November 29, 2022
Afternoon Update:
Alan Feuer & Zach Montague of the New York Times: "Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, and one of his subordinates were convicted on Tuesday of seditious conspiracy as a jury found them guilty of seeking to keep ... Donald J. Trump in power through a plot that started after the 2020 election and culminated in the mob attack on the Capitol. But the jury in Federal District Court in Washington found three other defendants in the case not guilty of sedition and acquitted Mr. Rhodes of two separate conspiracy charges. The split verdicts, coming after three days of deliberations, were nonetheless a victory for the Justice Department and the first time in nearly 20 trials related to the Capitol attack that a jury decided that the violence that erupted on Jan. 6, 2021, was the product of an organized conspiracy."
Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "Anthony M. Ornato, the former Secret Service agent and White House aide at the heart of a dispute over conflicting accounts of ... Donald J. Trump's actions during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, was interviewed on Tuesday by the House committee investigating the attack.... The committee has sought for weeks to interview Mr. Ornato for a third time as it digs deeper into the activities of the Secret Service around the time of Jan. 6, 2021.... It was not immediately known what Mr. Ornato discussed with the panel. As a deputy White House chief of staff who oversaw the logistics of the president's movements, he is key to a dispute over the events in a presidential S.U.V. that day."
Ronald Blum of the AP: "Christian Pulisic scored while crashing headfirst into the goalkeeper in the 38th minute and the United States advanced to the knockout round of the World Cup with a 1-0 win over Iran on Tuesday in a politically charged rematch of their famous meeting a quarter-century ago." According to reporting on MSNBC, many Iranians -- dissatisfied with their own government -- cheered the U.S. win.
"Manifestly without Merit." Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "South Carolina's Supreme Court has ordered former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to testify to an Atlanta-area grand jury investigating Donald Trump's effort to overturn the election in Georgia. 'We have reviewed the arguments raised by Appellant and find them to be manifestly without merit,' South Carolina's Supreme Court justices wrote."
Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress vowed on Tuesday to pass legislation averting a nationwide rail strike, saying they agree with President Biden that a work stoppage just days before Christmas would disrupt shipping and deal a devastating blow to the nation's economy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said after a meeting at the White House with Mr. Biden and their Republican counterparts that they would act quickly to move legislation through the chambers."
Georgia Senate Race. Andrew Kaczynski & Olivia Alafriz of CNN: "Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker, facing renewed and growing questions about his residency in the final week of the runoff campaign, described himself during a campaign speech in January as living in Texas and said he decided to run for Georgia's Senate seat while at his Texas 'home,' according to a CNN KFile review of his campaign speeches. Georgia Democrats have called for an investigation by state officials into Walker's residency after CNN's KFile reported last week that Walker was getting a tax break in Texas intended for a primary residence, possibly running afoul of Texas tax law and some rules for establishing Georgia residency for voting and running for office. 'I live in Texas,' Walker said in January of this year, when speaking to University of Georgia College Republicans."
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Michael Shear & Noam Scheiber of the New York Times: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Monday that lawmakers plan to intervene this week in the deepening labor dispute between rail companies and their unionized workers, voting on whether to impose an agreement that could avert a shutdown of the nation's freight trains just before Christmas. The announcement came shortly after President Biden called on Congress to act, saying the dispute cannot be allowed to 'hurl this nation into a devastating rail freight shutdown.'" ~~~
~~~ President Biden's statement is here.
Al Weaver of the Hill: "The Senate on Monday brought a bill to codify same-sex marriage protections one step closer to passage, voting to end debate on an amendment that features religious liberty protections sought by Republicans.... Senators ultimately voted 61-35 to advance the amendment to the Respect for Marriage Act that includes language related to religious liberty and conscience protections under the Constitution and federal law. It would also continues to prohibit polygamous marriage."
Annie Grayer & Sara Murray of CNN: "Kellyanne Conway, who served in the White House as a senior adviser to ... Donald Trump, is meeting with the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection in person on Monday, according to a source familiar with the meeting." MB: Gee, according to Conway, there are "alternate facts." Is there an alternate oath you can take prior to testifying, too? "I solemnly swear to tell the alternate truth & nothing but the alternate truth...." (Also linked yesterday.)
Amy Wang, et al., of the Washington Post: "Former vice president Mike Pence and numerous Republican lawmakers on Monday criticized Donald Trump for dining with the white nationalist Nick Fuentes and the rapper Ye, both of whom have a history of antisemitic remarks, marking a rare break with Trump in the upper echelons of the GOP. Pence was most clear in his condemnation, saying in an interview with NewsNation, 'President Trump was wrong to give a white nationalist, an antisemite and a Holocaust denier a seat at the table. I think he should apologize for it, and he should denounce those individuals and their hateful rhetoric without qualification.'... The public critiques of Trump were notable after years in which many Republicans remained silent as he courted extremists. Still, many stopped short of a full denouncement." Among the GOP senators directly criticizing Trump were Bill Cassidy (La.), Shelly Moore Capito (W.Va.) & Susan Collins (Maine). ~~~
~~~ Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "For much of Donald J. Trump's presidency, Jewish Republicans rationalized away the bigoted fringe of Mr. Trump's coalition, arguing that the unsavory supporters in his midst and the antisemitic tropes he deployed paled in comparison with the staunchly pro-Israel policies of his administration.... Now, even some of Mr. Trump's staunchest supporters say they can no longer ignore the abetting of bigotry by the nominal leader of the Republican Party.... Not all Republican leaders have spoken out, but Jewish Republicans are slowly peeling away from a former president who, for years, insisted he had no ties to the bigoted far right, but refused to repudiate it.... 'The normalization of antisemitism is here,' said Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League." ~~~
Now..., anti-Jewish bigotry, or at least tacit approval of anti-Jewish bigotry, is coming from people with serious power: the leader of a major political party, a famous pop star, and the world's richest man. -- Michelle Goldberg ~~~
~~~ Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: Since His Dinner with Adolf last week, "Trump has claimed he didn't know who [smirking little fascist Nick] Fuentes was. I find this unlikely. In September, I wrote a piece about a Trump-endorsed congressional candidate named Joe Kent that mentions Fuentes in the first paragraph. Trump scrawled a note of congratulations on the print version and mailed it to Kent, who sent the image out on his email list. But even if Trump's ignorance was sincere, he still didn't denounce Fuentes after learning his identity.... After buying Twitter, Elon Musk enthusiastically welcomed both Trump and Ye back to the platform, and has been tiptoing up to the edge of antisemitism himself. On Sunday, he tweeted that Alexander Vindman, the Jewish retired Army officer who testified about Trump's attempt to extort Ukraine's president, is both 'puppet & puppeteer,' echoing an old antisemitic trope about Jews pulling the strings behind world events. On Monday, Musk tweeted an image of the alt-right symbol Pepe the Frog."
Lola Facula & Jonah Bromwich of the New York Times: "Defense lawyers representing Donald J. Trump's family business rested their case Monday, marking the end of witness testimony in the company's tax fraud trial and clearing the way for closing arguments this week. The lawyers for the Trump Organization, which has been charged with letting some executives be compensated with off-the-books perks so that they could evade taxes, spent the vast majority of their defense time questioning a single witness: Donald Bender, who for years was an outside accountant for Mr. Trump and the company.... Prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney's office have argued that under the terms of his arrangement with the company, Mr. Bender would not have been responsible for errors in the company's tax reporting."
Judge Sullivan to Trump: "We Are Not Amused." Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "A federal judge in Washington, DC, on Monday said that Donald Trump doesn't have 'absolute immunity,' as the former president claimed he should, in response to a lawsuit in its early stages related to Trump's actions around the 2020 presidential election. Civil rights groups have sued Trump for trying to disenfranchise voters. While Trump's lawyers argue he can't be held liable in civil lawsuits because of immunity around the presidency, Judge Emmet Sullivan of the DC District Court on Monday disagreed.... Sullivan said Trump's political conduct wouldn't be part of his official duties, giving him less legal protection. 'If Former President Trump disrupted the certification of the electoral vote count, as Plaintiffs allege here, such actions would not constitute executive action in defense of the Constitution. For these reasons, the Court concludes that Former President Trump is not immune from monetary damages in this suit,' Sullivan wrote.... Trump's response to the 2020 and 2022 elections..., Sullivan wrote, could show that Trump could still 'pose a very substantial risk in the future to Plaintiffs' fundamental right to vote.'"
So Much Losing. Peter Stone of the Guardian: "A spate of major court rulings rejecting claims of executive privilege and other arguments by Donald Trump and his top allies are boosting investigations by the US justice department (DoJ) and a special Georgia grand jury into whether the former US president broke laws as he sought to overturn the 2020 election results. Former prosecutors say the upshot of these court rulings is that key Trump backers and ex-administration lawyers -- such as ex-chief of staff Mark Meadows and legal adviser John Eastman -- can no longer stave off testifying before grand juries in DC and Georgia.... Ex-justice lawyers agree that Trump's legal plight has now grown due to the key court rulings.... Although Trump has been irked by the spate of court rulings against him and his allies, experts point out that they have included decisions from typically conservative courts, as well as ones with more liberal leanings[.]"
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court, which has become increasingly skeptical of federal prosecutions of public corruption in state government, seemed poised on Monday to hand prosecutors two more defeats. The justices heard arguments in a pair of cases involving defendants convicted of fraud during former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's administration in New York. One concerned Joseph Percoco, a former aide to Mr. Cuomo convicted of taking illicit payments to benefit a Syracuse-area developer. The other involved Louis Ciminelli, the owner of a Buffalo construction firm convicted of fraud in a bid-rigging scandal in connection with Buffalo Billion, a development project championed by Mr. Cuomo."
Court Declares Alito Innocent Because He Says So. Jodi Kantor of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday defended Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. against allegations that a former anti-abortion leader had been tipped off in 2014 to a landmark contraception ruling written by the justice. The court also sidestepped questions from lawmakers about whether the claim would be investigated further." MB: Who says there isn't equal justice under the law. Should you be accused of a crime, just tell the judge you're opting for the Alito Short Trial. That's the one where you harrumph, "How dare you!" and say you didn't do it, whereupon the judge takes your word for it.
Vox Populi, My Ass. Philip Bump of the Washington Post explains the barest fundamentals of polling to Elon Musk, who is -- or pretends to be -- completely unaware of the basics: "In recent weeks, Musk has outsourced the making of decisions about people banned from Twitter to users of the platform.... Of course, Twitter polls are not the 'voice of the people' to any significant extent. They are at best the voice of a subset of the people who are on Twitter. Even that is overstating things, though: They are a minor subset of Twitter users, a self-selected group that is aware of the poll being conducted. They are also very possibly automated accounts of the sort that ... [Musk himself] spent much of the year railing against as he leveled criticisms of Twitter as a platform.... Twitter polls are easily gamed in the way that polls in which participation is controlled are not.... [Donald] Trump, for example, encouraged people to vote in Musk's poll in a post on his own social media network."
Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "The New York Times and four European news organizations called on the United States government on Monday to drop its charges against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, for obtaining and publishing classified diplomatic and military secrets. In a joint open letter, The Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País said the prosecution of Mr. Assange under the Espionage Act 'sets a dangerous precedent' that threatened to undermine the First Amendment and the freedom of the press. 'Obtaining and disclosing sensitive information when necessary in the public interest is a core part of the daily work of journalists,' the letter said. 'If that work is criminalized, our public discourse and our democracies are made significantly weaker.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
Windfall! Eric Lipton of the New York Times: There has been "a fundamental shift among major electric utilities nationwide as they deploy their considerable clout in Washington: After years of taking steps like backing dark-money groups to sue the government to block tighter air pollution rules..., a growing number of other utilities have joined forces to speed the transition away from fossil fuels. Their new stance is driven less by evolving ideology than the changing economics of renewable energy, fueled in part by the sheer amount of money the federal government is putting on the table to encourage utilities to move more quickly to cleaner and more sustainable sources of energy like solar and wind.... With the passage of the climate and economic policy bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act..., big utilities ... stand to benefit from the largest package of subsidies ever granted to the industry."
Ariana Cha & Dan Keating of the Washington Post: "More than 300 people are still dying each day on average from covid-19, most of them 65 or older, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While that's much lower than the 2,000 daily toll at the peak of the delta wave, it is still roughly two to three times the rate at which people die of the flu -- renewing debate about what is an 'acceptable loss.'... Today, nearly 9 in 10 covid deaths are in people 65 or older -- the highest rate ever, according to a Washington Post analysis of CDC data."
Beyond the Beltway
Georgia. Dylan Wells , et al., of the Washington Post: "In the first and only weekend of early voting in the Georgia Senate runoff, tens of thousands of voters cast ballots in the election pitting Democratic Sen. Raphael G. Warnock against Republican challenger Herschel Walker -- the last Senate contest of the 2022 midterms. On Saturday, 70,050 Georgians turned out to vote.... On Sunday, an additional 86,937 people voted. That number combined with voters in select counties who voted before Thanksgiving and the 15,305 mail ballots accepted so far means that a total of 181,711 voters had cast their ballots by the weekend's end.... As of 4:45 p.m. [Monday], an additional 239,160 voters had cast their ballot, according to Gabriel Sterling, a top official in Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's office." ~~~
~~~ AND there's this from the WashPo story: “Through the in-person early voting, Georgians had to wait hours in line at many locations to cast their ballots. Among them was Warnock, who voted Sunday afternoon in Fulton County. The lawmaker stood in line for almost an hour before being able to vote for himself. Early voting ends Friday. Warnock held several public campaign events over the weekend, while his opponent had none. Walker will return to the campaign trail Monday, after not holding any public events since Tuesday." MB: Really? Two weeks till the election in a campaign "season" that lasts only a month and you decide it would be a good time to take the week off? Maybe he had to go back to his real home in Texas to tuck in a home-cooked Thanksgiving dinner. ~~~
~~~ Georgia voters watch clips from Herschel Walker speeches:
Arizona. Fredreka Schouten & Maeve Reston of CNN: "Officials in a rural Arizona county Monday delayed the certification of November's midterm elections, missing the legal deadline and leading the Arizona secretary of state's office to sue over the county's failure to sign off on the results. By a 2-1 vote Monday morning, the Republican majority on the Cochise County Board of Supervisors pushed back certification until Friday, citing concerns about voting machines. Because Monday was the deadline for all 15 Arizona counties to certify their results, Cochise's action could put at risk the votes of some 47,000 county residents and could inject chaos into the election if those votes go uncounted. In the lawsuit filed by the office of Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs -- a Democrat who will be the state's next governor -- officials said failing to certify the election results violates state law and could 'potentially disenfranchise' the county's voters." ~~~
~~~ Pennsylvania. Charles Homans of the New York Times: "Similar actions have taken place in Pennsylvania, where activists have sued to block certification in Delaware County, and Republican election officials in Luzerne County voted against certification, forcing a deadlock on the county election board after one of the three Democratic board members abstained from voting.... [Certification] was regarded as little more than a formality until the 2020 election. Since then, local Republican officials aligned with the election denier movement have occasionally tried to use their position to hold up certification. The tactic has become more widespread this year and earned encouragement from Republican candidates and right-wing media personalities." The AP's story on the Pennsylvania non-certification is here.
Connecticut. Sarah Nir of the New York Times: "Five Connecticut police officers were charged on Monday with misdemeanors in a case in which a Black man who was being transported in the back of a police van became paralyzed when the driver hit the brakes hard, shattering the man&'s spine. The man, Richard Cox, 36, known as Randy, was being taken to a police station in New Haven on June 19 on a weapons-related charge in a van that was not equipped with seatbelts. He smashed headfirst into the van's inside wall, and the incident was captured on video. The officers appeared to treat him callously following his injuries, mocking his inability to sit up, police video and audio released by lawyers for his family show."
Virginia. Laura Vozzella & Meagan Flynn of the Washington Post: "Rep. A. Donald McEachin (D-Va.) died Monday, just weeks after winning reelection to Congress, his office announced. He was 61. McEachin had represented Virginia's 4th District, which stretches from Richmond to the North Carolina line, since 2017. Before that, he had served nine years as a state senator and eight as a delegate.... A special election for his replacement will be called at a date chosen by Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R)."
Way Beyond
China. Lyric Li of the Washington Post: "Small protests against China's strict 'zero covid' policy occurred in several cities Monday evening, as citizens defied a police crackdown and threats of reprisal, with Beijing blaming 'foreign forces' even as authorities moved to vaccinate more seniors and relax some distancing measures. From Hangzhou in the east to Kunming in the southwest and Beijing in the north, small groups of people demonstrated by holding up blank paper -- a symbol of state censorship -- in solidarity with protesters in Shanghai, the first major city where the recent rallies against the zero covid measures occurred."
Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Tuesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Tuesday are here. ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Tuesday are here: "The United States is expected to announce steps to help Ukraine withstand Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure, as top diplomats representing NATO's 30 members and closest allies gather Tuesday in Romania.... Foreign Ministers representing each of the NATO alliance members, in addition to applicant members Finland and Sweden, will meet to discuss the resilience of critical infrastructure across the alliance as well as how to continue supporting Ukraine."
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Reader Comments (7)
The amendment to the Respect for Marriage Act. The way I read it,
it's taking away the right of religious zealots to discriminate without
recrimination.
That church lady in Iowa is telling me that we can't open a joint
banking account, or buy property together, because she doesn't
believe in same sex marriage.
Maybe I don't believe in her religion but I'm not fighting it and trying
to force her to give it up.
What's with these people?
Just wondering what the calculation might be in millions of taxpayer dollars being spent by traitors demanding recounts, declining to certify fair election results and the lawsuits stemming from such bullshit. More fiscal sobriety I guess, in the name of mendacity and treason, and always having to get their way.
The confederate way.
Yesterday, Marie commented on the usefulness of appreciating other cultures. I had written a response but my phone died in media res and all was lost. It was a masterpiece of philosophical and social discourse, but alas, this piece of crap will have to do since I can’t recall half of what I wrote…
Experiencing different cultures offers us a valuable opportunity to see, and hopefully understand, other ways of being in the world, ways that other societies and civilizations have dealt with common problems and delights of the human condition.
It’s a sad and warped mind that believes its vision, its thought processes, and manufactured social structures are ipso facto the very best and that all other places are shithole countries with nothing to offer.
I caught an episode of “The Crown” the other night. The one where Prince Philip and a battery of Royal Navy sailors take to the ocean main and visit far flung regions of the British Empire. The goal, in part, was to remind the colonials of who’s the boss. On a South Pacific island nation, the Prince and his pals are soundly beaten by the locals in various athletic contests. What to do? Can’t let the savages think they’re our equals! So let’s play them in cricket. A game none of them had ever seen before. I guess if you can’t win fairly, just game the system, a Western speciality that too often obscures what can be learned from other cultures in favor of proving one’s innate superiority.
Other cultures can open for us splendid ways of thinking about things and about the world. For centuries, the West looked upon foreign cultures that privileged attention to nature and the world around it as not very bright, believing it was their right and their duty to exploit every bush, rock, and animal in the name of cultural supremacy (and capitalism).
Cultural biases are too often impediments to making useful connections across the divides between civilizations. Some years ago, I read about the chief of a captured Native American tribe who was imprisoned. His crime, refusing to repeat the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, a rule put in place by the army to help “civilize the savages”. The chief’s rationale? “I said it once. That’s all that’s needed. My word is good”. As far as the chief was concerned, a pledge can’t be worth very much if you have to keep saying it over and over.
The Army officers who imprisoned the chief for what they saw as disobedience and disrespect didn’t understand the value the chief’s culture placed on a person’s word. And the chief didn’t understand that the Pledge was a cultural ritual for his captors.
Wars get started on smaller cultural kerfuffles.
Closed cultures, cultures that believe themselves obviously superior and therefore need learn nothing from others, tend to die out. Ancient Rome was at its greatest when it freely mixed with other groups, adapting their ideas as its own to strengthen the culture. As the days of empire grew more and more xenophobic and closed, Rome, well, fell. Bye, now.
In our country, we have a group of people who believe that their way of being in the world is the only valid one. No other points of view, no other religions, no other belief systems need apply. In fact, their insularity and sense of superiority has become so intense, that they feel obligated to point out, publicly, that those who don’t go along with them deserve death and eternal damnation. They also now believe that there are no laws that hinder them from taking over the country if they so desire.
I’ve been saying that openness to other cultures is a good thing, but certain cultures offer stuff that I’d rather not know or absorb, cannibalism, human sacrifice, murder sects, or right-wing extremists and evangelical nuts.
The world is a big place. It’s so cool to learn little details about how other cultures understand the world, but sometimes that understanding can be scary. In the Lakota language there is no word for goodbye. That says so much about how that culture thinks about other humans and our connections. That’s really cool. Republicans say “Do what we say or we might shoot you.” Not so cool.
AK: After reading your "piece of crap"–––you, my friend, have NEVER given us anything resembling same and shame on you for saying that---I was reminded of a piece I read recently about the British Empire and its atrocities. This sorry history makes us ask: Why did Britain fight with almost religious zeal against these mid-century independence movements in the first place? Your comments appear to answer in part that question. That "our way" is the right way and we are going to make sure, one way or another, that you understand that: closed minds–- shriveled hearts.
Orwell said "The truth is that no modern man in his heart, believes that it is right to invade a foreign country and hold the population down by force." After all these years, however, empire builders are still reluctant to learn this lesson. Did the U.S. learn it in Iraq and Afghanistan? Will Putin learn it in Ukraine?
It's very understandable now why the Supreme Court has continually legalized corruption. They are always getting wined and dined by the rich and powerful to influence their decisions. And the Federalist Society has invested millions in the justices to teach them how to rule in their cases. Just another case of Republicans protecting themselves from the consequences of their behavior.
I'm glad about Mr. Rhodes going to federal prison. They will take away his eye patch, and he will be left with an obvious weakness, which will hopefully lead to his being beaten up.
Sorry, I'm being primitive. It's just a thought.
“Manifestly without merit” is an apt description of the entire Trump Treason Debacle, as much as a perfect descriptor of the Fat Fascist himself.