September 6, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Massachusetts is holding primary elections today. The New York Times has a what-to-watch-for blog.

Hannah Rabinowitz, et al., of CNN: "A New Mexico judge on Tuesday removed January 6 rioter and Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin from his elected position as a county commissioner for his role in the US Capitol attack. The ruling was the result of a lawsuit seeking Griffin's removal, which alleged that he violated a clause in 14th Amendment of the Constitution by participating in an 'insurrection' against the US government. He had been convicted of trespassing earlier this year. The historic ruling represents the first time an elected official has been removed from office for their participation or support of the US Capitol riot. It also marks the first time a judge has formally ruled that the events of January 6, 2021, were an 'insurrection.'... Griffin, one of three commissioners in Otero County, is also barred from holding any state or federal elected position in the future, state Judge Francis Mathew ruled Tuesday."

Zachary Cohen & Jason Morris of CNN: "A Republican county official in Georgia escorted two operatives working with an attorney for ... Donald Trump into the county's election offices on the same day a voting system there was breached, newly obtained video shows. The breach is now under investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and is of interest to the Fulton County District Attorney, who is conducting a wider criminal probe of interference in the 2020 election. The video sheds more light on how an effort spearheaded by lawyers and others around Trump to seek evidence of voter fraud was executed on the ground from Georgia to Michigan to Colorado, often with the assistance of sympathetic local officials. In the surveillance video, which was obtained by CNN, Cathy Latham, a former GOP chairwoman of Coffee County who is under criminal investigation for posing as a fake elector in 2020, escorts a team of pro-Trump operatives to the county's elections office on January 7, 2021, the same day a voting system there is known to have been breached. The two men seen in the video with Latham, Scott Hall and Paul Maggio, have acknowledged that they successfully gained access to a voting machine in Coffee County at the behest of Trump lawyer Sidney Powell."

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha. Ha. David Folkenflik of NPR: In November 2020, a Fox "News" "producer warned: Fox cannot let host Jeanine Pirro back on the air. She is pulling conspiracy theories from dark corners of the Web to justify ... Donald Trump's lies that the election had been stolen from him.... Pirro was far from alone in broadcasting such false claims. In the weeks that followed Election Day 2020, other prominent Fox stars, commentators and their guests heavily promoted them. A repeat target was Dominion Voting Systems, the election machine and technology company. Trump and his allies alleged on Fox that Dominion was engaged in a conscious effort to throw the 2020 race to Joe Biden.... The producer's email is among the voluminous correspondence acquired by Dominion's attorneys as part of its discovery of evidence in a $1.6 billion defamation suit it filed against Fox News and its parent company." ~~~

    ~~~ Marie: I'll bet the paralegal who pulled that email from the piles of papers got the rest of the day off.

Anna Merlan of Vice: "On September 1st, Evie Magazine -- which strives to be the conservative answer to Cosmo, and which promotes COVID denialism and vaccine misinformation, soft-focus transphobia, and a weird obsession with organ meats -- announced a new venture: 28, a 'femtech' company offering workouts and nutritional tips based on users' menstrual cycles, and which requires those users to enter information about the first day of their last period. The week prior, TechCrunch announced the new venture's biggest funder: the investment firm Thiel Capital, which led the latest $3.2 million funding round, and whose founder Peter Thiel has a variety of other interests. (Those include, of late, funding the MAGA movement to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.)"

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Marie: For three weeks, beginning this week, I have to be away for the good part of the first two work days of every week. So I'll do what I can to keep Reality Chex up-to-date, but there will be some lapses.

Olivia Olander of Politico: "President Joe Biden continued to add texture Monday to a recent string of criticisms against 'MAGA Republicans,' the right-most wing of the party that he's sought to distinguish from the more moderate, 'mainstream' GOP. 'I want to be very clear up front: Not every Republican is a MAGA Republican,' Biden said at a Labor Day event in Wisconsin. 'Not every Republican embraces that extreme ideology. I know because I've been able to work with mainstream Republicans in my whole career.' However, he continued: 'The extreme MAGA Republicans in Congress have chosen to go backwards, full of anger, violence, hate and division. But together we can -- and we must -- choose a different path forward.'... Biden placed Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican running to keep his seat in Wisconsin's midterm elections, squarely in the 'MAGA' camp.... A protester briefly interrupted as Biden spoke.... 'Let him go. Everybody's entitled to being an idiot,' Biden said after security grabbed the protester."

Alan Feuer & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A federal judge intervened on Monday in the investigation of ... Donald J. Trump's handling of sensitive government records, ordering the appointment of an independent arbiter to review a trove of materials seized last month from Mr. Trump's private club and residence in Florida. In a 24-page ruling, the judge, Aileen M. Cannon of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida, also enjoined the Justice Department from using the seized materials for any 'investigative purpose' connected to its inquiry of Mr. Trump until the work of the arbiter, known as a special master, was completed.... Her order would not, however, affect a separate review of the documents by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence seeking to determine what risk to national security their removal to Mar-a-Lago may have caused.... Judge Cannon's ruling ... permitted whoever is appointed to the job to evaluate the documents not only for those protected by attorney-client privilege, a relatively common measure, but also for those potentially shielded by executive privilege, which typically protects confidential internal executive branch deliberations.... In her order, Judge Cannon evinced concern that Mr. Trump might suffer 'reputational harm.'... She also noted that, because of the search of Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump faced 'unquantifiable potential harm by way of improper disclosure of sensitive information to the public.'" Politico's report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'm kinda surprised Cannon didn't order Trump never again to make another public statement inasmuch as he "suffers reputational harm" every time his opens his fat lips & the best words come out. More seriously, Cannon seems confused by the concept of three branches of government, and -- as Akhilleus & I both speculated last week -- is not competent to do the judge thing. Oh, and that one-president-at-a-time "theory"? Faggedaboudit. Moreover, the items she objected to cover matters that the government would never have presented in a case against Trump for the theft of government documents. She claimed that among the items seized were medical records & tax documents; but whether or not Trump lied about his heart rate & taxes is immaterial to the matters of espionage, theft & obstruction.

     ~~~ Update. Toljaso. Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A federal judg's extraordinary decision on Monday to interject in the criminal investigation into ... Donald J. Trump's hoarding of sensitive government documents at his Florida residence showed unusual solicitude to him, legal specialists said. This was 'an unprecedented intervention by a federal district judge into the middle of an ongoing federal criminal and national security investigation,' said Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at University of Texas.... In reaching [her] result, Judge Cannon took several steps that specialists said were vulnerable to being overturned if the government files an appeal, as most agreed was likely.... 'The opinion seems oblivious to the nature of executive privilege,' [Peter M. Shane, who is a legal scholar in residence at N.Y.U.,] said.... 'Even if there is some hypothetical situation in which a former president could shield his or her communications from the current executive branch,' Mr. Shane said, 'they would not be able to do so in the context of a criminal investigation -- and certainly not after the material has been seized pursuant to a lawful search warrant.'"

Adam Satariano of the New York Times: "Meta was fined roughly $400 million for breaking European Union data privacy laws for its treatment of children's data on Instagram, the latest in a series of steps by authorities in Europe and the United States to crack down on what information is collected and shared by companies about young people online. Ireland's Data Protection Commission said it decided on Sept. 2 to impose what would be one of the largest fines to date under the General Data Protection Regulation, or G.D.P.R., the four-year-old European data privacy law that has been criticized for being weakly enforced.... In 2020, Ireland's Data Protection Commission began investigating Instagram for making the accounts of children aged 13 to 17 set to public by default, and for allowing teenagers with business accounts on Instagram, many of them aspiring influencers, to make public their email addresses and phone numbers." A Politico report is here.

Fat Leonard Flees. Rebecca Ratcliffe of the Guardian: "A Malaysian businessman who pleaded guilty in the US navy's worst corruption scandal has escaped house arrest in San Diego after cutting off his monitoring bracelet, federal authorities have said. Leonard Glenn Francis, known as Fat Leonard, who pleaded guilty in 2015 to offering $500,000 in bribes to navy officers, was due to be sentenced in a few weeks. The supervisory deputy, US Marshal Omar Castillo, said Francis fled from his home on Sunday morning, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Officers who arrived at the property found it empty but discovered parts of his broken GPS tracker bracelet." MB: Wonder if Trump will try this.

Way Beyond the Beltway

Ukraine, et al.

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

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Tuesday are here: "The U.N. nuclear watchdog will detail its findings on the 'safety, security and safeguards' at the Zaporizhzhia plant, controlled by Russian forces in Ukraine. Inspectors have left the site after an IAEA mission that overcame halting negotiations and the risk of artillery fire, with two representatives staying behind to monitor. As well as publishing its report, the IAEA will brief the U.N. Security Council about the facility.... The flow of gas to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline will not resume until Siemens Energy repairs equipment, the deputy CEO of Russian energy giant Gazprom told Reuters on Tuesday. The Kremlin has blamed Western sanctions for the supply halt, while European leaders accuse Russia of using energy as leverage against countries opposing its war. The pipeline shutdown puts Europe at risk of shortages in the winter as the world faces price hikes. Russia is in the process of buying rockets and artillery shells from North Korea, the Associated Press and Reuters reported Tuesday, citing U.S. intelligence."

Pjotr Sauer of the Guardian: "Russia will not resume in full its gas supplies to Europe until the west lifts its sanctions against Moscow, the Kremlin said, as concerns over Russian gas supplies continued to drive up energy prices. Speaking to journalists on Monday, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin's spokesperson, blamed sanctions 'introduced against our country by western countries including Germany and the UK' for Russia's failure to deliver gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Afghanistan. Robyn Dixon, et al., of the Washington Post: "A suicide bomber blew himself up outside the consular section of Russia's embassy in Kabul on Monday, killing a top diplomat, a Russian security guard and four Afghans, according to Russian and Afghan officials. Afghan police reported that Taliban guards at the embassy shot dead the attacker, but his device still detonated. The blast happened as the embassy's second secretary exited the building to read out names to a crowd waiting to hear about visas, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported. The attack against one of the few countries that has maintained an embassy under the Taliban is a blow to the image of the group that took over Afghanistan a year ago and maintains it has control over the country." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Israel/Palestine. Hiba Yazbek & Patrick Kingsley of the New York Times: "The Israeli Army on Monday acknowledged for the first time that Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist killed in May in the occupied West Bank, was most likely shot by an Israeli soldier, but it stopped short of definitively accepting responsibility for her death. The army's announcement -- the conclusion of a monthslong internal investigation -- marked a shift from the original Israeli position, which maintained that Ms. Abu Akleh, a veteran broadcaster for Al Jazeera, had probably been killed by Palestinian fire." The AP's report is here.

U.K. She's Going to Scotland to Visit the Queen. The New York Times is live-updating developments in the transfer of power in the U.K. Although Boris Johnson made a final speech as P.M. today, he did not urge his followers to storm the barricades. So an insurrection is unlikely. ~~~

     ~~~ The Guardian's story of Boris's last speech is here. He too is going to Balmoral to visit the Queen. So, you know, the Queen of England probably is having a lousier day than you are.

~~~ Who Is Liz Truss? Who Knows? William Booth, et al., of the Washington Post: "The next prime minister of Britain will be Liz Truss, whose political journey began on the left -- down with the monarchy! she cried -- only to arrive on the right, as a hard-line Brexiteer who has tried to channel the Iron Lady herself, Margaret Thatcher.... It's fair to say Truss is a shapeshifter. She fought for Britain to remain in the European Union before becoming a staunch defender of Brexit.... In Brussels[, S]he's seen as an agitator, an anti-Europe opportunist who could make matters even worse in the rocky relationship between Britain and the 27-nation bloc.... [Truss was chosen in an election] by 172,437 Conservative Party members -- about 0.3 percent of the British population -- who are older, wealthier and 95 percent White and more to the right than Britain as a whole."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Police cruisers and unmarked trucks raced to the James Smith Cree Nation reserve in the western [Canadian] province of Saskatchewan, and residents were once again warned to take shelter. But hours later, the authorities released a discomfiting statement to a province on edge: Myles Sanderson was still at large. Mr. Sanderson, 30, is one of two brothers accused of carrying out the spree of violence that [that left 10 people dead of stabbing wounds. It] began on the reserve in the predawn hours of Sunday. Investigators found the body of [Myles'] brother, Damien, 31, near a house on the reserve the next day, and said they were looking into whether Myles Sanderson had killed him."

ABC News: "A body discovered in Memphis has been identified as abducted school teacher Eliza Fletcher, authorities said Tuesday. Fletcher's remains were found on Sunday afternoon in a South Memphis residential neighborhood several miles from where she was abducted, police said. The grim news came as 38-year-old Cleotha Abston, the suspect in the kidnapping, was set to make his first court appearance. The Memphis Police Department said charges of first-degree murder and first-degree murder in perpetration of kidnapping have been filed against Abston."

September 5, 2022

Then:

And Now:

Afternoon Update:

Alan Feuer & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A federal judge intervened on Monday in the investigation of ... Donald J. Trump's handling of sensitive government records, ordering the appointment of an independent arbiter to review a trove of materials seized last month from Mr. Trump's private club and residence in Florida. In a 24-page ruling, the judge, Aileen M. Cannon of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida, also enjoined the Justice Department from using the seized materials for any 'investigative purpose' connected to its inquiry of Mr. Trump until the work of the arbiter, known as a special master, was completed.... Her order would not, however, affect a separate review of the documents by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence seeking to determine what risk to national security their removal to Mar-a-Lago may have caused.... Judge Cannon's ruling ... permitted whoever is appointed to the job to evaluate the documents not only for those protected by attorney-client privilege, a relatively common measure, but also for those potentially shielded by executive privilege, which typically protects confidential internal executive branch deliberations.... In her order, Judge Cannon evinced concern that Mr. Trump might suffer 'reputational harm.'... She also noted that, because of the search of Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump faced 'unquantifiable potential harm by way of improper disclosure of sensitive information to the public.'" Politico's report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'm kinda surprised Cannon didn't order Trump never again to make another public statement inasmuch as he "suffers reputational harm" every time his opens his fat lips & the best words come out. More seriously, Cannon seems confused by the concept of three branches of government, and -- as Akhilleus & I both speculated last week -- is not competent to do the judge thing. Moreover, the items she objected to cover matters that the government would never have presented in a case against Trump for the theft of government documents. She claimed that among the items seized were medical records & tax documents; but whether or not Trump lied about his heart rate & taxes is immaterial to the matters of espionage, theft & obstruction.

Pjotr Sauer of the Guardian: "Russia will not resume in full its gas supplies to Europe until the west lifts its sanctions against Moscow, the Kremlin said, as concerns over Russian gas supplies continued to drive up energy prices. Speaking to journalists on Monday, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin's spokesperson, blamed sanctions 'introduced against our country by western countries including Germany and the UK' for Russia's failure to deliver gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline."

Afghanistan. Robyn Dixon, et al., of the Washington Post: "A suicide bomber blew himself up outside the consular section of Russia's embassy in Kabul on Monday, killing a top diplomat, a Russian security guard and four Afghans, according to Russian and Afghan officials. Afghan police reported that Taliban guards at the embassy shot dead the attacker, but his device still detonated. The blast happened as the embassy's second secretary exited the building to read out names to a crowd waiting to hear about visas, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported. The attack against one of the few countries that has maintained an embassy under the Taliban is a blow to the image of the group that took over Afghanistan a year ago and maintains it has control over the country."

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Will Weissert of the AP: "President Joe Biden is making his third trip to Pennsylvania in less than a week and returning just two days after his predecessor, Donald Trump, staged his own rally there -- illustrating the battleground state's importance to both parties as Labor Day kicks off a nine-week sprint to crucial midterm elections.... On Monday, [President Biden is] attending Labor Day festivities in Milwaukee, in another key swing state, Wisconsin, before traveling to Pittsburgh[, Pa.] for that city's parade.... The unofficial start of fall, Labor Day also traditionally kicks off political crunch time...."

Olivia Olander of Politico: "John Sullivan, the United States' ambassador to Russia, concluded his time in the role and left Moscow on Sunday after almost three years as envoy, according to a statement from the U.S. embassy in Russia. Elizabeth Rood, another diplomat who was the deputy chief of the embassy, will take it over until the ambassador's successor is appointed and confirmed, the statement said. She has been stationed at the embassy since June, but has been nominated to be the next ambassador to Turkmenistan. Sullivan was appointed by ... Donald Trump in 2019, but was asked to stay on by President Joe Biden. 'Following his departure, he will retire from a career in public service that has spanned four decades and five U.S. presidents,' the statement said."

Beyond the Beltway

Nevada. Eduardo Medina of the New York Times: "An investigative reporter for The Las Vegas Review-Journal was found stabbed to death outside his home on Saturday morning, prompting a search for the attacker.... The police believe Jeff German, 69, was in an altercation with someone on Friday that resulted in the stabbing, The Review-Journal reported. Dori Koren, a spokesman for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, told the newspaper that the police had potential leads on an assailant. A motive was not immediately clear." The AP's report is here.

Way Beyond

** U.K. Pippa Crerar of the Guardian: "Liz Truss will become Britain's next prime minister after winning a resounding victory over Rishi Sunak in the bitterly fought Conservative leadership contest. The foreign secretary, who won 81,326 votes of Tory members, while the former chancellor picked up 60,399 votes takes over from Boris Johnson, who was ousted by his own MPs earlier this summer. But the euphoria of victory will quickly give way to the hard reality of the economic challenges ahead with the country gripped by a cost of living crisis leaving families struggling to pay their energy bills this winter. Truss has said she will reveal plans to support households within a week of taking office, with allies understood to be discussing a £100bn package that could include freezing energy bills. She has already pledged to reverse a national insurance rise even though it disproportionately benefits the well-off. An emergency budget is expected within the first month to set out how she will bolster the economy amid sustained low growth, soaring inflation, flat-lining wages and the very real prospect of recession."

~~~ New York Times: "Britain will learn the identity of its new prime minister at around 12:30 p.m. on Monday (7:30 a.m. in New York), when the Conservative Party announces the results of a hard-fought contest to replace Boris Johnson. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, remains the heavy favorite over her opponent, Rishi Sunak, a former chancellor of the Exchequer." This is a liveblog. An AP story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: In case you think of the Brits as more hidebound than Americans, the U.K. now has its third female prime minister; they even had a Jewish (by birth) P.M. in the 19th century. In the U.S? None of the above: all of our presidents, except one, were white guys.

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

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Monday are here: "'The Ukrainian counteroffensive is making verifiable progress in the south and the east,' according to the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based think tank. ISW analysts said 'Ukrainian forces are advancing along several axes' to the west of the Kherson region and 'have secured territory' in Donetsk, one of two eastern regions that make up the Donbas area. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday after a meeting of Ukraine's defense, military and intelligence chiefs that 'Ukrainian flags are returning to the places where they should be by right.'"

Chile. Jack Nicas of the New York Times: "For the past three years, Chileans have fought over a path forward for their country in the form of a new constitution, written entirely from scratch, that would transform their society and grant more rights than any national charter before it. On Sunday, voters overwhelmingly rejected that text. The proposed changes had looked to remake one of the most conservative countries in Latin America into one of the world's most left-leaning societies, but Chileans decided that went too far."

News Lede

New York Times: "The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Saskatchewan said Monday night that one of the two men suspected in a wave of deadly stabbings had been found dead of wounds 'not believed to be self-inflicted.' After more than a day of manhunt that put three provinces on alert, the police said that Damien Sanderson, 31, had been found dead before noon on Monday in a grassy area near a house being investigated on the Cree Nation reserve. And they said his brother, Myles Sanderson, 30, had possibly been wounded.... The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in statement that the two men had been charged with first degree, attempted murder and break and enter." This is a liveblog.

Marie: Sorry, I lost some of the ledes of the day.

September 4, 2022

Late Morning Update:

     ~~~ Thanks to Ruben Bolling for the work & to RAS for the link.

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Katie Glueck & Michael Bender of the New York Times: "In his first rally since his home was searched by the F.B.I. on Aug. 8..., Donald J. Trump on Saturday lashed out at President Biden and federal agents, calling his Democratic rival 'an enemy of the state' and the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice 'vicious monsters.' In an aggrieved and combative speech in Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump stoked anger against law enforcement even as the F.B.I. and federal officials have faced an increase in threats following the search of Mr. Trump's residence to retrieve classified documents. Mr. Trump's remarks echoed the chain of similar, escalating attacks he wrote on his social media website this week, including posts that singled out one agent by name. That agent has retired, and his lawyers have said he did not have a role in the search." The AP's report -- written in the he-said/she-said style of "journalism," is here.

A New York Times illustrator draws many, many, many pictures of many, many, many documents, secret papers, gift boxes & other paraphernalia of all the stuff Donald Trump stole from you and refused to give back, forcing the FBI to go pick it all up under the authority of a warrant. And don't be surprised if there's more, squirreled away at Bedminister and the Kremlin, Pyŏngyang, Budapest & so forth. Scroll down the page. (Also linked yesterday.)

Ed Pilkington of the Guardian writes about the legal peril in which Trump finds himself. Pilkington doesn't cover any new ground, but what does emerge from his story is that Trump has been hoarding this stuff since he took office. As Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an NYU professor, told Pilkington, "For Trump, records are ... a measure of control -- leverage over enemies and over his inner circle. This kind of leader doesn't recognize the division between public and private. They have a proprietary mode of exercising power in which everything is theirs." And former top White House aide Stephanie Grisham has said, "At the end of each day boxes would be carried upstairs to the White House residence. 'They would get handed off to the residence and just disappear.'" MB: So who knows where the rest of Trump's massive treasure trove may have landed over the years? In a garden shed at Bedminster? In an unlocked basement closet at Trump Tower? The number of people who could gain access to some of this material is beginning to look infinite. And unknowable.

"They're Mine." Marie: Went to the grocery store Saturday morning, walked out with every damned bottle of Marie's Salad Dressing. Some silly employee came running after me, yelling, "Lady, Lady, you can't take those!" but I fixed him by showing him my drivers license with "Marie" written on it in indelible state-printed official letters, then pointing to the bottles that said right on the labels they were mine. Next week, I'm changing my name to "Paul Newman." I do like some of those "Newman's Own" pizzas, salsas & such. Maybe after I've consumed 11,000+ packages of "My Own," I'll change my name again. But it won't be to "Chef Boyardee." Update: Thanks for the support from Patrick, Akhilleus (yesterday) & Forrest (today)! Y'all made me laugh.

Hard Time for Thee But Not for Me. Andrew Kaczynski & Samantha Woodward of CNN run down a number of times when Donald Trump declared that people who mishandled classified information must be imprisoned. "Trump acknowledged in a court filing Wednesday that classified material was found at Mar-a-Lago in January, but argued that it should not have been cause for alarm...." (Also linked yesterday.)

Where Did It All Go, Rick? Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: "By the end of July, the [National Republican Senatorial C]ommittee had collected a record $181.5 million -- but had already spent more than 95 percent of what it had brought in ... in an enormous wave of spending on digital ads ... to discover more small contributors.... The Republican group entered August with just $23.2 million on hand, less than half of what the Senate Democratic committee had ahead of the final intense phase of the midterm elections.... [Sen. Rick] Scott's enormous gamble on finding new online donors has been a costly financial flop in 2022.... Today, the N.R.S.C. is raising less than before Mr. Scott's digital splurge.... Mr. Scott's detractors accuse him of transforming the N.R.S.C. into the 'National Rick Scott Committee' -- and a vehicle for his presidential ambitions." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I just want to congratulate Mitch & the rest of the GOP Senate leadership for choosing a renowned grifter to manager its money.

Pam Belluck of the New York Times: "As bans and restrictions proliferate across the country, abortion pill providers are pushing the envelope of regulations and laws to meet the surging demand for medication abortion in post-Roe America. Some are using physician discretion to prescribe pills to patients further along in pregnancy than the 10-week limit set by the Food and Drug Administration. Some are making pills available to women who are not pregnant but feel they could need them someday. Some are employing a don't-ask-don't-tell approach, providing telemedicine consultations and prescriptions without verifying that patients are in states that permit abortion.... Some of the practices, like not confirming that telemedicine patients are located in states that allow abortion, may run afoul of anti-abortion state laws or fall into uncharted legal territory, but they may also be challenging to police, reproductive health experts said."

Beyond the Beltway

Texas. Keith Allen, et al., of CNN: "Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said this week that rape victims in his state can take Plan B, a pregnancy-preventing emergency contraceptive known as a 'morning-after pill.'... Emergency contraceptives are intended for use within 72 hours after sex but are most effective if taken within 24 hours.... Texas' abortion trigger-law, which passed in 2021 in anticipation of the repeal of Roe v. Wade, went into effect last month, putting in place new criminal penalties for abortion and offering an exemption only for certain health emergencies."

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al.

The Washington Post's live briefings of developments Sunday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "Europe is urgently preparing for the possibility that Russia will shut off its gas supply entirely ahead of winter, a potential retaliation for their support of Ukraine. [Ukraine President] Zelensky, in his nightly address Saturday, said Europe should respond to Russia's threats with more 'unity' and by 'increasing sanctions at all levels, and limiting Russia's oil and gas revenues.'... Ukrainians line up to donate blood to save 'soldiers who are fighting for us': In Mykolaiv, a city in southern Ukraine close to the front line, hundreds of civilians and soldiers responded to a call for blood donations Saturday...." ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates for Sunday are here. The Guardian's live updates for Sunday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here.

Marc Santora & Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: "Even as hopes were raised that a permanent presence of United Nations inspectors would help reduce the risk of disaster at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the war once again endangered the plant's safe operation. After shelling on Friday evening, the plant lost the connection with its only remaining primary external power line, forcing it to use a lower-voltage reserve line to power the cooling equipment needed to prevent meltdowns, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement on Saturday.... The decision to keep monitors at the plant despite the obvious risks underscored what [IAEA Director Rafael] Grossi called the 'unprecedented' peril of the moment. He added that putting independent nuclear experts at the plant will allow for unbiased reports on conditions in real time."

Valerie Hopkins & Ivan Nechepurenko of the New York Times: "Thousands of Russians on Saturday stood for several hours in snaking lines amid a heavy police presence to pay their respects to Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, who died on Tuesday. Many Russians blame and revile Mr. Gorbachev for the breakup of the Soviet Union, but people of all ages, many of whom stood solemnly clutching flowers outside Moscow's famed House of the Unions, said that they had come to thank him for something severely restricted today in Russia: freedom.... For many, the funeral was a vivid reminder of the rights that Russians have lost under the leadership of ... Vladimir V. Putin and as a result of the almost complete dismantling of Mr. Gorbachev's legacy, culminating with the six-month-old war that Russia is prosecuting in Ukraine to take back former Soviet territory." (Also linked yesterday.)

     ~~~ Jim Heintz & Vladimir Isachenkov of the AP: "Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who often has been critical of the Western sanctions against Russia, was the only foreign leader who attended the farewell on Saturday. The U.S., British, German and other Western ambassadors also attended."

It Was the Economy, Stupid. Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "... in the 1950s, and even into the 1960s, many people around the world saw Soviet economic development as a success story; a backward nation had transformed itself into a major world power. (Killing millions in the process, but who's counting?)... After 1970, however, the Soviet growth story fell apart, and by some measures technological progress came to a standstill.... I don't know if it's widely appreciated just how poorly the Russian economy performed during the Boris Yeltsin years. But the numbers are sobering.... [Several factors may have] contribute[d] to the post-Gorbachev economic disaster.... The problems of the 1990s culminated in a financial crisis in 1998. After that, the Russian economy finally stabilized and resumed growth; unfortunately, it did so under the leadership of a guy named Vladimir Putin. It's doubtful whether economic recovery required the fall of democracy, but that's how it worked out.... The sad historical truth is that Gorbachev's political legacy was, to an important degree, poisoned by Russia's economic failure."

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Ten people were killed and at least 15 were injured in a rash of stabbings that put the entire Canadian province of Saskatchewan on alert while police attempted to track down the two suspects, authorities said Sunday. The suspects, named by police as Damien Sanderson, 31, and Myles Sanderson, 30, remained at large hours after authorities started receiving reports from about 5:40 a.m. local time of people being stabbed at the James Smith Cree Nation and in the village of Weldon." The Guardian's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times is live-updating developments.

AP: "NASA's new moon rocket sprang another dangerous fuel leak Saturday, forcing launch controllers to call off their second attempt this week to send a crew capsule into lunar orbit with test dummies. The inaugural flight is now off for weeks, if not months. The previous try on Monday at launching the 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System rocket, the most powerful ever built by NASA, was also troubled by hydrogen leaks, though they were smaller. That was on top of leaks detected during countdown drills earlier in the year. After the latest setback, mission managers decided to haul the rocket off the pad and into the hangar for further repairs and system updates. Some of the work and testing may be performed at the pad before the rocket is moved. Either way, several weeks of work will be needed, according to officials." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The real solution to the problem would be to invent a pipe & hose material that does not spring leaks under the stress of severe weather & other conditions, a material that we could use in the plumping (oops!) plumbing of our homes & buildings so that we would never, ever have to winterize our homes again. For all the useful experiments NASA may conduct, sturdy plumping (oops! again) plumbing could be its greatest contribution to humankind.