The Conversation -- September 29, 2024

Stephanie Murray of the Arizona Republic: "Former Republican Sen. Jeff Flake is endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris because of his conservative values -- not in spite of them — he said Saturday in an interview announcing his support for the Democratic presidential nominee. Flake, R-Ariz., is crossing party lines to endorse a Democrat for the second presidential election in a row. He backed President Joe Biden over ... Donald Trump in 2020 and voted third-party rather than cast a ballot for Trump in 2016. 'I'm a conservative. I believe in the rule of law,' Flake said during an interview at The Nile Coffee Shop in Mesa on Saturday afternoon. 'First and foremost, I want to support a presidential candidate that respects the rule of law, somebody who, if they lose an election, wouldn't try to use the presidential powers to overturn that election.'"

Greta Reich of Politico: "Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan will again not be voting for ... Donald Trump, despite Trump's endorsement of Hogan's bid for Senate in June. 'I didn't vote for him in 2016 or 2020,' Hogan said on CBS' 'Face the Nation' to guest host Robert Costa on Sunday, without saying who he would vote for. Hogan didn't vote for Democratic candidates ... in those years either. In 2016, he wrote in his own father, former Maryland Rep. Lawrence Hogan. In 2020, he wrote in former President Ronald Reagan.... Hogan, a Republican, is running against Democrat Angela Alsobrooks, the current county executive of Prince George's County." Hogan also said Trump's attack of Kamala Harris as "mentally unstable" was "outrageous and unacceptable": "I think that's insulting not only to the vice president, but to people that actually do have mental disabilities."

Chris Cameron of the New York Times: "A day after ... Donald J. Trump met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, criticized the Ukrainian president Saturday during a campaign stop in [Newtown,] Pennsylvania.... Mr. Vance opened his speech by criticizing Mr. Zelensky for having toured an ammunition factory in Scranton with the state's governor, Josh Shapiro, a Democrat. 'He came to campaign with the Democratic leadership of this country,' Mr. Vance said in Newtown. 'We spent $200 billion on Ukraine. You know what I wish Zelensky would do when he comes to the United States of America? Say thank you to the people of Pennsylvania and everybody else.'

     ~~~ Marie: Uh, JayDee, you ignorant sofa-slut, President Zelensky did say thank you to the people of Pennsylvania -- precisely when he was speaking in that ammo factory in Scranton, Joe Biden's hometown. Why, even the New York Times sez so. Cameron again: "In fact, Mr. Zelensky did use his visit to the plant to thank the United States for its support, as well as to thank the workers in Scranton for manufacturing artillery shells to support Ukraine. Mr. Zelensky told the 400 workers churning out shells to support the war effort that they 'have saved millions of Ukrainians.' He added in a message on social media that 'it is in places like this where you can truly feel that the democratic world can prevail." And when President Zelensky went to NYC to "campaign" with Donald Trump a/k/a the Republican "leadership" of this country, Trump heaped insults upon him and the people of Ukraine who have suffered & died under Putin's war of aggression.

Love in the Time of Corruption ... Can Be So Convenient! Alyce McFadden & Jeffery Mays of the New York Times: "A day after [New York City Mayor Eric] Adams pleaded not guilty to criminal charges including bribery and fraud, Sheena Wright, Mr. Adams's first deputy mayor, and David C. Banks, the schools chancellor, married on [Martha's Vineyard], according to three people familiar with their plans. Their marriage was said to have been planned for some time, and it followed a yearslong relationship during which they shared a home. But it might also allow Mr. Banks and Ms. Wright to claim spousal privilege, which gives them the right to decline to testify against each other in court, should that become necessary, legal experts said. The couple's home in Harlem was visited by federal authorities in early September. Both Mr. Banks's and Ms. Wright's phones were seized by investigators, who appeared to be conducting a separate inquiry from the one that resulted in Mr. Adams's indictment."

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Presidential Race

Marie: I was so hoping a minority person would play JayDee: ~~~

Michael Scherer of the Washington Post: Kamala Harris's campaign trolled Donald Trump Saturday night during the televised University of Georgia vs. University of Alabama football game with the ad below which mocks Trump for his refusal to debate Harris again. "Her campaign also hired a plane to trail the words 'Trump's Punting on 2nd Debate' over Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Saturday night, where Trump was attending the game. But the plane was not cleared to fly because of the weather." MB: Rats! (But the ad is primo.)

Maegan Vazquez & Sabrina Rodriguez of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump criticized Vice President Kamala Harris's mental capacity Saturday, falsely claiming she was born 'mentally impaired' and comparing her actions to that of 'a mentally disabled person.' The remarks prompted criticism from advocates for people with disabilities.... 'Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way. She was born that way. And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this [MB: 'this' being something about the U.S.-Mexico border] to happen to our country,' he said, elaborating on a claim backed by no evidence. He called Harris 'a very dumb person,' and repeatedly mispronounced her first name, an action some supporters see as demeaning and racist.... The former president has a history of mocking people with disabilities. And he has repeatedly questioned the intelligence of Black women.... Trump held his even in a small town [Prairie due Chien, Wisconsin] where the former president and Republicans have seized on a recent case where a Venezuelan immigrant with known gang ties was accused of assaulting a woman and her daughter." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Colin Jost of SNL was wondering how such a mentally-impaired person could beat the MAGA socks off Trump in a debate. Video below.

About Those $100K Trump Watches. Marie: Read the post linked next with the cautious eye of someone who knows that the author is a highly-partisan anti-Trumper who admits he is only speculating. But his speculation does raise questions, questions which will not be answered any time soon: ~~~

     ~~~ Brett Meiselas of Meidas Touch: "Key to the controversy is the method of payment accepted for these [Trump] watches. Buyers can use Bitcoin, a digital currency favored for its anonymity. This capability to purchase high-ticket items like the $100,000 Tourbillon watch without traceable financial footprints ... opens the door to the possibility of moving large sums of money discreetly, circumventing traditional financial oversight and potentially violating campaign finance laws. Trump Watches are marketed globally..., complicat[ing] adherence to U.S. regulations designed to prevent foreign contributions to political campaigns. The website's caveat that international customers handle their own taxes and duties adds another layer of complexity, distancing the transactions from stringent regulatory scrutiny.... Further muddying the waters is the disclaimer on the Trump Watch website that the product images are for illustration purposes only, suggesting that what is marketed may not reflect the actual product, and that an actual product may not even yet exist. This vagueness is unusual for luxury goods...." ~~~

     ~~~ Scott Lemiueux in LG&$: "The possibilities for campaign finance abuse here are abundant. I doubt, though, that Trump is interested in sharing any of the profits with his campaign as opposed to his own pockets, so the real danger here is probably more straightforward emoluments for implicit favors, and as Anthony Kennedy says as long as it's just implicit nobody can think there's anything shady going on." MB: Right. Trump has an amazing talent for making his big grifts progressively bigger & griftier at the same time he shrinks his own image from "The Apprentice"'s business mogul billionaire to B&W TV used-car salesman working off a melting asphalt lot in Tempe, Arizona.

Marie: MEANWHILE, here's how Rupert's New York Post manufactures criticism of Vice President Harris. Dana Kennedy, an "investigative reporter" at the NYPost writes that when Harris visited the U.S.-Mexico border Friday, she "was wearing ... what critics claimed was a $62,000 necklace from Tiffany's.... The gold, chain-link piece looks similar to Tiffany & Co.'s Bold Graduated Link Necklace in yellow gold that retails for the whopping price tag. It's unclear if Harris' necklace is the Tiffany item...." Yeah, it is unclear. Harris' husband is well-to-do, so maybe they can afford to buy a $62K necklace now & then. Then again, Kennedy has no idea if the necklace Harris wore Friday is from Tiffany's or if it's one of the necklaces that look just like it that I found online. These copycat necklaces range in price from $5.22 (that's five dollars and twenty-two cents) to $3,500. Just Google "chunky hardware gold chain necklace," Dana. Oh, and those whose criticisms of Harris Kennedy cites? Three X users.

⭐ "They're Bringing Drugs. They're Bringing Crime." They're U.S. Citizens. Natalie Kitroeff & Robert Gebeloff of the New York Times: "Since 2019, when Mexico overtook China to become the dominant supplier of fentanyl in the United States, cartels have been flooding the country with the synthetic opioid. [Link fixed.] The amount of fentanyl crossing the border has increased tenfold in the past five years. Mexico has been the source of almost all of the fentanyl seized by U.S. law enforcement in recent years.... Donald J. Trump and other Republicans have blamed President Biden's border policies for the fentanyl pouring into the United States, playing on a widespread belief that undocumented immigrants are responsible for bringing it in. In reality, the largest known group of fentanyl smugglers is not made up of immigrants traversing the desert or moving through secret tunnels -- they are Americans coming through legal ports of entry. More than 80 percent of the people sentenced for fentanyl trafficking at the southern border are U.S. citizens, federal data shows.... Mexican drug cartels are turning thousands of Americans into fentanyl mules, deploying a torrent of couriers who can easily cross back and forth...." Emphasis added. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: You know those Midwestern white guys in their MAGA hats? The ones who hate immigrants? They are the mules.

Kenneth Vogel & Susanne Craig of the New York Times: "Soon after Donald Trump granted clemency to fraudster & scammer Adriana Camberos -- who had obtained access to Trump via well-placed acquaintances & a $50,000 campaign contribution from her brother -- "she and her brother Andres embarked on a new fraud, federal prosecutors in California said.... Ms. Camberos is among six people granted clemency by Mr. Trump and known to have been charged with new crimes after they received a second chance.... Other recipients of Mr. Trump's clemency grants have been investigated but not charged, The Times found. And at least three additional people have been convicted of crimes that predated their clemency grants.... According to an analysis in a law journal focused on criminal justice, only 25 of the nearly 240 clemency grants issued by Mr. Trump were vetted and recommended by the pardon attorney"s office." MB: The Trumpy explanation is that the new charges are the results of vindictive prosecutors set on undoing Trump's pardons to nice people. (Also linked yesterday.)

Meryl Kornfield & Hannah Allam of the Washington Post: "... JD Vance appeared Saturday at a town hall event organized by top Christian nationalist leaders who promote election denialism and portray Vice President Kamala Harris as a 'demon.' The event's host, Lance Wallnau, who emceed the live event and introduced Vance's first town hall on the campaign trail, is a leading figure in the fast-growing New Apostolic Reformation, a movement that preaches Christian supremacy through a blend of prophecy and hard-right politics.... Vance's appearance at Saturday's event was the latest example of the Trump campaign intersecting with once-fringe figures who now have wide followings. On Saturday, Vance ... described hisfaith journey and political beliefs as he courted the crowd in western Pennsylvania.... Polls show former president Donald Trump and Harris neck and neck in the crucial swing state."

Marie: JayDee is a little pudgy, but I don't know how he ever gets anything to eat: ~~~

     ~~~ Mike Bedigan of the Independent: "JD Vance suffered yet another embarrassing set back on the campaign trail, after being denied entry to a restaurant where he was supposed to speak -- and being forced to address supporters in the parking lot instead. According to reports, after showing up to Primanti Bros in North Versailles, Pennsylvania, a restaurant worker told the press that cameras were not allowed and that they did not want a 'campaign event.' The restaurant was reportedly full of customers waiting to greet Vance, who canceled their food orders after learning he wasn't welcome. Vance ended up glad-handing in the parking lot outside, according to NBC.... The latest food-shop-related gaffe led to many online questioning those that make advance arrangements for the Republican vice presidential nominee.... Just last week he was roundly mocked online over a trip to the supermarket, also in Pennsylvania, where he bemoaned the steep cost of eggs, claiming that Harris' economic policies had led to the price being $4. The problem?... [Video] footage ... [showed that] the price tag [on] a dozen eggs [pictured] behind him was actually $2.99." ~~~

     ~~~ To be fair, Fox "News" reported that customers at a nearby Primanti Bros were pissed off last month when restaurant employees kicked them out prior to a visit from Kamala Harris. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: BTW, it isn't the inflation Kamala Harris apparently single-handedly engineered that caused the rise in eggs to $2.99/dozen. Not sure how Trump & JayDee will link Harris to the latest bird-flu outbreak, but I know they can do it: ~~~

     ~~~ Filip Timotija of the Hill: "The rising price of eggs in the last year has been linked to bird's flu impact on the supply chain. Eggs' price tag has gone up by 28.1 percent in the last 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.... 'Bird flu is the number one reason for higher prices, absolutely,' Phil Lempert, a grocery industry analyst, told CNN.... The sickness of the birds has affected the total egg output, and lower production of eggs, in part, leads to an increase in prices."

David Bauder of the AP: "CBS News, hosting vice presidential candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz for the general election campaign's third debate next week, says it will be up to the politicians -- not the moderators -- to check the facts of their opponents. The 90-minute debate, scheduled for 9 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday in a Manhattan studio..., will be moderated by the outgoing 'CBS Evening News' anchor Norah O'Donnell and 'Face the Nation' host Margaret Brennan."

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Marie: It's kinda hard to believe Florida Republicans had a worse Congressional [Wikilink] candidate in 2022 than [WashPo link] Anna Paulina Luna. But they did: ~~~

~~~ Florida Congressional Race 2022. Raquel Uribe of NBC News: "The Justice Department revealed an indictment Friday charging a Florida man with threatening to kill his political opponent in 2021. William Robert Braddock III, 41, of St. Petersburg, Florida, was charged with threatening two people, one of whom the DOJ said was his primary opponent in the 2022 election for Florida's 13th Congressional District. Braddock allegedly threatened to 'call up my Russian-Ukrainian hit squad' and make the primary opponent disappear, according to the indictment. The DOJ indictment did not name the alleged victims. One of Braddock's primary opponents and the race's eventual winner, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., contended in 2021 court documents that Braddock was stalking her and wanted her dead. A Florida court in 2021 granted Luna and a conservative activist and friend of hers, Erin Olszewski, a temporary restraining order. Braddock terminated his campaign in 2021 shortly after the judge granted the injunction."

Texas Voter Suppression Law Partly Halted. Xiomara Moore of the Texas Tribune: "A federal judge ruled on Saturday that part of a Texas law that enacted new voting restrictions violated the U.S. Constitution by being too vague and restricting free speech. The ruling, made by U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez, immediately halted the state's ability to investigate alleged cases of vote harvesting, such as the investigation into the League of United Latin American Citizens by Attorney General Ken Paxton. Before today's ruling, a person who knowingly provided or offered vote harvesting services in exchange for compensation was committing a third-degree felony. This meant that organizers of voter outreach organizations and even volunteers could spend up to ten years in prison and fined up to $10,000 for giving or offering these services.... Many organizations -- including La Union del Pueblo Entero, LULAC, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund -- have filed lawsuits against many other provisions of the law, including voter assistance and mail-in ballot restrictions. The challenges to these provisions have not been ruled on yet."

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Israel/Palestine, et al.

The New York Times' live updates of developments Sunday in Israel's wars are here. The Washington Post's live updates are here: "Israel continued heavy strikes on Lebanon early Sunday, claiming to attack dozens of Hezbollah targets. Lebanon was reeling from the killing of Hasan Nasrallah, the militant group's longtime leader, who was killed in an Israeli strike in a Beirut suburb on Friday. More than 1,000 people, including at least 87 children, have been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon in the past two weeks, health officials said." ~~~

     ~~~ Here's President Biden's statement on the death of Hassan Nasrallah.

News Lede

Washington Post: "Towns throughout western North Carolina ... were transformed overnight by ... [Hurricane Helene]. Muddy floodwaters lifted homes from their foundations. Landslides and overflowing rivers severed the only way in and out of small mountain communities. Rescuers said they were struggling to respond to the high number of emergency calls.... The death toll grew throughout the Southeast as the scope of Helene's devastation came into clearer view. At least 49 people had been killed in five states -- Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. By early counts, South Carolina suffered the greatest loss of life, registering at least 19 deaths."

The Conversation -- September 28, 2024

⭐ "They're Bringing Drugs. They're Bringing Crime." Natalie Kitroeff & Robert Gebeloff of the New York Times: "Since 2019, when Mexico overtook China to become the dominant supplier of fentanyl in the United States, cartels have been flooding the country with the synthetic opioid. The amount of fentanyl crossing the border has increased tenfold in the past five years. Mexico has been the source of almost all of the fentanyl seized by U.S. law enforcement in recent years.... Donald J. Trump and other Republicans have blamed President Biden's border policies for the fentanyl pouring into the United States, playing on a widespread belief that undocumented immigrants are responsible for bringing it in. In reality, the largest known group of fentanyl smugglers is not made up of immigrants traversing the desert or moving through secret tunnels -- they are Americans coming through legal ports of entry. More than 80 percent of the people sentenced for fentanyl trafficking at the southern border are U.S. citizens, federal data shows.... Mexican drug cartels are turning thousands of Americans into fentanyl mules, deploying a torrent of couriers who can easily cross back and forth...." Emphasis added.

Kenneth Vogel & Susanne Craig of the New York Times: Soon after Donald Trump granted clemency to fraudster & scammer Adriana Camberos -- who had obtained access to Trump via well-placed acquaintances & a $50,000 campaign contribution from her brother -- "she and her brother Andres embarked on a new fraud, federal prosecutors in California said.... Ms. Camberos is among six people granted clemency by Mr. Trump and known to have been charged with new crimes after they received a second chance.... Other recipients of Mr. Trump's clemency grants have been investigated but not charged, The Times found. And at least three additional people have been convicted of crimes that predated their clemency grants.... According to an analysis in a law journal focused on criminal justice, only 25 of the nearly 240 clemency grants issued by Mr. Trump were vetted and recommended by the pardon attorney's office." MB: And it seems the Trumpy explanation is that the new charges are the results of vindictive prosecutors set on undoing Trump's pardons to deserving people.

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Presidential Race

Nicholas Nehamas, et al., of the New York Times: "On her first trip to the southern border as the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris delivered one of her party's toughest speeches on immigration and border policy in a generation. Even as she did, she tried to paint ... Donald J. Trump as a feckless chaos agent without the ability to deliver the hard-line results he has promised. Ms. Harris vowed to carry on President Biden's crackdown on asylum and to impose order on the southern border, demonstrating how much the politics of immigration have shifted for Democrats. Just one presidential cycle ago, Ms. Harris and most other candidates in the party's primary race had promised to decriminalize illegal border crossings." The Guardian's report is here.

A comparison of the statements made by Donald Trump and Kamala Harris on Ukraine over the last 24 hours pic.twitter.com/ZRvsZsLM1P

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 27, 2024

     ~~~ Thanks to RAS for the link. Via digby, who is of the view that the Orange Jesus is "The Greatest Embarrassment in American History." ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Swan, et al., of the New York Times: "As [Ukraine's President Volodymyr] Zelensky stood silently beside him, Mr. Trump presented the Russia-Ukraine war as one that both sides wanted to end, including its instigator, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Mr. Trump did not fault the Russian leader for the invasion or for the illegal seizure of territory or for the thousands of Ukrainians he has bombed out of existence. Instead, the former president described the situation as if it were a dispute between two parties operating in good faith that could be resolved in a 'fair deal,' but only if he returns to the White House." MB: The reporters are kindly enough not to mention that Trump suggested that it was important for both parties to come to the table because it takes two to tango." I just can't think why digby sez Trump is "The Greatest Embarrassment in American History."

The Incredible Shrinking Trumplethinskin. David Moye of the Huffington Post: As people began walking out of a rally when Trump was speaking in Walker, Michigan, Friday, Trump insisted from the podium that the people who were leaving were not really leaving. Trump "became agitated during a Sept. 10 presidential debate when ... Kamala Harris bluntly said that 'people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.'" Trump said the rally-goers Friday were just lining up in the back of the hall in hopes of getting a photo with him. Right.

Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: In a post on his failing social media site, "... Donald J. Trump threatened Friday to prosecute Google if he was elected to the presidency a second time, claiming that the tech company had been 'illegally' showing only 'bad stories' about him and only 'good' ones about Vice President Kamala Harris. It was the latest instance of Mr. Trump threatening to prosecute his perceived opponents should he return to office. This month, he called for the prosecution of lawyers, political donors and operatives if they engaged in 'unscrupulous behavior.' Mr. Trump said at a news conference on Thursday that the former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should be prosecuted in connection with the security lapses by which a mob of his own supporters attacked the Capitol during the transfer of presidential power on Jan. 6, 2021. And on Friday, in Michigan, he called for an attorney general 'somewhere, like in a Republican territory' to investigate Ms. Pelosi and her husband over reports that Mr. Pelosi had sold Visa stock ahead of the Justice Department's filing an antitrust lawsuit against the company.... Google said it did not manipulate search results to favor any candidate." A CNBC story is here.

Marie: I have overstayed my nonpaying welcome at TPM, but Scott Lemieux in LG&$ has republished a part of two of Josh Marshall's posts:

     ~~~JayDee Wants Goons to Monitor Your Periods, Ladies. Josh Marshall of TPM (republished in LG&$): "JD Vance is a major menstrual surveillance hawk. When the Biden administration pushed for updated HIPAA regulations to prevent sheriff's departments and other law enforcement agencies from pulling women's medical records for their menstrual surveillance programs (which they termed 'compassionate laws protecting unborn children and their mothers'), Vance was one of only 28 members of Congress (and only 8 senators) to sign a letter protesting the new regs, which, per the letter, 'interfere with valid state laws protecting life.' (You can see the letter here. It's a doozy.)" ~~~

     ~~~ Scott Lemieux: "This should also be a reminder that Alito's repeated assertions in Dobbs that the right to choose to have an abortion can be neatly separated from the entire well-established framework of personal autonomy rights is nonsensical on every level. And Dobbs did not return the country to the pre-Roe status quo; given the different surveillance capacities of the state and the greater fanaticism of the anti-abortion mob, it will be much worse." MB: The purpose of the surveillance, of course, is chilling, but the methodology is downright creepy. I doubt even the church-lady president of the Republican Women's Club would want sheriff's deputies rifling through her files at her OB/GYN's office. And, Dear, that's what will happen if JayDee gets his way.

Peter Jamison of the Washington Post: "Vice-presidential nominee JD Vance has a go-to explanation for his evolution from outspoken critic to impassioned defender of Donald Trump: He says he was converted by Trump's achievements in the White House.... But ... in the direct messages -- sent during Trump's final year in office to an acquaintance over ... Twitter -- Vance harshly criticized his future running mate's record of governance.... 'Trump has just so thoroughly failed to deliver on his economic populism (excepting a disjointed China policy),' Vance wrote in February 2020.... 'I've already turned down my appointment from the emperor,' Vance wrote ... after his interlocutor referred to the possibility of a government appointment by 'Emperor Trump.' Pressed by his acquaintance about what job he had been offered, Vance replied, 'I'm not going to say over twitter messenger.' Neither Trump nor Vance has ever disclosed that he was offered a role working [in the Trump administration." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'm sure you're not surprised, but what we have in JayDee is not just a liar but a "practical politician," where "practical" means willing to roll over & repeatedly defend the indefensible if that is in his self-interest. JayDee is as trustworthy as Trump.

Mark Sherman of the AP (republished by Yahoo! News): "The Supreme Court on Friday refused an emergency appeal from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s presidential campaign seeking to have his name added to New York's ballot. Kennedy has been trying to get his name off ballots in key battleground states since he suspended his campaign in August and endorsed ... Donald Trump. But he has simultaneously tried to stay on the ballot in states like New York where his presence is unlikely to make a difference in the battle between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris."

Ha Ha. Ashleigh Fields of the Hill: "California Rep. Adam Schiff (D) introduced a bill on Friday that would prevent sitting presidents from dismissing criminal prosecution against themselves, including through coercion of an attorney general or anyone acting on the president's behalf. The Investigative Integrity Protection Act seeks to require a three-judge court hearing before any charges against a president are dropped, according to a release."

Alan Feuer & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "The special counsel, Jack Smith, has asked a federal judge to make public a substantial amount of the evidence that he and his deputies have collected during nearly two years of investigating ... Donald J. Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to a court filing unsealed on Friday. In the filing, Mr. Smith described the sorts of information about Mr. Trump that he would like to reveal in a public version of a lengthy secret brief that he submitted under seal on Thursday evening to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing the election interference case in Federal District Court in Washington.... Mr. Smith told Judge Chutkan that the public version of his brief should include quotations and summaries of grand jury testimony from -- and interviews with -- several chief witnesses in the case, including top White House officials like former Vice President Mike Pence. But to protect lesser-known witnesses from harassment, Mr. Smith said the names of people not already identified in the indictment should be redacted." An ABC News story is here. ~~~

~~~ Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: A federal judge [Tanya Chutkan] on Friday gave lawyers for Donald Trump four days to challenge the partial public release of a nearly 200-page special counsel filing on why the former president can be criminally prosecuted for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election."

Laurie Brookins of the Hollywood Reporter: "On Thursday, [Donald] Trump debuted a pair of watches available for sale: a dive model ... that is limited to 1,000 pieces and retails for $499 or $799 depending on style, and a seemingly high-end tourbillion design that is depicted as being crafted of 18-karat gold and embellished with diamonds on the bezel. Limited to 147 pieces, that model is listed for an astounding $100,000. All pieces display Trump's name prominently on the dial.... Word quickly spread among the status-watch community, which was overwhelmingly unimpressed. 'This is cobbled together, patently unoriginal and vastly overpriced,' says Ariel Adams, founder and editor of A Blog to Watch.... A marketing director of a well-known Swiss brand..., [said], everyone [in my collectors' group chat] was laughing' ... [at] the more expensive piece. 'When you look at all of them, they scream Chinese-made watch. None of them is worth the asking price.'... '[The tourbillon watch] is as ersatz as the man himself,' added Adam Craniotes, founder ... of ... an international network of watch collectors...."

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Alabama. Hansi Lo Wang of NPR: “The U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit Friday against Alabama and its top election official, alleging a state program violated federal law by removing voters from its election rolls too close to this fall's general election.... The National Voter Registration Act sets what's known as a 'quiet period' before federal elections for most states. Alabama and other states covered by the federal law are not allowed to systematically remove names fewer than 90 days before a federal election. On Aug. 13, 84 days before this fall's Election Day, Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen, a Republican, announced an effort to 'remove noncitizens registered to vote' in the state. According to a press release, Allen identified and instructed county election officials to remove from their voter rolls 3,251 registered Alabama voters who had been 'issued noncitizen identification numbers by the Department of Homeland Security.'... But in a statement, the Justice Department characterized this process as a 'systematic voter removal program' that has ensnared U.S. citizens, both those born in the United States and those who were naturalized...."

New York. Dana Rubinstein, et al., of the New York Times: "A muted but defiant [New York City] Mayor Eric Adams, in back-to-back appearances inside a federal courthouse in Manhattan and outside its granite facade on Friday, professed his innocence of criminal charges including bribery and fraud and stood by as his lawyer railed against the evidence in a case that threatens to topple his embattled administration. 'I am not guilty, your honor,' Mr. Adams said at his midday arraignment before Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker in a 26th-floor courtroom in Lower Manhattan, as reporters looked on from the gallery and via livestreams in several overflow courtrooms." ~~~

~~~ Shayna Jacobs of the Washington Post: "Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty Friday to federal charges of bribery, wire fraud and taking illegal campaign donations, even as state investigators seized the electronic devices of one of his top advisers at the airport -- the latest indication of multiple, wide-ranging corruption probes related to City Hall.... The Manhattan district attorney's office and the New York City Department of Investigation met Adams's top adviser, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, at an arrivals gate at JFK International Airport, Lewis-Martin's lawyer said. The law enforcement personnel intercepted her electronics as part of a separate investigation, said a person with knowledge of the matter...." ~~~

~~~ The New York Times live-updated developments Friday in the NYC Mayor Eric Adams indictment matter: "Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty on Friday in a Lower Manhattan courtroom to five felony counts, including bribery and fraud charges. Mr. Adams is accused of accepting more than $100,000 in illegal gifts in exchange for using his political influence to help Turkey." (Also linked yesterday.)

North Carolina. Ashleigh Fields of the Hill: "The North Carolina Court of Appeals on Friday overturned a lower court's decision to accept the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's mobile One Card as valid voter identification. The ruling supported the plaintiff's argument that the digital ID would make it easier for ineligible voters to cast ballots and violate a state law that prohibits mobile use during voting. An unnamed group of three judges approved the appeal from the Republican National Committee and the N.C. Republican Party unanimously today which can be appealed at the federal level. DNC attorneys say that preventing its use could confuse or even disenfranchise up to 40,000 people who work or attend the school so close to the election according to ABC."

Virginia, et al. Hi, I'm Having a Fabulous Family Dinner with My Fake Wife & Fake Daughters. Annie Karni & Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "... male Republicans struggling to appeal to female voters ... are unleashing their spouses to make the pitch on their behalf. Their ads often feature women in softly lit living rooms and pristine kitchens vouching for their husbands' characters.... Other times, candidates film footage of a wholesome family gathering around the dining room table. In at least one case, such a gathering includes a candidate at the dinner table in a family-like tableau with a woman and children who are not related. The campaign of Derrick Anderson, a former Army Green Beret who is running in a competitive race for an open seat in Virginia's Seventh District, has posted footage of him posing with a woman and her three daughters in what looks like a photo that might be used for an annual holiday card. In another scene filmed for potential use in a campaign ad, Mr. Anderson is seated around the dining room table with the same woman and three girls, chatting and smiling. But the people ... are the wife and children of a longtime friend. Mr. Anderson, who announced this month that he was engaged, does not have any children of his own. His campaign website says he lives with his dog and does not display any of the photos."

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Israel/Palestine, et al.

The New York Times' live updates of developments Saturday in Israel's wars are here. "Hezbollah on Saturday confirmed the death of Hassan Nasrallah, its longtime leader, in an airstrike on the organization's underground headquarters near Beirut, hours after Israel said he had been killed in a major escalation of its rapidly expanding campaign against the Iran-backed group. After two weeks of back-and-forth attacks that have threatened to spiral into an all-out regional war, Israel said that Mr. Nasrallah was killed in a major airstrike on Friday, when its air force dropped more than 80 bombs on a group of residential buildings in the Hezbollah-dominated area known as the Dahiya."

Bassem Mroue & Melanie Lidman of the AP: "Israel said Saturday that it killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, dealing its most significant blow to the Lebanese militant group after months of fighting. There was no immediate confirmation from Hezbollah. If the claim is true, Nasrallah is by far the most powerful target to be killed by Israel in weeks of intensified fighting with Hezbollah. The military said it carried out a precise airstrike on Friday while Hezbollah leadership met at their headquarters in Dahiyeh, south of Beirut."

Michael Crowley of the New York Times: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamiin "Netanyahu bulldozed his way through his visit [to the United Nations], castigating Israel's critics and the United Nations itself, offering no diplomatic concessions, and ordering an airstrike in Beirut that may have killed Israel's long hunted archnemesis, the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The strike landed even as Mr. Netanyahu delivered defiant remarks to a U.N. General Assembly hall -- largely emptied after dozens of diplomats walked out in protest -- in which he triumphantly declared of Israel's multiple conflicts: 'We are winning.'"

The New York Times' live updates of developments Friday in Israel's wars are here. (Also linked yesterday.)

News Lede

Washington Post: "Rescue teams raced to submerged homes, scoured collapsed buildings and steered thousands from overflowing dams as Helene carved a destructive path Friday, knocking out power and flooding a vast arc of communities across the southeastern United States. At least 40 people were confirmed killed in five states since the storm made landfall late Thursday as a Category 4 behemoth, unleashing record-breaking storm surge and tree-snapping gusts. 4 million homes and businesses have lost electricity across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, prompting concerns that outages could drag on for weeks. Mudslides closed highways. Water swept over roofs and snapped phone lines. Houses vanished from their foundations. Tornadoes added to the chaos. The mayor of hard-hit Canton, N.C., called the scene 'apocalyptic.'" An AP report is here.

The Conversation -- September 27, 2024

A comparison of the statements made by Donald Trump and Kamala Harris on Ukraine over the last 24 hours pic.twitter.com/ZRvsZsLM1P

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 27, 2024

     ~~~ Thanks to RAS for the link. Via digby, who is of the view that the Orange Jesus is "The Greatest Embarrassment in American History."

The New York Times is live-updating developments Friday in the NYC Mayor Eric Adams indictment matter: "Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty on Friday in a Lower Manhattan courtroom to five felony counts, including bribery and fraud charges. Mr. Adams is accused of accepting more than $100,000 in illegal gifts in exchange for using his political influence to help Turkey."

The New York Times' live updates of developments Friday in Israel's wars are here.

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Presidential Race

Katie Rogers & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Thursday at the White House, a sign that President Biden's administration is positioning her to take over a politically fraught diplomatic relationship if she wins the election in November. The meeting, held shortly after Mr. Biden announced $8 billion worth of military support to the war-torn country, was Ms. Harris's second this week with a key world leader -- even as she runs a presidential campaign focused on domestic issues. Ms. Harris, who has met with Mr. Zelensky a half-dozen times since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, said at the White House on Thursday that ... those who would have Ukraine trade territory fo peace were supporting 'proposals of surrender' -- a dig at ... Donald J. Trump ... and his skepticism of aid for Kyiv." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

Retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, in a New York Times op-ed: "... I have already cast my ballot for character -- and voted for Vice President Kamala Harris.... Character is the ultimate measure of leadership for those who seek the highest office in our land.... Regardless of what a person says, character is ultimately laid bare in his or her actions. So I pay attention to what a leader does.... Ms. Harris has the strength, the temperament and, importantly, the values to serve as commander in chief. When she sits down with world leaders like President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, representing the United States on the global stage, I have no doubt that she is working in our national interest, not her own. I would urge others to vote as I have." (Also linked yesterday.)

Filip Timotija of the Hill: :Former Kansas Republican Sen. Nancy Kassebaum (R-Kan.) is endorsing Vice President Harris in the 2024 presidential election, stating the White House contest 'presents a stark choice that is not easy for any of us.' Kassebaum, who served three terms in the upper chamber, announced her backing of the Democratic nominee in a Thursday statement alongside two other GOP officials, former Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger and retired federal circuit judge Deanell Reece Tacha."

In a New York Times article titled, "Harris Has a Lot of Strengths. Giving Interviews Isn't One of Them," reporter Rebecca O'Brien concedes (in Graf 10), "It is a fundamental imbalance of the campaign, not lost on Ms. Harris's supporters, that while her every remark is scrutinized, her opponent..., Donald J. Trump, seems to suffer few consequences for his public remarks, which are often undisciplined explorations of grudges, rumors and preoccupations, laden with innuendo and outright falsehood, often untethered from standard syntax and, at times, reality.... Consider an answer Mr. Trump gave last month in an interview with Dr. Phil McGraw, in response to a question about what he thought about Ms. Harris: ~~~

"She's a Marxist. Well, I can see, by action, she;s a person that wanted to defund the police very strongly, bailed out a lot of people in Minnesota from jails who did some really bad things. I saw that very loud and clear then, when that took place, a lot of bad things. She's done a lot of bad things. There will be no fracking. There'll be no drilling. She doesn't want to drill, which will mean our country is going to shrivel up and die. You can't run the country without fossil fuel, at least not for quite a while because you don't have the power. They don't have the power. You have all sorts of nice contraptions, but they don't have -- wind is fine, but it kills the birds. It destroys the fields. Destroys the fields, what it does."

     ~~~ Marie: See yesterday's Comments for a discussion of the NYT's/media's criticisms of Harris versus their coddling of Trump. I can't recall ever seeing a NYT story dedicated to criticizing Trump's verbal skills, whereas the paper made careers for reporters writing about Joe Biden's garbled speech. Now, for a second time and based on the same interview, is taking digs at Harris's responses. In that interview, it should be noted, Harris' performance was a bit rocky, IMO, but it by no means approached Trump's incoherent stream-of-unconsciousness babble. I'm not saying the critiques of Harris are wrong; what I am saying is that if a paper publishes criticisms of the Democratic presidential candidates, they should pan the Republican candidate every time he makes disastrous remarks -- which is every damned time he opens his mouth or writes a comment on his failing social media site. The excuse, "But 'Trump's a Shambolic Nitwit' Isn't News" is not good enough. ~~~

~~~ Still, all this unpleasantness could have been avoided if only the interview had gone like this: ~~~

     ~~~ But Wait! The Unpossible Is Possible! Michael Gold & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: At a Trump Tower event billed as a news conference about the U.S.-Mexico border, "Mr. Trump quickly appeared to grow bored with the remarks he read from, and drifted repeatedly toward other topics. He talked about inflation, accused [Vice President] Harris of lying about working at McDonald's years ago and nursed his fury over how the ABC News debate moderators handled his face-off with Ms. Harris nearly three weeks ago. At the beginning of the news conference, Mr. Trump struggled at times to articulate his thoughts or make a point clearly. He stumbled over some words as he read from remarks he had plainly not written. He bootstrapped one thought onto another based on whether the words associated with something else, as opposed to having a clear through line. ~~~

"And you know, you can go to California, where she ruined San Francisco.... She destroyed. San Francisco may have been the greatest city in the world, 16, 18 years ago, and now it;s a practically unlivable place. And I hate to say that. I have property in San Francisco. It's not a good thing to say, but this far supersedes my ownership of property. It’s an unlivable place. It was the best city. Bob Tisch, of Loews, a friend of mine. Great guy. Wonderful man. He was in San Francisco. He was in Chicago. He had big businesses all over, the Tisch family. Bob Tisch used to tell me that he thinks San Francisco is the greatest city in the country. He passed away, quite a while ago. But, and San Francisco probably was. And now it's not even livable."

     ~~~ Read on. It's almost as if some New York Times editor read your criticisms yesterday. ~~~

~~~ Here's Trump at the presser deftly dealing with a question about his endorsement of self-described "Black NAZI" Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson of North Carolina: ~~~

Me: “Are you going to pull your endorsement of Mark Robinson?”

Trump: “I don’t know the situation.” pic.twitter.com/Y3orTxf9Ku

— Libbey Dean (@LibbeyDean_) September 26, 2024

Seb Starcevic & Csongor Körömi of Politico: "... Donald Trump lashed out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday for not making concessions to Russia, giving his strongest indication to date he would stop backing Kyiv if he wins the U.S. presidential election. Trump, speaking at a campaign event in North Carolina, said Ukraine should have 'given up a little bit' to appease Moscow and avoid a bloody conflict with its invading neighbor, which he said 'didn't need to happen.... 'We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal, Zelenskyy,' Trump railed in a lengthy tirade." AP story linked yesterday. (Also linked yesterday.)

New York Times Editors: "Dozens of people who know [Donald Trump] well, including the 91 listed here, have raised alarms about his character and fitness for office -- his family and friends, world leaders and business associates, his fellow conservatives and his political appointees -- even though they had nothing to gain from doing so. Some have even spoken out at the expense of their own careers or political interests. The New York Times editorial board has made its case that Mr. Trump is unfit to lead. But the strongest case against him may come from his own people. For those Americans who are still tempted to return him to the presidency or to not vote in November, it is worth considering the assessment of Mr. Trump by those who have seen him up close." The editorial includes derogatory assessments of Trump from his closest associates. (Also linked yesterday.)

New York Times Editors republish their July 11 editorial, titled "Donald Trump Is Unfit to Lead." (Also linked yesterday.)

Matt Egan of CNN: "... a new analysis finds that ... [Donald Trump]'s plans for tariffs, deportations and the Federal Reserve would ... cause weaker economic growth, higher inflation and lower employment, according to a working paper released Thursday by the Peterson Institute for International Economics. In some cases, the damage could continue through 2040. 'We find that ironically, despite his "make the foreigners pay" rhetoric, this package of policies does more damage to the US economy than to any other in the world,' the Peterson Institute working paper from researchers Warwick McKibbin, Megan Hogan and Marcus Noland concluded. The paper represents the most comprehensive analysis to date on the combined impact of Trump's trade, immigration and Fed proposals. The findings are stark."

Marie: I spoke too soon when way back yesterday I let on that Trump's Grift of the Week was hawking $100 "Trump coins" for three times the value of their silver content: ~~~

     ~~~ Steve Contorno & Alejandra Jaramillo of CNN: "Donald Trump is now hawking a new line of watches, some with an eye popping six-figure price tag -- the latest example of the former president cashing in on his name like no presidential candidate ever has. The GOP nominee announced his latest branded merchandise, Trump Watches, on social media Thursday -- 40 days before the election and on a day when he did not appear on the campaign trail. He told his supporters the watches would make good Christmas gifts and then directed them to a link where they could be purchased. The watches retail for $499 but one series == Tourbillon -- is priced at $100,000. They come in three different colors and are limited in number to 147." ~~~

~~~ Ah, the Family That Grifts Together. Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "While promoting a memoir, [Melania Trump] told Fox News that she blamed Democrats and members of the news media for the assassination attempts against her husband." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Jimmy Kimmel has some thoughts about the Trump Family Grift:

So first, RAS learns this about the Center for Free Speech Absolutism, Elon Musk, Proprietor: ~~~

     ~~~ Elizabeth Lopatto of the Verge: "X is preventing users from posting links to a newsletter containing a hacked document that's alleged to be the Trump campaign's research into vice presidential candidate JD Vance. The journalist who wrote the newsletter, Ken Klippenstein, has been suspended from the platform. Searches for posts containing a link to the newsletter turn up nothing.... Though other news outlets have received information from the hack, they declined to publish. Klippenstein says in his newsletter that a source called 'Robert,' with an AOL email address, offered him the document." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ But then Ken W. finds this: ~~~

     ~~~ "The Vance Dossier." Ken Klippenstein: "Behold the dossier. It reportedly comes from an alleged Iranian government hack of the Trump campaign, and since June, the news media has [have!] been sitting on it (and other documents), declining to publish in fear of finding itself at odds with the government's campaign against 'foreign malign influence.' I disagree. The dossier has been offered to me and I've decided to publish it because it's of keen public interest in an election season. It's a 271-page research paper the Trump campaign prepared to vet now vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance. As far as I can tell, it hasn't been altered, but even if it was, its contents are publicly verifiable. I'll let it speak for itself." The page has a link to the dossier (or you can download it). As Klippenstein points out, there are "No Jason Bourne style capers appear, and there's no sleaze." MB: So sorry to say there are no fun/gross revelations about JayDee having his way with Grandma's sofa. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Betsy Swan & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A grand jury has indicted multiple Iranians on charges related to hacking Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. The federal charges stem from an Iranian operation that allegedly stole internal Trump campaign communications this summer.... Stolen materials from the Trump campaign were later sent to journalists and individuals associated with President Joe Biden&'s reelection campaign before Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee. The names of the defendants and the specific criminal charges were not immediately available. A grand jury secretly approved the indictment on Thursday afternoon. The Justice Department is expected to announce the charges as soon as Friday."

Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "... the tech bro style in American politics has emerged as a major force, one that, in my view, is pushing our democracy closer to catastrophe." Krugman concentrates on Elon Musk, JD Vance, and the emergence of cryptocurrency as a major source of campaign financing.

Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "A nearly 200-page special counsel filing of facts and legal argument on why Donald Trump can be criminally prosecuted for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election landed Thursday in D.C. federal court, triggering a process that could end in the public seeing significant new details of the case before the November election. The massive brief on special counsel Jack Smith's case against the former president -- which could run up to 180 pages, plus more in exhibits -- was filed under seal, per the court's order, a spokesman for Smith's office said. It will remain that way until U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan decides what she wants to do with a redacted version, which prosecutors also planned to file under seal with the expectation that it will later be released publicly. Here's what we know about what happens next." Politico's report is here.

Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "... Rudy Giuliani had his law license permanently revoked in the nation's capital, following similar action by a New York court earlier this year over Giuliani's role in ... Donald Trump's attempt to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election.... A disciplinary panel of the D.C. Bar's Board of Professional Responsibility in 2022 recommended Giuliani's disbarment, triggering the indefinite suspension of his law license. Giuliani had been fighting that proposal when the appeals court made its decision Thursday."

Jeremy Barr of the Washington Post: "Voting technology company Smartmatic and conservative cable channel Newsmax have reached a settlement, averting a defamation trial that would have begun Monday over allegations that Newsmax personalities and guests spread lies about the 2020 election and Smartmatic's role in it. Details of the 'confidential' settlement were not released. The settlement came as the process of picking a jury was underway...."

Matthew Goldstein of the New York Times: "An investment company formed by two former contestants on 'The Apprentice' TV show sold almost all of their 5.5 percent stake in ... Donald J. Trump's social media company, according to a regulatory filing on Thursday. United Atlantic Ventures sold roughly 7.5 million shares of Trump Media & Technology Group within the past few days, after a lockup provision that had barred large investors, including Mr. Trump, from selling any shares ended on Sept. 19. The two principals of United Atlantic, Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss, were founders of Trump Media and its flagship social media product, Truth Social. They were both contestants on the second season of 'The Apprentice,' the reality TV show that helped raised Mr. Trump's national profile.... At the stock's current price of about $14 a share, the two men's entire equity stake was worth roughly $100 million.... Both Mr. Litinsky and Mr. Moss were 'fired' by Mr. Trump from the show, but Mr. Litinsky later went to work for Mr. Trump as the head of his television production company. Shortly after Mr. Trump left the White House in 2021, Mr. Litinsky and Mr. Moss approached him with the idea of founding his own social media company." A CBS News story is here.

Justin Jouvenal & Tobi Raji of the Washington Post: "A sweeping bill introduced by a Democratic senator Wednesday would greatly increase the size of the Supreme Court, make it harder for the justices to overturn laws, require justices to undergo audits and remove roadblocks for high court nominations. The legislation by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is one of the most ambitious proposals to remake a high court that has suffered a sharp decline in its public approval after a string of contentious decisions and ethics scandals in recent years. It has little chance of passing at the moment, since Republicans have generally opposed efforts to overhaul the court. Wyden, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said the goal of the bill is to restore public confidence in a battered institution. He said he hopes to get parts of the bill passed, even if the whole package is not embraced by lawmakers."

Steward, led by its founder and CEO Dr. Ralph de la Torre and his corporate enablers, looted hospitals across the country for their own profit. While they got rich, workers, patients and communities suffered. Nurses paid out of pocket for cardboard bereavement boxes for the babies to help grieving parents who had just lost a newborn. -- Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), on the Senate floor, Wednesday ~~~

~~~ Dan Diamond of the Washington Post: "The Senate voted unanimously Wednesday to hold Steward Health Care chief executive Ralph de la Torre in contempt of Congress, asking the Justice Department to pursue criminal charges against the hospital executive for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena. It is the first time since 1971 that the Senate has asked the Justice Department to pursue criminal contempt charges against an individual, lawmakers said. Steward, a for-profit company that owns about two dozen hospitals across the country, is engaged in bankruptcy proceedings and has been seeking to sell its hospitals. Community leaders and health workers in states served by Steward's facilities have blamed the company's leaders for extravagant paydays even as hospitals struggled to meet mortgage payments and cover other expenses. The Justice Department also has been investigating the company regarding allegations of fraud."

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Mississippi. Still Dickensian. David Nakamura & Robert Klemko of the Washington Post: "A tiny police department in Lexington, Miss., whose chief was fired two years ago for using a racial epithet, has engaged in the systemic use of excessive force, jailed suspects improperly and targeted Black people, the Justice Department said in a report released Thursday. The results of a nearly 11-month federal civil rights investigation found that the Lexington police force, which has fewer than 10 officers, pursued overly aggressive tactics in response to relatively minor infractions, in part as a strategy to drive up revenue through fines and processing fees. During the past several years, the police department's revenue grew sevenfold in a jurisdiction in one of the poorest counties in the nation, as officers routinely violated suspects' civil rights, federal authorities said.... The police 'turned the jail into the kind of debtor's prison that Charles Dickens wrote about in his novels written in the 1800s -- only this happened in Mississippi in 2024,' [U.S. Attorney Todd] Gee said."

New York. Dana Rubinstein & William Rashbaum of the New York Times: "Mayor Eric Adams of New York City, a former police captain who ran on a law-and-order platform but whose tenure has been consumed by accusations of corruption, spent years accepting free airline tickets, lavish overseas accommodations and illegal campaign donations from Turkey, federal prosecutors said on Thursday. In return for the gifts and donations, Mr. Adams used his influence as Brooklyn borough president and later as mayor to assist Turkish officials with issues they were facing in the city, prosecutors said -- most notably in obtaining safety clearances from the Fire Department for a new high-rise Turkish consulate building."

From the New York Times' live updates of developments Thursday in the indictment of New York City Mayor Eric Adams (related stories as well as the NYT liveblog linked yesterday):

"Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted on federal charges of bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. The indictment, which was unsealed on Thursday morning, follows an investigation that started in 2021 and has focused at least in part on whether he conspired with the Turkish government to receive illegal foreign campaign contributions and whether he took official actions on its behalf. Federal prosecutors said that Mr. Adams 'sought and accepted improper valuable benefits' for at least a decade, when he was then the Brooklyn borough president, according to the indictment.

"Federal agents searched the official residence of Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday morning, hours before prosecutors were expected to announce the details of a federal indictment against him.... At about 6 a.m. on Thursday, nearly a dozen men and women dressed in business attire arrived in S.U.V.s outside the entrance of Gracie Mansion, the mayor's official residence, on the Upper East Side. At least one vehicle had a federal law enforcement parking placard on its dashboard. They carried briefcases, backpacks and bags. Many agents were still at Gracie Mansion later in the morning when some of the mayor's top advisers and his former chief counsel, Brendan McGuire, walked inside." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ NBC News updates are here. A CNBC story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Here's the indictment, via Politico. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Dana Rubinstein & William Rashbaum of the New York Times: "The indictment of Mayor Eric Adams unsealed on Thursday provides a banquet of strange, amusing and troubling vignettes unearthed during the investigation by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and the F.B.I. Here are 10 of them[.]" Funniest: No. 10: "After F.B.I. agents seized Mr. Adams's personal phone in November 2023, he claimed he was unable to remember the password because he had recently changed it. He had changed it, he said, to prevent staff members from inadvertently or intentionally deleting anything because of the investigation." MB I wonder if it was little Eric who coined the dog-ate-my-homework excuse. An AP report is here.

Bill Mahoney & Nick Reisman of Politico: "Gov. Kathy Hochul [D] has begun to examine a long-dormant power that lets governors remove local officials such as New York City mayors, following Thursday's indictment of Eric Adams [D]. Lawyers in Hochul's office on Thursday internally discussed the legal and constitutional framework for removing an elected official, according to two people familiar with the conversations...."

New York Times Editors: "To serve the city that elected him, Mr. Adams should immediately resign and turn City Hall over to someone untainted by criminal charges and endless investigations.... The challenge of governing the city is daunting for even the best mayors, and the specter of widespread corruption in the Adams administration has little precedent."

North Carolina. Ashleigh Fields of the Hill: "North Carolina's State Board of Elections has removed 747,000 people from its list of registered voters within the last 20 months, officials announced Thursday in a press release. The State Board of Elections in the release said the majority of those stripped from the rolls were deemed ineligible to be registered because they had moved within the state and did not register their new address, or because they did not participate in the past two federal elections, prompting an inactive status. Other reasons for removal included death, felony convictions, out-of-state moves and personal requests for removal, the board said."

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Japan. Motoko Rich of the New York Times: "The elite power brokers of Japan's governing party appeared to take public sentiment into account on Friday when they elected Shigeru Ishiba, 67, to become the next prime minister of Japan. Mr. Ishiba, a former defense minister who has long been popular with rank-and-file members of the Liberal Democratic Party but less favored by parliamentary lawmakers, had run for the leadership four times before finally attaining victory on Friday. In a runoff between Mr. Ishiba and Sanae Takaichi Mr. Ishiba, who is known for his plain-spoken opinions and extreme interest in military equipment, defeated Ms. Takaichi 215 to 194 in voting at the party's headquarters in Tokyo. He will officially take over as prime minister next Tuesday, replacing Fumio Kishida, the outgoing prime minister."

Ukraine, et al. Yasmeen Abutaleb & Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post: "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, appealing urgently to President Joe Biden on Thursday to let the country extend its use of American weapons, waded into a heightened partisan divide over the Russia-Ukraine war, with the U.S. presidential election weeks away. Biden met with Zelensky at the White House on Thursday, but he did not grant Kyiv's request for permission to fire American-made missiles deeper into Russia. Instead, he announced the delivery of more military aid and new air defense capabilities, as the White House sought to show strong support for Ukraine while rejecting the country's primary plea.... Donald Trump, meanwhile, announced that he would meet with Zelensky on Friday morning, apparently a last-minute addition to the Ukrainian leader's schedule following growing tensions between Zelensky and Republican leaders." An AP story is here.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Maggie Smith, one of the finest British stage and screen actors of her generation, whose award-winning roles ranged from a freethinking Scottish schoolteacher in 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' to the acid-tongued dowager countess on 'Downton Abbey,' died on Friday in London. She was 89."

The Washington Post's live updates of developments related to Hurricane Helene are here: "Hurricane Helene left one person dead in Florida and two in Georgia as it sped north. One of the biggest storms on record to hit the Gulf Coast, Helene slammed into Florida's Big Bend area on Thursday night as a Category 4 colossus with winds of up to 140 mph before weakening to Category 1. Catastrophic winds and torrential rain from the storm -- which the National Hurricane Center forecast would eventually slow over the Tennessee Valley -- were expected to continue Friday across the Southeast and southern Appalachians." ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates are here.

Mediaite: "Fox Weather's Bob Van Dillen was reporting live on Fox & Friends about flooding in Atlanta from Hurricane Helene when he was interrupted by the screams of a woman trapped in her car. During the 7 a.m. hour, Van Dillen was filing a live report on the massive flooding in the area. Fox News viewers could clearly hear the urgent screams for help emerging from a car stuck on a flooded road in the background of the live shot. Van Dillen ... told Fox & Friends that 911 had been called and that the local Fire Department was on its way. But as he continued to file the report, the screams did not stop, so Van Dillen cut the live shot short.... Some 10 minutes later, Fox & Friends aired live footage of Van Dillen carrying the woman to safety, walking through chest-deep water while the flooding engulfed her...."