February 1, 2022
Afternoon Update:
Isabelle Khurshudyan, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Vladimir Putin hit back publicly against the West on Tuesday, accusing the United States and NATO of using Ukraine to hem in Russia and ignoring Moscow's security concerns. The Russian leader, speaking in Moscow during in a news conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, said the Kremlin was studying U.S. and NATO replies to recent Kremlin proposals seeking to check NATO military activity in the region...." ~~~
~~~ The New York Times is liveblogging developments. The front-page headline on the liveblog is kinda perfect: "Putin accuses U.S. of stoking war in Ukraine as Russia masses troops." It's so Trumpian.
Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "Doug Jones, a former Democratic senator from Alabama, will serve as a guide for President Biden's Supreme Court nominee during the Senate confirmation process, two senior administration officials said on Tuesday. Mr. Jones, who left the Senate in 2021 and was on a short list to serve as Mr. Biden's attorney general, will be a so-called Senate sherpa for Mr. Biden's nominee."
Jonathan Karl, et al., of ABC News: "Former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany turned over text messages to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to a source familiar with the investigation.... McEnany, who was at work in the White House and around ... Donald Trump before and during the Capitol attack, was subpoenaed by the panel for records and testimony in November, and turned over text messages to committee investigators."
Josh Dawsey, et al., of the Washington Post: In a new “statement Tuesday, [Donald] Trump took renewed aim at the House select committee examining the Jan. 6 insurrection, saying it was filled with 'political hacks, liars, and traitors.' Trump said a better focus for the committee would be 'why Mike Pence did not send back the votes for recertification or approval, in that it has now been shown that he clearly had the right to do so!'" The Post reporters call this "a more nuanced take" on Trump's recent statement in which he said pence should have overturned the election. MB: I call it attempt to wriggle out of a written confession.
Sinema's "Gusher of Fossil Fuel Donations." Peter Stone of the Guardian: "With a crucial vote pending over filibuster rules that would have made strong voting rights legislation feasible, Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema flew into Houston, Texas, for a fundraiser that drew dozens of fossil fuel chieftains.... Sinema ... informed a mostly Republican crowd that they could 'rest assured' she would not back any changes with filibuster rules.... The Arizona senator also addressed some energy industry issues according to the executive, who added that overall he was 'tremendously impressed'.... The Houston gusher of fossil fuel donations for Sinema from many stalwart Republican donors underscores how pivotal she has become...."
This Doesn't Look Good. Cate Cadell of the Washington Post: "Chinese drone maker DJI, a leading supplier of drones to U.S. law enforcement, obscured its Chinese government funding while claiming that Beijing had not invested in the firm, according to a Washington Post review of company reports and articles posted on the sites of state-owned and -controlled investors, as well as analysis by IPVM, a video surveillance research group.... Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, which authorizes DJI's equipment for use on U.S. communications networks, labeled reports of the links as 'deeply concerning' in an interview. The FCC proposed changes last year that could severely limit access to U.S. markets for companies deemed a national security risk. Scrutiny of DJI comes as the company is already facing action by U.S. regulators over its ties to Beijing's security apparatus."
Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "Lloyd J. Austin III, the defense secretary, has written a letter to seven Republican governors, rejecting their requests for exemptions from coronavirus vaccination mandates for their states' National Guard troops. The rejection -- sent to the governors of Alaska, Oklahoma, Texas, Idaho, Mississippi, Nebraska and Wyoming, who have all sought to allow their guard troops to refuse the vaccine without consequences -- sets the stage for a potential legal battle.... Federal officials have long said that governors have no legal standing to allow Guard members to refuse to comply with the military's vaccine mandate. State officials and some legal experts, however, believe that unless National Guard members are federally deployed, they are under the jurisdiction of the governor of their state and therefore not subject to federal mandates."
Tom Krisher of the AP: "Tesla is recalling nearly 54,000 cars and SUVs because their 'Full Self-Driving' software lets them roll through stop signs without coming to a complete halt. Recall documents posted Tuesday by U.S. safety regulators say that Tesla will disable the feature with an over-the-internet software update. The 'rolling stop' feature allows vehicles to go through intersections with all-way stop signs at up to 5.6 miles (9 kilometers) per hour. The recall shows that Tesla programmed its vehicles to violate the law in most states, where police will ticket drivers for disregarding stop signs." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Perfectly understandable. Teslas are manufactured in California. Making a rolling stop is so common in California, it's called a "California stop." Seriously, breaking safety laws is apparently what Tesla engineers do for fun. From the AP report: "Jonathan Adkins, executive director of the governors safety association, said he's not surprised that Tesla programmed vehicles to violate state laws. 'They keep pushing the bounds of safety to see what they can get away with, and they've really been pushing a lot,' he said."
~~~~~~~~~~
The New York Times is running a liveblog on the Russia/Ukraine crisis. ~~~
~~~ Rachel Pannett of the Washington Post: "Secretary of State Antony Blinken will speak with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday in a bid to defuse tensions over the Ukraine crisis, just hours after U.S. and Russian diplomats squared off at the United Nations in one of the most confrontational international meetings in years.... Leaders from Britain, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Turkey and Canada are currently in Ukraine or planning to visit in the coming days. 'We continue to engage in nonstop diplomacy and to de-escalate tensions and attempt like the devil to improve security for our allies and partners and for all of Europe, for that matter,' President Biden told reporters Monday." ~~~
~~~ John Hudson & Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "The Russian government has delivered a written response to a U.S. proposal aimed at de-escalating the Ukraine crisis, said a U.S. official.... The delivery of the response comes as the Biden administration continues a delicate dance that seeks to keep Russia at the diplomatic table without conceding to any of its core demands.... The official declined to provide details about the proposal, delivered ahead of a phone call between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday." A CBS News story is here. ~~~
~~~ Rick Gladstone & Maria Varenikova of the New York Times: "The United States and Russia bitterly attacked each other over the Ukraine crisis in a diplomatic brawl Monday at the U.N. Security Council, in a session replete with acidic exchanges that could have been lifted from the Cold War era. The Americans, backed by their Western allies, accused Russia of endangering peace and destabilizing global security by massing more than 100,000 troops on Ukraine's borders, while Kremlin diplomats dismissed what they called baseless and hysterical U.S. fear-mongering aimed at weakening Russia and provoking armed conflict." ~~~
~~~ Robyn Dixon, et al., of the Washington Post: "Russia angrily denounced the United States Monday for 'whipping up hysteria' over Ukraine, saying it had brought 'pure Nazis' to power on Russia's border and wanted to make 'heroes out of those peoples who fought on the side of Hitler.' In a blistering attack at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya said the United States itself was 'provoking escalation' of the situation by falsely charging Moscow with preparing to invade Ukraine.... With the support of only China, the Russians forced a vote at the beginning of the U.S.-called meeting on whether to hold the session behind closed doors.... But the majority of the 15-member council voted to proceed with the public session...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Scrap Your Plans for a Belarus Vacay. Jennifer Hansler of CNN: "The US State Department on Monday ordered family members of employees at the US Embassy in Belarus to depart the country and warned American citizens against travel there due to an 'unusual and concerning Russian military buildup' along Belarus' border with Ukraine." Here's the State Department's advisory.
David Sanger, et al., of the New York Times: "The United States and its European allies appear on the cusp of restoring the deal that limited Iran's nuclear program, Biden administration officials said on Monday, but cautioned that it is now up to the new government in Tehran to decide whether, after months of negotiations, it is willing to dismantle much of its nuclear production equipment in return for sanctions relief. Speaking to reporters in Washington, a senior State Department official signaled that negotiations had reached a point where political leaders needed to decide whether they would agree to key elements of an accord that would essentially return to the 2015 deal that ... Donald J. Trump discarded four years ago, over the objections of many of his key advisers." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The history of 21st-century America is of Democratic presidents coming into office with the tremendous burden of undoing the messes created by their Republican predecessors.
Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "Venezuelans taken into custody along the U.S. southern border will be sent to Colombia under a new attempt by the Biden administration to contend with spiking numbers of migrants arriving from nations around the world. Venezuelans have crossed into the United States in recent months in record numbers, typically after flying to a Mexican border city and walking across to surrender to American authorities. U.S. Customs and Border Protection stopped 24,819 Venezuelans in December, up from 206 a year earlier. The Department of Homeland Security said Monday that it will begin returning Venezuelans to Colombia if they had previously resettled in that country, expelling them from the United States under the pandemic-era health authority known as Title 42. The emergency provision allows authorities to bypass immigration proceedings without affording asylum seekers a chance to seek protection under U.S. law."
** Trump Planned the Coup. Alan Feuer, et al., of the New York Times: "... new accounts show that [Donald] Trump was more directly involved than previously known in exploring proposals to use his national security agencies to seize voting machines as he grasped unsuccessfully for evidence of fraud that would help him reverse his defeat in the 2020 election, according to people familiar with the episodes.... Six weeks after Election Day..., directed his lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to ... ask the Department of Homeland Security if it could legally take control of voting machines in key swing states, three people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Giuliani did so, calling the department's acting deputy secretary [Kenneth Cuccinelli], who said he lacked the authority to audit or impound the machines. Mr. Trump pressed Mr. Giuliani to make that inquiry after rejecting a separate effort by his outside advisers to have the Pentagon take control of the machines. And the outreach to the Department of Homeland Security came not long after Mr. Trump, in an Oval Office meeting with Attorney General William P. Barr, raised the possibility of whether the Justice Department could seize the machines, a previously undisclosed suggestion that Mr. Barr immediately shot down...." ~~~
~~~ "Even Mr. Giuliani, who had spent weeks peddling some of the most outrageous claims about election fraud, felt that the idea of bringing in the military was beyond the pale. After Mr. Flynn and Ms. Powell left the Oval Office, according to a person familiar with the matter, Mr. Giuliani predicted that the plans they were proposing were going to get Mr. Trump impeached." MB: Now how often will you read a story where Rudy Giuliani & Ken Cuccinelli are the voices of reason? Such an occasion apparently requires as a predicate an idea dreamed up or promoted by Michael Flynn.
~~~ Zachary Cohen & Paul Reid of CNN: "... Donald Trump's advisers drafted two versions of an executive order to seize voting machines -- one directing the Department of Defense to do so and another the Department of Homeland Security -- as part of a broader effort to undermine the 2020 election results, multiple sources tell CNN. The idea of using the federal government to access voting machines in states that Trump lost was the brainchild of retired Col. Phil Waldron and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser, the sources said.... It's unclear who drafted the executive orders, and neither was issued." ~~~
~~~ Then Trump Tore up Records of the Coup. Jacqueline Alemany, et al., of the Washington Post: "When the National Archives and Records Administration handed over a trove of documents to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, some of the Trump White House records had been ripped up and then taped back together, according to three people familiar with the records.... Donald Trump was known inside the White House for his unusual and potentially unlawful habit of tearing presidential records into shreds and tossing them on the floor -- creating a headache for records management analysts who meticulously used Scotch tape to piece together fragments of paper that were sometimes as small as confetti, as Politico reported in 2018..., despite the Presidential Records Act -- which requires the preservation of memos, letters, notes, emails, faxes and other written communications related to a president's official duties.... The National Archives on Monday took the unusual step of confirming the habit, saying in a statement that records turned over from the Trump White House 'included paper records that had been torn up by former President Trump.'" A CNN story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Finally, as we know, Trump claimed executive privilege to try to keep the records from being turned over to the January 6 committee. Trump's suit was unsuccessful, of course, no thanks to Clarence Thomas. ~~~
~~~ My Wife Made Me Do It. Michael Kranish of the Washington Post: "Ginni Thomas's name stood out among the signatories of a December letter from conservative leaders, which blasted the work of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection as 'overtly partisan political persecution.' One month later, her husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, took part in a case crucial to the same committee's work: ... Donald Trump's request to block the committee from getting White House records that were ordered released by President Biden and two lower courts. Thomas was the only justice to say he would grant Trump's request. That vote has reignited fury among Clarence Thomas's critics, who say it illustrates a gaping hole in the court's rules: Justices essentially decide for themselves whether they have a conflict of interest, and Thomas has rarely made such a choice in his three decades on the court.... Thomas has never bowed out of a case due to alleged conflicts with his wife's activism, according to [Gabe] Roth [of Fix the Court]."
Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "Marc Short, who served as chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, testified privately last week before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the latest turn in weeks of negotiations between the panel's investigators and Mr. Pence's team. Mr. Short appeared in response to a subpoena from the committee, according to three people with knowledge of the developments, making him the most senior person around Mr. Pence who is known to have cooperated in the inquiry.... Mr. Short was with Mr. Pence on Jan. 6 as a mob of Mr. Trump's supporters attacked the Capitol, and has firsthand knowledge of the effort by Mr. Trump and his allies to try to persuade the former vice president to throw out legitimate electoral votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr. in favor of fake slates of pro-Trump electors." CNN's story, by Jamie Gangel & others, is here. CNN apparently broke the story.
Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "The House of Representatives' top lawyer accused John Eastman, a key legal adviser to ... Donald Trump, of dragging out his response to a House subpoena and frustrating a House panel's efforts to investigate Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. During a hearing before a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit Eastman brought to prevent his former employer, Chapman University, from turning over more than 94,000 pages of emails to the House panel, House General Counsel Douglas Letter said Eastman was seeking to 'defeat' the subpoena by reviewing the earliest subpoenaed records first rather than those from around the time of the Electoral College showdown in Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.... The House has asked Eastman to prioritize emails from between Jan. 4 and Jan 7, 2021.... [But] 'The subpoena did not specify a prioritization order,' [Judge David] Carter said."
Dylan Stableford of Yahoo! News: "The Georgia prosecutor looking into ... Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election results is asking the FBI for protection after Trump called for protests of the 'racist prosecutors' investigating him. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis sent a letter to the FBI's Atlanta field office on Sunday requesting that the bureau conduct a risk assessment of the county courthouse and government center, as well as provide protective resources, including 'intelligence and federal agents' as her office ramps up its own investigation of the former president."(Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Tim Miller in the Bulwark: "... Sen. Susan Collins (R-Concerned) was asked on ABC's This Week whether she would support Donald Trump if he ran in 2024. She demurred, leaving the door open to the possibility of having faith in a Trump resurrection, while providing some perfunctory lip service to the notion that there were other people she might prefer, but whom she -- of course -- did not name. She was rewarded a few hours later with the former president attacking her for not having given his coup attempt a full-throated endorsement.... If someone as politically safe as Collins won&'t stick her neck out, what hope is there that a meaningful group of others will find the mettle not just to privately hope for an alternative but to wage a vigorous, scorched-earth campaign on behalf of the alternative?" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) MB: Hey, Susan, let's ask Liz Cheney, who has been studying Trump's behavior, what she thinks about a Trump resurrection. ~~~
~~~ Dylan Stableford of Yahoo! News: "Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., on Monday warned that ... Donald Trump's suggestion at a weekend rally that he might pardon those who have been convicted of crimes related to the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol shows he would 'do it all again.' 'Trump uses language he knows caused the Jan 6 violence; suggests he'd pardon the Jan 6 defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy; threatens prosecutors; and admits he was attempting to overturn the election,' Cheney tweeted. 'He'd do it all again if given the chance.'"
Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story: "Calling Donald Trump's promise to pardon Capitol rioters at a Texas rally 'worse than Watergate,' conservative Matt Lewis warned that the former president is dangerously close to opening the door to a wave of violence if his supporters believe he will have their back should they be arrested. In his column for the Daily Beast, the Republican Lewis lamented the grip that the former president has on party members who, unlike Republicans under Richard Nixon, have not turned their back on him.... You can read more here -- subscription required."
Afterthoughts. Marie: One thing we learned from Trump's admission that he wanted mike pence to "overturn the election" is that Trump did know he lost. To "overturn an election" means to upend the true results, not to correct miscounts. On CNN, Jeff Toobin pointed out that Trump's vow to pardon January 6 insurrectionists if he were re-elected was two-fold; it wasn't only to encourage new coups but also to influence the behavior of those charged in the January 6 attempt. Just as Trump sent out signals to his 2016 co-conspirators that he would pardon them if they didn't cooperate with Robert Mueller's investigation -- and then did pardon them -- he was signaling this weekend that he would pardon those who refused to cooperate with January 6 participants.
Whitney Wild, et al., of CNN: "Then-Vice President-elect Kamala Harris drove within several yards of a pipe bomb lying next to a bench outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters on January 6, 2021, and remained inside the DNC for nearly two hours before the bomb was discovered, according to multiple law enforcement officials familiar with the situation. Details about Harris' proximity to the pipe bomb and the extended period she remained inside the DNC have not been previously reported. The revelations further expose a security lapse on January 6 as law enforcement tried to respond to multiple major events, protect highly visible politicians, and fend off tens of thousands of riotous protesters that had flooded into Washington and attacked the US Capitol." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
How Will I Get a Pardon Now? Rebecca O'Brien of the New York Times: "Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a real-estate investor and close friend of ... Donald J. Trump, asked a federal judge to dismiss the foreign lobbying and obstruction of justice charges against him on Monday, contending that the Justice Department delayed prosecuting him until after Mr. Trump left office. The argument, laid out in a court filing, marks Mr. Barrack's first substantive response to an indictment unsealed last July in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, which accused him of using his access to Mr. Trump to advance the foreign policy aims of the United Arab Emirates and then misleading federal agents about his activities.... In his final days in office, Mr. Trump issued executive pardons and commutations to dozens of people, including supporters and former aides facing federal indictments and serving sentences for convicted crimes."
Congressional Races. Michael Scherer & Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: "Major Republican organizations focused on winning back control of the House and the Senate ended last year with significantly more money than their Democratic counterparts, a reversal of past fortunes that suggests shifting momentum ahead of the midterm elections. The new fundraising totals, revealed Monday in filings to the Federal Election Commission, showed both parties holding record amounts for the off-year of the congressional cycle. But the growth in the Republican cash hoard compared with the 2020 and 2018 cycles outstripped Democratic gains, as GOP donors, particularly those who give seven- and eight-figure checks, leaned into the effort to take back control of the House and the Senate this fall." ~~~
~~~ Brittany Gibson of Politico: "Former President George W. Bush contributed to Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski's (R-Alaska) reelection campaigns at the end of 2021, according to campaign finance reports filed Monday, backing up two of the most prominent Republicans who supported impeaching Donald Trump a year ago. Bush donated a maximum individual contribution of $5,800 to Cheney last October.... The 43rd president also threw in $2,900 -- the maximum allowable primary donation -- for Murkowski's reelection efforts.... Trump has endorsed Republican challengers seeking to unseat Cheney, Murkowski and others as retribution after they voted to remove him from office and said he incited the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot." ~~~
~~~ Brian Schwartz of CNBC: "Sen. Kyrsten Sinema's campaign raised over $1.5 million toward the end of 2021 as she opposed key elements of her own party's agenda, according to new Federal Election Commission records.... Sinema's donors in the fourth quarter included wealthy investors who had supported ... Donald Trump.... Sinema also picked up donations from major corporations and business groups including from The Carlyle Group, Gilead Sciences, Microsoft, Cigna and the American Petroleum Institute.... [Sen. Joe] Manchin has also received a wave of support from wealthy financiers and corporations.... Like Sinema, Manchin is not up for reelection until 2024."
Neil Vigdor of the New York Times: "Georgetown University's law school placed a newly hired administrator on leave on Monday after he said on Twitter that President Biden would nominate not 'the objectively best pick' but a 'lesser Black woman' to be the next Supreme Court justice. The decision came one day before the scholar, Ilya Shapiro, a prominent libertarian, had been scheduled to assume his role as a senior lecturer and the executive director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, which is part of the law school. Mr. Shapiro, a constitutional law expert at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, drew a sharp rebuke from students, faculty members and alumni with his comments about the search process for the next justice. The posts have since been deleted."
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here. The Washington Post's live Covid-19 updates are here.
Laurie McGinley, et al., of the Washington Post: "Coronavirus vaccines for children younger than 5 could be available far sooner than expected -- perhaps by the end of February -- under a plan that would lead to the potential authorization of a two-shot regimen in the coming weeks, people briefed on the situation said Monday. Pfizer and its partner, BioNTech, the manufacturers of the vaccine, are expected to submit to the Food and Drug Administration as early as Tuesday a request for emergency-use authorization for the vaccine for children 6 months to 5 years old, which would make it the first vaccine available for that age group. Older children already can receive the shot. The FDA urged the companies to submit the application so that regulators could begin reviewing the two-shot data...."
Stacy Cowley of the New York Times: "One new analysis [of the efficacy of the Paycheck Protection Program, an $800 billion pandemic relief effort,] found that only about a quarter of the money spent by the program paid wages that would have otherwise been lost, partly because the government steadily loosened the rules for how businesses could use the money as the pandemic dragged on. And because many businesses remained healthy enough to survive without the program, another analysis found, the looser rules meant the Paycheck Protection Program ended up subsidizing business owners more than their workers.... David Autor, [an MIT economics professor who led a 10-member team who studied the program, said,] "... it turns out [they money] didn't primarily go to workers who would have lost jobs. It went to business owners and their shareholders and their creditors.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: Plus ça change.... This report goes to show a couple of things: (1) Congress either doesn't know how to write laws that have the intended effect, or here again it intended to mislead the public by applying a name that implied one thing to help ordinary Americans while doing something different; and (2) on a grand scale, even small, struggling entrepreneurs have the same propensity as large, grasping corporations to bilk the government. It's fine for Neil Young & Joni Mitchell & all to boycott Spotify because its owners are morally corrupt & irresponsible -- I'm all for it. But if we tried to boycott every business whose owners are morally corrupt & irresponsible, we'd have go out in the woods & become completely self-sufficient, because there isn't much we could buy.
Jessica Bursztynsky of CNBC: "Podcaster Joe Rogan has apologized to Spotify, while also addressing the controversy around his podcast." MB: He didn't apologize to the dopes he duped by presenting Covid disinformation. But then some of them are dead. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
Florida. Richard Luscombe of the Guardian: "A slew of bills has advanced [through the GOP-led Florida legislature] attacking everything from diversity rights, abortion protections and free speech in schools, in addition to a proposal that would legally shield white people from feeling 'discomfort' over the state's racist past. And last Wednesday, an anti-masker physician, hand picked by the governor [-- Ron DeSantis (R) --] and apathetic about the value of Covid-19 vaccines, was backed unanimously by a Republican senate panel as the next surgeon-general following a walk-out by Democratic politicians frustrated by Joseph Ladapo's evasiveness. To hear DeSantis tell it, the 'freedom state' of Florida is merely following the will of a populist citizenry.... Yet ... more of the state's 21 million people, which elected him in 2018 by barely 32,000 votes, appears displeased at the creeping authoritarianism.... Brandon Wolf [of Equality Florida] ... [says,] '... the thing that connects [these bills] is the concerted attempt by Governor Ron DeSantis and his allies to push themselves to the right of Donald Trump and set DeSantis up to run for president in 2024. 'In Florida you are free, but only free to do and say as you are told.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Florida. Miami Herald Editorial Board: After neo-Nazi demonstrators held a rally on an Orlando overpass where they unfurled a Nazi flag, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) held a press conference Monday. But instead of condemning the demonstrators, DeSantis "attacked Democrats..., dragg[ing] in issues like immigration and inflation and crime. Accus[ing] unnamed people -- Democrats, of course -- of trying to 'smear' him.... His remarks came after his press secretary, Christina Pushaw, sent a now-deleted tweet Sunday night questioning whether the Orlando demonstrations were orchestrated by Democratic staffers. Her comment drew widespread condemnation. She followed with a tweet admitting she didn't know who had staged the protest and said hate speech is wrong."
Georgia. Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Monday rejected plea agreements with the Justice Department for two of the three white men facing hate crime charges in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery after his family expressed fierce opposition to the deal.... The decision by Judge Lisa Godbey Wood of U.S. District Court to reject identical plea deals hammered out between the Justice Department and the two men, Travis McMichael, 36, and his father, Gregory McMichael, 66, means that the McMichaels could now see their federal case go before a jury as early as next week."
New York. Grace Ashford of the New York Times: "The last of five criminal investigations into allegations of sexual misconduct against former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo ended on Monday with the Oswego County district attorney joining his peers in concluding that there were insufficient legal grounds to bring criminal charges."
Way Beyond
U.K. Esther Webber & Matt Honeycombe-Foster of Politico: "An update from the official inquiry into claims of lockdown-busting parties in Boris Johnson's administration has found 'a serious failure' to observe the standards expected in government. Sue Gray, a senior civil servant, was asked to look into a series of allegations that social gatherings were held in No. 10 Downing Street in breach of COVID-19 rules. In her 12-page update -- truncated while the Metropolitan Police separately investigates some of the allegations -- Gray found there was 'too little thought given to what was happening across the country' when considering whether some of the events should have gone ahead. Johnson told his restive Conservative MPs Monday he was 'sorry' -- and vowed to learn lessons." Johnson refused to resign and instead "announced the creation of an 'office of the prime minister' and promised other improvements to the way No. 10 and the Cabinet Office are run." MB: IOW, add a layer of bureaucracy. That should help. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Rowena Mason of the Guardian has more on Boris's Very Bad Hair Day. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
I'm sorry for the parties during Covid.
I'm sorry that I couldn't find my mask.
But more than anything else,
I'm sorry for myself,
'Cause you're taking me to task.
~~~ Mark Landler & Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "A long-awaited report on parties in Downing Street during the pandemic dealt Prime Minister Boris Johnson a stinging blow on Monday, condemning him for failed leadership and painting a damning picture of 'excessive' workplace drinking in the inner sanctum of the British government.... He was battered in Parliament, facing a new round of questions about his personal participation in social gatherings that appear to have violated lockdown rules meant to stop the spread of Covid-19. Even in heavily redacted form, the report by Sue Gray, a senior civil servant, deepened the crisis that has engulfed Mr. Johnson for weeks...."
News Ledes
New York Times: "A gunman fatally shot a police officer and a campus safety officer at Bridgewater College in Virginia on Tuesday afternoon after they responded to reports of a suspicious person near a campus building, the authorities said. The assailant, identified by the Virginia State Police as Alexander Wyatt Campbell, 27, shot the two officers around 1:20 p.m. after college employees called the police after he startled them, Corinne Geller, a police spokeswoman, said in a news briefing on Tuesday night. The officers died on campus. Mr. Campbell ran off and waded through a river, where he ended up on a small island, Ms. Geller said. He was captured at 1:55 p.m. after a 'massive search operation' involving local, state and federal law enforcement officials, the college said...."
New York Times: Tom Brady "announced his retirement on Instagram on Tuesday." The Times thinks this is such a big story that they're live-blogging developments.
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