October 22, 2021
Afternoon Update:
Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Friday said it will consider legal arguments over the Texas abortion law that is the nation's most restrictive on Nov. 1, and that the law will remain in effect. The court granted an expedited review of what is called S. B. 8, which the Biden administration in a filing Friday said 'has virtually eliminated abortion in Texas after six weeks of pregnancy.'... The court said it will consider the law's unique enforcement policy, which authorizes individual citizens to sue anyone who helps a woman obtain an abortion after cardiac activity is noted in the embryo, usually about six weeks. The court did not accept a request from Texas specifically to reconsider Roe and Casey.... Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the lone dissenter in the order." MB: Just put those unwanted pregnancies on holds, Texas gals.
Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Biden on Friday named Neera Tanden, a longtime Democratic insider in Washington, to be White House staff secretary, moving her into a little-known but influential West Wing post after failing earlier this year to install her as the director of the Office of Management and Budget. For the last several months, Ms. Tanden has been a senior adviser to the president, working quietly behind the scenes to build support among interest groups for his social spending agenda and overseeing a government reform agenda with officials at the budget office." CNN's report is here.
AP: "China on Friday said there is 'no room' for compromise or concessions over the issue of Taiwan, following a comment by U.S. President Joe Biden that the U.S. is committed to defending the island if it is attacked. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin reasserted China's longstanding claim that the island is its territory at a daily briefing after Biden made his comment a day before at a forum hosted by CNN. China has recently upped its threat to bring Taiwan under its control by force if necessary by flying warplanes near the island and rehearsing beach landings.... Biden's comments on Thursday were viewed as stretching the 'strategic ambiguity' Washington has maintained over how it would respond to an assault on the self-governing island republic.... In his comments, Biden said the U.S. did not want a new Cold War but expressed concern about whether China was 'going to engage in activities that will put them in a position where they may make a serious mistake.'"
Katie Lillis of CNN: "Michael Ellis, who was installed as the top lawyer at the National Security Agency during ... Donald Trump's final days in office, was appropriately sidelined the day after his arrival at the agency based on a pair of security incidents that took place in early 2021, the Defense Department inspector general found in a report released on Thursday. The investigation also found that the Pentagon's selection of Ellis for the role was appropriate and carried out without political influence. The two security incidents took place after Ellis' hiring in the fall of 2020, but before he started work on January 19, according to the report. NSA Director Gen. Paul Nakasone placed him on administrative leave on January 20, the day President Joe Biden was inaugurated." MB: Read on. Ellis's actions sound remarkably careless/suspicious to me.
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Michael Shear & Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "President Biden said on Thursday that he was open to ending the Senate filibuster so Democrats could pass voting rights legislation, raise the federal debt limit and possibly enact other parts of his agenda that had been blocked by Republicans.... Mr. Biden was blunt about his intentions once the debate over the spending bills was over. He said the need to pass sweeping voting rights legislation favored by Democrats is 'equally as consequential' as the debt limit vote, which protects the full faith and credit of the United States.... The president spoke of the filibuster during a 90-minute event [-- a CNN "town hall" --] in which he also expressed confidence that Democrats were closer to a deal on his sprawling domestic policy package, which he said would surpass the Affordable Care Act in its scope and impact on American society." ~~~
~~~ Matt Viser of the Washington Post: "President Biden on Thursday night sought to use a 90-minute nationally televised town hall to breathe life into his domestic agenda, making a final push for Democratic lawmakers to unite behind trillions of dollars in new spending. He spoke in detail about various proposals and revealed with remarkable candor a number of specifics from the private negotiations, shedding new light on the status of his ambitious spending plans.... In multiple instances, he cited the opposition of two moderate senators, Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), saying that after more than 100 hours of negotiation they had forced him to shift gears.... With 50 Democrats in the 100-member Senate, 'everyone is a president,' Biden said. 'Every single one. So you gotta work something out.'" ~~~
~~~ Claire Rafford of Politico: "President Joe Biden on Thursday reaffirmed the Justice Department's independence in the investigations into the violent insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6. In doing so, he partially walked back a comment he made last week in which he said he hopes the department 'goes after them and holds them accountable criminally,' referring to those who defied subpoenas to produce documents and testify in front of Congress. 'The way I said it was not appropriate,' Biden said at a CNN town hall on Thursday evening. When asked last Friday whether the Justice Department should prosecute people who refuse to appear under subpoena, Biden said, 'I do, yes.'... 'I have yet to talk to the attorney general about anything,' he added. However, Biden doubled down on his support for pressing charges against those who defy subpoenas from the House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6. 'I think that anyone who does not respond to that kind of question from the legitimate committee and the House of Representatives [and] the United States Senate should be held accountable,' he said." ~~~
~~~ Stephen Collinson of CNN: "Joe Biden, showing candor and good humor, on Thursday reminded America why it picked him as President in a dark hour of crisis. But, at a CNN town hall in Baltimore, he also showed his tendency to send his own White House into emergency damage control as he flipped set-in-stone policy off the cuff, and offered gaping openings for his Republican foes.... Overall, Biden appeared to do his stalled Washington agenda considerable good, and completed some handy repair work on a presidential image badly scarred by a wretched summer that dented his approval ratings.... Biden came across as humble, decent and humane -- in his element with the audience. His self-deprecation was in stark contrast to the constantly boastful persona and raging victim-complex of his predecessor and was one of the keys to why he beat Trump last year." ~~~
~~~ Myah Ward & Sam Stein of Politico: "President Joe Biden's CNN town hall on Thursday ... seemed crafted for an audience of two. Biden spent the first portion of the evening in Baltimore not only confirming the various concessions he is likely to make in order to pass his Build Back Better agenda. He also discussed in notable specifics the areas where he is finding disagreement with Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.)[.]... The remarks ... effectively placed the two senators at center stage. And they suggest that the White House is still having difficulty coming to final agreements on key items and might be eager to see Democratic voters intensify the pressure campaigns on them to get on board." ~~~
~~~ Burgess Everett & Marianne Levine of Politico: "Joe Manchin and Bernie Sanders tangled in a private Democratic meeting this week that helped set the stage for growing progress on President Joe Biden's agenda. As Democratic leadership gathered Monday..., Manchin (D-W.Va.) laid out what he could accept.... Universal pre-K was in, he said, but no tuition-free community college.... 'Bullshit,' Sanders said, according to a readout of the meeting.... Sanders said Manchin was telling the rest of the Democratic caucus to go 'F themselves' and bend to one senator's agenda. Manchin disputed that, recounting that he'd told Biden the president did not win West Virginia and his very presence in the Senate is remarkable. Shortly after that tussle, Manchin and Sanders met privately, posed for a photo together and publicly reconciled. They've met four times so far this week, each softening their rhetoric toward one another and speaking more hopefully of a deal even as they continue to spar behind the scenes." ~~~
~~~ Mariana Alfaro of the Washington Post: "Five veterans on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema's advisory council resigned, accusing the centrist Arizona Democrat of being 'one of the principal obstacles to progress' because she refuses to back key provisions of President Biden's agenda that 'support our veteran community and protect the very heart and soul of our nation.' In a letter, first reported by the New York Times, the veterans said they could no longer stand by Sinema as she continues to oppose portions of the president's multitrillion-dollar domestic policy agenda. They also criticized her opposition to abolishing the filibuster, a tool Republicans are using to block voting rights legislation. The veterans said Sinema is hanging her constituents 'out to dry' and accused her of 'answering to donors rather than your own people.'... The group also took issue with her lack of support for negotiations on reducing the cost of prescription medication, which they said contravenes her campaign promises.... Portions of the letter are being used in a new ad by the progressive veterans group Common Defense. The ad will air in Phoenix and Tucson and calls on Sinema to support Biden's economic agenda." ~~~
~~~ David Litt in a Guardian op-ed: "West Virginia's Joe Manchin, who raised more than $400,000 from the oil and gas industry while the [Build Back Better] bill was being negotiated, is now poised to gut [President] Biden's clean-energy plan. Arizona's Kyrsten Sinema spent the summer and fall collecting checks from corporate groups and Trump donors who oppose the Biden agenda, then helped cut the size of the reconciliation package by approximately half. Political horse-trading is nothing new.... But there's still something unseemly about the way this bill has been negotiated.... It's impossible to know for certain which provisions, if any, were cut because of wealthy campaign donors. But that's precisely the problem, and it goes far beyond one bill and two senators. Our campaign finance system -- one that has existed for barely more than a decade -- makes it nearly impossible to distinguish between politics-as-usual, influence peddling and outright bribery."
Rebecca Beitsch & Cristina Marcos of the Hill: "The House on Thursday voted to hold Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress after he defied a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee, a remarkable censure of the former Trump White House strategist that leaves the Department of Justice to weigh whether to pursue criminal charges. The vote fell almost entirely along party lines, 229-202. Nine Republicans voted with every Democrat in favor of the resolution: Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio), Jaime Herrera Beutler(Wash.), John Katko (N.Y.), Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), Nancy Mace (S.C.), Peter Meijer (Mich.) and Fred Upton (Mich.). All but two of those Republicans voted to impeach ... Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) The Guardian's story is here. ~~~
~~~ ** Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "... what was clear on Thursday was that nine months after the deadliest attack on the Capitol in two centuries, many Republicans in Congress remain bent on whitewashing, ignoring or even validating what took place as their party continues to embrace the lie of a stolen election.... [They] followed the lead of Mr. Trump, who in a statement before the vote derided the election he lost as a crime and praised the mob attack -- which injured 140 police officers and claimed several lives -- as a legitimate response. 'The insurrection took place on Nov. 3, Election Day,' Mr. Trump wrote. 'Jan. 6 was the protest!'... The question of what will happen to Mr. Bannon now goes to the Justice Department, where Attorney General Merrick B. Garland has declined to say whether he will move forward with charges." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Broadwater's report is as close as we'll ever get to a condemnation of the bulk of the Republican party in a straight news story running on the online front page of the paper. The editors seem to have escaped, at least for the moment, he-said/she-said "journalism." As for Bannon, he must be thrilled to find himself once again, more or less, "on the cover of the Rolling Stone." ~~~
~~~ Scott Wong of the Hill: "Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), tangled with two members of the Jan. 6 committee on the House floor Thursday, getting into an impromptu shouting match over Black Lives Matter and a wild conspiracy theory about space lasers starting California wildfires. Greene, a top Trump loyalist, crossed the aisle and approached Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) as voting began on a resolution holding a former adviser of former President Trump, Stephen Bannon, in contempt for defying panel subpoenas." MB: It appears Margie & Liz said some things that could inspire the House to discipline them for "disorderly behavior."
Annie Grayer & Zachary Cohen of CNN: "GOP Rep. Jim Banks lamented on the House floor that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi prevented him from serving on the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol on Thursday. And yet, Banks sent a letter to at least one government agency falsely claiming that he is ranking member of the committee in his signature. Fellow Republican Liz Cheney, who serves as vice chair of the committee, called Banks out for his actions on the House floor as the House began debate on the criminal contempt referral of Steve Bannon ... for evading a subpoena.... According to a letter provided to CNN, Banks wrote to the Department of the Interior on September 16 asking to be provided with any information the department turns over to the House committee.... Banks signed the letter as ranking member of the committee, while admitting that Pelosi blocked his appointment." Marie of Romania: And Donald Trump is the real president*.
Katie Benner of the New York Times: "Attorney General Merrick B. Garland sidestepped questions from Democrats in Congress on Thursday about whether the Justice Department would back their latest efforts in the investigation of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. He also batted away criticism from Republicans that he had politicized the department's response to threats of violence stemming from the debate over how racial issues are taught in schools. In his first oversight hearing as attorney general, Mr. Garland told the House Judiciary Committee that the special counsel appointed by the Trump administration to scrutinize the Russia investigation, John H. Durham, had his budget approved for another year, indicating that his work was ongoing. And Mr. Garland confirmed that the department's tax-related investigation of President Biden's son Hunter Biden was continuing.... Mr. Garland used his opening statement to walk lawmakers through the work done over the past several months to address what he considers the department's top priorities: upholding the rule of law, keeping the country safe and protecting civil rights."
Catie Edmondson & Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "The House Committee on Ethics on Thursday released four reports into separate violations of ethics rules by four congressmen, portraying what investigators suggested was a sweeping array of improper financial conduct. The allegations against three Republicans and one Democrat center on stock trades and the improper use of campaign funds, according to the Office of Congressional Ethics, which investigated the cases. Representative Mike Kelly, Republican of Pennsylvania, is under scrutiny over stock purchases by his wife that investigators say were affected by his actions as a member of Congress. Representative Tom Malinowski, Democrat of New Jersey, is facing allegations that he failed to properly disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock trades. Representative Alex X. Mooney, Republican of West Virginia, is accused of improperly using campaign funds for personal expenses, and Representative Jim Hagedorn, Republican of Minnesota, of improperly awarding contracts to companies owned by his aides' relatives. All four cases will continue to be reviewed by the House Ethics Committee, a bipartisan panel of lawmakers charged with enforcing the chamber's internal rules....
"In a particularly scathing report about Mr. Kelly and his wife, Victoria Kelly, investigators concluded that there was 'substantial reason to believe' that she had bought stock in a steel company with a plant in her husband's district 'based upon confidential information' that he had 'learned from his official job duties.'"
Michael Schmidt & Katie Benner of the New York Times: "The Justice Department has added two top prosecutors from Washington to the child sex trafficking investigation of Representative Matt Gaetz [R-Fla.], according to two people briefed on the matter, a sign of the complex and high-stakes nature of the inquiry into Mr. Gaetz.... The Washington prosecutors have joined a group of federal authorities in Florida who have been investigating accusations of sex trafficking, fraud and corruption by several people connected to Republican politics in Florida, including Mr. Gaetz. The authorities have been examining whether Mr. Gaetz violated a federal child sex trafficking law by providing goods or payments to a 17-year-old girl in exchange for sex." A Raw Story summary report is here. MB: This does look like another bad-hair day for Matt, but I have a feeling DOJ will decide not to prosecute him; I hope I'm wrong.
Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: "Recently ... GOP leaders have been cobbling together a new coalition, welcoming insurrectionists, white-nationalist tiki-torchers and people who think Bill Gates is trying to microchip them. The latest recruit to the Big Tent? Tax cheats.... [Democrats have initiated a financial transactions] reporting proposal [that] is estimated to bring in $200 billion to $250 billion in revenue over the next decade, according to Treasury. This is revenue that would be collected without having to raise a single tax rate, which you'd think Republicans would applaud. Instead, the GOP, backed by the bank lobby, has fought every version of the reporting policy tooth and nail. Just as they did with Obamacare 'death panels,' Republicans have megaphoned misinformation.... The GOP seeks to exploit the confusion of honest, rank-and-file taxpayers. Their income is already quite well reported to the IRS...."
Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "A Texas man charged in the Capitol riot was sentenced to 14 months of incarceration Thursday after pleading guilty to a felony count of making an interstate threat based on social media posts from his Washington hotel room on Jan. 6 and 7. Troy Smocks, 59, was the second person to be sentenced among the 15 felony defendants who have pleaded guilty to charges related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. Smocks, of Dallas, admitted posting a message on Parler as 'ColonelTPerez' the day after the riot that was viewed at least 54,000 times, stating: 'Prepare our weapons, and then go get'em. Lets hunt these cowards down like the Traitors that each of them are. This includes RINOS, Dems, and Tech Execs. We now have the green light.'"
David Enrich, et al., of the New York Times: "After decades of bankruptcies, loan defaults, business disputes and commercial failures -- not to mention a polarizing presidency that ended with a violent mob storming the Capitol -- Donald J. Trump was shunned by much of corporate America. Now, thanks to one of Wall Street's hottest fads, the former president has managed to sidestep that tarnished reputation and gain access to hundreds of millions of dollars to launch a social media company. Riding to his rescue: SPACs. Special purpose acquisition companies are the reverse of initial public offerings. Sometimes called blank-check companies, SPACs go public first and raise money from investors with the goal of finding a private company to merge with. Those investors have no clue about what that merger partner will turn out to be. Which led some of the prominent investors in a SPAC called Digital World Acquisition -- including the hedge funds D.E. Shaw and Saba Capital -- to the surprising realization that they were financially backing Mr. Trump's latest company. Mr. Trump's new company, Trump Media and Technology Group -- incorporated in Delaware in February with little fanfare, and with no revenue or tested business plan -- reached a deal to merge with Digital World on Wednesday." ~~~
~~~ A Pig Takes a Dump on Donald's "Media Powerhouse," Which Is, Apparently, a Perfect Metaphor. Drew Harwell of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump and his team declared Wednesday night that they would soon launch a 'media powerhouse' that would help them triumph in their long-running war against Big Tech. But within hours, pranksters found what appeared to be an unreleased test version and posted a picture of a defecating pig to the 'donaldjtrump' account.... The site, called Truth Social [MB: Hahahaha], has since been pulled offline, evidence that Trump is likely to face a daunting challenge in building an Internet business that can stand on its own.... The site's early hours revealed lax security, rehashed features and a flurry of bizarre design decisions. An open sign-up page allowed anyone to use the site shortly after it was revealed, sparking the creation of the 'donaldjtrump' account and the pig posting. A Washington Post reporter was able to register and post under the account name 'mikepence' without any stops in place. New sign-ups were blocked shortly after.... The site looks almost entirely like a Twitter clone.... The site's code shows it runs a mostly unmodified version of Mastodon, the free, open-source software ... that anyone can use to run a self-made social networking site.... Though the site portrays itself as a refuge for free speech uncensored by Big Tech, Trump's site will ban any content that would 'disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site,' the terms state." ~~~
~~~ Joseph Cox of Vice: "... Donald Trump's new social network "Truth Social" is seemingly a thinly disguised fork of popular social network codebase Mastodon [and is using the open software code without giving Mastodon credit.... In some instances, the Trump site accidentally uses Mastodon's own logo and contact info. The] terms [of Trump's site] say that 'all source code' of Truth Social is proprietary. That might run afoul of Mastodon's own license. '... Mastodon is free software, released under the AGPLv3 license, so anyone can use it -- provided they comply with the license. The main part of the license is making the source code and any modifications to it available to the public, [Mastodon's founder Eugen] Rochko told Motherboard." ~~~
~~~ Another Trump Product Destined to Fail. Jack Shafer of Politico in Politico Magazine: "There's nothing new about the comic grandiosity of TMTG's ambitions.... It only conforms with Trump's long-held belief that 'truthful hyperbole' is the key to selling real estate -- or any of the crap products (steaks, mattresses, water, men's wear, vodka, perfume, eyeglasses, coffee) Trump has hawked to resistant customers.... All those overpriced, shoddy namesake products failed in the marketplace because Trump didn't know how to compete with people who really understood those businesses. We can expect Truth Social and the other world-beater enterprises TMTG proposes to likewise be sucked into the void because Trump 1) has no clue about how to run media or tech properties and 2) lacks sufficient appeal."
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here. The New York Times' live Covid-19 updates for Friday are here.
Apoorva Mandavilli of the New York Times: "In a sweeping victory for the Biden administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday endorsed booster shots of the Moderna and the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccines for tens of millions of Americans. The decision follows an agency endorsement last month of booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and opens the door for many Americans to seek out a booster shot as early as Friday.... [The] approval [by Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, director of the C.D.C.,] brings the country closer to fulfilling President Biden's promise in August to offer boosters to all adults. The pandemic is now retreating in most parts of the country, but there are still about 75,000 new cases every day, and about 1,500 Covid deaths." The Washington Post story is free to nonsubscribers. Politico's story is here.
Beyond the Beltway
Texas. This Should Be Fair & Impartial. David Goodman of the New York Times: "Amid pressure from ... Donald J. Trump to support a broad review of the 2020 election in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday appointed as secretary of state a lawyer who briefly joined Mr. Trump's challenge to the 2020 results in Pennsylvania. The new secretary of state, John Scott, will oversee Texas elections at a time when a new law imposing further restrictions on voting and a Republican redistricting plan have raised alarm among voting rights advocates that the state's growing nonwhite population would not be fairly represented. More immediately, Mr. Scott, a Fort Worth lawyer who worked for Mr. Abbott when he was the state's attorney general, will take charge of a limited review of the 2020 election results that Mr. Abbott, a Republican, ordered last month for four of the most populous counties in Texas."
Utah. Laura Meckler of the Washington Post: "A federal investigation into a Utah school district found 'serious and widespread racial harassment' of Black and Asian American students and a persistent failure by school officials to respond, the Justice Department said Thursday. The investigation concluded that the Davis school district in Farmington, Utah, failed to address pervasive and racist harassment of students of color, disciplined Black students more harshly than White students for comparable behavior, and denied Black students' request to form student groups while allowing other students to do so.... Sometimes the offensive behavior came from district staff, the investigation found, with staff members ridiculing students in front of their peers, endorsing pejorative stereotypes of people of color in class and retaliating against students of color for reporting harassment. Under a settlement with the Justice Department, the district agreed to take several steps to better identify and respond to discrimination complaints." MB: The article cites some disgusting particulars.
Way Beyond
Haiti. Widmore Merancourt & Amanda Coletta of the Washington Post: "The head of the gang that kidnapped 17 members of an Ohio-based Christian missionary group threatened to kill them if his demands aren't met, according to a video that circulated online Thursday, as the chief of police in this beleaguered Caribbean nation resigned. Wilson Joseph, head of 400 Mawozo, a street gang notorious for violent mass abductions, did not say what his demands were or provide a deadline in the video that circulated on social media. Liszt Quitel, Haiti's justice minister, told The Washington Post this week that the gang was seeking a ransom of $1 million per person in exchange for their release."
Russia. A Virtual Iron Curtain. Adam Satariano & Paul Mozur of the New York Times: "Russia's boldest moves to censor the internet began in the most mundane of ways -- with a series of bureaucratic emails and forms. The messages, sent by Russia's powerful internet regulator, demanded technical details -- like traffic numbers, equipment specifications and connection speeds -- from companies that provide internet and telecommunications services across the country. Then the black boxes arrived. The telecom companies had no choice but to step aside as government-approved technicians installed the equipment alongside their own computer systems and servers. Sometimes caged behind lock and key, the new gear linked back to a command center in Moscow, giving authorities startling new powers to block, filter and slow down websites that they did not want the Russian public to see. The process, underway since 2019, represents the start of perhaps the world's most ambitious digital censorship effort outside of China."
U.K. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "Queen Elizabeth II entered the hospital on Wednesday afternoon for tests and was discharged on Thursday, a day after Buckingham Palace announced she would cancel a visit to Northern Ireland on the advice of her doctors.... People with ties to the palace said the decision to cancel the Northern Ireland trip was prompted by concerns that the queen, 95, was exhausted after a hectic series of public events, including a reception for business people, including Bill Gates, at Windsor Castle on Tuesday evening." MB: Yeah, I imagine anyone would find it rather exhausting to have to listen to Bill Gates.
News Ledes
New York Times: "Earl Old Person, the chief of the Blackfeet Nation who for nearly 70 years pushed for its economic development and self-sufficiency and against what he saw as an unreliable, at times untrustworthy federal government, died on Oct. 13 in Browning, Mont. He was 92."
CNN: "Convicted killer Robert Durst, who was the subject of the HBO docuseries 'The Jinx,' has been charged with the murder of his former wife, according to the Westchester District Attorney's office.... Kathleen McCormack Durst was last seen in 1982 and declared legally dead in 2017. Her body has not been found. [Robert] Durst is battling Covid-19."
New York Times: Actor-producer "Alec Baldwin discharged a prop firearm on the set of a Western he was making in New Mexico on Thursday, killing the film's director of photography and wounding the movie's director, the authorities said. The cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, 42, was killed, and the director, Joel Souza, 48, was injured around 1:50 p.m. on the set of 'Rust,' which is being filmed in Santa Fe County, said Juan Rios, a spokesman for the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office. The circumstances of the shooting are under investigation. Mr. Rios said the shooting at Bonanza Creek Ranch happened in the middle of a scene that was either being rehearsed or filmed. He said the Sheriff's Office was interviewing people on the set to determine how the two had been shot." An AP report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: This is a scenario that appears in many a TV murder mystery, but one never expects it to happen in real life-and-death, although -- as the NYT report points out -- it has happened before. ~~~
~~~ Update. Gawker: "A partial crew walkout reportedly preceded the deadly incident in which Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza while they were on the set of the film Rust in New Mexico on Thursday. The Los Angeles Times reports that earlier that day, half a dozen camera operators and assistants walked off the set to protest working conditions, highlighting issues with long hours and pay. The crew also said that they had been promised hotel rooms in nearby Santa Fe, but after filming began, they were told they had to stay in Albuquerque instead, which would require an additional two hours' round trip every day.... There were also concerns about safety on the set, with one source telling the Times that there had already been multiple misfires with the prop gun. Hutchins, the director of photography who was killed, had allegedly been advocating for safer conditions for her team."
Brian Laundrie's Remain Identified. New York Times: "Human remains found in a Florida wildlife area on Wednesday belonged to a man who had been declared a 'person of interest' in the murder of his fiancée, the F.B.I. said on Thursday, ending a search that had drawn intense national interest. A comparison of dental records confirmed that the remains, which were found in the Carlton Reserve and the adjoining Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park in Sarasota County, were those of Brian Laundrie, the F.B.I. said. The discovery of the remains came seven weeks after Mr. Laundrie returned home from a monthslong van trip without his fiancée, Gabrielle Petito, and about four weeks after she was found dead in a national forest in Wyoming." An NBC News story is here.
CNN: "The mystery behind the deaths of a couple, their baby daughter and the family dog, who were found on a hiking trail near Yosemite National Park in August, has come to an end. The cause of death for Jonathan Gerrish, Ellen Chung and their 1-year-old daughter, Miju, was hyperthermia with possible dehydration due to environmental exposure, Mariposa County Sheriff Jeremy Briese said at a news conference Thursday. 'This is a very tragic incident, tragic situation, and has been very unique from the onset,' Briese said. The cause of death for the family dog, Oski, is still undetermined, according to the sheriff, but they also suspect heat-related issues."
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Have already forgotten one of the two annoyances I encountered in the entries above, so better get this one down before it's gone too.
After all, what's the point of getting annoyed at the stupidity one encounters if one can't bask for a while in the feeling of superiority it brings?
Here it is: ... "In a sweeping victory for the Biden administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday endorsed booster shots of..."
How in hell is that decision a victory for an administration?
A victory for "all politics is a game" approach to reporting perhaps, but I'd think that any real victory here belonged to the people whose lives would be saved by getting "boosted."
This thoughtless vein of reporting is as dumb in its own way as he said-she said nonsense, and as destructive of sanity and sense.
If I'm lucky (and the rest of you are not?), I may remember the other morning irritation...
Perhaps, Ken, this piece from Krugman might cheer you up:
How Not to Let Corporations Kill Biden's Agenda:
He's all for borrowing–-says "we can deplore the corporate influence that may block some justified tax increases but borrowing to invest for the future isn't a bad thing in itself–--Hey–- businesses do it all the time, so Democrats should go for it."
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/opinion/corporate-taxes-deficit-spending.html<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/opinion/corporate-taxes-deficit-
I might add that he takes Sinema to the woodshed for a reality check!
On another bright side––always hard to find these days–- reportage of hundreds of people "taking it to the streets" making their needs visible and vocal on many issues is exactly what needs to be done. Someone once said that real change has to come from the people and cited the major changes in this country because of it.
The bizarre story of Alec Baldwin killing his director and injuring another is horrible! Prop guns are loaded? Poor Alec–– how does one deal with this.
Oh, yeah. Running my eyes over the entries again did the trick.
These SPACs were new to me. New in the sense that I didn't know such financial arrangements existed.
But not new in another, more basic, sense: SPACs are one more instance of too much money at the top of the economic pyramid controlling more than half of the world's resources sloshing around willy-nilly, entirely untethered from any individual human's moral constraints.
The days when financial institutions asked for your money so it could go to work for you are long past.
In the new capitalism a great portion of all that wealth doesn't work for you, and certainly not for any social benefit.
Because so much of it in the system is an entirely independent force, it works only for itself, social, political and environmental consequences be damned.
@Ken Winkes: I think the "victory" is "sweeping" in that the CDC has "swept" the field of previously-approved vaccines -- Pfizer, Moderna & J&J -- that now can be used as boosters. And it's a "victory" because Loose-Lipped Joe had previously promised it would happen. I guess that means it would have been a "sweeping defeat" if the CDC had said no to all three boosters.
@KenWinkes: But what if you were a greedy capitalist who disliked Donald Trump only to find out that you had invested a bundle in his stupid, bound-to-fail "tech" (ha ha) company? You'd be a sad, greedy capitalist, no?
I'm sure, BTW, that I have investments in things I disapprove of. It's the reason I don't look. But I cash the checks (figuratively, though not literally -- so I don't have to look).
@Marie,
Yeah, I'm a bit of an economic hypocrite, too. I justify it by telling myself that as a participant in financial arrangements, banking, the stock market, etc., I'm necessarily ensnared in a fundamentally corrupt system....but I also know that doesn't entirely relieve me of responsibility. I just ignore some of it.
I think at least part of the current problem is size. The system is so big, so far-flung and the connections so distant, the economic arrangements we have created are a kind of Frankenstein monster, stumbling off on its own that we have loosed on ourselves and the world.
The imminent (guaranteed) and humiliating demise of Sloppy Joe’s Antisocial Liars site, or whatever stupid name it was given, is one of those events that, were one to find it on a betting site, would be posted as a straight money line with something like $100,000 to win 10 cents, a lead pipe cinch loser.
And as funny as it is, it’s a microcosm of Trump’s time in office. Steal other people’s ideas, hire clowns and incompetent jamokes, never think it through, go to press, as it were, without double checking anything, claim one thing (free speech) but do the opposite (censor whatever you don’t like), and do it all with someone else’s money. Then, when the thing augers in, close up shop, pretend it never happened, or declare it the greatest idea in the world that would have been wonderful except, blah, blah, blah, someone else’s fault.
This is his entire (and entirely too long) four years in the White House, a fucking shambles.
New name for the DiJiT media empire:
TrumpFace: ( | )
Digby points out in a post about Trump's new social media site that even if it goes belly up Trump could be walking away with a huge chunk of cash. He has millions of dollars in bills coming due in the next couple years. And when he runs in 2024 he "will have his own propaganda machine [if it can survive Trump management], run by him without even the semi-useless mediation of the current right wing media.
However, it doesn’t matter if the site ever sticks its head above the waste pool again. Because that’s not the point. Donald Trump is potentially walking about with $340 million, even if it fails completely. That’s the point."
Lev Parnas has been convicted. Are we on the right track yet? Optimism, people–-little by little?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/nyregion/lev-parnas-guilty-giuiliani.html