most of every moment, crowbarring his way into almost every exchange...." Politico's story is here.

Marie: Hours after I complained to the New York Times that their liveblog of the GOP Presidential* Clown Show & Food Fight Extravaganza didn't work -- and well after the show was over -- they fixed it. The Washington Post liveblog is here (link fixed). CNN's liveblog is here (link fixed).

Frank Bruni's (New York Times) assessment of the "debate" is sorta worth reading: "... the party is not turning away from Trump, and that was the moral of an event at which Trump was physically absent but spiritually present, an oppressive orange specter manifest in the bits and pieces of him that the candidates other than Christie and Hutchinson reassembled into their own political identities -- and in their unwillingness to do what most needed doing and tell their party the full truth about Trump's lies."

Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: "Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota injured himself playing basketball with his staff on Tuesday and was taken to an emergency room ahead of his planned appearance at Wednesday's first Republican presidential primary debate. Mr. Burgum, 67, injured his leg, according to two campaign aides, and it was unclear on Wednesday morning whether he would be able to stand at the debate." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ The story has been updated. New Lede: "Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota will participate in the first Republican presidential primary debate on Wednesday night, despite injuring himself playing basketball with his staff on Tuesday.... [An] aide said Mr. Burgum intended to stand during the two-hour debate but would have a stool to rest on during breaks." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Only the Party of Torture would consider making a guy with a newly-injured leg stand up during a two-hour debate.

Trump Won't Rule Out Civil War. Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post: "Asked by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson [during a pretaped interview played of X-Twitter Wednesday night] whether the nation is headed toward open conflict, [Donald] Trump responded: 'I don't know. I can say this: There's a level of passion that I've never seen. There's a level of hatred that I've never seen. And that's probably a bad combination.' Trump compared the current volatile mix of passion and hatred to the crowd on Jan. 6, 2021, and pivoted to defending his supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol that day -- falsely describing the violent assault as a day of 'love and unity.'... 'People in that crowd said it was the most beautiful day they ever experienced. There was love and unity. I have never seen such spirit and such passion and such love. And I've also never seen, simultaneously and from the same people, such hatred at what they've done to our country.' Trump, the polling leader for the Republican nomination, has repeatedly declined to condemn or rule out political violence.... Trump has received warnings from the judges in the criminal cases against inciting violence and intimidating witnesses."

Trump Family Crime Blotter

The Washington Post is live-updating developments at the Fulton County jail. ~~~

     ~~~ CNN's live updates are here: "... Donald Trump has replaced his top Georgia lawyer ahead of his surrender Thursday evening, sources tell CNN. Drew Findling, the lawyer who has led Trump's defense in Georgia, is being replaced by Steven Sadow, an Atlanta-based attorney whose website profile describes him as a 'special counsel for white collar and high profile defense.'" AND

"The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee is expected to open a congressional investigation into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as soon as Thursday.... The committee is expected to ask Willis whether she was coordinating with the Justice Department, which has indicted Trump twice in two separate cases, or used federal dollars to complete her investigation that culminated in the fourth indictment of Trump...."

Two More Fine Public Servants to Be Booked at the Fulton County Jail. Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A federal judge quickly shot down bids Wednesday by two former Trump administration officials -- Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark -- to derail the criminal proceedings against them in Fulton County.... In two six-page rulings by Atlanta-based U.S. District Court Judge Steve Jones effectively ensures that Meadows and Clark will face arrest this week, a result both men attempted to prevent in a series of emergency filings. Meadows and Clark had both pleaded with Jones to prohibit District Attorney Fani Willis from arresting them by a Friday deadline for the 19 defendants to turn themselves in. Both men say their cases should be handled -- and ultimately dismissed -- by federal courts because of their work for the Trump administration.... 'Until the federal court assumes jurisdiction over a state criminal case, the state court retains jurisdiction over the prosecution and the proceedings continue,' Jones wrote."

Danny Hakim, et al., of the New York Times: "Rudolph W. Giuliani turned himself in on Wednesday in the racketeering case against ... Donald J. Trump and his allies, surrendering at the Atlanta jail where the defendants are being booked. Mr. Giuliani, whose bond was set at $150,000, arrived in Atlanta as another defendant in the sprawling case, the lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, filed a motion seeking a speedy trial. Under that scenario, which Georgia law allows, the trial for all 19 people indicted in the case would have to start no later than Nov. 3.... Bond for another defendant, Sidney Powell, one of the most prominent lawyers who advanced false claims of vote fraud and advised Mr. Trump to fight his election loss, was set Wednesday at $100,000.... Three of the 19 defendants have filed to remove the case to federal court: Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official; Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump's former White House chief of staff; and [former Georgia Republican party chair David] Shafer. Mr. Clark and Mr. Meadows have also filed court papers seeking to block their arrest." This is an update of a story linked earlier Wednesday. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ According to the teevee, Giuliani next made an appearance at Atlanta's A Second Change Bail Bonds.

Marie: For all of Donald Trump's admiration of ruthless dictators like Vlad & Li'l Kim who control their countries with iron fists, do you suppose for a moment he realized that if the U.S. had such a system, Trump would some while back have found himself aboard Trump Air 1, falling from the sky, in the manner that was apparently the demise of Putin's chef Yevgeny Prigozhin? I don't think so. I suspect Trump imagines himself tossing Joe Biden out a window, or worse, but cannot imagine a similar scene in which he is the victim of his own dream of a lawless, dictator-led state. This is similar to the arguments being made by Trump and some of his co-defendants & supporters: they claim that Trump was acting within his inalienable rights as president* when he led a coup attempt. It never dawns on them that what they are arguing today is that Biden -- who despite his senility and general weakness magically defeated the coup -- can declare himself president-for-life and Kamala Harris can reject all the GOP electors' votes. And Joe can do no wrong. Because president.

Yvonne Sanchez, et al., of the Washington Post: "A Trump supporter indicted last week in Fulton County, Ga., for allegedly harassing an election worker was charged earlier this year with attacking an FBI agent working on the Justice Department's parallel investigation of efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. The arrest of Harrison William Prescott Floyd III, which has not been previously reported, offers new information about the breadth of the federal probe led by special counsel Jack Smith, who has charged ... Donald Trump for allegedly attempting to obstruct Joe Biden's election victory.... Floyd, 39, also known as Willie Lewis Floyd III, is a little-known player who helped run Trump's 2020 campaign outreach to Black voters.... Agents went to Floyd's apartment in Rockville, Md., on Feb. 23 to serve a grand jury subpoena, according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.... The affidavit accuses Floyd of body-slamming an agent and hurling expletives at the agent and his colleague." The story details Floyd's actions surrounding service of the subpoena. ~~~

~~~ Hatch Act! Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Georgia prosecutors unfurled their most detailed case yet against former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Wednesday, sharply rejecting his assertion that his efforts to keep ... Donald Trump in power were part of his official government responsibilities. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis contended that Meadows repeatedly violated federal laws prohibiting political activity by federal government officials when he convened meetings, arranged calls and participated in efforts to help undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election.... Willis argued [that Meadows repeatedly] violated the Hatch Act, a federal statute that bars government employees from using their official roles to affect the outcome of an election.... [District Judge Steve] Jones has called an Aug. 28 hearing on the matter to discuss the evidence in the case." Willis's reponse to Meadow's motion is here. Andrew Weissmann, speaking on MSNBC, recommended the filing as tour-de-force. MB: It looks to me like a "gotcha" response. We'll see what Judge Jones says.

Robert Legare of CBS News: "The Mar-a-Lago IT employee who, according to a federal court filing, implicated ... Donald Trump and two of his aides in an alleged pressure campaign to delete security camera footage at the Florida resort was advised by special counsel Jack Smith's team that he would not face perjury charges after he amended his testimony [upon being provided with a public defender], a source familiar with the investigation told CBS News. Yuscil Taveras was assured by federal prosecutors in recent weeks that he was no longer the target of a criminal probe into whether he had lied in his grand jury testimony and would not be charged for allegedly lying to investigators by telling them that he had no knowledge of efforts to delete the footage that was of interest to Smith's team, the source said.... After receiving a target letter and switching lawyers, the documents said, Taveras 'retracted his prior false testimony and provided information that implicated [Walt] Nauta, [Carlos] De Oliveira and Trump in efforts to delete security camera footage, as set forth in the superseding indictment.'"

~~~~~~~~~~

Michigan. Mitch Smith of the New York Times: "Three men -- Michael Null and William Null, who are twin brothers, and Eric Molitor -- are on trial on a charge of providing material support for a terrorist act [in a domestic terrorist plot to kidnap and possibly kill Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D)]. Prosecutors said the plot had been fueled by anti-government sentiment, militia activity and anger over pandemic lockdowns.... William Barnett, a lawyer for Mr. Molitor, noted for the jury that Ms. Whitmer had blamed [Donald] Trump's rhetoric for the plot. 'It' all politics, folks,' Mr. Barnett said. 'There's something going on here. I don't know what's going on. But it looks like weaponization of the government.'" MB: Got that? These guys planned to use weapons against a sitting governor, her family and her security detail, but it's the government that has been weaponized. This might be the first time an insanity defense means that the lawyer for the defendant is insane.

South Carolina. Kate Zernike of the New York Times: "The South Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the state's new near-total ban on abortion by a 4-1 vote, reversing a decision it had made in January that struck down a similar ban and declared that the State Constitution's protections for privacy included a right to abortion. The courts decision was not unexpected, because the makeup of the bench had changed, and Republicans in the State Legislature had passed a new abortion law in the hopes that it would find a friendlier audience with the new court. The decision in January was written by the court's only female justice; she retired and South Carolina now has the nation's only all-male high court." (Also linked yesterday.)

~~~~~~~~~~

Russia. From the New York Times' liveblog of developments in Russia's war on Ukraine: "Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the Russian mercenary leader of the private Wagner paramilitary group, was listed on the passenger roster of a private jet that crashed in Russia on Wednesday, killing all 10 people aboard, Russia's aviation authority said. Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry said that the plane, an Embraer jet, crashed in the Tver region, north of Moscow, according to the state news agency TASS. Minutes later, the news agency, citing Russia's aviation authority, said that Mr. Prigozhin was listed as a passenger on the plane.... The flight manifest for the plane that crashed north of Moscow on Wednesday night contained at least one other notable name in addition to Yevgeny V. Prigozhin -- that of Dmitri Utkin, his longtime lieutenant in leading the Wagner private military company...." MB: Looks as if defenestration is not dramatic enough a means to ridding Putin of this meddlesome beast. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ From CNN's liveblog Wednesday: "Yevgeny Prigozhin, the chief of the Wagner mercenary group, was on board a plane that crashed northwest of Moscow on Wednesday, the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency said." ~~~

     ~~~ Update: The New York Times' live updates for Thursday are here: "Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, who led a brief mutiny in June, was listed as a passenger on a plane that crashed. There was no confirmation that he had died, and Russian officials including President Vladimir V. Putin did not comment on the incident."

Russia. Valeriya Safronova of the New York Times: "The pretrial detention of Evan Gershkovich, an American reporter for The Wall Street Journal who has been held in Russia since March, has been extended by three months, a Moscow court said on Thursday. Mr. Gershkovich has been detained in Moscow's Lefortovo prison on espionage charges that he, the U.S. government and The Journal have vehemently denied. The United States has said he is wrongfully detained."

News Lede

New York Times: "At least four people were dead, including a gunman, and six others were injured after a man believed to have been a retired law enforcement officer opened fire at a popular biker bar in Southern California on Wednesday evening as a crowd gathered for a rock music show and spaghetti night, the authorities said. The shooting occurred at about 7 p.m. at Cook's Corner, a bar in Trabuco Canyon, a rural community in eastern Orange County, Jeff Hallock, undersheriff at the Orange County Sheriff's Department, said.... He added that law enforcement officers responded within minutes of receiving multiple 911 calls of shots being fired, and after deputies confronted the suspect it was 'safe to assume that they engaged the shooter.' The gunman died at the scene, and at least one weapon has been recovered, he said. Another law enforcement official who was not authorized to speak publicly ... said the suspected gunman, who had retired several years ago from an agency elsewhere in Southern California, had been targeting his estranged wife, who was among the dead."

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