Posted: August 2, 2022 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: Afternoon Reads | Tags: Afghanistan, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Build Back Better, burn pits, China, Donald Trump, drone strikes, immigration, January 6 investigations, Joe Manchin, Nancy Pelosi, Taiwan, Trump family separations, veterans bill protests |
Good Afternoon!!
I’m very pleased to report that today’s top story isn’t about Trump or his Republican enablers. That’s a very good thing for me because I’ve reached peak Trump exhaustion once again. Today Nancy Pelosi leads the politics news.
Reuters: Pelosi arrives in Taiwan, voicing U.S. ‘solidarity’ as China fumes.
TAIPEI, Aug 2 (Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taiwan late on Tuesday on a trip she said was intended to express American solidarity with the Chinese-claimed island, the first such visit in 25 years and one that risks pushing relations between Washington and Beijing to a new low.
Pelosi and her delegation disembarked from a U.S. Air Force transport plan at Songshan Airport in downtown Taipei and were greeted by Taiwan’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu and Sandra Oudkirk, the top U.S. representative in Taiwan.
“Our congressional delegation’s visit to Taiwan honors America’s unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant democracy,” Pelosi said in a statement shortly after landing. “America’s solidarity with the 23 million people of Taiwan is more important today than ever, as the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy.” read more
China immediately condemned Pelosi’s visit, with the foreign ministry saying it seriously damages peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, “has a severe impact on the political foundation of China-U.S. relations, and seriously infringes upon China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” The ministry said it had lodged a strong protest with the United States.
Chinese warplanes buzzed the line dividing the Taiwan Strait on Tuesday before her arrival, and Chinese state media said People’s Liberation Army would hold exercises near Taiwan from Thursday through Sunday.
More info from CNN:
Pelosi and the congressional delegation that accompanied her said in a statement on Tuesday that the visit “honors America’s unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant democracy.”
“Our discussions with Taiwan leadership will focus on reaffirming our support for our partner and on promoting our shared interests, including advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” the statement said. “America’s solidarity with the 23 million people of Taiwan is more important today than ever, as the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy.”
Pelosi is traveling with House Foreign Affairs Chairman Gregory Meeks of New York, Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Mark Takano of California and Reps. Suzan DelBene of Washington state, Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois and Andy Kim of New Jersey.
The House speaker is expected to visit Taiwan’s presidential office and parliament on Wednesday morning (local time), a senior Taiwanese official told CNN. She will first visit the parliament before heading to the presidential office for a meeting with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, the official said….
The American Institute in Taiwan said Pelosi’s delegation will meet with senior Taiwanese leaders “to discuss US-Taiwan relations, peace and security, economic growth and trade, the Covid-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, human rights, democratic governance, and other significant issues of mutual interest,” the institute said in a statement.
Pelosi also wrote an op-ed explaining why she chose to go to Taiwan, despite criticism. You can read it at The Washington Post: Nancy Pelosi: Why I’m leading a congressional delegation to Taiwan.
Ayman al-Zawahiri
Yesterday the White House announced the death of the leader of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan: U.S. kills al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in drone strike in Kabul.
The United States has killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda and one of the world’s most-wanted terrorists, who, alongside the group’s founder, Osama bin Laden, oversaw the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Biden announced Monday evening.
Zawahiri was killed in a CIA drone strike in Kabul over the weekend, according to U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.
When U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan last August, Biden administration officials said they would retain capability for “over-the-horizon” attacks from elsewhere on terrorist forces inside Afghanistan. The attack against Zawahiri is the first known counterterrorism strike there since the withdrawal.
Speaking in a live television address from a balcony at the White House, Biden announced that days ago he had authorized a strike to kill Zawahiri. “Justice has been delivered, and this terrorist leader is no more,” Biden said.
The strike occurred at 9:48 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on the operation. A drone fired two Hellfire missiles at Zawahiri as he stepped onto the balcony of a safe house in Kabul, where he had been living with members of his family, the official said.
Read more at the WaPo.
At NBC News, Julia Ainsley and Jacob Soboroff report on a non-violent Biden success story: Biden administration task force reunites 400 migrant families separated under Trump.
The Biden administration has reunited 400 children with their parents after they were separated as migrants crossing the southern border under the Trump administration, said Michelle Brané, the executive director of the Family Reunification Task Force.
More than 5,000 families were separated under Trump’s 2018 “zero tolerance” policy and a 2017 pilot program and advocates estimate over 1,000 remain separated. Because the Trump administration did not keep records of which children were separated and where they were sent, the task force and lawyers working on behalf of separated families have had a difficult time identifying families to offer them the chance of reunification.
In the majority of recently reunited cases, Brané said, the parents were deported while the children remained in the U.S. Now, parents are given the opportunity to come to the U.S. on paid travel, bring other members of their family who are dependent on them, and live and work in the U.S. legally for three years.
Lawyers for the families have advocated for legal permanent status on behalf of separated families, but so far the Biden administration has not agreed to that provision.
Brané said the reunification also includes mental health services for families both before and after reunification. She said many of the families have suffered from profound mental health issues after their separation and counseling is often needed before they reunify.
“You don’t want to just throw kids into an environment with a parent they may not have seen for five years,” Brané said.
Click the link to read the rest.
Republicans are licking their wounds after the public reaction to their votes against health care for veterans exposed to burn pits. Politico: Senate GOP backtracks after veterans bill firestorm.
Senate Republicans are reversing course on a veterans health care bill, signaling they’ll now help it quickly move to President Joe Biden’s desk after weathering several days of intense criticism for delaying the legislation last week.
Republicans insist their decision to hold up the bill, which expands health care for veterans exposed to toxic substances while on active duty, was unrelated to the deal on party-line legislation that top Democrats struck last week. The GOP blocked the bill hours after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced an agreement on a health care, climate and tax package — angering Republicans who thought the Democrats-only plan would be much narrower.
Regardless of their reasoning, the GOP was quickly forced to play defense against both Democrats and veterans’ advocates who were caught off-guard by Republican delaying tactics after the party greenlit a nearly identical bill in June.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declined to respond to a question Monday about why the legislation was held up.
“It will pass this week,” he said.
Other Republicans in Senate leadership struck a similar tone. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told POLITICO he would “expect it to pass” and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), McConnell’s No. 2, echoed that at “some point this is going to pass and it will pass big.”
In another potential win for Democrats in Congress, Joe Manchin finally came through with something good. William Saletan at The Bulwark (link above):
Joe Manchin has rescued the Democratic agenda. After blocking President Biden’s Build Back Better plan for nearly a year—as well as subsequent, pared-down versions of the legislation—the West Virginia senator has reversed course. Last Thursday he endorsed a revised $400 billion package that focuses on health insurance subsidies, cutting the cost of prescription drugs, and funding new energy technologies to reduce carbon emissions.
With Manchin’s vote, the bill is likely to pass. But he isn’t just voting for it; he’s selling it. Over the weekend, he appeared on all five Sunday morning talk shows—a rare feat often referred to as a “full Ginsburg”—to make his case for the bill. It was an eye roll-worthy display of political spin. Here’s a summary of his talking points.
(Abridged–You’ll need to go to the Bulwark to read all the details.)
1. It’s not Build Back Better. It’s the Inflation Reduction Act.
The vast majority of the new bill comes from Biden’s BBB framework. Most Democrats liked BBB and would be happy to celebrate the passage of these elements of it. But Manchin, who represents a conservative state, doesn’t want to be associated with BBB. He doesn’t want to look like he’s saving the Democratic agenda. He wants to look like he’s killing it.
2. It’s not spending. It’s investment.
“I couldn’t get there with Build Back Better. It was $3.5 trillion of spending,” Manchin explained on CNN’s State of the Union. In contrast, he argued, the Inflation Reduction Act knocked “$3.5 trillion dollars of spending down to $400 billion of investment.” On Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, and This Week, he made the same pitch: BBB was a “spending bill,” but the IRA was an “investment bill.”
3. It doesn’t raise taxes. It closes loopholes.
On Fox News Sunday, Manchin insisted that his bill’s establishment of a 15 percent minimum tax for billion-dollar companies—up from zero percent—wasn’t really a tax increase. “It does not raise taxes,” he told Bret Baier. “All we did was close loopholes.” Thirty seconds later, Manchin repeated, “We did not raise taxes. We’ve closed loopholes. . . . I made sure there was no tax increases in this whatsoever.”
4. It’s not a green bill. It’s red, white, and blue.
In much of the United States, being “green” is poCpular. Restaurants, grocery stories, and retailers advertise it. But Manchin, who represents a coal state, seems to have decided that among his target audience, “green” is a dirty word. So he’s pointedly rejecting it.
“This is not a green deal. It’s not a Republican deal. It’s not a Democrat deal. It is a red, white, and blue deal,” Manchin declared on CNN. A few minutes later, he repeated: “It’s definitely not a green bill. This is a red, white, and blue bill.” On Fox, he delivered the same message: “It’s not a green bill. This is a red, white, and blue bill.
There are a few Trump investigation stories today.
CNN: Retired DC cop who testified before January 6 committee says Trump ‘adamantly’ wanted to go to Capitol.
A retired Washington, DC, police officer who was part of Donald Trump’s motorcade on January 6, 2021, told CNN’s Don Lemon on Monday night that the then-President was adamant about going to the US Capitol as the riot unfolded.
The comments by Mark Robinson, who has testified to the January 6 committee, further corroborate key details first revealed by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who spoke at length about Trump’s behaviorto the House select committee. Hutchinson said that she was told that Trump became “irate” when informed by security that he would not be going to the Capitol on January 6, because the situation was not secure.
Robinson was not physically with Trump on January 6. He was in the lead car of the motorcade and said that he learned Trump wanted to go to the Capitol through communications from the Secret Service.
“We’ve heard it several times while it was on the motorcade. I think during the speech, shortly thereafter, he had finished the speech, that the President was getting into the motorcade and he was upset. And he adamantly wanted to go to the Capitol,” Robinson told Lemon. “And even when we departed from the Ellipse it was repeated again. … It was a heated argument in the limo. And he wanted to definitely go to the Capitol.” [….]
“I think it would have probably encouraged more rioting. And (the rioters would have) felt supported. If the presidential motorcade came in support of them. So I think the insurrectionists probably would have felt as though they had the support of the President,” Robinson said.
More details at the CNN link.
Two more Trump investigation stories to check out:
Politico: Judge rejects Trump effort to toss lawsuits accusing him of Jan. 6 conspiracy.
The New York Times: Top Democrats, Alleging Cover-Up, Seek Testimony on Secret Service Texts.
I hope you all have a great Tuesday!
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Posted: July 28, 2022 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because |
Good Morning!!
Georg Scholz, German artist
There’s quite a mixed bag of news this morning. I’ll begin with the January 6 investigation updates, because that’s my personal obsession. Here’s the latest.
ABC News: Jan. 6 committee deepens probe into Trump Cabinet: Sources.
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is working to secure testimony from a growing number of officials in former President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who reportedly discussed the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment with then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, recently sat with committee investigators for a transcribed interview, the sources said.
ABC News previously reported that Pompeo is expected to speak with the committee in the coming days, though his interview is not officially scheduled.
Among the officials actively negotiating with the committee are the former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and the former acting secretary for the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, sources familiar with the negotiations said.
Wolf would also be able to speak to Trump’s desire to order the federal government to seize voting machines.
The engagement shows that even after the committee’s round of dramatic public hearings, it continues to pursue additional evidence about what the administration’s most senior officials knew about Trump’s actions surrounding Jan. 6.
CBS News: Mick Mulvaney will testify Thursday before House Jan. 6 committee.
Former Trump White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney is scheduled to testify Thursday before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol….
Mulvaney told CBS News that he believes Cassidy Hutchinson and other top former Trump officials who have testified about him before the panel….
After the Capitol attack, Mulvaney told CNBC he couldn’t “stay here, not after yesterday.”
“You can’t look at that yesterday and say I want to be a part of that in any way shape or form,” he told CNBC at the time.
Politico: Feds get new warrant to search contents of pro-Trump lawyer’s phone.
The Justice Department revealed on Wednesday that it had obtained a new search warrant to access the contents of attorney John Eastman’s phone, which it seized from the pro-Trump lawyer last month before transporting it to a lab in Virginia.
Landscape with bog canal, Paula Mondersohn Becker
The development, filed in court via Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Windom, came in response to a legal effort by Eastman to block investigators from “rummaging” through his files. The Justice Department had indicated that it would obtain a warrant that would limit investigators’ access to “evidence of specific federal crimes or specific types of material.”
Windom indicated in the filing that the new warrant — dated July 12 — included a “filter protocol” to prevent investigators from accessing privileged material, and that the details of that process had been communicated to Eastman’s attorneys.
Eastman is a central figure in the investigations of then-President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election. He helped lead a team of lawyers that developed a fringe strategy to pressure Republican-run state legislatures to adopt “alternate” slates of pro-Trump electors that could be used to overturn Trump’s defeat. A federal judge in March determined that Eastman and Trump likely entered into a criminal conspiracy to overturn the election, in part by using the false electors to try to reverse the outcome on Jan. 6, 2021, the day Congress was required to count electoral votes and certify the election results.
Windom’s filing is a milestone of sorts because, while his identity has been known in media reports for months, before Wednesday the Justice Department never confirmed his involvement in the Jan. 6-related investigation. The filing also indicates that Windom is now working as an assistant U.S. attorney as part of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C.
At The New York Times, Alan Feuer and Katie Benner have a long explainer article on the fake electors scam: The Fake Electors Scheme, Explained. I haven’t read it yet, but both Feuer and Benner are excellent investigative reporters.
Climate Change Bill?
Supposedly, Joe Manchin has made a deal with Chuck Shumer to support a big climate change bill. Politico: ‘Holy s–t’: Surprise Senate deal sets stage for record climate change package.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin salvaged a deal on Wednesday for a bill that includes the biggest climate spending package in U.S. history, devoting hundreds of billions of dollars to clean energy technologies.
Tiger, by Franz Marc
Their agreement, which came after Manchin had rejected climate and energy measures two weeks ago under the Democrats’ reconciliation package, is aimed at slashing carbon emissions an estimated 40 percent from 2005 levels economy-wide by 2030. But italso comes with plans to ease rules that the West Virginia senator has said are constricting fossil fuel production and slowing needed upgrades to the power grid.
“Holy shit,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president of government affairs with the League of Conservation Voters. “This deal is coming not a moment too soon.”
Lawmakers and climate advocates — who had been hammering Manchin in recent days for rejecting the climate measures because of inflation concerns — were ecstatic at the surprise announcement.
“There’s been a ton of work done over the last two weeks to make the case to Sen. Manchin that this package is not inflationary and address his concerns in a serious way,” said Jason Walsh, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of labor and environmental groups. “And we’re just thrilled that we’re at this moment,” he added.
The Washington Post: Manchin says he has reached deal with Schumer on economy, climate bill.
The new agreement, brokered between Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), opens the door for party lawmakers to try to advance the measure next week. It caps off months of fierce debate, delay and acrimony, a level of infighting that some Democrats saw as detrimental to their political fate ahead of this fall’s critical elections.
Under the deal, Schumer secured Manchin’s support for roughly $433 billion in new spending, most of which is focused on climate change and clean energy production. It is the largest such investment in U.S. history, and a marked departure from Manchin’s position only days earlier. The Democrats coupled the spending with provisions that aim to lower health-care costs for Americans, chiefly by allowing Medicare to begin negotiating the price of select prescription drugs on behalf of seniors.
The Medicare change would huge if it stays in the bill.
Marianne von Werefkin, The Storm
To pay for the package, Manchin and Schumer also settled on a series of changes to tax law that would raise $739 billion over the next decade — enough to offset the cost of the bill while securing more than $300 billion for cutting the deficit, a priority for Manchin. Democrats sourced the funds from proposals including a new minimum tax on corporations and fresh investments in the Internal Revenue Service that will help it pursue tax cheats.
Taken together, the package represents more than some Democrats once thought they might win from Manchin, who repeatedly has raised fiscal concerns with his own party’s ambitions. Only two weeks ago, the moderate from West Virginia, a coal-heavy state, signaled his opposition to new climate investments out of a fear that spending increases — funded in part by tax hikes — could harm the economy and worsen inflation.
“This is the most significant action we’ve taken on climate, that we will take on climate and clean energy, ever,” said Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), who led Democrats on a plan that would have punished polluters in the electricity sector before Manchin blocked it.
Prisoner Exchange with Russia?
CNN Exclusive: Biden administration offers convicted Russian arms dealer in exchange for Griner, Whelan.
I sure hope they can work something out.
Senate Races
Good news out of Wisconsin–it looks like Ron Johnson could be in trouble. Politico: Mandela Barnes gets open path to take on Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson.
Democrats hoping to flip Wisconsin’s Senate seat got a boost Wednesday when one of the party’s leading candidates bowed out and endorsed a rival, virtually clearing the field ahead of an expensive, hotly contested general election.
Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry withdrew from the Democratic Senate primary Wednesday afternoon and endorsed Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes to take on Republican Sen. Ron Johnson.
His departure from the race leaves a nearly open path for Barnes to capture the nomination in the Aug. 9 primary. Lasry, who loaned his campaign more than $12 million, has been Barnes’ top opponent for months.
Democrats welcomed the bombshell news, arguing that it will give Barnes a head start against Johnson in one of the most pivotal Senate races in the country and aid his fundraising operation. Johnson has $3.6 million in the bank as of the latest campaign finance reports, compared to Barnes’ $1.5 million.
Wisconsin is the last big question mark left for Senate Democrats in terms of setting their candidate lineup, and Barnes’ likely win means the party has its candidate roster all-but set for the general election.
“I don’t think there’s any question it helps,” said Joe Zepecki, a Wisconsin-based Democratic strategist. “Any time there’s a contested primary, you figure it’s going to take a couple days to put everybody back together. Because of how late our primary is, the faster you can get that done, the better. The other thing that I think is really important is this sends a signal to donors that they can now coalesce as well.”
Read more at the link.
The Economy
The Washington Post: U.S. economy shrinks again in second quarter, reviving recession fears.
The U.S. economy shrank again for a second straight quarter, at an annual rate of 0.9 percent, raising concerns the country may be heading into recession and compounding the Biden administration’s political challenges as it grapples with decades-high inflation.
Gabriele Munter, Sunset over Staffelsee
The U.S. economy shrank again for a second straight quarter, at an annual rate of 0.9 percent, raising concerns the country may be heading into recession and compounding the Biden administration’s political challenges as it grapples with decades-high inflation.
The second quarter slowdown reflected shifting consumer and business behaviors. Retailers bought fewer items, including cars, as consumers shifted their spending away from goods to services such as restaurants and hotels. Declines in home construction and government spending also contributed to the negative reading.
The sour GDP report reflects ongoing problems with inflation, which have been at 40-year highs for several months, as well as weakening home sales and challenges for some corporate sectors, including tech and finance. Even the-red hot labor market is beginning to show cracks. Broader worries about war in Ukraine, the global financial outlook and aggressive interest-rate hikes have prompted many economists to predict a recession in the next year.
See also: Statement by President Biden on Second Quarter GDP Report.
More Stories To Check Out
Reuters: Former Republicans and Democrats form new third U.S. political party. The so-called Democrat is Andrew Yang, the professional troll and troublemaker. The “Republicans” are David Jolly and Christie Todd Whitman, who wrote this Washington Post opinion piece: Most third parties have failed. Here’s why ours won’t.
The Washington Post: Adam Schiff is jockeying to lead House Democrats. It won’t be easy. I’d prefer Hakeem Jeffries.
AP News: Japanese city alarmed by biting, clawing, attacking monkeys.
The New York Times: Potentially Deadly Bacteria Detected in U.S. Soil for First Time. The samples in the U.S. came from the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
That’s my mixed bad of suggested reads for today. Take care, Sky Dancers, and have a great Thursday!
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Posted: July 26, 2022 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because |
Pierre Bernard, La Lecture, circa 1905
Good Afternoon!!
After yesterday, all those naysayers who have spent months attacking Merrick Garland need to stop whining and pay attention to what the DOJ is actually doing. I don’t know how many grand juries the DOJ has going, but we’re slowly learning that the ringleaders of the January 6 insurrection and even Trump administration insiders are being called to testify. Yesterday we learned of the most significant one so far: Mike Pence’s chief of staff Mark Short.
ABC News: Former Pence chief of staff appeared before grand jury probing Jan. 6.
Marc Short, the former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, appeared before a federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Short confirmed to ABC News.
Short, in an interview Monday night with ABC News’ Linsey Davis, said he was subpoenaed by a grand jury and complied with the subpoena, adding he “really can’t comment further than that” upon the advice of his legal counsel.
Short was caught by an ABC News camera departing D.C. District Court on Friday alongside his attorney, Emmet Flood.
Short is the highest-ranking Trump White House official known to have appeared before the grand jury.
Here’s what Short told ABC News in an interview last night:
“I think that having the Capitol ransacked the way that it was, I think did present liability and danger,” he told Davis in the interview. “And I think the Secret Service did a phenomenal job that day. I think that the bigger risk and despite the way perhaps it was characterized in the hearings last week, candidly, is that if the mob had gotten closer to the vice president, I do think there would have been a massacre in the Capitol that day.”
Woman reading, James C. Christensen
ABC News also learned that Pence’s chief counsel Marc Jacob also testified to the grand jury. And there’s more:
In March, the Department of Justice expanded its criminal probe into the events of Jan. 6 to include preparations for the rally that preceded the storming of the Capitol, as well as the financing for the event, multiple sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Grand jury subpoenas were sent to those who assisted in the organizing and planning of former President Donald Trump’s “Save America” rally on the Ellipse near the White House, the sources said, with prosecutors seeking multiple records and documents related to the rally, including text messages and emails, as well as potential communications with other individuals regarding the logistics of the event.
I think there’s a very good chance that subpoenas went to Mark Meadows and Ginni Thomas, both of whom are keeping low profiles.
This is from Hugo Lowell at The Guardian: Mike Pence’s ex-chief of staff testifies to grand jury investigating January 6.
Short testified in response to a subpoena for about two to three hours, according to a source familiar with the matter, though it was unclear what he told the grand jury or whether he produced documents. ABC News earlier reported his appearance.
The development was also the latest indication that the criminal investigation into the Capitol attack has only escalated in recent months, as the House January 6 select committee argues Trump obstructed an official proceeding – a crime – in trying to stop Joe Biden’s certification.
Reading woman dreaming, by Henri Matisse, 1921
It was not clear to which grand jury, and therefore to which investigation, Short testified. The justice department has impaneled several grand juries over the Capitol attack, including one examining Trump’s fake electors scheme, which is also being investigated by a special grand jury in Georgia.
The grand jury investigating the fake electors scheme – grand jury #22-4 – sought information about the involvement of Donald Trump and his lawyers, while the grand jury that subpoenaed former Trump White House official Peter Navarro – grand jury #22-3 – sought his contacts with Trump.
Nonetheless, Short’s grand jury appearance marks the first known time that a top Trump White House official with inside knowledge about Trump’s actions leading up to the Capitol attack and what took place in the West Wing in the following days has cooperated with the justice department.
The DOJ investigation into the fake electors was also in the news yesterday.
The Washington Post: Arizona fake-electors subpoenas show breadth of DOJ Jan. 6 probe.
Grand jury subpoenas issued last month to two Arizona state lawmakers show the breadth of the criminal investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington into efforts by supporters of Donald Trump to use “false electors” to try to undo Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
Copies of two subpoenas issued to Republican state senators from Arizona were released Monday via a public-records request, confirming what has been previously reported about the June demands for records related “to the signing or mailing of any document purporting to be a Certificate certifying Elector votes in favor of Donald J. Trump and/or Michael R. Pence.”
Old man reading, by Carl Spitzweg
The subpoenas issued to Karen Fann, president of the Arizona Senate, and Sen. Kelly Townsend also seek communications “relating to any effort, plan, or attempt to serve as an Elector” in favor of the then-president and then-vice president.
A subpoena is not an accusation but rather a demand for information that investigators believe may help them solve a crime. The documents released Monday cast a wide net for any communications that Fann and Townsend may have had with any member of the executive or legislative branch of the federal government; any representative or agent of Trump or his campaign; or Trump boosters Jenna Ellis, Bernard Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, Boris Epshteyn, James Troupis, Joe DiGenova, John Eastman, Joshua Findlay, Justin Clark, Kenneth Chesebro, Mike Roman or Victoria Toensing.
That’s a pretty wide net. Read more about the Arizona investigation at the WaPo link.
CNN’s Joan Biskupic has a scoop on the SCOTUS fight over Roe v. Wade: The inside story of how John Roberts failed to save abortion rights.
Elizabeth Weller never dreamed that her own hopes for a child would become ensnared in the web of Texas abortion law.
She and her husband began trying in late 2021. They had bought a house in Kingwood, a lakeside development in Houston. Elizabeth was in graduate school for political science, and James taught middle-school math.
The Wellers were pleasantly surprised when they got pregnant early in 2022.
In retrospect, Elizabeth says their initial joy felt a little naive: “If it was so easy for us to get pregnant, then to us it was almost like a sign that this pregnancy was going to be easy for us.”
Things did go fairly smooth at first. Seventeen weeks into the pregnancy, they learned they were expecting a girl. They also had an anatomy scan, which revealed no problems. Even if it had, the Wellers were determined to proceed.
By Edouard John Mentha
But then disaster struck.
It was May 10, 2022. Elizabeth was 18 weeks pregnant. She ate a healthy breakfast, went for a walk outside and came back home….
Elizabeth stood up to get some lunch. That’s when she felt something “shift” in her uterus, down low, and then “this burst of water just falls out of my body. And I screamed because that’s when I knew something wrong was happening.”
Her waters had broken, launching her into what she calls a “dystopian nightmare” of “physical, emotional and mental anguish.” She places the blame for the ensuing medical trauma on the Republican legislators who passed the state’s anti-abortion law, on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who signed it, and on the inflamed political rhetoric, which Elizabeth says only sees abortion “as one thing, a black-and-white issue, when abortion has all of these gray areas.”
Read the horror story at the link, if you can deal with it. This is what happens when men who have no clue how women’s bodies work think they have the right to tell control women’s choices.
It looks like Biden is considering another extension of the student loan moratorium. NBC News: Student loan servicers told not to contact borrowers as payment pause deadline nears.
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Posted: July 23, 2022 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: CDC, food crisis, January 6 Committee hearings, Monkeypox, public health emergency, Russia, Secret Service, Turkey, Ukraine, World Health Organization |
Cats on Strike, by Leah Saulnier the painting maniac
Happy Caturday, Sky Dancers!!
As if we didn’t have enough bad news, we are now dealing with another global health emergency. Monkeypox is spreading rapidly around the world and here in the U.S. Cases have been reported in multiple states, including Massachusetts, Maine, New York, Washington, DC, Michigan, Florida, Texas, Illinois, and California. As of two days ago, there were already nearly 2,000 reported cases in the U.S.
Apoorva Mandavilli at The New York Times: W.H.O. Declares Monkeypox Spread a Global Health Emergency.
For the second time in two years, the World Health Organization has taken the extraordinary step of declaring a global emergency. This time the cause is monkeypox, which has spread in just a few weeks to dozens of countries and infected tens of thousands of people.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’s director general, on Saturday overruled a panel of advisers, who could not come to a consensus, and declared a “public health emergency of international concern,” a designation the W.H.O. currently uses to describe only two other diseases, Covid-19 and polio.
“We have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly through new modes of transmission, about which we understand too little, and which meets the criteria” for a public health emergency, Dr. Tedros told reporters….
The W.H.O.’s declaration signals a public health risk requiring a coordinated international response. The designation can lead member countries to invest significant resources in controlling an outbreak, draw more funding to the response, and encourage nations to share vaccines, treatments and other key resources for containing the outbreak.
It is the seventh public health emergency since 2007; the Covid pandemic, of course, was the most recent.
The article discusses the controversy over how W.H.O. decides when to declare a health emergency. Some experts already think the agency waited too long on monkeypox.
Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy: Largest monkeypox study to date highlights new symptoms.
Many of the people infected in an international monkeypox outbreak experienced a single lesion or sore in their mouth or on their genitals, a departure from typical symptoms of the virus that could lead to clinicians to misdiagnose monkeypox as another sexually transmitted infection (STI).
Coffee with Henry #4, by Kazui Whitemoon
That’s one of the main takeaways from the New England Journal of Medicine‘s (NEJM‘s) new international study of the current outbreak, which is the largest case-study on the virus.
“This truly global case series has enabled doctors from 16 countries to share their extensive clinical experience and many clinical photographs to help other doctors in places with fewer cases. We have shown that the current international case definitions need to be expanded to add symptoms that are not currently included, such as sores in the mouth, on the anal mucosa and single ulcers,” said Chloe Orkin, PhD, of the Queen Mary University of London, in a university press release.
The study included clinical observations from 528 confirmed infections at 43 sites from Apr 27 to Jun 24 of this year. The median incubation period is 7 days in this outbreak, and the median age of a case-patient was 38. No deaths occurred, but 70 patients (13%) required hospitalization.
In the study, authors share many patients are presenting to clinics and hospitals for pain management or difficulty swallowing. Single anal sores have been recorded in several cases. One in 10 people had only a single skin lesion in the genital area, and 15% had anal and/or rectal pain, a symptom not typically seen in other monkeypox outbreaks.
A total of 98% of the cases documented were in gay or bisexual men, and while monkeypox is not an STI, per se, the authors said 95% of transmissions documented occurred during sexual relations. Seventy-five percent of case patients are white, and 41% are HIV-positive.
CNN: CDC reports the first two monkeypox cases in children in the US.
Two cases of monkeypox have been identified in children in the United States, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
The two cases are unrelated and probably the result of household transmission, the CDC said.
One case is a toddler who is a resident of California. The other is an infant who is not a US resident. Public health officials are investigating how the children were infected.
Both have symptoms but are in good health and receiving treatment with an antiviral medication named tecovirimat or TPOXX, which the CDC recommends for children under the age of 8 because they are considered to be at higher risk from infection.
Painting by Vicky Mount
Since the monkeypox outbreak began in May, most of the cases have happened among men who have sex with men. However, anyone can catch the virus through close skin-to-skin contact. In the case of children, the agency said this could include “holding, cuddling, feeding, as well as through shared items such as towels, bedding, cups, and utensils.”
The CDC says the Jynneos monkeypox vaccine is being made available for children through special expanded use protocols. The agency has also developed new guidance for health care providers about identifying, treating and preventing monkeypox in children and teens.
Dr. Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director of the CDC’s Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, said Friday that the cases in children were not surprising and that the US should be ready to respond to more.
Politico: Biden administration considering a public health emergency for monkeypox as cases swell.
U.S. health officials are discussing whether to declare a public health emergency for the monkeypox outbreak as they work to make treatments and vaccines available to more people.
The discussions come as the virus — which is endemic in West and Central Africa but unusual in the United States — continues to spread across the country. As of Thursday, there were 2,593 cases reported, up from 1,470 last week. The federal government announced Friday it has shipped over 300,000 doses of the vaccine to states and cities to control the outbreak.
“We’re looking at … what are the ways the response could be enhanced, if any, by declaring a public health emergency,” White House Covid response coordinator Ashish Jha told reporters during a briefing Friday.
Officials at the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also working to make tecovirimat, the only treatment available for monkeypox (though only FDA–approved for smallpox), easier for physicians to prescribe to patients. A more streamlined process to get the antiviral is expected to be announced to providers next week.
The White House will also use a new research agenda, which was announced Thursday and consists of $140 million in ongoing projects, to study stretching limited monkeypox vaccine doses, find new testing methods and expand treatment options, three White House officials told POLITICO.
Lunch with cats, Pierre Bonnard, 1906
We haven’t talked much about the war in Ukraine lately, but it has caused a global food crisis. Yesterday Russian supposedly agreed to stop blocking shipments of grain, but the Ukraine and U.S. governments are skeptical that Russia will follow through.
BBC News: Food crisis: Ukraine war: Deal signed to allow grain exports to resume by sea.
Ukraine and Russia have signed “mirror” deals which will allow Kyiv to resume exports of grain through the Black Sea.
The agreement will allow millions of tonnes of grain, currently trapped in Ukraine by the war, to be exported.
The world shortage of Ukrainian grain since Russia’s 24 February invasion has left millions at risk of hunger.
However, Kyiv refused to sign a direct deal with Moscow, and warned “provocations” would be met with “an immediate military response”.
Both sides attended the signing ceremony in Istanbul but did not sit at the same table. Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu signed Moscow’s deal first, followed by Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov signing Kyiv’s identical agreement.
The deal – which took two months to reach – is set to last for 120 days, with a co-ordination and monitoring centre to be established in Istanbul, staffed by UN, Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian officials. It can be renewed if both parties agree.
The blockade of Ukraine’s grain has caused a global food crisis with wheat-based products like bread and pasta becoming more expensive, and cooking oils and fertiliser also increasing in price.
In January 6 news, CNN’s Whitney Wild and Jeremy Herb broke a story yesterday on those missing Secret Service text messages: First on CNN: Secret Service identified potential missing text messages on phones of 10 individuals.
Secret Service investigators were scrutinizing the phones of 10 Secret Service personnel that contained metadata showing text messages were sent and received around January 6, 2021, but were not retained, two sources told CNN.
Grandma and 10 cats in the bedroom, by Linda Benton
The scrutiny came after the Department of Homeland Security inspector general asked for the text records last year of 24 individuals at the Secret Service who were involved in January 6, but only one text had been produced. After the issue spilled into public view this month, the inspector general launched a criminal investigation into the matter, and lawmakers demanded answers from the Secret Service to go back and find out what happened to the texts that may have been deleted.
But the Secret Service’s internal investigation ground to a halt after a July 20 letter from the DHS inspector general informed the agency there was an ongoing criminal investigation, directing the Secret Service to stop its own probe.
Investigators had been working to determine whether the content of the text messages sent by the 10 personnel contained relevant information that should have been preserved, the sources said. Among the 24 Secret Service personnel under scrutiny, 10 other Secret Service personnel had no text messages, and three had only personal records, according to the sources.
The details of scrutiny of messages from 10 Secret Service personnel caps an extraordinary week of turmoil for the agency, which started with the inspector general
demanding answers about potential missing texts and led to a congressional subpoena and a criminal investigation into the matter.
There has to be a way to recover those text messages. I’m sure The Washington Post’s Carol Leonnig, author of a book on the Secret Service, is working her sources to find out more.
Dakinikat covered the final January 6 Committee hearing yesterday, but here are some more follow-up articles:
NPR: The Jan. 6 committee isn’t done. Expect more hearings, revelations and reports.
The House Select January 6th committee made clear they are going to resume hearings in September.
Republican Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., opened the final summer hearing by noting the progress the committee has made, but she added that there’s now new evidence and more witnesses to consider.
“Doors have opened, new subpoenas have been issued, and the dam has begun to break,” Cheney said.
Already, in the buildup to Thursday’s presentation, select committee aides had hinted future hearings could be on tap.
Kim Haskins, psychedelic cat
And Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told reporters recently that the committee could issue an initial report in September, followed by a final report later this year. The findings would be accompanied by hearings, he said.
“We’re just getting a significant amount of information,” Thompson said. And the new evidence “pushes the timetable out.” [….]
Cheney also noted in this week’s hearing that the panel will now return to its investigative mode for the next several weeks.
“Our committee will spend August pursuing emerging information on multiple fronts, before convening further hearings this September,” Cheney said….
With plans to issue their findings in the form of reports and more hearings, the committee is racing to address new evidence along the way.
For example, the panel is now looking into allegations that the Secret Service deleted text messages during a two-day period surrounding the Jan. 6 attack. Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari has claimed the messages were erased after a request by his office, while the Secret Service has denied these allegations, saying the deletions were part of a system migration.
The Hill: Jan. 6 panel shows few signs of slowing down despite midterm risks.
The select committee’s prime-time hearing on Thursday was widely expected to mark the end of a crucial phase in the panel’s probe of last year’s riot, capping six weeks of publicly aired testimony — almost all of it from Republicans — aimed at pinning culpability for the rampage squarely onto Trump’s shoulders.
But every new revelation seems to turn up as many questions as answers, and the panel has altered its schedule to accommodate what it calls a wave of new information in need of perusal. The arrival of new witnesses has been accompanied by successful committee efforts to fight stonewalling in the form of executive privilege claims, and the panel has recently issued new subpoenas for even more evidence.
“The dam has begun to break,” Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), vice chair of the select committee, said Thursday night. “We have far more evidence to share with the American people — and more to gather.”
The Owl and the Pussycat, 2009 by P J Crook
With that in mind, the committee said it intends to use Congress’s long August recess to wade through the influx of new information, with designs to hold more hearings on its findings in September when lawmakers return to Washington. How many they’ll stage remains unclear, but the investigators are leaving themselves the flexibility to determine that schedule on the fly.
“We are pursuing many additional witnesses for testimony,” said Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who participated in Thursday’s hearing remotely after testing positive for COVID-19 earlier in the week. “We will reconvene in September to continue laying out our findings.” [….]
“We’re not done. The information continues to come in. The evidence is continuing to flow in,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) told CNN heading into Thursday’s hearing. “So this is … not the end of the story.”
More interesting January 6 stories to check out, links only:
Vicky Ward on her blog yesterday: What Trump World Really Thinks About Last Night’s Jan. 6 Hearing.
Alan Feuer and Michael Schmidt at The New York Times: The Jan. 6 Panel After 8 Hearings: Where Will the Evidence Lead?
Ruth Marcus at The Washington Post: Now we know the truth on what Trump sought to obscure about Jan. 6.
David Siders at Politico: ‘His life was threatened.’ But Pence isn’t talking about it.
Isaac Stanley Becker and Josh Dawsey at The Washington Post: Hearings test Trump’s clout and GOP’s wish to ‘forget about Jan. 6’
Michelle Goldberg at The New York Times: The Myth of the Good Trump Official.
That’s it for me today. I hope you’re all having a terrific weekend!
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It gets worse day by day. This is from CNN: 
From Raw Story: 
Experts are divided over whether the disappearance of phone data from around the time of the insurrection is a sign of incompetence, an intentional coverup
At least three witnesses in DOJ’s investigation of so-called alternate electors in the 2020 election — two in Arizona and another in Georgia — have received subpoenas demanding communications to and from Joshua Findlay, who is now the RNC’s national director for election integrity.
That the DOJ soon will have a vehicle for obtaining evidence from the Jan. 6 committee has me thinking about a wholly different witness, however, and one whose name I don’t even know. Based on former Trump White House aide 
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