The Commentariat -- July 8, 2021

Afternoon Update:

John Wagner, et al., of the Washington Post: “President Biden said Thursday that the country had accomplished its objectives in Afghanistan of killing Osama bin Laden and undercutting al-Qaeda’s ability to launch more attacks on the United States as he defended his decision to bring a 20-year war to an end. Biden, during a White House speech, was defiant in the face of gains by the Taliban since he announced a planned U.S. troop withdrawal in April and said the Afghan people needed to dictate their own future. 'We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build,' Biden said.... 'I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome.'... Biden also pledged to evacuate thousands of interpreters who served alongside troops in Afghanistan, as well as their families.” ~~~

Widlore Merancourt, et al., of the Washington Post: "A U.S. citizen of Haitian descent has been arrested in connection with the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, a senior official here said Thursday. James Solages, a U.S. citizen, is among the six people arrested so far in Moïse’s killing, according to Mathias Pierre, Haiti’s minister of elections and inter-party relations. Pierre told The Washington Post that at least one other detainee is also believed to be a Haitian American. Four other suspects have been killed, authorities have said."

Jeff Stein, et al., of the Washington Post: “Congressional Democrats and Republicans have agreed to increase funding for the Internal Revenue Service so that the agency can bring in more tax revenue, hoping the money can help pay down some of the infrastructure package’s expected price tag. The early contours of the infrastructure blueprint have won the White House’s support, but the IRS provision in particular is drawing opposition from well-funded conservative groups, which are strongly opposed to expanding the reach of a tax-collection agency that they long have alleged is politically motivated.... They are preparing a letter that warns Republicans should not negotiate with the White House unless they agree to 'no additional funding for the Internal Revenue Service.'”

Jan Hoffman of the New York Times: "Fifteen states have reached an agreement with Purdue Pharma, the maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin, that would pave the way toward a $4.5 billion settlement of thousands of opioid cases. The states decided late Wednesday to drop their opposition to Purdue’s bankruptcy reorganization plan, in exchange for a release of millions of documents and an additional $50 million from members of the Sackler family, the company’s owners. The agreement was contained in a late-night filing by a mediator in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y. The settlement extracts concessions that will be added to a comprehensive proposal now being voted upon by more than 3,000 plaintiffs, including cities, counties, tribes and states, who sought to hold Purdue and its owners responsible for their role in the opioid epidemic. More than 500,000 Americans have died from overdoses of prescription and illegal opioids."

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here.

Ben Dooley of the New York Times: "Olympic organizers said on Thursday that they would bar spectators from most events at the Games scheduled to open in two weeks, a decision that followed the declaration of a new state of emergency in Tokyo in response to a sudden spike in coronavirus cases. Officials have long insisted that they can hold the Tokyo Games safely amid a pandemic. Last month, they announced that they would allow domestic spectators at the events despite public fears that the Games could become a petri dish for new variants of the virus."

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Cleve Wootson of the Washington Post: "President Biden said Wednesday that his focus remains on his administration’s expansive efforts to invest in programs that touch many facets of American life, not just the bipartisan infrastructure agreement that has spent weeks in the spotlight. Biden toured McHenry County College [in Crystal Lake, Illinois], which has a workforce development plan and on-site child-care facility, two programs that exemplify cornerstones of his American Families Plan.... In the opening minutes of his remarks at the community college, which is a 90-minute drive northwest of Chicago, Biden lauded the work of the legislative group that had forged a framework for a compromise on infrastructure. But the president spent the bulk of the half-hour speech stressing that much more needs to be done."

David Sanger & Nicole Perlroth of the New York Times: “President Biden emerged from a Situation Room meeting with his top cybersecurity advisers on Wednesday to declare that he 'will deliver' a response to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for the wave of ransomware attacks hitting American companies, after hearing a series of options about how he could disrupt the extortion efforts. Mr. Biden’s vague statement, delivered as he was departing for a trip, left it unclear whether he was planning another verbal warning to Mr. Putin — similar to the one he issued three weeks ago during a one-on-one summit in Geneva — or would move ahead with more aggressive options to dismantle the infrastructure used by Russian-language criminal groups.” The AP's story is here.

Libby Cathey of ABC News: "President Joe Biden taunted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday for having acknowledged his home state of Kentucky will receive money from the Biden administration-backed American Rescue Plan -- despite McConnell not having voted for it.... ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Cecilia Vega asked the president about remarks McConnell made Tuesday on his infrastructure packages.... 'Mitch McConnell loves our programs,' the president said with a smile.... 'Have you seen what Mitch McConnell said? He told me he wasn't going to get a single vote in order to allow me to get, with the help of everybody here, that $1.9 trillion ... program for economic growth,' he said. 'Look it up, man. He's bragging about it in Kentucky. It's a great thing for Kentucky, it's getting $4 billion to help poor -- it's amazing,' Biden added, mimicking McConnell and gesturing widely. In fact, McConnell at an event on Tuesday in his home state did talk about the American Rescue Plan. 'So you're gonna get a lot more money. I didn't vote for it...," he said. 'My advice to members of the legislatures and other public officials is spend it wisely, because hopefully this windfall doesn't come around again.'"

Neil Irwin of the New York Times: “This week, the White House is planning to release an executive order focused on competition policy. People familiar with the order say one section has several provisions aimed at increasing competition in the labor market. The order will encourage the Federal Trade Commission to ban or limit noncompete agreements, which employers have increasingly used in recent years to try to hamper workers’ ability to quit for a better job. It encourages the F.T.C. to ban 'unnecessary' occupational licensing restrictions, which can make finding new work harder, especially across state lines. And it encourages the F.T.C. and Justice Department to further restrict the ability of employers to share information on worker pay in ways that might amount to collusion. More broadly, the executive order encourages antitrust regulators to consider how mergers might contribute to so-called monopsony — conditions in which workers have few choices of where to work and therefore lack leverage to negotiate higher wages or better benefits.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Lara Seligman of Politico: "The U.S. military's withdrawal from Afghanistan is essentially complete, despite President Joe Biden's comments last week that American troops will leave by late August, according to two U.S. officials.... The U.S. currently has roughly 600 troops in Afghanistan, most of whom are Marine Corps and Army personnel providing security at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, the person said. The rest of the 600 will be based at the Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport, said another U.S. official with direct knowledge of the discussions. All of those troops are expected to remain after the pullout is officially complete, The Associated Press first reported last month. Besides the security troops, the only U.S. military personnel left to withdraw by the Sept. 11 deadline Biden set in May are Gen. Scott Miller, the commander of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, and a handful of staff, the two officials said."

Luz Lazo of the Washington Post: "Amtrak has signed a mammoth contract with manufacturing company Siemens Mobility for 83 new train sets, part of a $7.3 billion plan to upgrade its rolling stock over the next decade. Under the plan announced Wednesday, Amtrak will replace nearly 40 percent of its rail car fleet by 2031 and invest $2 billion in facilities upgrades systemwide. The oldest cars in Amtrak’s fleet would be taken off the rails after five decades of service. The deal marks one of the railroad’s biggest investments in its 50 years of operation and comes as the company is pursuing an ambitious $75 billion expansion to bring trains to dozens of cities and towns across the nation."

Mark Berman of the Washington Post: “The Air Force was mostly responsible for the 2017 massacre at a Sutherland Springs, Tex., church because it failed to submit records to federal law enforcement that could have prevented the attacker from buying guns, a judge determined this week. The gunman, former airman Devin Kelley, was convicted of domestic assault years before he opened fire during Sunday morning services, killing more than two dozen people. That military conviction would have prevented him from passing the background check for buying guns, but the Air Force never submitted his criminal record or fingerprints to the FBI despite having 'an obligation — and multiple opportunities' to do so, according to U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez.... Kelley joined the Air Force in 2010.... He was given a bad-conduct discharge in 2014 after being convicted of attacking his wife and stepson and sentenced to 12 months of confinement.... In breaking down liability, Rodriguez apportioned 60 percent to parts of the Air Force and the remaining 40 percent to the gunman.”

Jim Mustian of the AP: "The FBI is taking the unusual step of ordering a new look at the autopsy of Black motorist Ronald Greene to consider evidence not provided after his 2019 death, including graphic body camera video of Louisiana state troopers stunning, punching and dragging him after a high-speed chase. The re-examined autopsy is part of a federal civil rights investigation that has taken on new urgency in the nearly two months since The Associated Press obtained and published the video of Greene’s arrest. Federal prosecutors also met with his family last month and made clear they plan to present the case to a grand jury by the summer’s end."

Sarah Ellison of the Washington Post reports on Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, the whistleblower who leaked 2,000 federal government documents to BuzzFeed News journalist Jason Leopold. “Edwards — known to her friends as 'May' — is largely unknown and mostly forgotten. She is scheduled to report to the Bureau of Prisons in August [to serve a six-month sentence], and no celebrities are clamoring about the injustice on Twitter.”

Insurrectionist/Teacher Thought It Was All a Kids' Game. Jordan Williams of the Hill: "The FBI seized a 'fully constructed' Lego set of the U.S. Capitol from the home of an alleged insurrectionist. Prosecutors detailed the finding in a court document for Robert Morss, who was arrested on June 11 at his home in Glenshaw, Pa.... The Pittsburg Post-Gazette previously reported that Morss was a substitute social studies teacher.... He faces nine charges in connection to the riots, including assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers or employees; civil disorder; robbery of the personal property of the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding." (Also linked yesterday.) 

Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump on Wednesday declared that a police officer defending lawmakers and the Capitol on Jan. 6 had 'no reason' to shoot an individual involved in the attack and echoed calls from the far right for the officer to be publicly named.... In April, a U.S. Capitol Police officer was cleared of criminal wrongdoing for fatally shooting Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt as she attempted to breach a set of doors deep in the Capitol during the January siege.... Some conservatives have sought to turn Babbitt into a martyr.... Trump ... declared, without evidence, that he knows 'exactly' who the officer is.” ~~~

     ~~~ Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "New York Magazine columnist Jonathan Chait describes Trump's willingness to embrace Babbitt as a martyr as a 'chilling' development that he believes shows the former president is coming around to supporting the deadly riot waged by his followers to stop the certification of the 2020 election.... Although Trump at least tried to distance himself from the riot shortly after it occurred, Chait argues that he's been emboldened to embrace it because the Republican Party failed to expunge him from its ranks. 'By throwing himself behind this message, Trump is endorsing the most radical interpretation of his presidency,' he concludes. 'January 6 was not a minor misstep after a successful era, as fans like Mike Pence and Lindsey Graham now say. It was the heroic culmination of a righteous uprising.' Read the whole column here." (Firewalled.)

     ~~~ Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "Early in the morning of May 29, [as people around the nation protested the murder of George Floyd, Donald Trump tweeted,] 'Any difficulty and we will assume control..., but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.'... Concerned about the unrest [that night], the president’s protective detail moved him into a bunker inside the White House, a precautionary measure that Trump would later claim involved nothing more than a tour. (This was not true.)... '[N]obody came close to breaching the fence' outside the White House, Trump [said]. 'If they had they would have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen. That’s when people would have been really badly hurt, at least.'... This, at its heart, is Trump’s view of justice. Those on his side are exempt from accountability for their actions. Those on the other side, however, most be dealt with harshly — more harshly than the law allows.... This is precisely what the American legal system is supposed to uproot, this idea that culpability for a crime should be colored by political belief or political allegiance.”

Former Guy Sues Social Media.  Cat Zakrzewski & Rachel Lerman of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump on Wednesday filed class-action lawsuits targeting Facebook, Google and Twitter and their CEOs, escalating his long-running battle with the companies following their suspensions of his accounts. The suits were filed in the Southern District of Florida, and Trump said at a news conference in Bedminster, N.J., that they would call for the court to issue an order blocking the companies’ alleged censorship of the American people.... The suits allege that the companies violated Trump’s First Amendment rights in suspending his accounts and argues that Facebook, in particular, no longer should be considered a private company but 'a state actor' whose actions are constrained by First Amendment restrictions on government limitations on free speech. Traditionally, the First Amendment is thought to constrain only government actions, not those of private companies. It also called for the court to strike down Section 230, a decades-old Internet law that protects tech companies from lawsuits over content moderation decisions.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Zoe Tillman of BuzzFeed News: "... Donald Trump’s latest attempt at getting back on mainstream social media platforms came in the form of lawsuits on Wednesday against Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube — each featuring a series of claims that multiple courts, including the US Supreme Court, have rebuffed.... The US Supreme Court and federal appeals and district courts have repeatedly rejected efforts to classify social media platforms as state actors.... In [a 2019] opinion by Justice Brett Kavanaugh — one of Trump’s nominees — the court found that the First Amendment didn’t apply to the operator of public access channels that had suspended producers over content.... [Trump is] also claiming, without evidence, that the companies were coerced by Democrats in Congress who threatened to strip them of Section 230 immunity if they didn’t restrict conservative speech and that Section 230 itself represents a government endorsement of unconstitutional censorship." Et-cetera. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: There are a number of reasons Trump is bringing these frivolous suits now. One, he thinks anyone or any entity who rebuffs him or knocks him is "unfair." Two, the suits take the focus away from the real cases against his company & its CEO Allen Weisselberg. Three ~~~

     ~~~ Grifters Gotta Grift. Paul Waldman of the Washington Post: Donald Trump's lawsuit against the big social media companies is “puny and pathetic. Perhaps because of his company’s struggles, Trump is returning to his roots as a small-time grifter, desperate to draw attention to himself and willing to do just about anything to grab a few extra bucks.... His complaint against Facebook — presumably prepared by actual lawyers, hard as that may be to believe — claims that it 'rises beyond that of a private company to that of a state actor....' It goes on to use the word 'unconstitutional' again and again to describe Facebook’s decisions, despite the fact that only government action is or isn’t constitutional.... As soon as Trump announced the suit, fundraising texts were blasted out to his supporters.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Somehow, after all these years, I managed to miss Trump's piss-in-a-bottle scam. Waldman enlightens us: “For much of his career, there has been no scam too small for him to pull and no product too cheesy for him to hawk, whether it was steaks or ties or vodka or vitamins. That last one involved people sending in a urine test, after which they’d receive a package of vitamins supposedly tuned to their unique metabolism. You can guess how it ended.” (Worth clicking on the link here to the STAT article, too.)

We're All the Big Grifter's Marks. David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., charged the Secret Service nearly $10,200 for guest rooms used by his protective detail during Trump’s first month at the club this summer, newly released spending records show. The records — released by the Secret Service in response to a public-records request — show that the ex-president has continued a habit he began in first days of his presidency: charging rent to the agency that protects his life.... In all, Trump’s company charged the government more than $2.5 million during his presidency, according to a Post analysis of federal spending records."

Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: “The D.C. Court of Appeals has temporarily barred Rudolph W. Giuliani from practicing law, following a similar decision in New York. A committee of judges in New York determined last month that Giuliani was unfit to keep practicing law after he 'communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large' while representing ... Donald Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with their efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. A day after the ruling, disciplinary counsel in D.C. recommended suspending Giuliani’s license in D.C. until the New York case is resolved. On Wednesday the D.C. Court of Appeals agreed.” CNN's story is here.

Nicholas Kulish of the New York Times: “If over the next two years [Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates] can’t find a way to work together following their planned divorce, Mr. Gates will [take over their charitable foundation].... 'They have agreed that if after two years either one of them decides that they cannot continue to work together, Melinda will resign as co-chair and trustee,' [foundation CEO Mark] Suzman said in a message on Wednesday to employees of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. If that happened, he added, Ms. French Gates 'would receive personal resources from Bill for her philanthropic work' separate from the foundation’s endowment. The money at stake underscores the strange mix of public significance — in global health, poverty reduction and gender equality, among other important areas — and private affairs that attends any move made by the first couple of philanthropy, even after the announcement of their split. The foundation plans to add trustees outside their close circle, a step toward better governance that philanthropy experts had urged for years.”

What Climate Change? Henry Fountain of the New York Times: “Last month was the warmest June on record in North America, researchers said Wednesday, confirming the suspicions of millions of people who endured some of the hottest temperatures ever experienced on the continent. The Copernicus Climate Change Service, an agency supported by the European Union, said that average surface temperatures for June in North America were about one-quarter of a degree Fahrenheit (0.15 of a degree Celsius) higher than the average for June 2012, the previous record-holder.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Henry Fountain of the New York Times: "The extraordinary heat wave that scorched the Pacific Northwest last week would almost certainly not have occurred without global warming, an international team of climate researchers said Wednesday. Temperatures were so extreme — including readings of 116 degrees Fahrenheit in Portland, Ore., and a Canadian record of 121 in British Columbia — that the researchers had difficulty saying just how rare the heat wave was. But they estimated that in any given year there was only a 0.1 percent chance of such an intense heat wave occurring."

The Pandemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Beyond the Beltway

Arizona. Yvonne Sanchez of the Arizona Republic: “Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs on Wednesday asked Attorney General Mark Brnovich to open a criminal investigation into possible efforts by ... Donald Trump and his allies to influence Maricopa County supervisors as the ballots were still being tallied. Hobbs said some of the communications 'involve clear efforts to induce supervisors to refuse to comply with their duties,' which could violate Arizona law. She cited The Arizona Republic’s reporting last week on text messages and voicemails from the White House, Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward to the Republican members of the Board of Supervisors. 'The reporting also includes firsthand statements from the victims of this potential crime,' Hobbs said. She cited at least one potential felony charge under Arizona law.... Hobbs, a Democrat, is running for governor next year.... Brnovich, a Republican, is running for the U.S. Senate next year.... Late Wednesday, Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., called on U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to examine the possibility of 'an extremely serious crime' in what Gallago called a 'pressure campaign' exerted by the Trump campaign and party officials.”

Georgia. Pamela Kirkland & Sara Murray of CNN: "A federal court judge on Wednesday denied a motion to stop the implementation of parts of Georgia's new voting law, ahead of state legislature runoff elections next week. In the ruling, US District Judge J. P. Boulee declined to block parts of SB202, saying the timing of the request presents a problem with runoff elections already ongoing and would change rules for elections that are already underway. The runoffs for two Georgia House seats are set for July 13." Boulee is a Trump appointee.

Minnesota. Timothy Bella of the Washington Post: "Darnella Frazier, the teenager whose cellphone footage of Derek Chauvin murdering George Floyd last year sparked a racial reckoning in the United States, said Tuesday that her uncle was killed in a car crash involving a Minneapolis police vehicle that was pursuing a robbery suspect. Leneal Lamont Frazier, 40, was in his car when it was struck by Minneapolis police while they were in a high-speed chase with another vehicle on the north side of the city. The victim, who was later identified by Darnella Frazier as her uncle, was not being pursued by police, authorities said." (Also linked yesterday.)

New York. Dana Rubinstein, et al., of the New York Times: "Kathryn Garcia and Maya D. Wiley, who ran muscular campaigns to become the first female mayor of New York City, acknowledged on Wednesday that their bids had fallen short, conceding to Eric Adams in the Democratic primary." (Also linked yesterday.)

Way Beyond 

Haiti. The New York Times' live updates Thursday of development in Haiti's political crisis are here. ~~~

~~~ The New York Times is live-updating of developments in Haiti after the assassination of the country's president, Jovenel Moïse. (Also linked yesterday.) The New York Times' full story is here. ~~~

~~~ Evens Sanon & Danica Coto of the AP: "Haiti’s police chief says four suspected killers of President Jovenel Moïse have been fatally shot by police and two others arrested in an apparent hostage-taking situation. Léon Charles said late Wednesday that three police officers held hostage were freed. The killing of Moïse early Wednesday, and the wounding of his wife, was sure to bring more chaos to the unstable Caribbean country already beset by gang violence, soaring inflation and protests by opposition supporters who accused Moïse of increasing authoritarianism."

South Africa. John Eligon of the New York Times: "Jacob Zuma, the former president of South Africa, was taken into custody on Wednesday to begin serving a 15-month prison sentence, capping a stunning downfall for a once-lauded freedom fighter who battled the apartheid regime alongside Nelson Mandela. The Constitutional Court, the nation’s highest judicial body, ordered Mr. Zuma’s imprisonment last month after finding him guilty of contempt for failing to appear before a commission investigating corruption accusations that tainted his tenure as the nation’s leader from 2009 to 2018."

The Commentariat -- July 7, 2021

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

The New York Times is live-updating of developments in Haiti after the assassination of the country's president, Jovenel Moïse.

New York. Dana Rubinstein, et al., of the New York Times: "Kathryn Garcia and Maya D. Wiley, who ran muscular campaigns to become the first female mayor of New York City, acknowledged on Wednesday that their bids had fallen short, conceding to Eric Adams in the Democratic primary."

Insurrectionist/Teacher Thought It Was All a Kids' Game. Jordan Williams of the Hill: "The FBI seized a 'fully constructed' Lego set of the U.S. Capitol from the home of an alleged insurrectionist. Prosecutors detailed the finding in a court document for Robert Morss, who was arrested on June 11 at his home in Glenshaw, Pa.... The Pittsburg Post-Gazette previously reported that Morss was a substitute social studies teacher.... He faces nine charges in connection to the riots, including assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers or employees; civil disorder; robbery of the personal property of the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here.

Neil Irwin of the New York Times: "This week, the White House is planning to release an executive order focused on competition policy. People familiar with the order say one section has several provisions aimed at increasing competition in the labor market. The order will encourage the Federal Trade Commission to ban or limit noncompete agreements, which employers have increasingly used in recent years to try to hamper workers' ability to quit for a better job. It encourages the F.T.C. to ban 'unnecessary' occupational licensing restrictions, which can make finding new work harder, especially across state lines. And it encourages the F.T.C. and Justice Department to further restrict the ability of employers to share information on worker pay in ways that might amount to collusion. More broadly, the executive order encourages antitrust regulators to consider how mergers might contribute to so-called monopsony -- conditions in which workers have few choices of where to work an therefore lack leverage to negotiate higher wages or better benefits."

Timothy Bella of the Washington Post: "Darnella Frazier, the teenager whose cellphone footage of Derek Chauvin murdering George Floyd last year sparked a racial reckoning in the United States, said Tuesday that her uncle was killed in a car crash involving a Minneapolis police vehicle that was pursuing a robbery suspect. Leneal Lamont Frazier, 40, was in his car when it was struck by Minneapolis police while they were in a high-speed chase with another vehicle on the north side of the city. The victim, who was later identified by Darnella Frazier as her uncle, was not being pursued by police, authorities said."

What Climate Change? Henry Fountain of the New York Times: "Last month was the warmest June on record in North America, researchers said Wednesday, confirming the suspicions of millions of people who endured some of the hottest temperatures ever experienced on the continent. The Copernicus Climate Change Service, an agency supported by the European Union, said that average surface temperatures for June in North America were about one-quarter of a degree Fahrenheit (0.15 of a degree Celsius) higher than the average for June 2012, the previous record-holder."

Former Guy Sues Social Media. Cat Zakrzewski & Rachel Lerman of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump on Wednesday filed class-action lawsuits targeting Facebook, Google and Twitter and their CEOs, escalating his long-running battle with the companies following their suspensions of his accounts. The suits were filed in the Southern District of Florida, and Trump said at a news conference in Bedminster, N.J., that they would call for the court to issue an order blocking the companies' alleged censorship of the American people.... The suits allege that the companies violated Trump's First Amendment rights in suspending his accounts and argues that Facebook, in particular, no longer should be considered a private company but 'a state actor' whose actions are constrained by First Amendment restrictions on government limitations on free speech. Traditionally, the First Amendment is thought to constrain only government actions, not those of private companies. It also called for the court to strike down Section 230, a decades-old Internet law that protects tech companies from lawsuits over content moderation decisions."

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Kelly Hooper of Politico: "President Joe Biden on Tuesday encouraged Americans to stand up to the 'lies' that led to the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and called for a bipartisan effort to investigate what happened on Jan. 6." ~~~

~~~ President Joe Biden in a statement "on the Six-Month Anniversary of the January 6th Insurrection on the Capitol. Not even during the Civil War did insurrectionists breach our Capitol, the citadel of our democracy. But six months ago today, insurrectionists did. They launched a violent and deadly assault on the people's house, on the people's representatives, and on the Capitol police sworn to protect them, as our duly elected Congress carried out the sacred ritual of our republic and certified the Electoral College vote.... It posed an existential crisis and a test of whether our democracy could survive -- a sad reminder that there is nothing guaranteed about our democracy."

DOJ Press Release: "Attorney General Merrick B. Garland [Tuesday] afternoon met with U.S. Capitol Police officers who defended the Capitol on January 6^th, and with Department of Justice employees who have worked tirelessly to hold accountable those who attacked the Capitol six months ago today."

About That $10BB Contract Trump Mucked Up. Kate Conger & David Sanger of the New York Times: "The Defense Department said on Tuesday that it would not go forward with a lucrative cloud-computing contract that had become the subject of a contentious legal battle amid claims of interference by the Trump administration. The Pentagon had warned Congress in January that it might walk away from the contract if a federal court agreed to consider whether ... Donald J. Trump interfered in a process that awarded the $10 billion contract to Microsoft over its tech rival Amazon, saying that the question would result in lengthy litigation and untenable delays. The Defense Department said in a news release on Tuesday that the contract for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, known as JEDI, 'no longer meets its needs,' but it said it would solicit bids from Amazon and Microsoft on future cloud-computing contracts." The AP's story is here.

It's Okay for an Elected Federal Official to Incite an Insurrection. Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) has asked to be dismissed from a federal lawsuit alleging that he incited the Jan. 6 mob assault on the U.S. Capitol, claiming that he can't be held liable because he was acting as a federal employee while challenging the 2020 election results in a fiery speech just before the riot began. Brooks said in a motion Friday that he should be dropped as a defendant or represented by the Justice Department in the case, filed March 5 by Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.).... U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington on Monday directed the Justice Department and Swalwell to respond to Brooks's claims.... In his filing Friday, Brooks invoked a 1988 law that protects federal employees from personal liability while acting within the scope of their office or employment."

Help! FBI Press Release: "The FBI's Washington Field Office has released 11 new videos of suspects in violent assaults on federal officers during the riots at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and is seeking the public's help to identify them. The 11 new videos depict suspects seen forcefully attacking law enforcement officers. Investigating the violent assaults on law enforcement officers committed during the January 6 attack on the Capitol has been a priority for the FBI. With the assistance of hundreds of thousands of tips from the American people, the FBI has arrested more than 500 individuals who took part in the Capitol riots. Of those, more than 100 were arrested for assaulting law enforcement officers. However, some of the most violent offenders have yet to be identified, including the 11 individuals seen assaulting officers in the video footage we are releasing today." Includes videos.

Rachel Weiner & Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "After storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, a Northern Virginia man began forming his own militia-like group in the D.C. suburbs and building up a supply of explosives under the guise of a Bible study group, according to federal prosecutors. Fi Duong, 27, appeared in court Friday and was released to home confinement pending trial, over the objections of prosecutors who sought stricter terms. According to the court record, at the time of his arrest he had several guns, including an AK-47, and the material to make 50 molotov cocktails. Details of the case -- one of the first if not the first in which the government publicly disclosed it had someone undercover to continue monitoring a Jan. 6 defendant -- were made public Tuesday."

Another Bad Hair Day for Matt. Matt Dixon of Politico: "A key figure in the ongoing federal sex-crime investigation into Rep. Matt Gaetz is seeking to delay his sentencing as he continues to cooperate with prosecutors. Joel Greenberg, a former Seminole County tax collector who in May pleaded guilty to sex trafficking and corruption-related charges, requested in a motion filed Tuesday a delay in his sentencing, which is scheduled for August 19. Prosecutors are not opposing the motion, court records show."

Stupidest Senator News. Em Steck, et al., of CNN: "Sen. Ron Johnson insisted again last week that he is not a climate change denier, but CNN's KFile found video of him from just weeks earlier telling a Republican group that it is 'bullsh*t.' 'I don't know about you guys, but I think climate change is -- as Lord Monckton said -- bullsh*t,' the Wisconsin Republican said, without uttering the expletive but mouthing it, and referring to British conservative climate change denier Lord Christopher Monckton. 'By the way, it is.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: My father taught us a repetitive poem, which I took to be an ethnic slur once I learned what ethnic slurs were. It's titled, "Yon Yonson," and to say it properly you have to use an offensively dimwitty fake Swedish accent. In its more appropriate iteration -- with only one letter changed -- it would go like this: "My name is Ron Yonson, I live in Wisconsin. I work in a lumber yard there. The people I meet when I walk down the street, They say 'What's your name?' And I say: My name is Ron Yonson ... (repeated again and again)."

Inexcusable Habits Die Hard. Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Tuesday used a Nazi-era comparison in opposing the Biden administration's push to encourage all Americans to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, calling the individuals leading those efforts 'medical brown shirts.' Members of the paramilitary organization that helped Hitler and the Nazi Party rise to power were known as 'brownshirts.' Greene's remarks, made in a tweet, came weeks after she visited the Holocaust Museum and apologized for previously comparing coronavirus face-mask policies to the Nazi practice of labeling Jews with Star of David badges." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The odd thing is that Margie knows Nazis are bad, but she doesn't seem to recognize that her own supporters, like the Three Percenters, are the U.S. groups that most closely resemble (and try to emulate) the brownshirts, or that urging people to save their own lives by getting vaccinated is not even remotely akin to using force to put down opposing political groups. Now, there is one guy who does not acknowledge that Nazis are bad ~~~

~~~ Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "On a visit to Europe to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the first world war, Donald Trump insisted to his then chief of staff, John Kelly: 'Well, Hitler did a lot of good things.' The remark from the former US president on the 2018 trip, which reportedly 'stunned' Kelly, a retired US Marine Corps general, is reported in a new book by Michael Bender of the Wall Street Journal.... Bender reports that Trump made the remark during an impromptu history lesson in which Kelly 'reminded the president which countries were on which side during the conflict' and 'connected the dots from the first world war to the second world war and all of Hitler's atrocities'.... Bender says unnamed sources reported that Kelly 'told the president that he was wrong, but Trump was undeterred', emphasizing German economic recovery under Hitler during the 1930s." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I guess I'm not as "stunned" as Kelly was. First, Trump is a famous ignoramus. Second, Donald is Fred Trump's son, and I'll bet Fred had a high regard for Hitler. A lot of Germans & German-Americans did, even after WWII & the Holocaust. Trump, like some of his followers, is a neo-Nazi.

The Company He Keeps. David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "A friend and golfing partner of ... Donald Trump -- who gained notoriety for using that friendship to lobby Trump's administration -- was charged with indecent assault last week in Pennsylvania on allegations he groped one of his dental patients, according to court documents. Albert Hazzouri Jr., a 65-year-old dentist from Scranton, Pa., is best known for a 2017 note he wrote Trump, using stationery from Trump's own Mar-a-Lago Club, to push a proposal for an oversight committee on dental spending. The note, which addressed Trump as 'Dear King,' came to symbolize the way that Trump blended business with government, giving his customers and friends an audience to lobby for their private causes. In charging documents filed last week, police said Hazzouri had groped a female patient after a dental procedure in May."

Nicole Perlroth & David Sanger of the New York Times: "Russian hackers are accused of breaching a contractor for the Republican National Committee last week, around the same time that Russian cybercriminals launched the single largest global ransomware attack on record, incidents that are testing the red lines set by President Biden during his high-stakes summit with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia last month.... Early indications were that the culprit [in the R.N.C. hack] was Russia's S.V.R. intelligence agency, according to investigators in the case."

White Girl Out. Ben Strauss of the Washington Post: "ESPN announced Tuesday that Rachel Nichols [White girl] will not be part of the network's NBA Finals coverage as a sideline reporter. The announcement came two days after the New York Times published an audio recording of Nichols making disparaging comments about colleague [Black sports commentator] Maria Taylor. Nichols was scheduled to be the sideline reporter for the Finals, which begin Tuesday night, but she will be replaced by NBA reporter Malika Andrews [Black sports reporter].

The Pandemic, Ctd.

Felicia Sonmez, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Biden outlined several strategies Tuesday to persuade more Americans to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, including 'door-to-door outreach' in targeted communities and stepped-up efforts to get vaccine to primary-care doctors and pediatricians who can encourage adolescents to get shots as they head back to school or get ready for fall sports. 'It's a year of hard-fought progress. We can't get complacent now. The best thing you can do to protect yourself and your family and the people you care about the most is get vaccinated,' Biden said in remarks at the White House complex on the federal government's coronavirus response, after falling shy of his self-imposed July 4 deadline for 70 percent of U.S. adults to have received at least one vaccination shot. White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Tuesday that by the end of the week, nearly 160 million people in the United States will be fully vaccinated." This is part of the Post's live updates of Biden's activities. ~~~

~~~ David Smith of the Guardian: "Joe Biden has warned that the Delta variant of the coronavirus now makes up half of cases in many areas of the US and pledged to deploy federal 'surge response teams' to help local officials stop the spread. The president spoke on Tuesday after narrowly missing his self-imposed target of 70% of American adults receiving at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine by Independence Day on 4 July. Although he noted that coronavirus cases and deaths are down 90% since January, Biden urged younger adults in particular to get vaccinated as the Delta variant, already raging across the world, threatens to become the dominant one in America. 'Our fight against this virus is not over,' he said in public remarks after a briefing by the White House Covid-19 response team."

Max Boot of the Washington Post: "The Biden administration, in cooperation with the states, has done a superb job of rolling out the vaccines.... The problem is that a significant percentage of the country refuses to get vaccinated. While young people and African Americans exhibit vaccine hesitancy, the most problematic group by far is Republicans. According to a new Post-ABC News poll, 86 percent of Democrats have gotten at least one vaccine shot, compared with only 45 percent of Republicans. Forty-seven percent of Republicans say they likely won't get vaccinated, compared with only 6 percent of Democrats. The states that have the lowest vaccination rates -- Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Wyoming -- are all Republican redoubts.... Republicans have fallen victim to a virulent strain of misinformation circulating in the right-wing echo chamber." Boot cites disinformation circulated by Reps. Marjorie Green, Tim Massey (Ky.) & Sen. Ron Johnson & Fox "News."

Beyond the Beltway

Maryland. Justin Moyer of the Washington Post: "A 76-year-old woman who was taken back into custody last month after not answering calls during a computer class ... was ordered released Tuesday. After serving 16 years in federal facilities for dealing heroin, Gwen Levi moved to Baltimore to live with her 94-year-old mother, build relationships with her sons and grandchildren, and volunteer at prisoner-advocacy organizations as she searched for a job. She was one of about 4,500 prisoners allowed to serve their sentences at home as the coronavirus swept through federal prisons, killing 240 prisoners and four Federal Bureau of Prisons staff members. Her release, however, was revoked after she attended a computer word-processing class in Baltimore on June 12 and didn't return calls from officials monitoring her.... Her case drew attention after reports on former inmates who might have to go back to prison when the pandemic ends."

New York. The New York Times is liveblogging New York City ranked-choice mayoral election results here: "Eric Adams had a lead of one percentage point over his nearest rival, Kathryn Garcia, in the race for the Democratic mayoral nomination in New York City, according to a new count on Tuesday that included tens of thousands of absentee ballots. With most absentee votes now slated to be accounted for, Mr. Adams led Ms. Garcia by 8,426 votes in the Democratic mayoral primary, the city's first mayoral contest to be determined by ranked-choice voting. Maya Wiley, who emerged late in the primary as a left-wing standard-bearer, ended up in third place in the tally released on Tuesday. She had come in second place in the initial count of in-person ballots cast on Primary Day and during the early vote period." ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Karen Matthews of the AP: "Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams has won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City after appealing to the political center and promising to strike the right balance between fighting crime and ending racial injustice in policing."

North Carolina. Lauren Lumpkin & Nick Anderson of the Washington Post: "Journalists Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ta-Nehisi Coates are joining Howard University's faculty, school officials announced Tuesday in a major recruiting victory for the private institution in the nation's capital. It was a simultaneous setback for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to lose Hannah-Jones after a long and remarkably contentious effort to recruit her. The surprising development came less than a week after trustees for UNC-Chapel Hill voted to award tenure to Hannah-Jones. Initially, the public university hired her as a professor without the job-protection status. But its board of trustees approved tenure for her on Wednesday, after faculty members and students at Chapel Hill protested that she had been mistreated." A Huffington Post story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

News Lede

The New York Times' live updates of developments in the Surfside, Florida, condominium collapse are here: "The elite crews searching the pulverized steel and smashed concrete that was the Champlain Towers South would shift their focus to recovery efforts, officials said on Wednesday, acknowledging after nearly two weeks that survivors would not be found."

The Commentariat -- July 6, 2021

Late Morning Update:

Lauren Lumpkin & Nick Anderson of the Washington Post: "Journalists Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ta-Nehisi Coates are joining Howard University's faculty, school officials announced Tuesday in a major recruiting victory for the private institution in the nation's capital. It was a simultaneous setback for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to lose Hannah-Jones after a long and remarkably contentious effort to recruit her. The surprising development came less than a week after trustees for UNC-Chapel Hill voted to award tenure to Hannah-Jones. Initially, the public university hired her as a professor without the job-protection status. But its board of trustees approved tenure for her on Wednesday, after faculty members and students at Chapel Hill protested that she had been mistreated." A Huffington Post story is here.

~~~~~~~~~~

Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "At this point..., we have enough data in hand to declare that the economy is booming. In fact, it's booming so strongly that Republicans have pivoted from claiming (falsely) that we're experiencing the worst job performance in decades to lauding the employment numbers and giving credit to ... Trump's 2017 tax cut.... The Republican determination to attribute everything good that happens to tax cuts is almost beyond parody.... We are having another morning in America, and [President] Biden deserves more credit for his good morning than [Ronald] Reagan ever did for his."

Kevin Sullivan & Mary Jordan of the Washington Post: "On Wednesday, the Carters will be married 75 years, the longest in presidential history. Jimmy, 96, and Rosalynn, 93, will mark the occasion in the town where they met nearly a century ago.... Three days later, family, friends and Carter administration officials will travel to Plains for an anniversary party in the local high school auditorium.... Jimmy is also the longest-living president in history."

News from the GQP:

Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: Paul "Gosar, a five-term Republican and dentist from Prescott, Ariz., emerged this year as a vociferous backer of the 'Stop the Steal' movement that falsely claimed that ... Donald J. Trump won the 2020 election and spearheaded the rally in Washington on Jan. 6 that led to the deadly Capitol riot. But Mr. Gosar's ties to racists like [Nick] Fuentes and America First, as well as similar far-right fringe organizations and activists, have been less scrutinized. A review of public comments and social media posts suggests that in Mr. Gosar, they have found an ally and advocate in Congress. His unapologetic association with them is perhaps the most vivid example of the Republican Party's growing acceptance of extremism, which has become apparent as more lawmakers espouse and amplify conspiracy theories and far-right ideologies that figure prominently in the belief systems of fringe groups.... Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida appeared at an event last year where security was handled by the Proud Boys, a far-right militia with more than a dozen members who have been charged in the Capitol riot. Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado has come under scrutiny for her ties to members of the Three Percenters, a radical militia group. And before she was elected to Congress, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia endorsed executing Democratic lawmakers, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This story is a big deal in that it's at least a temporary abandonment of both-siderism, the Times' go-to stance on national politics.

David Badash of the New Civil Rights Movement reports on a very strange speech about God & Jesus & all, which Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert (QR) made to celebrate Independence Day. ~~~

~~~ Here Badash reports on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's (QR-Georgia) Independence Day speech. One thing we find out is that apparently only white, straight, right-wing Christians pay taxes in the USA. MB: Does that mean I can stop paying taxes? And there's this: ~~~

~~~ Q "News" (I Guess). David Gilbert of Vice: "Two major QAnon influencers were given official press credentials to the latest Trump rally held in Sarasota, Florida over the weekend, signaling a new level of acceptance of the QAnon conspiracy theory by the former president and his team."

Rachel Lerman & Gerrit De Vynck of the Washington Post: "A hacking group that experts said was behind the sprawling ransomware attack that hit hours before the beginning of the July Fourth holiday weekend is demanding $70 million to unlock the thousands of businesses affected by the hack. REvil, the same Russian-language group that was behind the attack on meat processor JBS, posted the demand on a dark-Web site associated with the group. The group wants the funds in bitcoin, a popular cryptocurrency, and said if it receives the money it will publish a 'decryptor key,' or a computer code that will unlock the victims' files." The NBC News story is here.

Gregory Schneider of the Washington Post (July 1): "A.E. Dick Howard was a confident young college professor, only 34, when he got the assignment of a lifetime: Oversee the writing of a new constitution for Virginia. Hope was hard to come by that year -- 1968 -- with cities in upheaval over the assassinations of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. But Howard's task amounted to a stroke against the darkest forces of society. The document he helped create repudiated a Virginia constitution adopted in 1902 with the stated purpose of disenfranchising Black people, which it did with bureaucratic efficiency for decades. The new constitution went into effect on July 1, 1971, finally bringing the modern era to the state where American slavery originated. And so Thursday mark[ed] 50 years since African Americans had their basic rights recognized and safeguarded in Virginia."

The Pandemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here.

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. Michael LaForgia, et al., of the New York Times: "Florida's high-rise building regulations have long been among the strictest in the nation. But after parts of Champlain Towers South tumbled down on June 24, killing at least 24 people and leaving 121 unaccounted for, evidence has mounted that those rules have been enforced unevenly by local governments, and sometimes not at all. Miami-Dade County officials said last week that they were prioritizing reviews of 24 multistory buildings that either had failed major structural or electrical inspections required after 40 years or had not submitted the reports in the first place. But the county's own records show that 17 of those cases had been open for a year or more. Two cases were against properties owned by the county itself. The oldest case had sat unresolved since 2008." (Also linked yesterday.)

Texas. Jason Stanford, co-author of Forget the Alamo, in a Washington Post op-ed: "As The Post noted in its review of our book, we 'challenge the traditional view' of the Alamo saga, one popularized by Disney and John Wayne and cemented by politicians in the Texas school curriculum.... More than 20 states have introduced or passed legislation that attempts to prescribe how racial matters can be taught. In Texas last month, Abbott signed into law an act establishing a committee called the 1836 Project (get it?) to 'promote patriotic education.'... If Texans were tough enough to fight at the Alamo, they should be tough enough to talk about why." The WashPo's review of the book, by H.W. Brands. MB: The Party of Racists really is belligerent in its fear of even talking about racism.

News Ledes

Weather Channel: "Tropical Storm Elsa is tracking northward through the Gulf of Mexico and will bring heavy rain, strong winds gusts, storm surge and isolated tornadoes to Florida through Wednesday. Elsa will then spread some of its impacts up the Southeast and mid-Atlantic coasts into late week." ~~~

~~~ Weather Channel Update: "Elsa has regained hurricane strength and will scrape Florida's west coast, including parts of the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro, through early Wednesday with storm surge, high winds, flooding rain and isolated tornadoes."

The New York Times is liveblogging developments today in the Surfside, Florida, condominium collapse.